Spring 2009 BioForum Conservation Biology: The Principles and Practice of Conserving Life's Diversity Dr. Healy Hamilton, Moderator

2 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Welcome to the NEW California Academy of Sciences “to explore, explain, and protect the natural world” Welcome to the 24 th year of BioForum!!!

3 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Today’s topic: Conservation Biology: “The Principles and Practice of Conserving Life's Diversity” Four speakers, four perspectives Case studies: from international to Bay Area from species to ecosystems

4 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology CULTURAL DIVERSITY is biodiversity ALL FOOD = biodiversity MEDICINES come from biodiversity CLOTHING comes from biodiversity CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS come from biodiversity SPIRITUALITY & RELIGION are inspired by biodiversity WATER & AIR are purified by biodiversity GAS & OIL come from past biodiversity BIODIVERSITY makes Earth habitable, beautiful, and enjoyable

5 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Threats to the diversity of life have not been greater for 65MY Technological change has accelerated humanity’s capacity to reshape the world to meet human needs Habitat destruction, degradation  fragmentation Direct overexploitation Invasive species Climate Change

6 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology History of Conservation Biology Alfred Russel Wallace (1863) urged responsibility for stewardship that came with knowledge of diversity: “If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in our power to preserve; and, while professing to regard every living thing as the direct handiwork and best evidence of a Creator, yet, with a strange inconsistency, seeing many of them perish irrecoverably from the face of the earth, uncared for and unknown.”

7 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology History of Conservation Biology Aldo Leopold (1949) “A land ethic enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land; it changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also for the community as such.”

8 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology National legislation and international treaties influencing the development of conservation biology: 1970National Environmental Policy Act 1970UNESCO Man & the Biosphere Program 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act 1972Coastal Zone Management Act 1972 Clean Water Act 1973Endangered Species Act 1974 National Forest Management Act 1975Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora & Fauna (CITES) 1975Convention on Wetlands on International Important (Ramsar Convention)

9 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Two critical trends in the early 1980’s: increasing awareness of threats to species diversity and causes of extinction, especially in tropical rainforests growing awareness of the linkage between biodiversity and economic development: the world’s poorest people depend the most on the natural environment.

10 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology March Society for Conservation Biology board of governors formed: “to help develop the scientific and technical means for the protection, maintenance, and restoration of life on this planet— its species, its ecological and evolutionary processes, and its particular and total environment.” Sept National Academy of Sciences & the Smithsonian Institution convened the “National Forum on BioDiversity” – the birth of the word contracting biological + diversity

11 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Conservation biology’s scientific foundations lie at the interface of systematics, genetics, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Conservation biology’s focus is on the conservation of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity. Conservation biology is concerned with entire biota, with diversity at all levels of biological organization, with patterns of diversity at various temporal and spatial scales, and with the evolutionary and ecological processes that maintain diversity.

12 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology 21 st Century Conservation Biology: Challenges & Opportunities Increased public awareness of environmental issues Increased data, advanced tools and technologies Political momentum for ecological economics Multiple projects increasing the scale of conservation planning

13 Spring 2009 BioForumConservation Biology Huge role for citizen science!