Transcript No Slide Title

Why Conserve Biodiversity?
– Why is conservation a worthy social
goal?
Example
Workshop on Western Ghats
Conservation Priorities
Lesson
• Biodiversity Conservation is not one,
homogeneous idea
• What you want to conserve depends
upon what you value, why you value it
• So why conserve biodiversity?
Possible rationales
• Utilitarian-short & long-term:
– Flow of useful goods (today & tomorrow)
• Utilitarian: Flow of ecological services
– ecosystem functioning/resilience
– i.e., hydrological services, soil conservation
services
• Precautionary Utilitarian: Insurance
– Against pathogen attacks
– Against climate change
• Religious: Traditional or Modern (DeepEcol)
• Aesthetic: narrow (tourism) or broad
Rationale and its Implications
• Flow of useful goods:
– Components
• Food, fibre, etc
• Industrial chemicals
• Medicines
– Conserve What?: Maintain only those species
that produce these goods, or could produce
them tomorrow, or are essential to the
maintenance of some useful species
– Implies:“Naturalness” has no intrinsic value,
as cultivation and gene banking improves, we
can do away with ‘natural’ ecosystems
• Flow of “ecological services”:
– As in “ecosystem functioning itself”?
• Where “functioning” = “productivity” (not socially
‘useful productivity’ but carbon fixation)
• PROBLEM: Self-referencing
– As in “watershed services” to downstream
human (managed) agroecosystems?
– As in “climate mitigation service” to the global
human agroecosystems?
• No evidence to show that high diversity is reqd.
– Conserve What? Those assemblages that
generate a specific service or combination
• E.g., coffee plantations in W.Ghats would be fine!
• Insurance/Resilience:
– Against Pathogen attacks
– Against future climate change
– Conserve What?
• Maintain diversity of the managed ecosystems,
i.e., agroecosystems, & social systems
• Plus, some sources of diversity in the wild, such as
wild relatives of cultivars?
• Religious value:
– Traditional notions of sacredness
• Specific organisms, locations, landscapes
• Has co-evolved with utilitarian dependence, but
still has some independent standing
• Does not preclude human use & consumption
– Modern notion of ‘bio-centrism’ or ‘animal
rights’
• Not terribly different from traditional notions,
except that it may not be rooted in any sense of
material dependence
– Maintain what? As much of ‘nature’ as you can
– Criticism: mosquitos
• Aesthetic Value:
– Tourism & furry animal value
• Charismatic species: tigers, lions, elephants,
zebras, whales, dolphins
• Implications: Focus on these.
• Criticism: Could become elitist.
– Broader aesthetic, “elevation of human spirit”
• Not clear how different this is from religious
rationales (beauty vs sacredness)
• Suggests that ‘natural-ness’ should be maintained
in and around human ecosystems
Backward reasoning
• “…a utilitarian argument is unlikely to
provide an enduring rationale for
conserving biodiversity”
Opaque reasoning
“…some indigenous groups may meet the
expectations of conservationists by
maintaining ‘acceptable’ levels of
biodiversity in their territories
More open reasoning
• “…being admirers of nature and
appreciating the intrinsic value of
biodiversity, ecologists try to find
some scientific arguments that can
strengthen their position”
• “…ecologists should not ignore the
intrinsic value of biodiversity….as a
living stage for a unique evolutionary
play…and an example of evolutionary
heritage that is probably worth
protection no less than the heritage
of our culture”
Conclusions
• We cannot be like Indian Cricket
Selectors--who select first and look
for rationales afterwards
• To say that a particular rationale for
conservation is “insufficient” is to
behave like the Selectors
• We have to decide which rationale we
agree with (could be more than one),
and then espouse that type and level
of conservation which the rationale
logically leads us to
Is Conservation the only
Social Goal?