🚀 go-pugleaf

I have to wade in on this. Maybe we're splitting hairs in definitions of
preservation and conservation. But, while though research and management
activities we work to 'conserve' biodiversity or whatever (as defined
below), I hope our actual 'goal' is to preserve (e.g., to maintain alive and
healthy, keep safe, etc.) as much as is possible.
Ed



At 05:41 PM 1/22/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Grant Gerrish touched on another point of debate when he stated that the " goal
>of conservation biology is to preserve"  I would disagree ( I believe many
>applied ecologists would also).  The goals of conservation biology are not to
>PRESERVE but to CONSERVE biodiversity (or what ever you chooose to call it).  I
>believe there is a key distiction.  Preservation is perhaps a unrealistic ideal
>in which biodiversity is protected from any impact (i.e not to be used by
>humans, particularly for resources).  While conservation strives to
maintain and
>manage biodiversity for many uses (i.e. Recreation, Hunting/fishing, Timber
>extraction, and wildlife protection).  Do I belong to the norm in this view.
>--
>
>===============================================================================
>Steven Vieira
>Dept. of Zoology
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing  MI  48824
>Email: vieirast@pilot.msu.edu
>Office: 517-353-4575
>Home:  517-484-8198
>
>"We end...at what might be called the standard paradox of the 20th century: Our
>tools are better than we are, and grow better than we do.  They suffice to
>crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice for the oldest
>task in human history to live on a piece of land with out spoiling it"
>
>                                                    -Aldo Leopold
>
>
Edward Proffitt
Associate Professor and Director
Louisiana Environmental Research Center
McNeese State University
P.O. 90220
Lake Charles, LA 70609-0220
(318) 475-3062
proffitt@acc.mcneese.edu