Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
6
Conservation and sustainable
development
Aims
This chapter explores the relationship between conservation and sustainable develop-
ment, revisiting issues relating to population, resource use and human beings' impact
on what is often termed the natural world. More specifically, efforts to preserve the
natural landscape and, more latterly, a wide range of wildlife habitats brings into
focus a range of policies and practices that have seen conflicts, controversies and a
considerable degree of debate. The friction induced by the imposition of Western
notions of conservation and stewardship on other lands has invariably led many
to address and readdress both the rights of indigenous peoples and the very nature
of economic development, urbanization and sustainability. This friction is practical
and political in nature and although it seems that dialogue is leading to progress
and accommodation, we are witnessing, indeed causing, a sixth massive extinction
of many of the species with whom we supposedly share the planet.
Here, there and everywhere
Ecologist Marc Bekoff and conservation social worker Sarah Bexell (2010) perhaps
state the obvious when they write that human beings are here, there and everywhere;
but importantly they add that because of our short lifespans we seem removed from
the nuances of natural evolutionary cycles. We are not here long enough to see what
is going on in the long term and, additionally, we can negatively affect ecosystems
even when we are not physically present in them. Our penchant for technical fixes
also gives us a false sense of security and perhaps of optimism, and we rarely stop
to think that 'we're a species whom almost all other species could easily live without'
(Bekoff and Bexell, 2010: 70). Michele Soulé (2002), a pioneer in the field of conserva-
tion biology aptly put it when he noted that human beings are certainly the dominant
species but we are clearly not a keystone species, for when you remove a keystone
species biodiversity itself collapses. When we humans are added to an ecosystem, as
the history of human migration and imperialism show clearly, biodiversity collapses.
Unfortunately, we can't live without these other species and our actions are a direct
cause of their rapid decline and frequently their extinction. Despite captive breeding
programmes, transdisciplinary research projects, conservation initiatives, including
moving people and animals to different locations and an array of political and
economic measures, we continue to witness an alarming decline in global biodiversity.
Although these 'band aid' projects are undoubtedly quite necessary, they are clearly
 
 
 
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