Undergraduate Education and the Next Generation of Conservation Biologists

Abstract

A cry of alarm has recently been raised from several quarters that the future supply of scientists and engineers in the United States is in jeopardy. Such groups as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundation point with concern at the decrease in the number of students in graduate programs in almost all science and engineering disciplines over the past several years. Their concern has primarily focused on the danger this deficit poses for our nation's ability to achieve our scientific and technological goals: without a healthy supply of professionals in each of these fields, who will make the discoveries and solve the problems that form the foundations of our disciplines? Concern over the next generation of professionals ought to be particularly acute for conservation biologists. Ours is a discipline that involves issues that have a real and pressing element of time. We are not merely involved in the patient accumulation of knowledge, the value of which is independent of global conditions. We are in a race against time, where every scrap of information has a greater value yesterday than it does today-where we would have the greatest chance of success if we had all our information now. Species are going extinct, ecosystems are being degraded, and genetic diversity is being lost at rapid and accelerating rates. Extrapolation of these rates into the future shows that our mission of protecting the biotic integrity of the planet will only become harder as time elapses. Unlike most other fields, therefore, a decrease in the work force for conservation biology will limit our ability ever to deal with the challenge.