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Climate Change and Nature Conservation
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Surface temperatures are generally higher in cities than in rural surroundings. This phenomenon, known as Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI), increases the risk of heat-related human illnesses and mortality. Past global studies analysed this phenomenon aggregated at city scale or over seasonal and annual time periods, while human impacts strongly depend on shorter term heat stress experienced locally. Here we develop a global long-term high-resolution dataset of daytime SUHI, offering an insight into the space–time variability of the urban–rural temperature differences which is unprecedented at global scale. Our results show that across urban areas worldwide over the period 2003–2020, 3-day SUHI extremes are on average more than twice as high as the warm-season median SUHI, with local exceedances up to 10 K. Over this period, SUHI extremes have increased more rapidly than warm-season medians, and averaged worldwide are now 1.04 K or 31% higher compared to 2003. This can be linked with increasing urbanisation, more frequent heatwaves, and greening of the earth, processes that are all expected to continue in the coming decades. Within many cities there are hotspots where extreme SUHI intensity is 10–15 K higher compared to relatively cooler city parts. Given the limited human adaptability to heat stress, our results advocate for mitigation strategies targeted at reducing SUHI extremes in the most vulnerable and exposed city neighbourhoods.
As its name suggests, applied ecology focuses on the application of ecological knowledge to address environmental challenges. Like all ecologists, applied ecologists study the distribution, abundance, and interactions among organisms as well as the ways in which organisms influence the movement of energy and materials through ecosystems. Applied ecologists have a particular interest in the ways in which organisms and ecosystems are influenced by humans. And increasingly, applied ecologists include humans as integral to the systems they study. While the term applied ecology implies the existence of basic ecology, the research aims of many contemporary ecologists embrace applied dimensions, suggesting that distinctions between applied and basic ecology can be less obvious than they once were.
Plant diversity has a strong impact on a plethora of ecosystem functions and services, especially ecosystem carbon (C) storage. However, the potential context-dependency of biodiversity effects across ecosystem types, environmental conditions and carbon pools remains largely unknown. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis by collecting data from 95 biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) studies across 60 sites to explore the effects of plant diversity on different C pools, including aboveground and below-ground plant biomass, soil microbial biomass C and soil C content across different ecosystem types. The results showed that ecosystem C storage was significantly enhanced by plant diversity, with stronger effects on above-ground biomass than on soil C content. Moreover, the response magnitudes of ecosystem C storage increased with the level of species richness and experimental duration across all ecosystems. The effects of plant diversity were more pronounced in grasslands than in forests. Furthermore, the effects of plant diversity on belowground plant biomass increased with aridity index in grasslands and forests, suggesting that climate change might modulate biodiversity effects, which are stronger under wetter conditions but weaker under more arid conditions. Taken together, these results provide novel insights into the important role of plant diversity in ecosystem C storage across critical C pools, ecosystem types and environmental contexts.
There is growing awareness that ‘nature-based solutions' (NbS) can help to protect us from climate change impacts while slowing further warming, supporting biodiversity and securing ecosystem services. However, the potential of NbS to provide the intended benefits has not been rigorously assessed. There are concerns over their reliability and cost-effectiveness compared to engineered alternatives, and their resilience to climate change. Trade-offs can arise if climate mitigation policy encourages NbS with low biodiversity value, such as afforestation with non-native monocultures. This can result in maladaptation, especially in a rapidly changing world where biodiversity-based resilience and multi-functional landscapes are key. Here, we highlight the rise of NbS in climate policy—focusing on their potential for climate change adaptation as well as mitigation—and discuss barriers to their evidence-based implementation. We outline the major financial and governance challenges to implementing NbS at scale, highlighting avenues for further research. As climate policy turns increasingly towards greenhouse gas removal approaches such as afforestation, we stress the urgent need for natural and social scientists to engage with policy makers. They must ensure that NbS can achieve their potential to tackle both the climate and biodiversity crisis while also contributing to sustainable development. This will require systemic change in the way we conduct research and run our institutions.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.
Global change has complex eco-evolutionary consequences for organisms and ecosystems, but related concepts (e.g., novel ecosystems) do not cover their full range. Here we propose an umbrella concept of "ecological novelty" comprising (1) a site-specific and (2) an organism-centered, eco-evolutionary perspective. Under this umbrella, complementary options for studying and communicating effects of global change on organisms, ecosystems, and landscapes can be included in a toolbox. This allows researchers to address ecological novelty from different perspectives, e.g., by defining it based on (a) categorical or continuous measures, (b) reference conditions related to sites or organisms, and (c) types of human activities. We suggest striving for a descriptive, non-normative usage of the term "ecological novelty" in science. Normative evaluations and decisions about conservation policies or management are important, but require additional societal processes and engagement with multiple stakeholders.
The concept of biodiversity, I argue, is poorly suited as an indicator of conservation value. An earlier concept, natural diversity, fits the role better. Natural diversity is broader than biodiversity not only in moving beyond taxonomic categories to encompass other patterns in the tapestry of life, but also in including abiotic, but valuable, aspects of nature. It encompasses, for instance, geological curiosities, natural entities of historical and cultural significance, and parts of nature with unique recreational and aesthetic value. It allows us to capture the idea of a diversity of ecosystem services, many of which are abiotic or have significant abiotic components. I make the case that refocusing conservation science around natural diversity retains many of benefits of using biodiversity as an indicator of value, while avoiding many of biodiversity’s shortcomings. In particular, it provides a framework that highlights the conservation value of many biodiversity “coldspots,” avoids the injustice of making conservation primarily the responsibility of the global south/developing world, and fits more neatly with the legal and ethical frameworks used to make conservation decisions in the public sphere.
The Global Deal for Nature (GDN) is a time-bound, science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth. Pairing the GDN and the Paris Climate Agreement would avoid catastrophic climate change, conserve species, and secure essential ecosystem services. New findings give urgency to this union: Less than half of the terrestrial realm is intact, yet conserving all native ecosystems—coupled with energy transition measures—will be required to remain below a 1.5°C rise in average global temperature. The GDN targets 30% of Earth to be formally protected and an additional 20% designated as climate stabilization areas, by 2030, to stay below 1.5°C. We highlight the 67% of terrestrial ecoregions that can meet 30% protection, thereby reducing extinction threats and carbon emissions from natural reservoirs. Freshwater and marine targets included here extend the GDN to all realms and provide a pathway to ensuring a more livable biosphere.
Restoration by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides a critical analysis of the state of knowledge regarding the importance, drivers, status, and trends of terrestrial ecosystems. The Report recognizes that combatting land degradation, which is a pervasive, systemic
phenomenon occurring in all parts of the world, is an urgent priority in order to protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services that are vital to all life on Earth and to ensure human well-being. The Report identifies a mix of governance options, policies and management practices that can help support stakeholders working at all levels to reduce the
negative environmental, social and economic consequences of land degradation and to rehabilitate and restore degraded land. The Report encompasses all the terrestrial regions
and biomes of the world, recognizing that land degradation drivers and processes can vary in severity within regions and countries as much as between them, and includes
the full range of human-altered systems, including but not limited to drylands, agricultural and agroforestry systems, savannahs and forests and aquatic systems associated with
these areas.
The Summary for Policymakers of this Assessment Report was approved by the sixth session of the Plenary of IPBES (Medellín, Colombia, 18-24 March 2018) and is included in this report. The chapters and their executive summaries were accepted at this same Plenary session. The chapters are available as document IPBES/6/INF/1/Rev.1 (www.ipbes.net).
The race is on to build up wetlands barriers in one of North America’s largest estuaries. The race is on to build up wetlands barriers in one of North America’s largest estuaries.
Humanity’s impact on the planet has been profound. From fire, intensive hunting, and agriculture, it has accelerated into rapid climate change, widespread pollution, plastic accumulation, species invasions, and the mass extinction of species—changes that have left a permanent mark in the geological record of the rocks. Yet the proposal for a new unit of geological time—the Anthropocene Epoch—has raised debate far beyond the scientific community. The Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative of the relationship between humans and nature. Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction draws on the work of geologists, geographers, environmental scientists, archaeologists, and humanities scholars to explain the science and wider implications of the Anthropocene.
The Society for Ecological Restoration has long debated how to define best practices. We argue that a principles-first offers more flexibility for restoration practitioners than a standards-based approach, is consistent with the developmental stage of restoration, and functions more effectively at a global level. However, the solution is not as simple as arguing that one approach to professional practice is sufficient. Principles and standards can and do operate effectively together, but only if they are coordinated in a transparent and systematic way. Effective professional guidance results when standards anchored by principles function in a way that is contextual and evolving. Without that clear relation to principles, the tendency to promote performance standards may lead to a narrowing of restoration practice and the potential to resolve very difficult and diverse ecological and environmental challenges. We offer recommendations on how the evolving project of restoration policy by SER and other agencies and organizations can remain open and flexible.
Significance
Most nations recently agreed to hold global average temperature rise to well below 2 °C. We examine how much climate mitigation nature can contribute to this goal with a comprehensive analysis of “natural climate solutions” (NCS): 20 conservation, restoration, and/or improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands. We show that NCS can provide over one-third of the cost-effective climate mitigation needed between now and 2030 to stabilize warming to below 2 °C. Alongside aggressive fossil fuel emissions reductions, NCS offer a powerful set of options for nations to deliver on the Paris Climate Agreement while improving soil productivity, cleaning our air and water, and maintaining biodiversity.
This booklet poses and answers 20 questions about climate change, followed by a section on “Basics of Climate Change.” If it had been published by an activist environmentalist organization, it could safely be ignored as a self-confessed piece of propaganda. But it can hardly be ignored since it comes from the top scientific institutions in the United States and Britain and might therefore be presumed to provide the most judicious available assessment of its chosen subject. Nevertheless, it is propaganda, not a scientific assessment. It argues from authority and distorts evidence in doing so.
The very term “climate change” in this context is rhetorical sleight of words. Until a few years ago, “global warming” was the universally used shorthand for human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW). But since there has been no appreciable warming globally for the last 15 years or so, the critics of carbon emissions have been using the term “climate change,” which cannot be contradicted or falsified: Climate has always changed and always will.
Because it is awkward to keep writing “human-caused climate change,” I will here use the previously common acronym AGW.
Arguing from Authority with Just-So Stories
A common tactic when arguing from authority is the Just-So Story, supporting a dogmatic assertion with apparently reasonable statements which, however, have no basis in actual facts. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories are the eponymous icons for this genre, imaginatively whimsical “explanations” for how the leopard got its spots, the giraffe its long neck, the camel its hump, and so on.
“But, Mr. Kipling, how do you know that’s so?”
“It’s just so . . . Just So” (Hillerich 1966).
Ecosystem services (ES) are an increasingly popular policy framework for connecting biodiversity with human well-being. These efforts typically assume that biodiversity and ES covary, but the relationship between them remains remarkably unclear. Here we analyse >500 recent papers and show that reported relationships differ among ES, methods of measuring biodiversity and ES, and three different approaches to linking them (spatial correlations, management comparisons and functional experiments). For spatial correlations, biodiversity relates more strongly to measures of ES supply than to resulting human benefits. For management comparisons, biodiversity of â € service providers' predicts ES more often than biodiversity of functionally unrelated taxa, but the opposite is true for spatial correlations. Functional experiments occur at smaller spatial scales than management and spatial studies, which show contrasting responses to scale. Our results illuminate the varying dynamics relating biodiversity to ES, and show the importance of matching management efforts to the most relevant scientific evidence.
Preserving global biodiversity depends upon designating many more large terrestrial and marine areas as strictly protected areas. Yet recent calls for addressing biodiversity loss by setting aside more protected areas have been met with hostility from some social scientists and even some conservation biologists. The main objections against the so-called 'nature needs half' movement include the following. First, setting aside protected areas implies that some vulnerable human communities will be displaced to make space for wildlife. Second, separating humans from their environment ignores the fact that humans have always been part of the environments around them, and creates a false dichotomy between nature and culture. Third, conservationists are said to put the blame for biodiversity loss on all humanity, rather than on those who are doing most of the damage. Fourth, many social justice proponents argue that human population growth is not related to biodiversity loss or other sustainability challenges. This article critically addresses these four objections, exposing their robust anthropocentric bias. Protected area critics reliably demand fairness for human beings at the expense of nonhuman beings, who they treat as morally inconsequential. But justice is not only about just us. Conservation properly understood implies a fair division of Earth's resources between human and nonhuman beings. Justice demands setting aside at least half Earth's lands and seas for nature, free from intensive economic activities.
There exists little doubt that the Earth's biodiversity is declining. The Nature Conservancy, for example, has documented that one-third of the plant and animal species in the United States are now at risk of extinction. The problem is a monumental one, and forces us to consider in depth how we expect ecosystems, which ultimately are our life-support systems, to respond to reductions in diversity. This issue — commonly referred to as the diversity–stability debate — is the subject of this review, which synthesizes historical ideas with recent advances. Both theory and empirical evidence agree that we should expect declines in diversity to accelerate the simplification of ecological communities.
THE IDEA OF SETTING ASIDE LANDS from most commercial development and settlement started almost as an afterthought in 1872 when the United States did something extraordinary. In an age of unbridled westward expansion in the post-Civil War, and at a time when Manifest Destiny was a widely held expression of American conviction in the morality and value of expansionism, the United States Congress withdrew the Upper Yellowstone River region from commercial and private development establishing Yellowstone National Park. Nothing like that had ever been done anywhere before on such a grand scale.
The oft-repeated claim that Earth's biota is entering a sixth " mass extinction " depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the " background " rates prevailing in the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing.
L’invasion fulgurante du mot « biodiversity » dans les sphères scientifiques et politico-médiatiques, après la Conférence de Rio de Janeiro, en 1992, a pu faire croire à l’émergence d’un nouveau domaine scientifique. En réalité, la question de la diversité du monde vivant est constitutive de l’histoire naturelle depuis que celle-ci existe. Au cours du XX e siècle, les écologistes n’ont pas attendu la parution de l’ouvrage BioDiversity (Wilson & Peter, 1988) pour réfléchir à la façon de rendre compte de la diversité des espèces au sein des systèmes écologiques, pour s’interroger sur les processus de diversification et rechercher la signification fonctionnelle de cette diversité. Cent ans après la parution de On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection , où Darwin montrait toute l’importance des « variations », l’écologue George E. Hutchinson publiait un article lumineux sur ce que l’on pourrait appeler l’écologie de la diversification. Dès les années 1950, et jusqu’au début des années 1980, de nombreux scientifiques ont cherché à mesurer ce qui était appelé la diversité spécifique, et à la caractériser par des formulations mathématiques, tandis que d’autres exploraient les relations entre cette diversité et la stabilité des systèmes écologiques, guidés par l’intuition que des systèmes plus diversifiés devraient être plus stables. Pourtant, dès 1971, Stuart H. Hurlbert affirmait qu’à force d’avoir été définie de façon variée et disparate, la diversité spécifique était devenue un « non-concept ». Edward O. Wilson, en 1988, s’était gardé de proposer une définition précise de la biodiversité. Bien d’autres s’en chargèrent par la suite. Répétition de l’histoire ? Jacques Blondel écrivait en 1995 que le concept de « biodiversité » n’était qu’une coquille vide. Est-ce à dire que la diversité du vivant, même transformée en « biodiversité », n’est pas un concept scientifique ? L’analyse de travaux s’échelonnant des années 1950 aux années 1980 permet de cerner les questionnements sur la diversité des espèces auxquels se sont affrontés les écologistes, et de voir comment ont interagi intuitions, constructions théoriques et recherches empiriques. L’invention de la biodiversité a-t-elle fait progresser la recherche ? Un regard sur quelques publications d’après Rio permet d’ébaucher une réponse.
Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold, leading to substantial Earth system impacts. Synthesizing paleoclimate, observational, and model-based studies, we provide a revised shortlist of global "core" tipping elements and regional "impact" tipping elements and their temperature thresholds. Current global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. Several tipping points may be triggered in the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current policy trajectories. This strengthens the evidence base for urgent action to mitigate climate change and to develop improved tipping point risk assessment, early warning capability, and adaptation strategies.
Climate change is still, arguably, the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century. Previously published as Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction , the new title of this VSI reflects an important change in the terminology of the last decade. Climate Change: A Very Short introduction includes crucial updates from the last few years, including the results of the 2013 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the effects of ocean acidification, and the impact of changes to global population and health. Exploring all of the key topics in the debate, it makes sense of the complexities climate change involves, from political and social issues to environmental and scientific. Looking at the predicted impacts of climate change, it explores all of the controversies, and also explains the various proposed solutions.
The aim of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it provides an analysis and a taxonomy of hybrids, and of hybrid nature, in the Anthropocene, relying on Bruno Latour’s view on Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique (1991). On the other hand, it explores some ways to claim that hybrid nature has intrinsic value. Sections “The Anthropocene, the End of Nature and Hybridism” and “Getting Rid of “Nature”?” put hybridism in the wider context of discussions about the end of nature and the point of environmental ethics in the Anthropocene and defends the legitimacy of using the notion of “Nature.” Section “Kinds of Hybrids and Hybridity” lists types of hybrids, while Section “The Value of Hybrid Nature” defends the claim that hybrid nature has intrinsic value because it contains the trace of uncontaminated nature, or because it has the same value-making features of pristine nature.
The separation of people from their landscapes undergirds conservation action, especially in the global south.
Such a ‘fortress conservation’ approach is based on the flawed idea that local people’s use of forests endangers
biodiversity and therefore habitats should be protected by force if necessary. Such a conservation approach runs
contrary to the recent understanding that ecosystems once perceived as ‘wilderness’ have been transformed by
people. Long-term interdisciplinary research has produced a nuanced understanding of the linkages between
ecological and social processes. An example of such long-term engagement is a series of programmes by Ashoka
Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in the Western Ghats and the Himalayas. We
describe programmes in four sites: Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger reserve, Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger
Reserve, Senchal Wildlife Sanctuary and Vembanad Ramsar site. Our experiences highlight primarily, a broadening
of the initial focus on the ecological dynamics to include social dimensions. Secondly, a programmatic
rather than a project-mode approach has enabled a clear long-term vision. Third, the research and action work
has continued a tradition in conservation science of field-based, empirical work driven by theory as well as
produced grounded knowledge. Such a long-term ‘dirt on the boots’ approach has built a platform from which
ATREE is able to launch programmes that have made an impact on livelihoods and landscapes. And finally, longterm
engagement and a strong network of local actors have allowed us to implement and inform conservation
policy.
The idea that we are living in the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch defined by human activity, has gained substantial currency across the academy and with the broader public. Within the earth sciences, however, the question of the Anthropocene is hotly debated, recognized as a question that gets at both the foundations of geological science and issues of broad philosophical importance. For example, official recognition of the Anthropocene requires us to find a way to use the methods of historical science to make predictions. It also involves determining the role that political motivations should play in establishing scientific kinds. I bring the perspective of philosophy of science to bear on these questions, ultimately arguing that formal recognition of the Anthropocene should be indefinitely deferred. 1A New Epoch 1.1Criteria for designating a new epoch2The Future Geologist’s Perspective 2.1Climate change2.2The fossil record, excluding humans2.3The human fossil record2.4Direct anthropogenic deposits2.5Chemical markers2.6Hydrology2.7Summing up3The Synchronic Perspective4The Anthropocene Is Not yet Set in Stone
This book provides a thorough, up-to-date examination of conservation biology and the many supporting disciplines that comprise conservation science. In this, the Third Edition of the highly successful Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications, the authors address their interdisciplinary topic as it must now be practiced and perceived in the modern world.
Beginning with a concise review of the history of conservation, the authors go on to explore the interplay of conservation with genetics, demography, habitat and landscape, aquatic environments, and ecosystem management, and the relationship of all these disciplines to ethics, economics, law, and policy. An entirely new chapter, The Anthropocene: Conservation in a Human-Dominated Nature, breaks new ground in its exploration of how conservation can be practiced in anthropogenic biomes, novel ecosystems, and urban habitats. The Third Edition includes the popular Points of Engagement discussion questions used in earlier editions, and adds a new feature: Information Boxes, which briefly recap specific case histories described in the text. A concluding chapter offers insight into how to become a conservation professional, in both traditional and non-traditional roles.
The authors, Fred Van Dyke and Rachel Lamb, draw on their expertise as field biologists, wildlife managers, consultants to government and industry, and scholars of environmental law, policy, and advocacy, as well as their many years of effective teaching experience. Informed by practical knowledge and acquired skills, the authors have created a work of exceptional clarity and readability which encompasses both systemic foundations as well as contemporary developments in the field. Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications will be of invaluable benefit to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to working conservation scientists and managers.
This is an amazing resource for students, faculty, and practitioners both new and experienced to the field.
Diane Debinski, PhD
Unexcelled wisdom for living at home on Wonderland Earth, the planet with promise, destined for abundant life.
Holmes Rolston, PhD
Van Dyke and Lamb have maintained the original text’s emphasis on connecting classical ecological and environmental work with updated modern applications and lucid examples. But more importantly, the third edition contains much new material on the human side of conservation, including expanded treatments of policy, economics, and climate change.
Tim Van Deelen, PhD
Fred Van Dyke and Rachel Lamb break new ground in both the breadth and depth of their review and analysis of this crucially important and rapidly changing field. Any student or other reader wishing to have a comprehensive overview and understanding of the complexities of conservation biology need look no further – this book is your starting point!
Simon N. Stuart, PhD
Cambridge Core - South Asian History - An Environmental History of India - by Michael H. Fisher
Available online http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632071630427X
Preserving global biodiversity depends upon designating many more large terrestrial and marine areas as strictly protected areas. Yet recent calls for addressing biodiversity loss by setting aside more protected areas have been met with hostility from some social scientists and even some conservation biologists. The main objections against the so-called 'nature needs half' movement include the following. First, setting aside protected areas implies that some vulnerable human communities will be displaced to make space for wildlife. Second, separating humans from their environment ignores the fact that humans have always been part of the environments around them, and creates a false dichotomy between nature and culture. Third, conservationists are said to put the blame for biodiversity loss on all humanity, rather than on those who are doing most of the damage. Fourth, many social justice proponents argue that human population growth is not related to biodiversity loss or other sustainability challenges. This article critically addresses these four objections, exposing their robust anthropo-centric bias. Protected area critics reliably demand fairness for human beings at the expense of nonhuman beings, who they treat as morally inconsequential. But justice is not only about just us. Conservation properly understood implies a fair division of Earth's resources between human and nonhuman beings. Justice demands setting aside at least half Earth's lands and seas for nature, free from intensive economic activities.
This paper joins the debate on the relationship between inequality and the environment. Departing from the past contributions, which focused either on the theories of environmental behavior or on economic interests, this paper develops arguments about “political choice” mechanisms that help explain the linkages between inequality and national policymaking related to the establishment of protected areas. A cross-national analysis of the interactions between inequality, democracy and the legal designation of protected areas in a global sample of 137 countries shows that, ceteris paribus, the effects of inequality vary depending on the strength of democracy: in relatively democratic countries inequality is associated with less land in protected areas, whereas in relatively undemocratic countries the reverse is true. The highly significant effects of inequality undermine the democratic dividend in the arena of nature conservation.
The increasing abandonment of marginal land creates new opportunities for restoration, reintroduction, and rewilding, but what do these terms mean in a rapidly and irreversibly changing world? The ‘re’ prefix means ‘back’, but it is becoming clear that the traditional use of past ecosystems as targets and criteria for success must be replaced by an orientation towards an uncertain future. Current opinions in restoration and reintroduction biology range from a defense of traditional definitions, with some modifications, to acceptance of more radical responses, including assisted migration, taxon substitution, de-extinction, and genetic modification. Rewilding attempts to minimize sustained intervention, but this hands-off approach is also threatened by rapid environmental change.
A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment.
Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains.
Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”
This chapter proposes reconstruction rather than restoration as a goal for environmental policy. Human impact on life and its environmental conditions continue around the world. Anthropogenic changes have had huge impacts, including negative impacts on human living conditions and vulnerability to various natural changes. “Reservation” approaches to preserving at least some areas in a natural state have been partly successful but insufficient, leading one to consider efforts at restoration. The chapter argues that standard accounts of restoration are too restrictive; one needs a notion with broader scope. Historical fidelity as the goal of restoration is the main problem. Further, this discussion proposes reconstruction as a better term and process for efforts to improve ecological conditions in various areas; reconstruction pursues a different set of natural values, values that are more suitable both to people means and one well-considered ends. The upshot is that a focus on historical fidelity is expensive, often beyond one's ability to measure confidently (records just don't exist), and likely to harm valuable species now present. Finally, despite best efforts, it will be prevented or rendered unsustainable by coming climate change.
This revised edition of Carolyn's Merchant's classic Reinventing Eden has been updated with a new foreword and afterword. Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western Culture. This book traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations and offers a bold new way to think about the earth.
This book explores the epistemological and ethical issues at the foundations of environmental philosophy, emphasising the conservation of biodiversity. Sahota Sarkar criticises attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature and defends an anthropocentric position on biodiversity conservation based on an untraditional concept of transformative value. Unlike other studies in the field of environmental philosophy, this book is as much concerned with epistemological issues as with environmental ethics. It covers a broad range of topics, including problems of explanation and prediction in traditional ecology and how individual-based models and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is transforming ecology. Introducing a brief history of conservation biology, Sarkar analyses the consensus framework for conservation planning through adaptive management. He concludes with a discussion of directions for theoretical research in conservation biology and environmental philosophy.
TWO RECENT WORKSHOPS HAVE DEBATED the relatively novel concept of the emerging ecosystem. Here I summarize the discussions that took place in the second of the two meetings, held in Brasilia in May this year, and examine its relevance for South Africa and in particular for the arid zone.
The term Anthropocene was first used in the year 2000 to refer to the current time period in which human impacts are at least as important as natural processes. It is currently being considered as a potential geological epoch, following on from the Holocene. While most environmental scientists accept that many key environmental parameters are now outside their Holocene ranges, there is no agreement on when the Anthropocene started, with plausible dates ranging from the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions to the recent globalization of industrial impacts. In ecology the Anthropocene concept has focussed attention on human-dominated habitats and novel ecosystems, while in conservation biology it has sparked a divisive debate on the continued relevance of the traditional biocentric aims.