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Save the planet: eliminate biodiversity

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Abstract

Recent work in the philosophy of biology has attempted to clarify and defend the use of the biodiversity concept in conservation science. I argue against these views, and give reasons to think that the biodiversity concept is a poor fit for the role we want it to play in conservation biology on both empirical and conceptual grounds. Against pluralists, who hold that biodiversity consists of distinct but correlated properties of natural systems, I argue that the supposed correlations between these properties are not tight enough to warrant treating and measuring them as a bundle. I additionally argue that deflationary theories of biodiversity don’t go far enough, since a large proportion of what we value in the environment falls outside bounds of what could reasonably be called “diversity”. I suggest that in current scientific practice biodiversity is generally an unnecessary placeholder for biological value of all sorts, and that we are better off eliminating it from conservation biology, or at least drastically reducing its role.

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Notes

  1. We might hold that the interests of all sentient animals should bear on our ecological practices as well, but whether or not value is purely anthropocentric is irrelevant to the argument of this paper.

  2. Folke et al. (1996) criticize this focus on place prioritization, arguing that ecological processes occur on too large a scale to be captured by nature preserves. Nevertheless, conservation practice does generally seem to rely on the designation of protected places.

  3. Also, restating “biological diversity” as “biological variety” accomplishes little.

  4. Some of Sarkar's recent writings lend support to understanding him along these lines, e.g. (Sarkar 2012).

  5. Without the loss of anything unique, it seems a stretch to call loss of portion of old growth forest a loss of “diversity,” but it would still be a loss of something valuable. Instances like these reinforce my point that biodiversity is not always a good substitute for biological value.

  6. He means “the fourth.”

  7. While this suggestion is similar to the view in Margules and Sarkar (2007) about the role of convention in conservation biology, there is a notable difference. They propose conventions to settle to content of the biodiversity concept, but the proposals cited here call for negotiations between competing stakeholders. This latter option provides more transparent recognition of value conflicts as well as broader inclusion of values which fall outside the bounds of anything reasonably called biodiversity. These facts recommend the latter approach over biodiversity-focused conventions.

  8. A sample of examples, emphases mine: (note that in each case, evolution is itself considered the end goal of conservation) “Conservation area networks should primarily be seen as holding operations, repositories of biota for evolution to work with in the future” (Margules and Sarkar 2007, 107); “Genetic variability is of particular significance to conservation biology, but only because it's an important contributor to [evolutionary] plasticity” (Maclaurin and Sterelny 2008, 87); an article in Nature (Forest et al. 2007) entitled “Preserving the evolutionary potential of floras in biodiversity hotspots.”

  9. Plato, for example, wrote millennia ago that “Whatever is in good condition…admits least of being changed by anything else” (Republic 381b, tr. Grube).

  10. We often attempt to reintroduce species to their historical geographies, heedless of what may have changed in their absence. Or consider the pretense in popular discussions of environmentalism that conservation involves setting aside plots of land to be “untouched” by human hands.

  11. Unless conservation biology is nothing more than the mass suicide of our species in order to free nature from human interference. But this would presumably be a loss of biodiversity.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, 433 Cohen Hall, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6304, USA

    Carlos Santana

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Santana, C. Save the planet: eliminate biodiversity. Biol Philos 29, 761–780 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9426-2

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