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18 Where Does Biodiversity Go from Here? A Grim Business-as-Usual Forecast and a Hopeful Portfolio of Partial Solutions--PAUL R. EHRLICH and ROBERT M. PRINGLE
Pages 329-346

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From page 329...
... These are actions to stabilize the human population and reduce its material consumption, the deployment of endowment funds and other strategies to ensure the efficacy and permanence of conservation areas, steps to make human-dominated land scapes hospitable to biodiversity, measures to account for the economic costs of habitat degradation, the ecological reclama tion of degraded lands and repatriation of extirpated species, the education and empowerment of people in the rural tropics, and the fundamental transformation of human attitudes about nature. Like the carbon ‘‘stabilization wedges'' outlined by Pacala and Socolow (2004)
From page 330...
... , but our pitiful knowledge of biodiversity's extent and the inherently inconspicuous nature of extinction ensures that this figure is a small fraction of the true number. Although no scientific consensus is forthcoming on the exact rate of extinction for any region or group of organisms, much less for global biodiversity, there is
From page 331...
... . Although species loss occupies an overwhelming proportion of the literature, genetically distinct populations are also an important component of biodiversity.
From page 332...
... So-called ‘‘marginal lands,'' often the last holdouts of biodiversity, are the final frontier, awaiting conversion into more human biomass. Whenever biodiversity preservation poses a threat to human livelihood, comfort, or convenience, the politically expedient choice is usually to liquidate the natural capital.
From page 333...
... Extinction of genetically distinct populations, decreases in effective population sizes, and homogenization of habitat types are all likely to have negative effects on future biodiversity (Myers and Knoll, 2001; Woodruff, 2001)
From page 334...
... Pringle tion, and they make it impossible to generate precise estimates of future biodiversity. In short, although there are many uncertainties about the trajectories of individual populations and species, we know where biodiversity will go from here in the absence of a rapid, transformative intervention: up in smoke; toward the poles and under water; into crops and livestock; onto the table and into yet more human biomass; into fuel tanks; into furniture, pet stores, and home remedies for impotence; out of the way of more cities and suburbs; into distant memory and history books.
From page 335...
... Likewise, simple shifts in socioeconomic–political systems -- instituting high-occupancy vehicle lanes to reduce carbon emissions, for example, or demanding high-seas ballast water exchange for cargo ships to reduce species introductions -- would do a great deal. Although population growth has slowed or is slowing in many developed countries, it remains high in many developing regions.
From page 336...
... Of the various forms of revenue used to support protected areas in poor countries, conservation trust funds -- specifically, endowment funds intended to last in perpetuity -- are the most promising. Unlike taxes, user fees, and debt swaps, endowments provide sustained funding and are relatively resilient to political whims and fluctuations in the demand for ecotourism (Spergel, 2002)
From page 337...
... Another is that habitat types vary in their tolerance of human activity. Whereas tropical forests are quite sensitive to burning, wood chopping, and hunting, tropical savannas are relatively resilient to anthropogenic disturbance.
From page 338...
... How to allocate conservation resources among these two different frameworks is a local problem, and answers will vary depending on such factors as the habitat types involved, local land-use history, the state of the region's government and protected-area system, and the availability and price of land for purchase. As in most other respects, Britain is different from Kenya is different from Amazonia.
From page 339...
... . These services include, but are not limited to, providing raw materials, natural water filtration, carbon sequestration and storage in forests, flood and erosion mitigation by plant communities, and pollination of crops by wild animals (Daily, 1997)
From page 340...
... As proponents and critics of market-based conservation approaches both point out, complete commodification of ecosystems is not the goal. Yes, ecosystem services have enormous value in traditional economic terms for their role in sustaining and enriching human life, and efforts to ascertain these values are important.
From page 341...
... , is particularly heartening for several reasons: it involves restoration of multiple habitat types; it is large-scale yet local and decentralized; and it was achieved by using a portfolio of innovative mechanisms and via broad collaboration among scientists, businesspeople, politicians, and the local community. The result has been the regeneration and conservation of 700 km2 of tropical dry forest along with abutting chunks of rain and montane forest.
From page 342...
... Pringle Into the Fabric of Local Communities For various reasons, conservation programs in developing regions are likely to fail when they are imposed from the top down by outsiders/foreigners (Chapin, 2004)
From page 343...
... . We can work to add ecological dimensions to online virtual-reality platforms and video games like Second Life, which currently has 10 million registered accounts.
From page 344...
... The selective pressures of academia, as currently set up, promote this practice by insisting on work that is at once scientifically transformative and socially beneficial. Yet many of the most useful things that we can do for biodiversity -- like talking to kindergartners -- are not at the cutting edge of science.
From page 345...
... Mertz, the Heinz Family Philanthropies, the Northern California Association of Phi Beta Kappa, the Sherwood Family Foundation, and the U.S. National Science Foundation, whose generous support has enabled us to contemplate these issues.


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