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Conservation Biology

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DOI: 10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee125

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 1

Conservation Biology
Mark Sagoff
In an influential article published in 1985, biologist Michael Soulé announced
the emergence of a new biological science, conservation biology (hereafter “CB”),
which differed from other applied biological sciences such as forestry, fisheries,
and wildlife management. These traditional disciplines address problems
associated with individual species and the use of particular natural resources, for
example sustainable yields. In contrast, CB “tends to be holistic,” Soulé wrote,
and embraces normative postulates “that make up the basis of an ethic of appro-
priate attitudes toward other forms of life.” These postulates state: (1) “Diversity
of organisms is good”; (2)  “Ecological complexity is good”; (3) “Evolution is
good”; and (4) “Biotic diversity has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instru-
mental or utilitarian value.” The mission of the Society for Conservation
Biology,  founded in 1986 and now with over 10,000 members, is “To advance
the  science  and practice of conserving the Earth’s biological diversity” (see
evolution, ethics and).
This essay has five parts. The first presents in general terms the overall thesis of
conservation biology and describes its commitment to biodiversity as an organizing
principle. The second section discusses the reasons to consider biodiversity valuable.
The third section examines problems conservation biologists confront in maintaining
a “holistic” view of natural communities and ecosystems against skeptical arguments
and contrary evidence. The fourth section explores a debate among conservation
biologists concerning the extent to which they should espouse instrumental and
economic as contrasted with intrinsic and ethical rationales for the conservation of
biodiversity. Finally, this essay opines on the role of conservation biology at a time of
climate change.

An Overview
Before the 1980s, conservation science focused on the protection of particular
endangered species, wilderness areas, and natural resources. In contrast, “Conserva-
tion biology was born as one response of the scientific community to the current
massive environmental changes occurring on Earth. Its main tasks are to provide the
intellectual and technical tools to enable society to anticipate, prevent, and reduce
ecological damage” (Orians and Soulé 2001). According to several biologists,
“Conservation biology emerged in the mid-1980s, drawing on established disciplines
and integrating them in pursuit of a coherent goal: the protection and perpetuation
of the Earth’s biological diversity” (Meine et al. 2006).

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 1055–1064.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee125
2

What is biological diversity or biodiversity? In simplest terms, it refers to species

richness and relative species abundance. “Species richness is simply the total number
of species in a defined space at a given time, and relative species abundance refers to
their commonness or rarity” (Hubbell 2001). Even this narrow definition of
“biodiversity,” however, invites questions, for example concerning the definition of
the concept species, the importance of intraspecific variation, the ontological relation
of individual creatures to a class or kind, and how far one descends into microbiol-
ogy, all of which have inspired spirited debates among biologists and philosophers
(see environmental ethics; deep ecology).
Questions also beset the relationship between biodiversity and (1) nonnative
species (which add significantly to species richness in many places) and (2) human-
made species, i.e., those produced by breeding, genetic engineering, or synthetic
biology (which could be unlimited). Many conservationists contend that an idea of
natural history constrains the concept of biodiversity; otherwise biodiversity could
be manufactured like any commodity. Angermeier (1994) has observed: “Through
genetic engineering, species introduction, and environmental modification, we
could conceivably manufacture a world even more biologically variable and ‘diverse’
than that derived through evolutionary processes. Moreover, none of that variety
need consist of native elements or share any evolutionary history.”
In part to avoid these puzzles, conservation biologists generally define “biodiver-
sity” in terms of evolutionary history apart from human influence. Sala et al. (2000)
have written: “Our definition excludes exotic organisms that have been introduced.”
Conservation biologists also expand the concept of biodiversity well beyond species
richness and abundance to include the variety of life at all levels of organization.
A CB textbook defines biodiversity to refer to the “variation of life at all levels of
biological organization” (Gaston and Spicer 2004). The 1992 UN Convention on
Biological Diversity defines “biodiversity” as “the variability among living organisms
from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic systems
and the ecological complexes of which they are parts; this includes diversity within
species, between species and of ecosystems.” The idea of biodiversity may be
coextensive with that of the natural world, its variety in both elements and levels of
organization, insofar as it follows its spontaneous course and is unaffected by human
activity (Takacs 1996).
As Maclaurin and Sterelny (2008) pointed out, “the concept of biodiversity was
coined at the intersection of science, applied science, and politics.” Biologists are
unlikely to agree on a single method to measure biodiversity across ecosystems
because the living world is diverse in so many ways and along so many dimensions.
Sarkar (2005) argues that “biodiversity” has come to mean everything in the living
world apart from humanity and therefore that the concept cannot be distinguished
from biology in general. Biodiversity may refer to whatever in the natural world is
valued in a particular context. On the other hand, the term “biodiversity” may signal
the vast amount we do not know about other forms of life and our dependence
on them.
 3

The Value of Biodiversity

If biodiversity comprises everything – or at least everything in and about the living
world – it may be odd to ask why it is valuable. One can ask, however, about the
different senses in which a particular organism or ecosystem has value. Soulé distin-
guished between intrinsic and instrumental value when he wrote, “Biotic diversity
has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value.” In the context
of CB, both kinds of value – intrinsic and instrumental – are understood in various
ways (see intrinsic value).
There are conservationists and ethicists – Holmes Rolston (1989) is an example –
who argue that a natural object may have value even if there is no one to value it.
Many others would agree with Immanuel Kant that only rational agents are morally
considerable in a sense that is independent of human belief, commitment, judgment,
or desire. Baird Callicott (1989) is a leading example of those who concede (1) that
human beliefs, interests, judgments, and desires may be the source of value but deny
(2) that they always are or must be the locus of value. According to this view, natural
objects have value only in relation to the rational beings who value them. These
rational beings, however, may appreciate these objects because of qualities in them
that engender and are worthy of reverence or respect.
Conservationists then may see the difference between intrinsic and instrumental
value as lying between two ways we appreciate biodiversity – (1) as an object of our
love, reverence, appreciation, and respect; (2) as a means to satisfy our preferences
or desires (see economics and ethics). The aesthetic judgment and ethical appre-
ciation of the properties of the natural world may be inherently good experiences
and may deepen or transform our lives. Instrumental value, in contrast, would
concern the uses we make of natural objects rather than the reasons we respect or
appreciate these objects “in themselves.”
What is it about biodiversity that gives it intrinsic value? One possibility is that it
has “negative” value; in other words, nature is valuable to the extent that it is
characterized by the absence of anthropogenic influence and is thus free from the
corruption, contamination, or taint associated with human beings. An area would
then have “natural” value insofar as it exemplifies nature’s spontaneous course; it
would be “damaged” insofar as it exhibits anthropogenic effects. “The ecosystem
concept typically considers human activities as external disturbances,” ecologist
R.  V.  O’Neill (2001) has written. If so, the mission of CB would depend on “our
ability to distinguish between natural and human-induced variability in biological
condition” (Karr and Chu 1999). Value is “accorded to ecological systems in propor-
tion to the perceived absence of anthropogenic influences” (Miller and Hobbs 2002).
Instrumental value comprises all the uses to which we may put biodiversity for
our own advantage, welfare, or security. Following classical economists in the
tradition of Adam Smith, it is customary to distinguish between “value in use” and
“value in exchange.” The former refers to the utility or benefit a good provides, the
latter to the price it commands in a competitive market. A glass of water may have
immense value in use to a thirsty person, even if he pays nothing for it; water
4

however needed and necessary may command a very small price if it is plentiful. If
nature provides certain goods or services in immense amounts, it may have infinite
value in use, but because there is no scarcity, it may have little value “at the margin”
or in exchange. To discuss the instrumental value of biodiversity, then, may be to
alternate between (1) our dependency on the rest of the living world (which is
total) and (2) the scarcity of or threat to particular aspects of it, which then must be
specified (see well-being). These two ways of construing the instrumental value
of biodiversity affect our ways of understanding “ecosystem services,” discussed
below.

Self-Organizing Ecosystems
Conservation biologists use a variety of normative concepts to refer to what they
believe is the locus of value; these concepts include sustainability, complexity,
community, ecosystem structure and function, and ecosystem integrity and health.
These terms, which convey a sense of the flourishing of natural areas, represent
conceptual constructs or theoretical objects or properties CB postulates in its role as
a new synthetic and integrated kind of biological knowledge. There is nothing
unusual about a science positing theoretical constructs – even emergent properties –
as ways to organize and advance knowledge. For CB, concepts of ecological com-
plexity, community, and organization help us to describe and understand the natural
world and also to identify what is valuable about nature or biodiversity and therefore
what is to be conserved. These emergent properties resist definition, however, and
may not be explicable or testable in strictly biological terms.
Conservation biologists often point to the organization of ecological communities
and systems as the object of value and the subject of conservation and protection.
Conservation biologists “emphasize the importance of natural ecosystems”
(Angermeier 2000). According to Kay and Schneider (1995), “We must always
remember that left alone, living systems are self-organizing; that is, they will look
after themselves. Our responsibility is not to interfere with this self-organizing
process.” Many biologists and other critics, however, question the idea that a self-
organizing process can be found in nature at any level other than the organism.
Environmental historian Donald Worster has summarized this skeptical view:
“Nature should be regarded as a landscape of patches, big and little, patches of all
textures and colors, a patchwork quilt of living things, changing continually through
time and space, responding to an unceasing barrage of perturbations. The stitches in
that quilt never hold for long” (Worster 1994; cf. Botkin 1990).
Conservation biologists espouse a “holistic” view, according to which any natural
ecosystem possesses a structure and a function that is greater than the properties of
its parts. Ecosystems are organized entities with emergent properties. The goal of CB
is to maintain “a balanced, integrated, adaptive, community of organisms having
species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of
natural habitats of the region” (Karr and Dudley 1981).
 5

The “holistic” view stretches back at least to the ecologist Frederic Clements, who
early in the twentieth century argued, as ecologist Michael Barbour (1995) has
written, “that groups of species living together in a given habitat were highly
organized into natural units called communities.” Conservation biologists
Christensen and Franklin (1997) summarized, “we may liken ecosystem function-
ing to the processes that comprise physiological functioning in an organism. These
functions are the basis for sustained provision of ‘goods’ and ‘services’ upon which
humans depend” (see public goods). Conservationists may speak of the “health” of
the ecosystem. “The physician’s task is to evaluate and maintain healthy functioning
of an individual; the environmental manager’s, to evaluate and maintain healthy
functioning of an ecosystem” (De Leo and Levin 1997).
An opposing perspective in ecology stretches back at least to the American ecologist
Henry Gleason, who early in the twentieth century argued that what Clements called
communities are only collections. The “community” is a construct unrelated to reality.
According to Barbour (1995), Gleason held that what conservationists may see as
organized “associations are not real, natural units; they are merely artifacts and human
constructs or abstractions. Groups … of co-occurring species are not interdependent.
Rather, each species spreads out as an independent entity … and according to its way
of relating both to the physical environment and to other species.”
Today, controversy persists “over the extent to which communities are coevolved,
integrated complexes as opposed to simply those species found together in one place
at one time” (Simberloff 2010). Biologists in the Gleasonian tradition believe that
species are “largely thrown together by chance, history, and random dispersal.
Species come and go, their presence or absence is dictated by random dispersal and
stochastic local extinction” (Hubbell 2001). If this is true, it may not be impossible
to distinguish a system from a collection of organisms that happen to occupy a place
at a time. Many biologists believe that there are no “laws” in ecology and thus there
is no basis for understanding how – or even if – ecosystems are organized, i.e., no
consensus about the “rules” that govern them (Lawton 1999).
Much of CB can be described as research on the structure and function of
ecological communities and on the adaptive processes that maintain their health,
sustainability, and integrity. This mission presupposes the existence of ecological
communities as continuous functional wholes that “take care of themselves.”
If  nature is not organized into communities, however, it may have no emergent
properties, such as “health” or “integrity,” for CB to protect or to study.
According to two ecologists, there is no empirical evidence of “an ontological
emergence of a community level of biotic organization.” Any appearance of
organization or constancy at the system or community level “is a biological epiphe-
nomenon, a statistical abstraction, a descriptive convention without true emergent
properties but only collective ones, wholly referable in its properties to those of its
constituent species, populations, and individuals” (Gilbert and Owen 1990). William
Drury (1998) in his study of forests found no emergent properties or governing
rules that unified them: “I feel that ecosystems are largely extemporaneous and that
most species (in what we often call a community) are superfluous to the operation
6

of those sets of species between which we can clearly identify important

interactions. … Once seen, most of the interactions are simple and direct. Complexity
seems to be a figment of our imaginations driven by taking the ‘holistic’ view.”

The Economic Value of Biodiversity

Conservation biologists attribute intrinsic value to ecological communities, pointing
for example to biodiversity “hotspots,” which comprise “regions with unusually high
concentrations of endemic species (species that are found nowhere else on Earth) that
also have suffered severe habitat destruction” (Kareiva and Marvier 2003). The his-
tory, variety, uniqueness, and beauty of tropical forests and other charismatic places
evoke respect and even reverence. By identifying and describing ecological “hotspots”
and other wonderful natural areas, conservation biologists have achieved many suc-
cesses in directing international funding and philanthropy toward protecting uniquely
beautiful places from irreversible loss (see environmental virtue ethics).
To stem further losses of biodiversity, conservation biologists have urged their
colleagues to emphasize the economic or instrumental values of natural ecosystems
and the species native to them. They point to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(2005) which found that the natural world or “natural capital” provides many eco-
nomically valuable services (see cost–benefit analysis). Daily and co-authors
(2009) explain: “In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize
the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation,
while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have
not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for
incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale.”
Conservation biologists confront a number of problems in establishing economic
values, for example markets or market prices, for the ecological goods or services
nature freely provides. First, the economic usefulness of rare and wonderful species
may be overstated. For example, conservationists urged “that pharmaceutical and
other commercial applications of biodiversity should help justify its conservation”
(Reid et al. 1993). Hopes placed in “bioprospecting” were disappointed.
Pharmaceutical companies generally develop drugs based on molecules they con-
struct using new techniques such as genetic engineering and synthetic biology,
rather than by screening natural biodiversity. Experts in drug discovery caution that
“The idea of exploiting the rain forests to find wonderful drugs is, quite frankly, not
credible” (Macilwain 1998; see also Eisner 2003). Many developing countries, how-
ever, regard bioprospecting as a credible opportunity and as a result exclude ecolo-
gists from exploring wild areas. “Increasingly, scientists hoping to collect specimens
in developing countries rich in flora and fauna are being met with major bureau-
cratic barriers. Local governments are afraid that their biological riches will be sto-
len without compensation” (Russo 2003).
While ecosystem services as a general matter are essential to life, those people
who use these services – for example people who farm, fish, timber, or otherwise
depend on natural resources – generally have a good sense of the stocks or flows of
 7

the natural capital on which they rely and, even when property rights are absent,
often work out successful regimes to manage them (Ostrom et al. 2010; see
intergenerational ethics). The economic value of these goods may be more like
market prices, which are sensitive to changing tastes, technologies, and many other
market conditions, than like ecological constants. If “ecosystem services” are valued
like other economic commodities, their value in exchange or competitive market
prices may be quite low, if they are plentiful relative to demand, and could constantly
change with the vagaries of market conditions.
Conservation biologists express concern that they have not been able to “deliver”
more than platitudes about the human dependence on nature’s services (Daily et al.
2009). It is true that the “value in use” of biodiversity is infinite; none of us could
survive if no other forms of life existed. For this reason, many conservationists work
with philanthropic and governmental agencies to develop market approaches to
protecting ecological goods on which we rely or which have value markets do not
recognize (see, for example, www.katoombagroup.org/).
Conservation biologists may direct their economic argument about nature’s
services not primarily at farmers, foresters, and others who know their worth, but to
policymakers who may be in a position to protect the natural world at a broader
scale. The problem that policymakers face, however, has often less to do with under-
standing how to assign economic values than with identifying and responding to
political constituencies. A group of ecological economists has wisely written that the
real test “of whether an ecosystem service will facilitate conservation is not whether
academics can valuate it, but whether someone – or some organization – is able and
willing to do what is necessary to secure it” (Kai et al. 2007).
In the literature of CB, the appeal to economic arguments has stirred a lively con-
troversy. On the one side, biologists argue that this appeal, whatever its intellectual
merits, is politically necessary. “Put bluntly, will we achieve greater conservation
success by protecting nature for its own sake or for our own sake?” these biologists
have written (Armsworth et al. 2007). On the other side, conservationists contend
that an instrumental morality leads to the destruction of the natural world. Economic
reasons, indeed, often encourage us to develop rather than to protect nature – to
dam a river, plant a field, or splice a genome. According to biologist Douglas J.
McCauley (2006), “We must act quickly to redirect much of the effort now being
devoted to the commodification of nature back towards instilling a love for nature in
more people” (see commodification).

Climate Change
In an influential book science writer Bill McKibben (1989) pronounced “the end of
Nature” in the sense of areas left free of human influence. He argued that human
interference with biospheric systems by changing the climate leaves nothing in its
natural condition. Many biologists agree. “Ecology is a discipline with a time limit,
because much of what we study,” a group of ecologists has observed, “is fast
disappearing.” They lament, “Now all field research is done in systems altered by
8

Homo sapiens, and the degree of disturbance is increasing rapidly virtually

everywhere” (Bazzaz et al. 1998).
If nothing is “natural” what do conservationists seek to protect? Consider endemic
species in tropical areas. Should conservation biologists participate in the assisted
migration of these species in anticipation of climate change (McLachlan et al. 2007)?
When the habitat of a species of butterfly, for example, no longer supports its popula-
tion, conservationists may have the option of relocating the species to a hospitable
place outside its native range. To assist the migration of a species may be to choose to
maintain biodiversity at the expense of natural history. As Alejandro Camacho has
explained, “We’re saying now that to serve biodiversity, we might want to move away
from preservation” (quoted in Marris 2008). Conservation biologists confront the
same contradiction whenever they rely on human intervention to restore species in
situ or off site in seed banks or zoological gardens. After a while, there may be little
difference between a restoration and a museum (see ecological restoration).
Conservationists must choose whether to leave natural places to take care of them-
selves and thus let them change radically under human pressure, or, by taking care of
them, turn them into laboratories or outdoor museums preserved in the amber of
scientific concepts and theories about how nature ought to be and would be but for us.
Michael Soulé (1985) summed up the normative postulates of CB by stating:
“These postulates express a preference for nature over artifice.” Conservation bio-
logists debate the extent to which human action is required to keep natural systems
functioning. If artifice is required to preserve or restore nature, how is nature differ-
ent from artifice? Soulé notes: “Long-term viability of natural communities usually
implies the persistence of diversity, with little or no help from humans.” Yet human
activity at an ever-increasing scale will be necessary to keep ecological communities
from evolving and altering in response to climate change, introduced species, and
other anthropogenic effects. Conservationists do not see themselves as curators or
as creators. The challenge for CB is to develop an ecological art that can hide or
conceal itself – an art of preserving or restoring natural areas without turning them
into carefully tended arboretums. The discipline of CB provides a rich, profound,
and exciting discussion and practice of how this may be done.

See also: commodification; cost–benefit analysis; deep ecology;

ecological restoration; economics and ethics; environmental ethics;
environmental virtue ethics; evolution, ethics and; intergenerational
ethics; intrinsic value; public goods; well-being

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 9

Armsworth, P. R. et al. 2007. “Ecosystem Service Science and the Way Forward for
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Karr, J. R., and D. R. Dudley 1981. “Ecological Perspectives on Water Quality Goals,”
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Karr, James, and Ellen W. Chu 1999. Restoring Life in Running Waters: Better Biological
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Kay, J., and E. D. Schneider 1995. “Embracing Complexity: The Challenge of the Ecosystem
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 10

Maclaurin, James, and Kim Sterelny 2008. What Is Biodiversity? Chicago: University of
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FURTHER READINGS
Groom, Martha, Gary Meffe, and C. Ronald Carroll 2005. Principles of Conservation Biology,
3rd ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
Soulé, M. E. 1995. “The Social Siege of Nature,” in Michael Soulé and Gary Lease (eds.),
Reinventing Nature: Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction. Washington, DC: Island
Press.
Van Dyke, Fred 2008. Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications. New York:
Springer.

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