- Apr 2021
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The conserva-tion biologist’s analytical toolbox therefore com-prises methods that mainly serve to simplify thecomplexity of the real world such that it is under-standable and (partially) predictable. The quantifi-cation of these relationships–from the effects ofhabitat loss on biodiversity (Chapter 4) to the im-plications of small population size for extinctionrisk (Chapter 10)–is the backbone of analyticalconservation biology and evidence-based decisionmaking. Without quantified relationships androbust measures of associated uncertainty, recom-mendations to improve biodiversity’splightviamanagement intervention or policy change aredoomed to fail.
When I think about what the work on the ground must be like, I often wonder things like, "how in the world do you estimate how many of a rare animal live in such large areas?" Are people literally going out, scouring places, catching and tagging these animals to make sure they aren't recounting animals? are they relying on tracks and other evidence? I really wonder what this work is like in the most practical sense. The theory, analysis, and projections that follow kind of seem like a practical mystery to me because I don't really understand how they get the data.
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Increasing capacity in applied conservation iscomplex: it involves not only the training of in-service conservation professionals but also the en-hancement of university graduate and undergrad-uate programs that will generate a cadre of futureconservation professionals. In order to be effectivein thefield of conservation, graduates of such train-ing programs need relevant multidisciplinaryknowledge and practical skills such as problem-solving and conflict resolution to tackle the com-plexities of biological and societal issues that char-acterize applied conservation
It would be pretty amazing to go to a school for conservation science that was actually set up in one of these places that need experts and funding. Like if a major university with a big budget in a rich nation were to set up a satellite that would be equitable to the locals. If the learning environment actually was in the field, and the community in which the work takes place. It seems like a program like that would be good for the students and the people trying to do the work, and maybe it could be a financial benefit to the community too.
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Thatso much“public”land was available for nationalparks was the product of two often ignored factsin the history of conservation. Thefirst was thereservation system or the forced removal of ab-original populations onto vastly reduced andparceled“reservation”lands, and the secondwas the rise in sedentary settlements. Much ofthis forced removal from what would becomepublic and park land was made possible by theepidemics of disease amongst aboriginal popula-tions that followed contact with Europeans
Its funny, I never actually thought about the land in the national parks in this way, because I think about the creation of the parks system years after the native people were forced out or killed. I immediately think of things like farm land, and housing land as being the worst offenders because these uses were put into practice right after the land was taken.
Usually, I think of the parks as a "good" thing, protecting something that past Americans didn't get a chance to ravage, but this paragraph actually turned my stomach, and now the parks too have taken on a negative light. Thanks "Conservation for All" lol
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Furthermore, it is not enough to ac-commodate development considerations that dono more than secure livelihood levels at subsis-tence levels. Local guardians of modified land-scapes have the right to develop managementstrategies that generate higher economic returnsthat can raise them out of poverty
It tends to be very difficult to make local change in the standard outreach model. Generally, it is the property owner who makes modifications to the properties they own- they must be incentivized to do so. Poor people tend to settle in some of the most degraded places because they are so cheap, and they are usually just tenants with few rights. Developers don't generally even see the properties they manage, and don't receive extra income for cleaning them up or making them particularly equitable without out pricing the tenants. The poorest people view government as a thing that happens to them, not something that they can engage in. There needs to be incentive for them to reach out, engage, and participate; most people are just trying to survive, and any free time they have is precious and sparse. They should be paid for their time and expertise in the community, even if it is a small amount, there should be something that draws them in. No one wants to sit through meetings where nothing is accomplished, its boring, and kind of depressing. Make it a fair or something community building.
If you'd like to see some really encouraging examples of incentives, and a case of environmental reclamation in a city, check out this link on Singapore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMWOu9xIM_k&t=4s. N'Parks pays up to 50% of the cost of green roof and green wall programs, and have been successful in restoring a channelized river into a natural habitat/ park/ drainage filtration site.
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As people dam rivers,clear native vegetation to build homes andfarms, and settle those ecosystems, they disruptor eliminate the natural disturbances.
I think of this often when I drive through Franklin. There is a stone there, carves by the native people who lived there maybe 300 years ago. One of the most prominent images was a shad, a fish that spends part of it's life in the sea, returning to spawn, similar to a salmon. I had never head of shad in land before I found out about this stone. Apparently, the fish were incredibly plentiful, and was considered a staple of the native diet. Damming and over exploitation have stopped this natural cycle.
When I walk in the woods today, I find so much dead wood on the ground, that I sometimes wish the town would allow people to take some of it. IT is piled so high now in my local woods, that I think if there were to be a fire, it would be basically an inferno. I feel that maybe it is time for people to consider managing with more natural means.
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- Mar 2021
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Box 11.1 FigureThe 294 KBAs (Key Biodiversity Areas) of global importance identified in Turkey. While 146 incorporate protected areas(light), this protection still covers <5% of Turkey’s land area. The remaining 148 sites (dark) are wholly unprotected
Although it's a little sad that there are so many unprotected key biodiversity areas in Turkey, it is really encouraging that there are so many known. These areas are targets for protection simply by being known. I think its great that they're making an effort to understand a broad spectrum of environments and species.
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to become extinct eventually. The observed num-bers of threatened species match those predictions,suggesting that we understand the mechanismsgenerating the predicted increase in extinction rate.Rarity—either through small range size orlocal scarcity—does not itself cause extinction.Rather, it is how human impacts collide withsuch susceptibilities. As Myers reminds us, ex-tinctions will concentrate where human actionsimpact concentrations of small ranged species.Without such concentrations, human impactswill have relatively little effect. The eastern USAprovides a case history.10.5.2 Eastern North America: high impact,few endemics, few extinctionsEuropeans settled Eastern North America in theearly 1600s and moved inland from the mid-1700s, settling the prairie states in the late 1800s.Along the way, they cleared most of the decidu-ous forest at one time or another. Despite thismassive deforestation, only four species of landbirds became extinct—the Carolina parakeet(Conuropsis carolinensis), passenger pigeon (Ecto-pistes migratorius), ivory-billed woodpecker (Cam-pephilus principalis), and Bachman’s warbler(Vermivora bachmanii)—out of a total of about160 forest species
I was really surprised that there had been so many recorded extinctions for this period, especially considering the large percentage of deforestation. I thought that it was an interesting angle to see this from; the deforestation happened in a more successional way, rather that all at once, which would have given the birds a chance to move to other areas nearby. I would not have thought about it like this before.
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At current harvest rates, most of theeconomically important marinefisheries world-wide have either collapsed or are expected tocollapse. Current impacts of overexploitationand its consequences are no longer locally nested,since 52% of marine stocks monitored by the FAOin 2005 were fully exploited at their maximumsustainable level and 24% were overexploited ordepleted, such that their current biomass is muchlower than the level that would maximize theirsustained yield
I can't help but wonder how much over exploitation is happening because there is not enough known by the fishermen who actually exploit these fish. I can't say if they knew that there is a limit to sustainable harvest, I can't say that they would choose to do the right thing. It's not even about food, it's about money. More fish, more money. Maybe that sentiment could be used to create change, but it seems immediate short term gain is more important than the better long term.
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- Feb 2021
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The theory of island biogeography (MacArthurand Wilson 1967) had a seminal influence in sti-mulating ecological and conservation interest infragmented landscapes. This simple, elegantmodel highlighted the relationship between thenumber of species on an island and the island’sarea and isolation.
I think this is really interesting. In a way, scientists have been creating island effects for years in biological research studies. It's kind of novel way to think of the effect of limitation on a population as being akin to being on an island- environments can be limited by human intervention to create "islands". zoos, laboratories, and even our own homes or farms become effective islands.
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Globally, agriculture is the biggest cause of hab-itat destruction (Figure 4.2). Other human activ-ities, such as mining, clear-cut logging, trawling,and urban sprawl, also destroy or severely degradehabitats. In developing nations, where most habi-tat loss is now occurring, the drivers of environ-mental change have shifted fundamentally inrecent decades. Instead of being caused mostly bysmall-scale farmers and rural residents, habitatloss, especially in the tropics, is now substantiallydriven by globalization promoting intensive agri-culture and other industrial activities (
This makes me so sad. Instead of trying to help developing nations maybe harvest resources in a responsible way, having learned a lot from our mistakes, globalization is really just continuing to push the same destructive pattern. I'm no expert, but it would seem that developed nations just want cheap product. It's extremely depressing to think that things as trivial as cheap hamburgers are causing the destruction some of the most biologically diverse habitats on this planet, not to mention the human impacts.
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. To many, even the thought ofputting a price tag on services like photosynthesis,purification of water, and pollination of food cropsmay seem like hubris, as these are truly pricelessservices without which not only humans, but mostof lifewould perish.A distinguished economistputit best in response to a seminar at the USA FederalTrade Commission, where the speaker down-played the impact of global warming by sayingagriculture and forestry“accounted for only threepercentoftheUSgrossnationalproduct”.Theecon-omist’s response was:“What does this genius thinkwe’re going to eat?
I thought this was just awesome. It really highlights the attitude that has developed among some people. Things like food, water, and air are so taken for granted that they have actually been reduced to "inconsequential" status because they are "marginal" in the scope of the over all economy. Like the only thing in the world that is real are dollars.
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Understanding of the nature and scale of biodi-versity, of how it has changed through time, andof how it varies spatially has developed immea-surably in recent decades. Improvements in thelevels of interest, the resources invested and theapplication of technology have all helped. In-deed, it seems likely that the basic principlesare in the main well established. However,much remains to be learnt. The obstacles arefourfold. First, the sheer magnitude and com-plexity of biodiversity constitute a huge chal-lenge to addressing perhaps the majority ofquestions that are posed about it, and one thatis unlikely to be resolved in the near future.Second, the biases of the fossil record and theapparent variability in rates of molecular evolu-tion continue to thwart a better understanding ofthe history of biodiversity. Third, knowledge ofthe spatial patterning of biodiversity is limitedby the relative paucity of quantitative samplingof biodiversity over much of the planet. Finally,the levels and patterns of biodiversity arebeing profoundly altered by human activities
I find this really interesting; as an artist, I view these issues not so much as "obstacles" but more like levels of sophistication. It seems to me that biodiversity is a science of course, but it is also something of an art made up of facts. Its almost like new colors are being discovered everyday, and yet many are being destroyed; Given enough time, understanding will come. Unfortunately, societal activity is removing time from the equation. This seems like a job that would be worthy of a life time of study for untold numbers of people.
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Ray Dasmann, inA DifferentKind of Country(1968: vii) lamented“the prevail-ing trend toward uniformity”and made the case“for the preservation of natural diversity”and forcultural diversity as well. Pimlott (1969) detected“a sudden stirring of interest in diversity...Notuntil this decade did the word diversity, as anecological and genetic concept, begin to enter thevocabulary of the wildlife manager or land-useplanner.”Hickey (1974)
This statement is so important in the work we have ahead for those of us interested in planning. I love that he mentions cultural diversity, as well as ecological diversity. There is something about the conformist government of the past that really had little value for diversity in general, dividing the world into categories of "worthy" and "unworthy," first or second class, important or not important. It is a shift in cultural values that we are witnessing. What surprises me, personally, is that it has literally taken coming to the crisis point ecologically, and on a humanistic level (language and culture loss, gentrification among other things) to realize that there was value lost; that what has been touted as "the highest and best use" has in fact been an incredibly destructive, narrow vision that has caused much undue suffering, often for the gains of the few.
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