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Published online 7 November 2007 | Nature 450, 152-155 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450152a
News Feature
Conservation priorities: What to let go
Not all species can be saved from extinction. Emma Marris talks to conservation biologists about prioritization and triage.
Richard Cowling was playing with maps of South Africa on a computer screen when he had his epiphany. He was designing a conservation plan for the Cape Floristic Region, or fynbos, an arid landscape of shrubs and flowers that contains some 9,000 species, many unique to the area.
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If a species is already rare and endangered then surely the consequences of its rarity are already apparent, giving us an idea of the likely consequences of its total extinction. Can rare and endangered species make critical contributions to an ecosystem given that they are rare? Will the ecosystem of polluted chinese rivers really change without the dolphin? Or is the extinction more of a symptom of the pollution and degradation. Is propping up the disappearing species a superficial attonement for polluting the river in the first place? The only possible exception I can see is in bats as pollinators/seed dispersal agents for tropical forests (though as a complete group they are doing fairly well). I personally don't find the conservation of species ethos that convincing. Basic ecological functions are performed by microbes and plants, and weedy plants seem to do the job pretty much as well. It seems to be mostly motivated by human aesthetics and capacity for guilt and nostalgia.
It is disheartening at times to know that academics are more interested in publishing papers on the best know-hows rather that trying to put into practice their theories and present their results and findings. I'm pretty inspired Stuart Pimm's example. I'm living in an affluent Asian society and it made me realise that so much more can be done to preserve the fast disappearing tropical rainforests in surrounding less developed nations. The conservation of species ethos may not be that convincing from a biodiversity-ecosystem point of view but a campaign on 'Saving the panda' will be much more appealing than 'Saving the bamboos'. And like what the author mentioned, who will like to see a whole landscape dominated by weeds, rats and roaches?