Biodiversity research in British Columbia: what should be done
Lertzman, K. (1993). Biodiversity research in British Columbia: what should be done, in: Fenger, M.A. et al. (Ed.) Our living legacy: Proceedings of a Symposium on Biological Diversity. pp. 339-352
In: Fenger, M.A. et al. (1993). Our living legacy: Proceedings of a Symposium on Biological Diversity. The Royal British Columbia Museum: Victoria. ISBN 0-7718-9355-8. XIII, 392 pp., more
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| Abstract |
Abstract Faced with clear threats to biological diversity, we are challenged to take action. One necessary kind of action is research in applied conservation science. As in other fields, the role of research is threefold: understanding what is known, probing the boundary between the known and the unknown and determining what is knowable. This framework should be applied to five basic kinds of questions about biodiversity: What is there? Where is it? How does it work? How is it changing? and How can we keep it? Each question is fundamental to traditional biological disciplines, but they must be combined to build a research agenda that will support effective, long-term biodiversity conservation. In particular, research must address the problems of understanding and managing ecological processes that occur at large spatial scales and over long time scales. A conservation research agenda also needs to recognize that we cannot learn enough fast enough to act from certainty. This means we must recognize that: -what we do now in the best of faith may be wrong; -we need to learn from our mistakes and we will need to change our policies and approaches in the future as we do so;-to ensure that we do learn as much as we can as fast as we can, we must adopt an adaptive management strategy in our approaches to reserved areas and areas where conservation objectives must coexist with other needs; -we must act conservatively to maintain options. |
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