In this final chapter, Marris discusses the various goals of conservationists and ecologists and difficulties of each goal. The first goal is to protect the rights of other species. However, there are debates on whether one species is equal to another. Does a cockroach have the same right as a whale? The second goal is to protect charismatic megafauna. They are the large animals that humans like and don’t want to go extinct. The example given is the elephants eating all of the plants. Which is more important, the number of species saved or the type of species? The third goal is to slow rate of extinctions. In this goal, we treat all species as equal. According to one person, based on algorithms created, if a money threshold to save the area is not clear for the area, the area might as well not be saved. That means a person’s favorite species might not get saved. Also, stopping extinctions doesn’t mean saving ecosystems necessarily. The fourth goal is to protect genetic diversity. However if someone just wants DNA sequences, then we can just freeze tissue samples of animals but some people might not want that for obvious reasons.
The fifth goal is to define and defend biodiversity. Biodiversity has become shorthand for complexity of an ecosystem. Biodiversity calls for species interacting together to create a beautiful and complex web. The term includes so much that it brings up the question what groups of biodiversity should count: are ecosystems or microbes and fungi more important than say fish in the ocean? The sixth goal is to maximize ecosystem services. Governments have started giving money incentives like tax cuts to stop deforestation of plants, etc. so they can continue the services. However one problem with this approach is people now expect to receive money to do a good thing instead of being punished for doing a bad thing. Also if one is only concerned about ecosystem services, then there is no reason to not plant a monoculture of plants to absorb CO2. It is not always the case that biodiverse systems are the most efficient in services. It has been listed as more like a way to reason with people who don’t listen to the other goals and care only about their benefit. The seventh goal is to protect aesthetic and spiritual sense of nature.
She concludes the book by saying we can manage nature for different reasons. We have changed all of it and must take responsibility for our actions. Even though baselines can’t be returned to completely, we can control nature to help fit some of goals in mind.
After reading this book and reading the goals, her idea doesn’t seem too foreign to me. The goals I have read in the book seem logical and some are already embedded in my mind before reading the book such as protecting the beauty of nature, though usually only pristine areas which I learn may not be as pristine as I thought. Now I realize that the idea of human interference in nature is such a controversial topic. Not just cutting down trees but also changing the ecosystems and the species that live there. However, as she said, everything is up to debate regarding what humans should do for nature.
