If all required funding and
resources became available, what would the ultimate aim of conservation work
be? Conservation organisations are invariably limited by resources (e.g.
available land), funding and, crucially, time and so in reality conservation
efforts aim to make the most of what is available in order to achieve the
highest conservation impact possible. The possibility of completely achieving
this mystery aim of conservation seems so remote that it is rarely discussed in
these terms. There is some discussion over what exactly to conserve, e.g. particular
species (such as keystone species), biodiversity, genetic diversity, viable
populations or ecosystems, but are there other intrinsic values in nature to be
conserved? It is worth investigating this topic in order to better understand
why we aim to conserve at all and to be open to exploring alternatives to
traditional conservation approaches. Conservation efforts attempt to achieve
various explicit final aims at present, ranging along a continuum of varying
human involvement. The value and ethical considerations associated with these
aims as conservation goals will be discussed and alternative approaches
explored.
Why conserve?
There are many motivations for
conserving biodiversity, from human-orientated reasons such as maintaining
ecosystem services (e.g. crop pollination) and preserving potential medical
resources to conserving biodiversity for the conservation of more biodiversity
(i.e. an ecosystem may be more resilient to change if it is more diverse) and
conservation due to the intrinsic value of a species. Intrinsic value can be
difficult to articulate though many implicitly understand this value; this
topic is discussed in a previous post. In this post it is accepted that
biodiversity has a high intrinsic value, rather than only direct or indirect
value to humans.
What to conserve?
Exactly what conservation aims to
enable to survive is a debated topic. Even if overall biodiversity is accepted
as the main aim, this may be conducted through focussing on biodiversity
hotspots, work to protect specific at-risk species or using a triage system,
where only species/areas/ecosystems which are thought to be likely to survive
with intervention are protected while those with outcomes unlikely to be greatly
improved by intervention are left with a lower level of protection. However,
overall biodiversity can be a difficult concept to define – how is genetic or
taxonomic diversity considered? In addition to this, conservation of entire
ecosystems may be neglected by focussing only on diversity – while maintaining
ecosystem health may be a good way to conserve biodiversity, this means that
the conservation of a diversity of ecosystems for their intrinsic value may be
at risk. Here, different systems used in conservation efforts and their ethical
implications will be discussed.
Existing conservation aims and their ethical implications
Ranging from the lowest to
highest level of human intervention in the system conserved, conservation
efforts include preservation of “pure” wilderness, re-creation of ecosystems of
the past since destroyed, human-managed semi-natural/quasi-natural ecosystems,
artificial managed ecosystems and artificially maintaining biodiversity in
captivity.
Pure wilderness
Attempts are made to preserve
existing areas of wilderness in their original state, with little human
interaction or intervention other than to maintain the level of protection from
harm or development. Species interactions are allowed to continue as they would
without human presence, requiring a large area to be protected to minimise edge
effects where bordering human managed land.
There are many reasons why this
is a worthwhile aim in conservation, ethical and otherwise. These areas of
wilderness are valuable as a reference for scientific research and to better
understand how to approach other conservation efforts. Wilderness can also be
considered to have an intrinsic value beyond that of the biodiversity it
supports; Singer points out that areas such as this have a value to
humans as a link to the past, similar to the value of an ancient monument [2]. In
this way, wilderness areas have an incalculable value as this link cannot be
recreated once an area of wilderness has been destroyed or modified.
Does the status of wilderness
areas as “natural” contribute to their intrinsic value? Would a human created
and managed reserve, otherwise identical to a wilderness area, have a lower
intrinsic value? The evolutionary and ecological processes involved in shaping
these wilderness areas cannot be replicated, and so they have a type of
scarcity value but perhaps also should be given a value based on the fact that
they existed on the planet before humans and so should be allowed to continue
to do so, provided they are not harmful to human well-being. In this way, the
“natural” status of a wilderness area contributes to its value, adding to the
sum of the intrinsic values of the individual species which are sustained by it.
Moving beyond biodiversity
conservation, protecting wilderness areas also involves protecting the
non-living landscape, such as rivers and mountains. These aspects of a
wilderness area add further value based on the argument above, as they too were
formed by the pre-existing processes of the planet. A mountain destroyed to
make way for a human endeavour and rebuilt elsewhere would have lost a great
deal of its value, according to this argument.
However, there are reasons to be
cautious about using a pure wilderness model for conservation. Ecological
constraints mean that only very large areas can be useful as unmanaged/lightly
managed wilderness, as the effects of interacting with bordering non-wilderness
areas will need to be minimised and populations will need to be of a viable
size to survive without being connected to other sites or protected by additional
management (e.g. predator control, managing their food sources). Wilderness sites tend to be located in areas
where there is limited scope for other uses by humans, e.g. mountainous areas [1], and so may not protect a representative selection of species and
ecosystems; some systems may already be entirely lost in their “pure” state. It
would be risky to rely solely on wilderness areas for biodiversity conservation
for this reason as well as lowered resilience to change due to a potential lack
of connectivity between sites if the only states which exist are wilderness and
entirely developed areas, with nothing in between.
The concept of conservation of
pure wilderness presents issues regarding the place of humans in nature.
Wilderness areas protected for the conservation of biodiversity usually
incorporate a very low level of human involvement. Human involvement is often
seen as “unnatural” (see parts of this post on nature and morality) but
we evolved on this planet as other species did. So humans can be classified as
either unnatural, where nothing we do can be considered natural, no matter how
similar to other acts of behaviours seen in nature, or as natural, where
everything we do is a result of a natural process, no matter how industrial or
technological and seemingly unlike nature, because we evolved the ability to do
these things. Attempting to assign some human acts as natural (e.g. eating
vegetables) and others as unnatural (e.g. moving around the world quickly in
aeroplanes) often means that arguments are based on arbitrary lines being drawn
between natural and unnatural acts, but classifying humans as entirely natural
or unnatural causes complications for wilderness conservation – what is the
place of humans in such a system? Should we be entirely uninvolved in order to
maintain the wilderness status of an area or is there a role for us here?
Rebuilding ecosystems
Attempts may be made to
reconstruct ecosystems which existed in the past but have since been modified
or destroyed through human actions. This may take the form of habitat creation
or a species reintroduction in which humans have a mainly supervisory
monitoring role to ensure the new system is functioning well, after the more
intensely managed initial stages while the system is being set up or
investigated for its viability.
This system comes a close second
to pure wilderness, as it still maintains the intrinsic values of the species as
well as partially upholding the value of a “natural” system in which ecological
and evolutionary processes can carry on as, in theory, once the ecosystem is
set up it will function according to ecological principles. However, the link
with the past has been broken, but once this has occurred then recreating an
ecosystem may be the next most ethically ideal option. If these functioning
ecosystems are considered to have high intrinsic value, then there may be an
element of justice involved in humans working to right the wrong our species
committed through allowing or causing the ecosystem damage in the past.
Another ethical issue involved in
rebuilding ecosystems, especially when this involves a species reintroduction,
is conflict with modern human interests. Although humans and the ecosystem in
question coexisted in the past, they may not have done so in recent times, such
as wolves in the UK. This issue tends to focus on species reintroductions as an
inconvenience to human activities. This may or may not be a moral issue,
depending on whether concerns of humans living where a reintroduced species may
spread to are trivial or worth genuine consideration in establishing the
ethical case for a reintroduction. For example, if a reintroduced species is likely
to cause harm to human wellbeing then this is an ethical issue as sentient
beings may suffer in some way. If the human issue with a reintroduction is
concerned with aesthetics or based on unfounded prejudice, then this is less
likely to be considered as a moral issue unless great distress will be caused.
Human-managed nature reserves
Many modern, conventional nature
reserves consist of semi-natural ecosystems which are maintained through a
moderate level of management by humans, such as regularly removing invasive
species or planting suitable food plants. This approach seems to be a workable
balance, contributing towards biodiversity conservation with an achievable and
realistic aim.
Similar to species reintroductions,
the moral value of managed nature reserves comes from the intrinsic values of
species protected and partially from providing the opportunity for ecological
and evolutionary processes to continue. The full intrinsic value of ecosystem
processes is not protected by this type of conservation as human input is used
to modify and support the ecosystem, though the level of human input varies
greatly between reserves. Potentially contrasting with the reintroduction
scenario, these ecosystems may be lacking some species now locally extinct,
which alters the intrinsic value of the ecosystem as the link with the past has
been lost. Despite these modifications and apparent reductions in moral value,
this type of conservation is extremely valuable in the practical conservation
of threatened species; it is an effective, real-life solution, protecting the straightforward
intrinsic value of the species on the reserves, improving biodiversity (with
its intrinsic value) through increased connectivity across a landscape and
partially maintaining ecosystem processes - meaning that this is a worthwhile
conservation aim.
Biodiversity-friendly artificial ecosystems
Next along the scale from managed
nature reserves are ecosystems which exist only because humans have created
them, such as farmland and gardens, which are the subject of efforts to make
them suitable and useful for maintaining biodiversity. Examples include gardens
planted with certain flowers to support pollinators or farmland with retained
hedgerows and field margins to provide nesting habitats.
Ecosystems of this type do not
hold any value in terms of a link with the past as they are not the result of
an unbroken chain of evolutionary and ecological processes. They do, however,
allow ecological and evolutionary processes to continue, though highly modified,
and so they have some value in terms of supporting the continuation of these
processes if they are assigned a moral value. There does not seem to be any
ethical reason not to completely remove or destroy this kind of ecosystem if it
is not contributing to wider biodiversity conservation as these processes can
be easily recreated elsewhere, unlike managed nature reserves, semi-reconstructed
ecosystems and pure wilderness which represent at least some level of
complexity developed without human intervention and the complete reconstruction
of these ecosystems is unlikely.
This does not mean that
biodiversity-friendly artificial ecosystems have no moral worth and can be
removed without ethical objection. The contribution to wider biodiversity
mentioned above is the main source of their intrinsic value; a common aim of
conservation groups is to encourage land managers and members of the public to
make farms, parks, timber plantations, gardens etc. more wildlife-friendly
because so much of land today is used for these purposes and these intermediate
habitats are vitally important for maintaining landscape-scale biodiversity by
improving habitat connectivity, providing additional habitat and increasing
diversity of habitat types across a landscape. The intrinsic value of the
species supported in part by this type of ecosystem means that they are an
ethically supportable and realistic aim of conservation, provided that they are
part of a wider system which supports other, less tangible values such as the
unbroken progression of an ecosystem.
Artificial maintenance of biodiversity
Another possible option which may
contribute to biodiversity conservation is maintaining species in captivity. As
a conservation aim on its own, this option has several ethical problems but may
have some limited value.
In this case, the intrinsic
values of on-going ecological and evolutionary processes and a link with the
past are lost but if the alternative is the complete extinction of a species
then this aspect of conservation could be valuable in preventing this and
maintaining the possibility of a reintroduction. This scenario raises an
interesting question: what if, in theory, every species around today was
maintained in captivity only, and all ecosystems opened up for
development/destruction? What values would be lost? This does not seem like a
satisfactory outcome and so some value other than biodiversity seems to be
involved. This question can help being into focus the difficult to define
values of allowing ecological and evolutionary processes to continue and to
continue without interruption if possible.
Alternatives
New ecosystems to cope with new pressures
It is theoretically possible that
entirely new ecosystems with novel species compositions could be set up which
are well equipped to maintain high levels of biodiversity alongside human
development. These could use new species assemblages which included non-native
species. This option could only be considered if existing ecological and
evolutionary processes were assigned very little value (though it could be
argued that the processes would continue in a new form) and continuity of these
processes was assigned no moral value. However, this would be an extremely
high-risk approach as the complexities of ecosystems mean that the outcomes of deliberately
introducing non-native species are hard to predict and are often disastrous,
e.g. the introduction of non-native cane toads to reduce crop damage by the
native cane beetle in Australia having unexpected, damaging and long-lasting
results. As this method of conservation would carry such high risks and at best
only maintain the basic intrinsic values of a diversity of individual species it
does not seem to be an ethically supportable option.
De-extinction?
A recent hot topic, de-extinction
is now being discussed as an option in conservation and not as such distant a
prospect as might be imagined. Using preserved genetic material from an extinct
species and a closely related or similar existing species to bring back some
individuals from extinction is looking like it will be a real possibility. Last
week a conference was held on this subject and the practicalities, pros and
cons were discussed. If the ethics of this topic are examined purely from a
conservation point of view, rather than from the point of view of the
individuals of the “de-extincted” species or in terms of the potential genetic
pitfalls, then de-extinction may have some value in terms of bringing back a
species (with an intrinsic value) previously lost and perhaps also similar
values to current species reintroductions. Less dramatically, a species not yet
extinct but threatened due to low numbers and a genetic bottleneck could have
genetic material from dead individuals reintroduced to the gene pool to improve
their resilience. However, the costs of bringing back a few individuals are
unlikely to be worthwhile in terms of biodiversity conservation when more
species could be saved from extinction with the same funding, making it
difficult to use biodiversity conservation as a reason to justify what may
simply be a scientifically interesting exercise. The conference, speakers at
which expressed the points here, was a TEDx event and can be viewed here
and has a website here.
This subject will probably be covered in more depth in a future post.
Conclusions
By examining the changes in
intrinsic values along a spectrum of systems used to conserve biodiversity,
several different intrinsic values of biodiversity and ecosystems can be
demonstrated. Other than the basic intrinsic value of each species, which alone
is a reason to conserve biodiversity, there seems to be some value in both the
ecological and evolutionary processes, similar to that of a species, and the
unbroken continuation of these processes. These additional values are gradually
lost or diminished moving along the gradient from pure wilderness to captivity.
This does not mean that methods of conserving biodiversity other than
protecting pure wilderness should not be used – from an practical point of view
they are very important in conserving biodiversity and do support the
additional values to varying extents. However, which of these values
conservation work is aiming to protect is not always clear, perhaps because
conserving biodiversity is the most easily articulated and urgent and so
additional, more abstract values are sometimes (though not always) pushed aside.
It would be useful to explicitly discuss and formalise the values of processes
and continuity in conservation efforts to ensure these are protected and do not
slip away without their value being realised.
