Extirpating the Agriculture versus Conservation Dichotomy

Abstract

Private ranch and farm lands are disappearing at an alarming rate (Heimlich & Anderson 2001) in developed countries. In the United States, more than 12 million ha were converted to exurban developments in the 1990s (Theobald 2001). Private lands cover 72% of the U.S. land surface, contain biodiversity at levels often comparable to or above protected areas (Maestas et al. 2003), contain 60% of threatened and endangered species exclusively, and possess habitat for nearly 95% of all threatened and endangered species (Wilcove et al. 1996). With only 6% of the contiguous United States held in nature reserves (Scott et al. 2001), what ecosystem services and biodiversity will remain, given the sprawling and consumptive nature of humans? This crisis exemplifies the dire need to reroute our direction and perspective toward conservation. Privatelands conservation has been recognized as one of the most important challenges for conservation (Knight 1999; Freyfogle 2003). Despite innovative progress toward holistic integration of agriculture and conservation (Banks 2004), scientists and practitioners have largely failed to embrace the future of partnership-based and private lands conservation. Four main factors may affect partnership-based conservation: public opposition and fear, negative prior experiences, lack of support from agency/institution superiors, and government policies (Yaffee 1998). One major problem driving the first three factors is the social dichotomy between agriculture and conservation. Both groups generally are assumed to hold opposing viewpoints involving land uses and biodiversity conservation, despite a common ecological heritage, polarizing agriculturalists and conservationists (Banks 2004). Our current conservation era is transitioning from limiting losses due to agricultural practices toward limiting losses due to urban sprawl. This transition is the new fron-