Читать книгу Fundamentals of Conservation Biology - Malcolm L. Hunter Jr. - Страница 35

People change, manipulate, and manage the world, and consequently affect biodiversity, often negatively. Conservationists promote positive actions and use a variety of verbs to describe these activities. The verb maintain is dominant in this book because a major goal of conservation biology is to keep all the elements of biodiversity on Earth, despite human‐induced threats. In this section we will evaluate some alternative verbs that are often encountered in the conservation biology literature. This may seem like a pedantic exercise, but some verbs carry implications that are not always consistent with the goal of maintaining biodiversity. For example, to maximize biodiversity implies manipulations such as increasing the alpha diversity of an ecosystem, even importing non‐native species, without considering the consequences for biodiversity at a larger scale. Manipulating the lizard populations in Fig. 2.3 was a good example of this. To increase or to enhance biodiversity may imply the same shortsightedness, unless we are referring to an ecosystem in which biodiversity has been diminished by previous human activity and the goal is to return it to its previous state. If this is the case, it is probably best to refer to restoring biodiversity. Protecting biodiversity is similar to maintaining biodiversity but with a heavier emphasis on the negative impact of most human activities. To preserve biodiversity carries a connotation comparable with “protect,” but it may also imply that the only way to maintain biodiversity is to isolate it from human influence as much as possible; this is not always feasible or desirable (as we shall see, many human activities support biodiversity). To benefit or optimize biodiversity is rather vague; these terms are sometimes used by people who have unusual ideas about what is beneficial or optimal, In reality, biodiversity – an ever‐changing and interacting entity – has no clear “optimal” state. To conserve biodiversity implies using it carefully in a manner that will not diminish it in the long term. This is a reasonable goal, but it tends to overlook the idea that many elements of biodiversity have little or no instrumental value for people. Finally, to manage biodiversity sounds value‐neutral, but in practice values usually drive managers to maintain or restore biodiversity.