Historical overview Flashcards
Proto-conservation phase
XIX century - Biologists become aware of the impact of humans during the industrial revolution.
George P. Marsh → progressive man, he wrote Man and Nature, was a traveler and good observer of nature. He realized that nature was changing due to human impacts.
Many others like him, for example Aldo Leopold, who wrote The Land Ethics → a call for moral responsibility to the natural world. At its core, the idea of a land ethic is simply caring: about people, about land, and about strengthening the relationships between them.
Progressive era
Before WWII - Conservation becomes institutionalized and policies are set in place especially on forestry, water and soil conservation.
Natural resources are managed in order to avoid exploitation.
The need for coexistence of human and wildlife becomes important
The recreational value of nature is recognized through outdoor activities like fishing, camping, eco-tourism.
From conservation to environmentalis
After WWII - Global scale conservation issues arise: human population growth, air and water pollution, overexploitation of resources, climate change.
In 1948 → the IUCN was founded with the ambitious goal of preserving «the entire world biotic environment». The International Union for Conservation of Nature → classifies species according to their extinction rate.
In 1962 → Silent Spring from Rachel Carson → concerned with the impacts of DDT on the environment.
Starting from 1987 → the idea of biodiversity and sustainability really came to the forefront.
Philosophical views on ecosystem
Anthropocentrism → human beings are superior to all other organisms.
Biocentrism → greater importance on the living components of the environment.
Ecocentrism → places importance on the ecosystem as a whole.
Natura 2000
Habitat Directive in Europe→ an example of biocentric/ecocentric view, a policy entirely based on Conservation Biology principles. Stretching over 18% of the EU’s land area and more than 8% of its marine territory, Natura 2000 is the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world. It offers a haven to Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats.
Emerging themes in Conservation Biology
Greater collaboration among natural and social sciences to build connections with humanities, economics and arts.
Focus on the resilience of coupled human and natural systems and the recognition of ecosystem services as a mean of encouraging practices that enhance such resilience
The need to integrate natural science, cultural traditions and social relationships in the effort of protect and restore particular places
Connection between humans and nature
Alienation → a deep gap between man and nature due to industrial revolution, urbanization…
Reconciliation → connectedness refers to the extent to which an individual includes nature within his/her cognitive representation of self.
The quality of human life would decrease without nature.
The Savannah Hypothesis
By Orians in 1980 → argues that selection favored resource-rich environments, whereas environments lacking resources or with survival threats have been avoided. Such environments offered the essential landscape characteristics for survival of the early humans; the availability of resources, protection against predators, the possibility of orientation and overview in space are central requirements for a landscape that ensures the survival of early humans.
Innate behavior in human to chose the right habitat for survival.
Human ethology
The study of human behavior. It studies and describes human behavior to discover innate features that are independent of culture.
Innate behaviors in humans
Smiling, parental care, courtship, but also habitat selection for optimal place in which to live → savannah hypothesis.
Gestalt perception → to perceive shapes is innate.
Innate patterns are more visible in children because they are not influenced by culture/experiences yet.
Link between human wellbeing and nature
Many papers came out about the interrelation between biodiversity and human health → one of them argues that ancestral experiences and evolutionary processes continue to influence the brain in ways that may escape conscious awareness by contemporary adults. It is becoming increasingly evident that the 2.2 million years our genus has spent in natural environments are consequential to modern mental health. This might be especially true in the context of rapid global urbanization, loss of biodiversity, and environmental degradation.
The contact with biodiversity happens through exposure and experience, having a complex set of consequences leading to the whole status of health and wellbeing.
According to many, mental health is positively related with species richness of birds and plants. There is an important aesthetic component in these studies, linked to perception. “As a cultural ecosystem service, the aesthetic value of landscapes contributes to human well-being, but studies linking biodiversity and ecosystem services generally do not account for this particular service. Therefore, congruence between the aesthetic perception of landscapes, ecological value and biodiversity remains poorly understood.
Diversity index
Quantitative measure that reflects how many different types (such as species) there are in a dataset (a community), and that can simultaneously take into account the phylogenetic relations among the individuals distributed among those types, such as richness, divergence or evenness.[1] These indices are statistical representations of biodiversity in different aspects (richness, evenness, and dominance).
Wildness vs wilderness
Wild is the opposite of domesticated (the process through which smth gets dependent on humans). Wilderness is an area with wild components.
Wilderness is “self-willed” land.
Wildness is the basic ability of anything living to renew itself.
Gibson’s Affordance theory
He introduced the concept of affordances to describe the relationships that exist between organisms and their environments. Affordance is what the environment offers the individual → Gibson presented the concept as “the affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill (…) I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.” (1979)
