Macroevolution pp 377-403 | Cite as

Facing the Big Sixth: From Prioritizing Species to Conserving Biodiversity

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Interdisciplinary Evolution Research book series (IDER, volume 2)

Abstract

This chapter deals with biodiversity conservation efforts aimed at facing “the Big Sixth”—the new mass extinction we could be entering, the first one involving our own species as a primary cause. Following Michael Soulé (1985), we characterize conservation biology as a form of biodiversity surgery and illustrate the main difficulties that this very special kind of surgery has to meet. First of all, we briefly discuss the difficulties that arise in declaring the extinction of a species. We then focus on three challenges that facing extinction requires to take up: How to prioritize species; which conservation targets to focus on; and how to ethically justify species conservation. As we show, matters are complicated by the fact that although species continue to play a central role in policies aimed at preserving the variety of life, biodiversity is not just a matter of species preservation. Finally, based on the analysis of such challenges, we compare two legislations currently in force, namely the Endangered Species Act (the primary legislation providing federal legal protection to endangered species in the United States) and the Habitats Directive (which, together with the Birds Directive, forms the cornerstone of the European Union’s nature conservation policy). We conclude that neither legislation is fully adequate for biodiversity conservation: The Endangered Species Act was not designed to preserve habitats, which constitute the higher level of biodiversity, and the Habitats Directive misses the objective of preserving genes, which constitute the lower level of biodiversity and thereby the evolutionary potential of populations. We therefore suggest that reforms are needed both in North American and European biodiversity conservation policies.

Keywords

Conservation biology Endangered Species Act Evolutionary potential Habitat Directive Natura 2000 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.CFCUL, Centre for Philosophy of ScienceUniversity of LisbonLisbonPortugal
  2. 2.LabOnt, Laboratory for OntologyUniversity of TurinTurinItaly
  3. 3.Department of Plant Biology and Center for Biodiversity, Functional and Integrative Genomics, Faculty of SciencesUniversity of LisbonLisbonPortugal

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