Conservation Science in Brazil: Challenges for the 21st Century

Abstract

Conservation Biology, and conservation science in general, is widely recognized as a crisis discipline. In crisis disciplines, urgent actions often need to be taken before full knowledge of facts, so that decisions requires both intuition and best information available (Soule 1986). This imposes several constraints and creates peculiar characteristics for scientific activities in conservation, which include even the epistemological discussion on how conservation biology can be viewed as science. Assuming that this basic philosophical issue is dealt with, the challenges for conservation scientists include communicating scientific research to stakeholders and decision-makers, and establishing research priorities (and translating those into conservation priorities and policy) that produce relevant and direct impacts on biodiversity conservation. At the same time, it is clear today that conflicts between conservation and human development must be minimized and compromise solutions are urgently needed (Balmford