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The Impasse in Biodiversity Conservation
Policy Yrjö Haila, Koli 25 August, 2008 The
crux of the issue THE PROOF OF BIODIVERSITY IS
IN THE USING -- in other words all conceptions
that externalize biodiversity into something that
has to be protected as separate from human
livelihood, are misleading
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Approach genealogy as history of the present

• How did we come to perceive nature as something
  that requires conservation?
• This is not an endpoint of linear increase of
  reason, rather, we have to weave together several
  chains of events
• in what follows, I present four

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WHY genealogy?

• Our present understanding of the issue is shaped
  by the contingencies of the flow of events, which
  were shaped by the ways the issues were
  understood at the time.
• Hence, the normative basis has come about through
  the same flow of events in other words
• (i) grounding What for? Why prioritize nature
  conservation instead of something else?
• (ii) operationalizing What criteria to use to
  assess success vs. failure?

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• Conservation thinking
• (post-Enlightenment secularization)?

IUCN (1948)?
ICPB (1922) and so on (International Council for
Bird Preservation)?
Changing popular sensitivity Nature is Our
Friend
Extinctions (Adams 2004)? Emblematic dodo,
quagga, the passenger pigeon Big game hunting
Africa etc.
The Romantic movement, wilderness thinking
(N.Am.)?
The fact of human-caused extinctions, 19th c.
Darwinian theory as a precondition
Utilitarian conservation in New England, South
Africa, New Zealand, and other European colonies
(Grove 1995, Judd 1997)?
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2. Legislation, treaties

• Binding international treaties
• CITES 1973
• - Ramsar Conv. (Wetlands) 1976
• - EU Birds D. 1979, Habitats D. 1992

Specific legislation - juridical innovations,
such as the Endangered Species Act 1973
Conservation becomes generally regarded as a
governmental duty administration after WW2
Conservation legislation in different countries
Sweden 1909, Finland 1923,
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3. Conservation science
BIODIVERSITY as a new catch-all term
The theory of Island Biogeography (MacArthur
Wilson 1963, 1967) area is a reliable predictor
of extinction threat also Preston (1962)?
Generalization of the notion of extinction ()?
increasingly comprehensive Red Data Lists
(1960s ? )?
increasingly systematic e.g. SSSI Sites of
Special Scientific Interest
() Extinction risk becomes a statistical notion
as distinct from a target-specific
notion Extinction risk is present everywhere
Beginnings assessments and classifications for
legislative and administrative purposes (Preparing
the ground culturally!)?
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4. Biosphere (Vaclav Smil, 2002)?
GAIA James Lovelock 1972
Symbiosis in evolution the importance of
micro-organisms in maintaining ecological
functions on the biospheric level Lynn Margulis
(1970 --gt )?
Energetics (Lotka!!) G. Evelyn Hutchinson
Raymond Lindeman (1942) the Odum brothers The
Fundamentals of Ecology (1954, 1st ed)?
Ecosystem -- Tansley 1935 (precursors
organismic metaphors since the 1880s, by and
large)?
V.I. Vernadsky 1926 (in French, 1929)?
Alfred Lotka 1924
Eduard Suess 1875 the term
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A novelty has come about

• The task of nature conservation is framed in a
  new way a shift from target-specific to
  comprehensive conservation (biodiversity)?
• Nothing less is at stake than the life-support
  system of Earth (at the very least, the system
  supporting human life!)?
• as a result, the target is indefinite

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Biodiversity is framed as a big issue,
deliberately

• E.O. Wilson (1997) on what biodiversity is "So,
  what is it? Biologists are inclined to agree that
  it is, in one sense, everything."
• Difficulties with a doable definition if
  nothing can be excluded, no distinctions can be
  made cf. omnis determinatio est negatio
  (Spinoza)
• Difficulties with specifying a problem space How
  do you preserve everything normative
  standards tend to collapse to a simplistic
  culture/nature dualism

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Example of the culture/nature dualism Orians
Soulé (2001) Conservation Biology. Research
Priorities for the Next Decade Conservationists
must make two key decisions. First, they must
decide which time in the past should serve as the
reference period. Second, they must assess the
probable ecological conditions that existed in
the area at the time. But as human influence
past, present and future is everywhere, this
goal-setting is meaningless.
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We need to be more specific about what
biodiversity means, and why it is meaningful A
PROCESS PERSPECTIVE (Making the Biodiversity
Crisis Tractable A Process Perspective Haila,
2004)? First of all 'biodiversity' is a social
construct (BioDiversity, 1986, 1988 Wilson
1992) but, as Hacking (1999) notes, the
attribute "social" is redundant processes taking
place in society are social, by definition.
Hacking reserve the term "construct" to such
concepts that are deliberately brought forth,
mainly for critical purposes this fits
"biodiversity." Constructing a problem opening
up a public space in which the problem gains
urgency as compared with other public problems
i. e., PUBLICS and PUBLIC SPACES come in purals
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Useful analytic concepts (A) Framing Framing
an issue means defining a stable context within
which it can be adequately understood and
addressed. The context allows specified questions
to be asked as well as criteria to be given on
what could count as an answer to those questions.
(B) Problem space a problem space is analogous
to a physical state space (Alan Garfinkel 1981)
the "movement" of problem definitions and
perceptions within that space is influenced by
critical variables, which bound the space. (C)
Closure In the most elementary case, explanatory
closure is constituted by two alternatives
refuting one lends support to the other
(hypothesis testing).
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Non-linearities Interactions between critical
variables - between variables - between
levels or organization, as a consequence of
size/ rate differences (biophysical scaling laws
ecological scales)? This means that the mutual
matching of framing, problem space closure is
very seldom, if ever, straightforward as regards
issues pertaining to biodiversity
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Framing takes place in two dimensions, as it
were the normative urgency of the problem has
to be grounded, and the analytic features of the
problem have to be specified. We could call the
first dimension political framing, and the second
conceptual framing the latter dimension implies
also an idea on how the problem can possibly be
solved (which cannot be normatively
neutral). PROBLEMS as regards BD (a) the
"bigness" of the biodiversity concern in
normative terms it is difficult to give
qualifications (b) stabilization how do you
stabilize research on "everything"?
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Empirical stabiization entities vs.
processes? In biology, all "entities" are
temporary they are maintained by particular
reproductive cycles. The maintenance of such
cycles is a dynamic question the fabric of
life that constitutes the biosphere of Earth is
maintained by the interactive reproductive
dynamics of zillions of micro-organisms (the
biospheric dependence!)? The genealogical
heritage of ecology the science has built up a
dichotomy ecosystem ecology vs. population and
community ecology
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Biodiversity cuts through this dichotomy, in
conceptual terms entities make up the patterns
of heterogeneity and variability that we observe
and call biodiversity, but reproductive cycles
are needed to maintain them. Two specific
challenges (1) Is biodiversity significant for
ecosystem functions? (2) Does the dynamic nature
of ecological systems matter for conservation?
-- (1) yes, by and large but precisely?? --
(2) yes In process terms, biodiversity is a
pervasive characteristic of life. However, life
on Earth is not a single, all-encompassing,
dynamically unified system but rather a complex
of reproductive cycles. In practice, the
centrality of reproductive process means that if
the conditions are right, biodiversity will take
care of itself.
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When are conditions right? The problem of
dynamically relevant indicators and
surrogates!! Endangered species? Remember the
symbolic significance of extinction extinction
threat!! - Umbrella species?? - Companion
species that pave the way for dynamic
conservation?? -- The Flying Squirrel,
potentially. Mapping with multivariate
statistics the environmental space on the
regional scale (Mike Austin et al., 1984 etc.)?
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Dynamic conservation policy
Conservation is aimed at a moving target
whenever it succeeds, the situation changes --
whatever the target (whether it is a species or
habitat type)? A reasonable aim is to get
human-induced environmental changes to match
critical dynamics of the habitat requirements of
the target species or environmental
type Surrogates that can be used are necessarily
culture/nature hybrids nature already modified
by human actions Knowledge practices knowmedge
communities -- companionship