In an ideal world we would protect the whole alphabet of animals, from aardvarks through to zebra sharks. But conservation doesn’t happen in an ideal world—it happens on a shoestring budget. Future extinction rates could get as high as three species disappearing per hour, which leaves conservationists with some very tough decisions to make. What should we try to save?
As in life, hiding under a multicoloured patchwork quilt knitted from Alpaca wool by your Great Aunt Bertha and not making any conscience decisions at all (we’ve all been there, right?), is actually a decision in itself. As conservationists, we have to prioritise what we want to save, and we have to have bloody good reasons for making the decisions we do.
There are a number of different criteria that we might choose to use when judging what to save (and, by painful extension, what not to). But before we look at these, it’s worth noting that a lot of people are fundamentally opposed to the idea of prioritising the protection of one species over that of another. They argue that it’s defeatist and ethically questionable, like a grisly version of the Xfactor auditions but where the buzzer signals extinction rather than humiliation. Mental images of Simon Cowell fingering a lever and plunging ostriches through hidden trapdoors spring to mind.
I don’t massively buy into this argument, or Simon Cowell for that matter (though I do quite like ostriches). As has been pointed out before, vetting what we choose to protect is just smart decision-making. If we don’t do it, we’ll waste scarce resources.
Right, let’s get on with it.
Keystone species
A purely moral approach to species conservation might make the foundational assumption that all species are created equally. Certainly, some religions adopt this viewpoint; Jain monks often cover their mouths with handkerchiefs to avoid unintentionally swallowing minute flying insects. But ecologists have known for a long while that within the habitats that they inhabit, some species are just more important than others. Like the single rock that sits atop a stone archway locking the whole thing together, the removal (or extinction) of so-called keystone species can cause a whole ecosystem to collapse.
A famous example of keystone species is the sea otter. The cutest darned fluffballs on planet Earth, or the serial baby rapists of sea—depending on your news diet—sea otters feed on sea urchins, keeping their populations in check. However, when the curse of the fluffball hits and fur hunters cause otters to plummet in number, urchin populations boom and proceed to greedily munch away at their idea of high cuisine: kelp forests. The kelp forests disappear, which sucks for all the fish and other marine life that depend on these underwater seaweed jungles to survive. Put simply, if you protect a keystone species, like a sea otter, you by proxy protect plenty of other wildlife too.
Umbrella species
Another strategy along the “protect one to protect many” ilk is the concept of umbrella species. This sounds like it might involve protecting only those poker-dotted water resistant species the shape of umbrellas. It actually rests on the premise that by protecting the typically large range of one species (the umbrella species), other non-target wildlife living in the same habitat (i.e. falling under that species’ umbrella) can tap into some of those nourishing conservation vibes. For example, it was recently found that giant pandas are a good umbrella species. The Chinese government has invested many a buckaroo in expanding the size of areas set aside as nature reserves as a deliberate ploy to provide homes for their national icon. In doing this, they have also protected much of the ranges of many mammals, birds and amphibians that are found only in China. I like to think of a sassy male giant panda that is also a Rhianna superfan strutting its stuff in a bamboo forest and singing to a frog, bird and mouse that you can stand under my umbrella ella ella ey ey ey….
Evolutionary oddballs
Then there are the weirdos with no close relatives. These are the focus of ZSL’s EDGE of existence campaign, which you can read about more here. But in the ZSL’s own words:
“The EDGE of Existence programme is the only global conservation initiative to focus specifically on threatened species that represent a significant amount of unique evolutionary history… [By] identifying the world’s most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species, the EDGE of Existence programme highlights and protects some of the most unique and most wonderful species on the planet. EDGE species have few close relatives on the tree of life and are often extremely unusual in the way they look, live and behave, as well as in their genetic make-up. They represent a unique and irreplaceable part of the world’s natural heritage, yet an alarming proportion are currently sliding silently towards extinction unnoticed.”
EDGE species are often little heard of, like the Hispaniolan Solenodon (which looks like an overgrown shrew and is amongst the only mammals on Earth to have poisonous saliva) or the mouth brooding Chile Darwin frogs (which carry their young in a vocal sac). But there are potential boons to focusing on such one-of-kind EDGE species. Plants and animals that have very diverse genetic pools also tend to have very peculiar traits. And this might mean that just like a workplace full of people with diverse skill sets is more likely to win a pub quiz, an ecosystem with EDGE species is more likely to keep ticking along happily. In the jargon, protecting EDGE species might protect “ecosystem functioning”.
Maximised outcomes
Protecting keystone species, umbrella species or evolutionary odd-balls has considerable benefits, whether that’s ensuring that kelp forests or native Chinese amphibians stick around, or making sure that we maintain the full custard bowl of genetic diversity into the future. But if we only thought about the happy stuff we’d all be swanning around in massage gazebos in Tuscany chomping on Chewy bars and sipping J20s. As well as considering the benefits of protecting particular species, it might also be worth injecting two other ingredients into the decision-making cake: the dollar cost of a management intervention to save a particular species, and the likelihood that this intervention will actually succeed.
Assuming a fixed amount of money to invest in wildlife conservation, where on the seesaw of difficult decisions do you sit? Should we spending more on saving a few potentially more ecologically valuable species, or should we be spreading the money around to a greater number of species that are cheaper to save? It’s not any easy decision to make but it’s a real one. For 700 of New Zealand’s threatened species, considering cost and risk-of-failure when deciding where to funnel conservation money would result in the same amount of money helping substantially more species. But widening the love inevitably leads to some species losing out. The rockhopper penguin, for instance, is deemed so time-consuming and expensive to save, that it would sap money away from more promising projects in New Zealand.
Room for emotions?
“But I really like rockhopper penguins!”
The above example might sound like a robotic outcome maximisation exercise but there’s definitely room for value judgements and emotional pleas in conservation prioritisation. Every species lost through human activity makes the world slightly less marvellous, but there are some species that it would be an absolute disgrace to lose. Can you imagine a day when news reporters say that our closest living ancestor the chimpanzees is extinct in the wild, or that the blue whale, the largest animal to have ever lived on our little-floating-space-marble is gone forever? As important as it is to use the small amount of money we have wisely, I’m all for funnelling a bit of raw emotion into our conservation decision making. Besides, we should always be trying to get more money! There are plenty of potential donors out there capable of giving the rockhopper penguin a helping hand.
Flagship species
I purposefully left flagship species until the end, because I recently read a paper by Diogo Verrisimo (who writes a great blog here) that has changed the way I think about them. We all tend to think of flagship species as those immutably cool or cute animals, like tigers or pandas, that are the celebs of the natural world. But this ignores the very important role of conservation marketing in driving what we come to think of as flagship species. Evian and Volvic have successfully persuaded millions of us to buy something that we can get out of a tap for free. Branding is a powerful tool in conservation too: it can drive how we spend our money and raise the profile of important lesser-known species, as ZSL’s EDGE project shows. Even ugly animals can win hearts and dollars to save them from extinction.
And the flagship label isn’t limited to species either. Conservation marketing can elevate the status of key habitats and be used to raise funds and awareness in conservation. The wide public recognition of Yellowstone and Serengeti National parks show this. Whatever criteria is used when prioritising which species deserve protection, scientists shouldn’t just rest on their laurels and hope the public will nod and smile in agreement. They should start marketing and turn those species or habitats into flagships!
De-extinction
As if it wasn’t already complicated enough, a big spanner is very much on its way to being thrown into the works. Everything we’ve looked at so far has focused on which species/areas we should be trying to prevent from going extinct, but what happens when the boffins flip the sticky toffee pudding on its arse and start to say: “Sod it, Roger, shall we just resurrect a mammoth?” If this sounds a little too science fiction, rest assured that the technology behind de-extinction is speeding merrily along. It’s more a question of “when” rather than “if”.
Although current efforts are focusing on reviving woolly mammoths and passenger pigeons, some scientists have said that when the technology is in place, it should only be used to bring back species that have only recently become extinct, or that can be restored to abundances large enough that they could play a substantial role in improving the integrity of today’s environments. Still others have highlighted the line of argument that I tend to agree more with. The large sum of money spent bringing back just one species from the dead would be much better spent preventing many species alive today from plunging into the abyss.
Whatever your view, it’s inevitable that de-extinction opens up a new tin of beans/mackerel/sardines to grapple with when deciding where to allocate conservation resources.
My semi-formed opinion
I’m not quite sure what criteria I think is best when deciding which species to preserve. It’s probably a mixture. Considering the disproportionate biological importance of particular species (whether these are keystone species like the sea otter, or evolutionarily distinct species like the brooding Chile Darwin frog) is definitely a starting point. But at the same time I can’t help but think that ultimately the key to protecting most species is preserving their habitats, and maybe this throws into question a species-centred approach to wildlife conservation altogether?
I think that conservation marketing is probably the crux to bridging this gap. It can be used to promote the protection of individual species, but can also be used to tie the plight of these individual species to the retention of ecosystems and environments at large.
Over the next few weeks, I intend to dive down the rabbit hole that is conservation marketing and see if I can find any bunnies. Stay tuned!
A final thing I think is worth mentioning is this. Although it’s key to allocate resources towards conservation as effectively as possible, there are always going to be debates around which criteria is best when choosing what to protect, and how in an ideal world money could be spent better. Disagreements are a healthy part of scientific discourse, keeping everybody on their toes and ultimately improving conservation. Much as in life though, (prepare yourself for a deep and meaningful insight), sometimes the murky complications of reality mean we have to do what is actually achievable rather than what is ideal. We should never spend too long delaying and pondering what’s the best way to act to protect wildlife in an idealistic future when instead we could be asking what we can do now, in the messy and not-so-ideal present.
Related posts:
