Future Trends in Wildlife Conservation and Management Programs

Abstract

Much of what we have to say in this chapter about future trends in wildlife conservation and management will be influenced by whether you are a technological or economic optimist or pessimist. If you are an optimist, we urge you to review thoroughly your entire framework for your optimism, particularly the laws of thermodynamics and our current economic system based upon unlimited growth. Energy is fundamental to human civilization and some forms cannot be easily substituted for others. Our modern industrial civilization is structured around nonrenewable fossil fuels. Being nonrenewable, each fossil fuel, whether coal, oil, or gas, has a certain life span that is dependent on the initial amount and rate of extraction. Extraction and depletion of these resources have certain characteristics. Oil, for instance, is characterized by an increase in rate of extraction, a peaking, and then a decrease, similar in shape to a bell curve. By some accounts, Peak Oil is already upon us. The peaking of world oil means that there will never again be as much oil extracted in subsequent years to meet current and future demands for it. The debate is not if it will happen, but when, and how we will deal with it. We always knew that this event would happen, as oil is a nonrenewable resource along with other fossil hydrocarbons, such as coal and natural gas, each having their own finite limits. We have built an entire global civilization on these nonrenewable resources at great cost to the environment and the biota inhabiting it. How will our fossil fuel dependency be dealt with as these fuels become scarce and more costly, both from a monetary and environmental aspect? Will we make a technological transition and substitute alternative energy sources at the requisite scale? Will we come up with a new source of cheap liquid fuel that is environmentally benign and that will allow us to continue this global civilization, or will we have to “powerdown” in ways presently unanticipated by most people? What will these events mean to contemporary wildlife conservation and management?