This chapter examines some of the ways in which organizations approach natural resource management and administrative issues. The terms “preservation” and “conservation” are often used interchangeably, but really have very different meanings. Preservation can be defined as the protection of resources, whether they are land, species, specific genotypes, landscapes or some other factor. In contrast to preservation, conservation implies active management of natural resources and has replaced strict preservation as the more common natural resources activity. Biodiversity was the one of the first primary objectives laid out for conservation. This has been followed by concepts such as sustainability and ecosystem resilience. Adaptive management has become an important way of systematically evaluating conservation implementation as it is occurring.

Keywords

Preservation; conservation; biodiversity; multiple use; sustained yield; conservation biology; conservation science; sustainability; ecosystem services; ecosystem resilience; ecosystem resistance; adaptive management

Terms to Know

Introduction

Suppose we develop a scenario where you are the head of a natural resource agency. A wealthy business person has donated a 5000-acre (~2025 ha) tract of land to your agency. After taking an inventory of the property, you have a few questions that need to be addressed. What are you going to do with this property? Does it contain a rare, fragile type of habitat or a species of concern to make you want to preserve the land? If you decide to manage it, what are your conservation goals going to be? Will you try to maximize the number of species on it, try to enhance its sustainability, increase its resilience, or do you have other goals for it? Once you have carried out your conservation plan, how will you evaluate if the plan was effective? Will you just assume that it was effective, or will you establish some mileposts and criteria to determine objectively if the plan was successful? All of these are real issues that natural resource managers and their administrations encounter on a regular basis. This chapter examines some of the ways in which organizations approach these natural resource management and administrative issues.

Preservation and Conservation

These two terms are often used interchangeably but really have very different meanings. Preservation can be defined as the protection of resources, whether they are land, species, specific genotypes, landscapes or some other factor. Preservation involves little to no direct management – not quite an entirely “hands off” approach, but close. If preservation is associated with land, access to the area is often restricted to reduce human disturbance. If it is a rare species, access to its habitat may be similarly restricted or an agency may decide to reduce disturbance as much as possible, or the species may be so rare that it will either have to have special protection or be relocated entirely to captivity until enough information is obtained about its ecological needs that it can be restored to the wild.

Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus), also known as the milu (Figure 1.1), for example, is native to China but became extinct in the wild over 1000 years ago.1 For centuries a small population was maintained in the Nanyuang Royal Hunting Garden in Nan Haizi, near Beijing. A small group of these deer had been smuggled out of China and brought to Europe during the 1800s. During the Boxer Rebellion of the late 19th century the deer at Nanyuang were slaughtered for meat, and the species would have become extinct had those animals not been transported to Europe. In 1985 a few animals from the European group were used to redevelop a Chinese population at Beijing Milu Park, the site of the old Nanyuang Gardens. A few years later a second population was established at Dafeng Nature Reserve.2 In 1993, and again in 2002, some deer from both parks were released into Nature Preserves in China. After more than 1000 years, the species was back in the wild, although still heavily protected. During all this time the species was being preserved, because very little active management was occurring. Arguably, moving some deer into the Nature Preserves might be interpreted as conservation, but the activity was minimal.

A second example of a more local species that requires special preservation is the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). This bird is a large scavenger of southern California, with a body weight of 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and wing span of up to 9.5 feet (2.9 meters). The species is ancient, with fossil evidence going back at least 100,000 years to the mid-Pleistocene epoch. At one time California condors occupied the western seaboard states, Baja, British Columbia, Texas and New Mexico, and had populations in Florida and the Northeast.3,4 The species declined precipitously with the extinction of large mammals during the late Pleistocene.

In recent times condors were shot and poisoned as vermin, and fell victim to secondary toxicity from lead bullets in deer, wild pigs, and antelope left by hunters. In addition, museum officials collected eggs from nests so as to have remnants of a vanishing species. Lead shot poisoning was the principal culprit in recent declines of the species.5 Condors also have low fecundity, which does not help their recovery. They mature at five to seven years, lay only a single egg, and typically breed every other year, although sometimes they may breed in consecutive years. Adults in the wild may live 40 years or more, and the oldest one in captivity was 71 years old when it died.6 In 1982 only 22 birds existed in the wild, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided to bring all surviving birds into captivity until they could determine what to do with the species. By 1987, there were no condors left in the wild.3 This is the preservation portion of the actions taken to save the species. However, the story also involves conservation, in that many of the Condor pairs reproduced and biologists would hand-rear hatchlings (Figure 1.2). After eight years in captivity the population had grown sufficiently to allow limited releases. Over the years, condors have been released and monitored in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. These released birds are considered experimental and therefore expendable. Other management activities included training condors that are to be released to avoid electrical lines, and passing a law that forbids the use of lead ammunition in condor release sites. Today there are about 300 condors in existence, with around 70 free-flying in the West.7

Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of various sizes strive to protect and preserve unusual habitats from development. Small NGOs include Green Earth Inc., in southern Illinois,8 which owns six small tracts of woodland and bottomlands totaling 220 acres (89 ha) in a semi-urban environment. These small preservationist groups often have a knack for finding isolated gems of nature in otherwise developed areas, and protecting them from destruction (Figure 1.3). Much larger organizations can protect natural areas of international importance. For example, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund have combined their resources to protect, among other areas, a 150,000-acre (60,702 ha) Valdivian Coastal Reserve in Chile that houses ancient coastal forests and a multitude of wildlife9 (Figure 1.4). In the United States and Canada national parks, monuments and wilderness areas practice the concept of preservation while still allowing people to visit these areas, even though visitor activities may strongly influence the pristine quality of these parks.10,11