Conservation

Is conservation important?

Instrumental and Intrinsic Value

2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: loss of species diversity reduces both the productivity and resilience of ecosystems.

• Instrumental value: the usefulness of a particular species for human purposes.
• Intrinsic value: the value of something in and of itself, apart from its usefulness to others.
• Just as we rely on public services such as fire protection, we rely on ecosystem services, such as a wetland's ability to naturally purify water, a resource necessary for our survival.

Putting a Price on Nature's Services

• Value chains place economic value on ecosystem services by integrating the value of a good and the market value of things linked to the production of that good.
• Economists may report replacement costs, which estimate the cost to replace something with a substitute or artificial good.
• Economists also estimate value from surveys in which people provide stated or revealed preferences regarding what they would pay to maintain healthy ecosystems.
• Assigning monetary values to ecosystem services allows us to support/inform economic decision-making.

When Economics Doesn't Capture Everything

• Many ecologists argue that biodiversity should be preserved for its intrinsic value — and that economic values are not always easily quantifiable or encompassing.
• Concern has arisen that seemingly “expendable species” that lack instrumental value may be identified as a justifiable loss.
• There is also concern that once artificial substitutes are discovered to replace natural services, the ecosystem service will no longer be valued.

Ecological Islands and Corridors

• Ecological island effect: a protected habitat is isolated amid wider unprotected areas. Wolves suffer from this type of isolation.
• When protection stops at a boundary, preserving species can fail if the area's size does not meet species' needs.
• One solution is creating wildlife corridors — protected strips of land that enable migration from one habitat to another.

Protection Strategies

US Laws Protecting Species

• Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918): ratified by the United States and Canada, it protected more than 800 types of birds, such as the bald eagle.
• Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972): protects whales, dolphins, seals, and manatees.
• Endangered Species Act (1973): protects both endangered plants and animals from hunting and trapping.
• 1400 species listed.
• Since 1973, 9 have gone extinct and 21 have recovered.
• Forty-six states have species-protection laws regulating species that are not federally listed.

Deforestation

• Deforestation (the clearing of forested land) destroys habitat for many land-based plants and animals (removing primary producers) and causes soil erosion.

Managing Forests for More Than Timber

Sustainable forest management: a strategy that manages forests not only for harvest but also for maintaining biodiversity.

• Leave patches of living trees to reseed harvested areas.
• Keep patches of dead trees — “snags” — as bird habitat.
• Prohibit logging on steep slopes to prevent erosion.

Reintroduction and Restoration

Species can be reintroduced to areas where they once lived.

• In 1986, the US Fish and Wildlife Service captured the remaining California condors and launched a successful captive breeding program.
• Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an entire ecosystem.
• The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP, 1996), developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, aims to restore 70,000 acres of wetlands.
• National funding, nongovernmental groups, and fines on polluters through the Natural Resource Damage Assessment provide revenue for restoration projects.
• Rewilding: restoring damaged ecosystems through natural ecological processes.