Good news to finish

From today's Guardian:

The number of mountain gorillas living in the Virunga Massif in central Africa has soared by 26.3% since 2003, according to a new census. The increase in numbers from 380 to 480 individuals is thanks to "immense" efforts to reduce poaching and disease, scientists said – but should not be read as a sign that the fight to save the highly endangered species is over.

The mountain gorillas of the Virunga Massif are making a comeback for a variety of reasons, said Robbins. One key driver is the International Gorilla Conservation Programme, which started to engage local communities in projects that would help them to develop economically in 2003. "Many of these communities now keep bees to make honey or make handicrafts for tourists. They don't need to poach."

More Food for Thought

So what's next in conservation? What new ideas will become part of our common lexicon in five, ten or twenty years? Nature.org asked twelve experts from The Nature Conservancy to weigh in on the future of protecting nature. 

Business as usual in Cancun

Members of the Sierra Club in Cancún make their feelings clear about countries they say avoid the issue of climate change.

Environment ministers from around the world flew in to Mexico yesterday for the final days of the climate-change talks in Cancun, which threatened to fracture over Chinese-led demands for concessions from the West. As a sign of the work still to be done, only 170 words out of 1,300 on two pages of a key text were undisputed on the "shared vision" of what delegates hoped to accomplish.

Keep up with the official news here, and the reporting via a Google news search.

Biodiversity and human disease

The loss of biodiversity -- from beneficial bacteria to charismatic mammals -- threatens human health. That's the conclusion of a study published this week in the journal Nature by scientists who study biodiversity and infectious diseases.

The animals, plants, and microbes most likely to disappear as biodiversity is lost are often those that buffer infectious disease transmission. Those that remain tend to be species that magnify the transmission of infectious diseases like West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and hantavirus.

but note that:

In contrast, areas of naturally high biodiversity may serve as a source pool for new pathogens.  

News report at ScienceDaily and original paper in Nature: Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases

Santa Barbara MPA's

From Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

 

The Future of Our Ocean Depends on YOU!

 

Please Attend December 15th Meeting in Santa Barbara to Adopt Marine Protected Areas

With your help, history will be made on December 15th in Santa Barbara, when we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to safeguard Southern California's oceans for future generations by adopting a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) along our coast. After more than two years and hundreds of hours of stakeholder negotiations, public testimony and agency input, the CA Fish and Game Commission will hold its final public hearing in Santa Barbara to consider and vote on what small sections off the Southern California coast (from Point Conception to the Mexican border) will be established as MPAs. The package of MPAs most likely to be adopted by the Commission, the "Integrated Preferred Alternative" (IPA) proposal, is a compromise between conservation and fishing interests. However, despite the fact that this proposal would set aside only a fraction of the ocean for protection while leaving nearly 85% open to fishing (including the vast majority of popular fishing spots), vocal opponents are still calling for less protection and even attempting to undermine the process entirely. For this reason, it is absolutely critical that we have an overwhelming showing of public support for MPAs at the December 15th hearing. Channelkeeper encourages our community to attend the meeting and voice support for the Commission's adoption of the IPA as the bare minimum level of protection for our invaluable ocean and coast. Please RSVP here to let us know that you plan to attend this historic meeting on behalf of our marine life and so that we can share more meeting details as they become available (e.g. meeting time, etc.)

The Details:
Fish and Game Commission MPA Adoption Hearing
December 15, 2010
Hotel Mar Monte
1111 East Cabrillo Blvd.
Santa Barbara

Please email or call us at 805.563.3377 ext 2 with any questions or for more meeting details.

Notes on the future

Some links to the papers I mentioned in the last class. First up, anyone interested in environmental science should take a look at The Death of Environmentalism. Although it is primarily directed at the global warming crowd there are a lot of lessons here that apply to conservation biology. Even if you don't agree with what they say I think you'll find it quite thought provoking.

The three papers on the future of Conservation Biology I mentioned are:

• On the future of conservation biology by E.O. Wilson.
• Conservation for the People by Peter Kareiva and Michelle Marvier
• Fusion or Failure? The Future of Conservation Biology by Andrew Balmford and Richard Cowling

As I was saying

The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration
Five paid restoration internship positions available for Winter and Spring 2011 quarters. Interns gain experience in ecological restoration techniques including seed collection, plant propagation, restoration implementation and monitoring, and wildlife observation. Students will generally work with a project manager on a specific restoration project in the field. Students with a special interest in data analysis and synthesis may propose to include that in their experience. The internship requires a 6 hour commitment each week and will pay $300 for the quarter. To apply, send your resume, schedule and a letter of interest to jmyers@lifesci.ucsb.edu. Interviews will be scheduled at the end of the quarter before the internship or during the first week of the quarter.  Students who have already completed CCBER's 10 week intern training program will be given priority.

Are Conservation Biologists Wasting Their Time?

I just found out that Dr. Jai Ranganathan, a postdoc at NCEAS has a podcast where he interviews scientists (mostly ecologists) about their research. One of these interviews is very relevant to our course:

Are Conservation Biologists Wasting Their Time?

Ecologist Hugh Possingham argues that conservationists have made a fetish of monitoring ailing species, and what they should be doing isn’t counting but acting.

Conventional wisdom says saving threatened species requires closely track their numbers. As a result, conservation biologists around the world spend a lot of time and money keeping track of all sorts of species, from elephants to whales.
But is all of this species monitoring getting anywhere for real conservation?
Definitely not, says Dr. Hugh Possingham, an ecologist and professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. Not only is this monitoring mostly a waste, it is actually hurting on the ground conservation efforts by siphoning off money that could otherwise be used to save species. Instead of just squandering resources, blindly monitoring for monitoring’s sake, Possingham urges scientists to devote themselves to action plans that actually do something to save threatened species.

Review

Last year I was planning to have a section on the exam where you prepared a brief answer for both sides of an argument. I eventually abandoned this idea but they still might form a useful review aid and/or food for thought.

1. Species-based conservation is necessary because species are fundamental evolutionary units.
   vs
   Species-based conservation is impractical because we cannot save every species.
   
   
2. Protected areas that exclude people are the only means to conserve biodiversity.
   vs
   Parks will fail unless meaningful inclusion of people’s needs are incorporated into their planning.
   
   
3. Genetic studies provide necessary information for conservation efforts.
   vs
   Genetic studies are overly expensive diversions from more important conservation work.
   
   
4. We should conserve the most vulnerable habitats first before they are lost.
   vs
   We should focus on preserving large areas of pristine habitat.

Just because he knocks....

 A former Director of Tanzania’s Wildlife Department
has commented that one hunter is worth 100 tourists to the local economy.

There are some interesting papers on hunting and wildlife conservation in the social science literature.

Here are a couple of papers - one very social science based looking at the US, and one more general looking at trophy hunting in Africa.

'Hunting and Environmentalism: Conflict or Misperceptions', Human Dimensions of Wildlife

This work examined some assumptions that underpin the conflict between hunters and anti-hunting movement. The moral contradictions of anti-hunting activism are positioned in the complex context of consumer culture, managed environmental protection, and industrial food production. The assumption that environmental groups are by definition opposed to hunting is investigated. Given that both hunters and environmental groups are interested in land conservation, and given the rapid habitat loss around the globe, the question is asked whether joint conservation efforts would prove beneficial not only to both groups' interests, but also to the fragile North American ecosystems and the species that reside in them. 


'Trophy Hunting as a Sustainable Use of Wildlife Resources in Southern and Eastern Africa', Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Abstact
Preserving wildlife in a pristine state on a large scale is no longer feasible in view of continued human population increases, economic development, habitat fragmentationand degradation, the introduction of nonnative species, and commercialisation of wildlife products. The wise use of the planet’s remaining wildlife resources will depend on management practices which recognise that indigenous people are integral parts of ecosystems. Community-based conservation, which attempts to devolve responsibility for the sustainable use of wildlife resources to the local level, can include consumptive activities, such as trophy hunting, as well as nonconsumptive forms of tourism. The trophy hunting management systems of six countries of eastern and southern Africa are profiled and critiqued, demonstrating a number of essential conditions for obtaining optimal wildlife conservation and community benefits.

Conclusion
In the six countries in southern and eastern Africa which allow trophy hunting, management systems have fallen short in these areas to varying degrees, reducing potential conservation and community benefits.