Chapter Synthesis

The trends apparent in conservation biology form a series of emerging and fascinating paradoxes. To save species, conservation biologists must become increasingly rigorous in experimental design to analyze correctly the causes of endangerment and decline. But, in so doing, conservation biologists must become increasingly sophisticated in their understanding and analyses of conservation values in order to determine what problems to solve and how to apply the solutions toward appropriate management objectives. The second paradox is that the success and growth of conservation biology as a discipline, manifested in the proliferation of graduate programs, the stature and respect of its journals, and the increase in its membership and funding, are forces that can alter the unique characteristics that inspired such success and can change the discipline's mission, goals, and engagement with social outcomes. The third paradox is that, even as social, political, and economic conditions are developing to create more pervasive, widely supported conservation efforts that reach beyond the professional community of scientists and managers, conservation biologists are debating whether to reduce their commitments to the normative values that have created this climate of support, and adopt a more familiar, traditional stance of "scientific objectivity" that defines their role solely as providers of information, not as informed advocates for correct conservation action.

Perhaps the most interesting paradox of all is that those engaged in studying conservation biology today must make choices in the present on the basis of assessments of an uncertain future. This last paradox is not new or unique. In every discipline, students are trained to deal with a professional world that may have changed radically by the time they enter it. Science requires a long apprenticeship. Students cannot afford to take the "catalog knows best" approach when choosing the courses that define their undergraduate education. The requirements for their major may be well designed, or not. Their curriculum may define almost everything, leaving little room for elective choice. Or it may define almost nothing, leaving the choices to the student, along with the responsibility for their outcome.

This chapter has taken the risk of offering some prescriptions and predictions because conservation is performed by conservationists, not by words in a textbook that magically assemble themselves into correct conservation actions. Predictions are necessary because the future must be considered, along with the past, to act wisely in the present. I encourage all students of conservation biology to consider what the future may hold for themselves and their discipline. We make the future every day by every daily choice, and our choices reflect our commitments to what we truly value. Personally, it is my belief that if conservation biologists disguise, or worse, grow hostile toward or ashamed of their field's historic normative commitment to preserve biodiversity, they will in time forget it. Then they will have their reward—a morally eviscerated, uninspired discipline of biological application indistinguishable from its predecessors.

Reflection upon a profession's normative values is an inherent, healthy element of scientific objectivity. It advises us of our own mission and perspective, so that we may articulate it to others rather than presume they should support it because we say so. Such reflection takes appropriate account of the social nature of scientific knowledge. If reflection on value and mission is lacking, then conservation biology will become "intellectually and functionally sterile and incapable of averting an anthropogenic mass extinction" (Barry and Oelschlaeger 1996).

In practice, conservation biology is inescapably normative. Otherwise, it ceases to be conservation. Fortunately, most conservation biologists practice and articulate conservation as if that were the case, whatever philosophical position they claim to defend. Thus, no less than 42 of the field's most eminent professionals agreed that "the goal of conservation should be to secure present and future options by maintaining biological diversity at genetic, species, population and ecosystem levels; as a general rule neither the resource nor other components of the ecosystem should be perturbed beyond natural boundaries of variation" (Mangel et al. 1996, emphasis mine). This appears to be a blatantly normative statement about a desired outcome, not simply an aspiration for a better understanding of why species decline and disappear. It is my hope that the coming generation of conservation biologists will clearly articulate and affirm the historic values and mission that birthed their discipline. Their decisions on such matters will shape the professional environment in which they will have to live and work. In defining what we value, we define what we shall be, professionally and personally.

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