The Ecological Basis of Conservation

From its inception, the U.S. Department of the Interior has been charged with a conflicting mission. One set of statutes demands that the department must develop America's lands, that it get our trees, water, oil, and minerals out into the marketplace. Yet an opposing set of laws orders us to conserve these same resources, to preserve them for the long term and to consider the noncommodity values of our public landscape. That dichotomy, between rapid exploitation and long-term protection, demands what I see as the most significant policy departure of my tenure in office: the use of science-interdisciplinary science-as the primary basis for land management decisions. For more than a century, that has not been the case. Instead, we have managed this dichotomy by compartmentalizing the American landscape. Congress and my predecessors handled resource conflicts by drawing enclosures: "We'll create a national park here," they said, "and we'll put a wildlife refuge over there." Simple enough, as far as protection goes. And outside those protected areas, the message was equally simplistic: "Y'all come and get it. Have at it." The nature and the pace of the resource extraction was not at issue; if you could find it, it was yours.

I. Introduction: The Needs for a Comprehensive Conservation Theory.- 1. Defining the Scientific Issues.- 2. Part 1. Gretchen Long Glickman-Science, Conservation, Policy, and the Public.- 2. H. Ronald Pulliam-Providing the Scientific Information that Conservation Practitioners Need.- 3. Michael J. Bean-A Policy Perspective on Biodiversity Protection and Ecosystem Management.- 3. Conservation and Human Population Growth: What are the Linkages?.- 4. Developing an Analytical Context for Multispecies Conservation Planning.- 5. Operationalizing Ecology under a New Paradigm: An African Perspective.- II. Foundations for a Comprehensive Conservation Theory.- Themes.- 6. The Paradigm Shift in Ecology and Its Implications for Conservation.- 7. The Emerging Role of Patchiness in Conservation Biology.- 8. Linking Ecological Understanding and Application: Patchiness in a Dryland System.- III. Biodiversity and Its Ecological Linkages.- Themes.- 9. The Evaluation of Biodiversity as a Target for Conservation.- 10. Conserving Ecosystem Function.- 11. The Relationship between Patchiness and Biodiversity in Terrestrial Systems.- 12. Reevaluating the Use of Models to Predict the Consequences of Habitat Loss and Fragmentation.- 13. Managing for Heterogeneity and Complexity on Dynamic Landscapes.- 14. Toward a Resolution of Conflicting Paradigms.- 15. The Land Ethic of Aldo Leopold.- IV. Toward a New Conservation Theory.- Themes.- 16. The Future of Conservation Biology: What's a Geneticist to Do?.- 17. Habitat Destruction and Metapopulation Dynamics.- 18. How Viable is Population Viability Analysis?.- 19. Reserve Design and the New Conservation Theory.- 20. Ecosystem Processes and the New Conservation Theory.- 21. Measurement Scales and Ecosystem Management.- 22. BiogeographicApproaches and the New Conservation Biology.- 23. Conserving Interaction Biodiversity.- V. The Application of Conservation Ecology.- Themes.- 24. State-Dependent Decision Analysis for Conservation Biology.- 25. Expanding Scientific Research Programs to Address Conservation Challenges in Freshwater Ecosystems.- 26. Standard Scientific Procedures for Implementing Ecosystem Management on Public Lands.- 27. Whatever It Takes for Conservation: The Case for Alternatives Analysis.- 28. Conservation Activism: A Proper Role for Academics?.- 29. Getting Ecological Paradigms into the Political Debate: Or Will the Messenger Be Shot?.- VI. Synthesis and a Forward Look.- Themes.- 30. A Summary of the Sixth Cary Conference.- 31. The Linkages between Ecology and Conservation.- 32. The Central Scientific Challenge for Conservation Biology.- 33. Toward a Comprehensive Conservation Theory.- Epilogue: A Vision of the Future.