Conservation Goals and Species Preservation: Uncertainty and Multiple Values

摘要

The author argues that species preservation should be deemphasized as an ecosystem management goal, due to its infeasibility in the context of rapid ecological change under plausible scenarios of global climate change. I argue that for neither reservation-based nor relocation-based strategies do the author's arguments necessarily hold. Decisions about locating conservation areas and potentially managing population relocations will be made under significant uncertainty and in the presence of multiple values. The paper discusses the uncertainty associated with species distribution models and the question of whether conserving biodiversity in general and maintaining ecosystem services may, in some cases, depend strongly on species preservation goals. In the case of managed relocation, the author focuses on values that are destroyed by human intervention. However, I argue that these are not the only values at stake in these decisions, and that values of biocultural affiliation with particular species may play an important role in managed relocations.