Hello, and thanks for inviting me.
I have to start out by admitting that when I was first invited I was very reluctant, and in fact I thought I would not go. Then I spoke to Martin Willison, who was here several days ago. He and I are on CPAWS together, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and he convinced me to come.
My background is that I'm an academic. I am a biologist, a population ecologist. I teach conservation biology at Acadia University and have done that for 23 years. I do research in conservation, so I consider my background to be in this particular area.
I did not write any speaking notes. If you would like some, I could certainly do them later; however, I'm also the head of the biology department and so I have been a little busy, unfortunately.
I would like to start out by saying that when I start my courses in conservation biology I start with some stats. I was born in 1951. In 1951 there were approximately 2.5 billion people in the world. By 1978 there were 5 billion people in the world, and recently we passed 7 billion people. If I live to be 85 or something like that, under the present projections there will be 10 billion people in the world.
We live in an unprecedented time of human population increase. No other generations will ever see this kind of increase in the human population within the lifetime of a single individual: two doublings, 2.55 billion to 10 billion people. We are exerting a phenomenal pressure on this globe. I think we really need to look at the assumptions we make in terms of who we are and how we can interact with this world.
The other thing I talk about when I talk about conservation biology, which in the old days was called wildlife management, is that it has been recognized since Aldo Leopold's time that wildlife management is people management. Wildlife doesn't need to be managed; all species other than humans do not need to be managed. Humans need to be managed.
The other thing I talk to my students about when I start out is that the current paradigm of the linear predictability of nature started in the late 1600s, when we humans stepped outside of nature. We discovered that technology could separate us from nature and that in separating ourselves from nature we could use technology to counter the various negative feedbacks that nature throws at us when we do things that are unsustainable. We still believe in that paradigm.
That paradigm has brought us to where we are today: to the number of people we are, the riches that some of us have—that few of us have. In fact, 20% of the world lives on a huge footprint, whereas the rest lives on a very small footprint.
I think it's time to understand where the physicists are today: it's quantum mechanics, it's unpredictability; it's not linearity, it's connections. That is how the world works. We need to move in that direction.
Our economic system, which evolved along with science, because science fundamentally is a means of generating technology that can make our use of resources go beyond what is sustainable to the point that we suddenly fall off when we reach the end point.... I think it's time to also realize that our economic system must be subservient to nature's economic system.
Those are just the introductions I want to make: the assumptions we live under.
What should conservation be? I think conservation is not something that we do because we have the economic means to put aside a few protected areas, or that we have the means to be concerned about some rare and endangered species.
Many people ask, “Why should we preserve rare and endangered species? They're rare and they can't have an important ecological impact if there are only a few of them, so if we lose them, what is the big issue?” Of course the big issue is that nature is dynamic. Nature is always changing; nature is adapting. These rare species that we have today may be the dominant species in the future, under a new set of conditions.
Being concerned about biodiversity is not setting aside in a few protected areas and then thinking, “Now we're fine, now we can move on and impact the areas where we gain our resources to the maximum extent we want to, because the protected areas will protect biodiversity”. Well, protected areas are a short-term measure to conserve biodiversity.
What we need, of course, is a conservation ethic that goes to all the activities that we do. This is what I mean when I say that we are a part of nature.
Indeed, I'd like to argue that when we get it right, protected areas will become obsolete, because we don't need them any more; we are taking care of all species everywhere, and therefore protected areas, in terms of protecting biodiversity, are not necessary. Indeed, many protected areas—of course I think of Canadian national parks—are phenomenal places to go and see how phenomenal nature is, but these parks will never conserve biodiversity. They will serve the important function of really making people understand what a phenomenal country Canada is.
The last thing I would like to say—or maybe the second-last thing—is that here in North America we have a funny attitude. We white people in North America came here as visitors a long time ago, and we often forget about the aboriginals and their viewpoint. In the rest of the world, in Europe, the white people are the aboriginals. In Europe and elsewhere, they view nature as people being a part of it. Human artifacts are a part of nature in Europe and elsewhere, whereas in North America we like to separate people from nature. We feel that nature should be devoid of people, so when we talk about wilderness in North America, it excludes people. I think that's a very wrong approach to take. We are part of nature. Now, we may be visitors here, which makes it even maybe more special in a sense. That's one thing.
Finally, I'd like to just talk about Robert Costanza, who is an ecological economist. He has these four scenarios, and I can only remember three of the points he has. But he has a Mad Max approach, which is that humans just do as we are doing right now, taking resources as fast as we can and just hoping for the best. Then there is the Star Trek scenario, where science will save us in the end, and we will always be able to find new resources, new sources of energy, and new cures for diseases, etc. Then there is his precautionary approach: that what we need to do is to go slowly and take a precautionary approach, not saying we can take this maximum number of fish and we'll be fine; we should take far less than that and see how that disturbs the system, and then maybe we can take a few more, but we always have to opt for the lower level, not the upper level, when we use resources.
Thank you.