1

About the time I was immersed in the planning stages forthe IFAW Forum that gave rise to this volume, I hap-pened across a book review in the journal Nature, writtenby Brian Child, Chairman of IUCN’s2 Southern AfricaSustainable Use Specialist Group. “Conservation,” Childbegins,

…is like the old Soviet Union: A few self-appointed wise men – scientists mostly, inthis case – decide what is best for everyone,justified by a strong ideological creed ofnature preservation, animal welfare andwilderness.3

I was not particularly surprised by Child’s comments,having first become aware of his views in a 1990 paper,co-authored with his father and presented at the IUCNtriennial meeting in Perth, Australia.4 And I was veryfamiliar with the views of the Southern Africa SustainableUse Specialist Group,5 which – among other things – oncerecommended that:

The precautionary approach should beapplied in this sense, it is risky not to useresources, therefore we should use them.

It was sobering to realize, however, that Child’s ownideological “creed of nature preservation” – once asso-ciated with those who simply wanted to justify theirexploitation of nature and wild living naturalresources for personal gain – had become so absorbed

by the mainstream that by 2004 it would be printedwithout question, comment or debate in an invitedbook review in one of the most prominent scientificperiodicals on the planet.

I was reminded of an article published a year or so ear-lier in The Economist, which described “a clash betweendifferent flavours of conservationist”. The article reads in part,

Wolf Krug, a researcher on social and eco-nomic issues…believes there is an ideolog-ical clash between “welfare” and“sustainable use” conservationists. The sus-tainable-use lobby takes the view that thelong-term future of a species is bestensured from making money from it[emphasis added].6

The “clash” was further described as a conflict between“the poor-world agenda of sustainable use”, and the “rich-world agenda of [animal] welfare”.

While I would agree that there currently is a “clash”within the conservation movement (if it can any longerreally be called a movement, as such), the clash is very dif-ferent from the one alluded to in Nature and depicted inThe Economist. The clash I see is actually between:

• the “sustainable use lobby” (also known as the“wise-use movement”, the commercial consump-tive use movement, or – to use its own words –the “anti-environmental movement”),7 whichadvocates a “use it or lose it philosophy”; and

CHAPTER 1

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND THE PURSUIT OF ECOLOGICAL

SUSTAINABILITY: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION1

David Lavigne

• the traditional, progressive conservation move-ment that views commercial consumptive use asa threat to wildlife, and advocates prudence andprecaution when we use nature and so-callednatural resources.

On one side of the conflict are those who promote short-term economic gain and often, in reality, biologicallyunsustainable uses of wildlife, and nature, generally –“wise users” such as Child and Krug, quoted above. Onthe other side are those who argue that if or when we useresources, we should do so prudently and in a biological-ly sustainable manner – the traditional conservationists,who dominated the mainstream conservation movementthroughout most of the 20th century. The latter continueto build on the legacies of Gifford Pinchot, Aldo Leopold,and their successors in the ongoing pursuit of ecologicalsustainability.8

In order to develop my thesis and to lay the ground-work for the chapters that follow, I begin by making someintroductory comments on the nature of “conservation”and the concept of “sustainability”. This is followed by abrief history of the conservation movement and its evolu-tion, in order to provide a basis for understanding wherewe are today in relation to where we have been before.Such understanding is essential if we are ever again goingto gain ground in the pursuit of ecological sustainability.

THE MEANING OF WORDS

Words evolve, and in our post-1984 world, they oftenevolve in strange ways.9 This is certainly the case with thelexicon of modern conservation. Words such as “conser-vation” and “sustainability” (among many others, as weshall see) have become “vacuum words” sucking up anymeaning that someone wants to give to them.10 For thisreason, I will begin with definitions of what I generallymean, and what I think most of the contributors to thisbook usually mean, when these terms are used.

Conservation

While the word “conservation” is still sometimes used as asynonym for “preservation”,11 it has come to mean quitedifferent things to different people and organizations.Today, conservation, like beauty, clearly is in the eye of thebeholder.12

In the context of traditional, 20th century conserva-tion, the term usually embodies two concepts: preserva-tion, and use. Definitions of wildlife conservation suitableas a starting point for the discussions that follow mighttherefore read:13 the protection (preservation) and carefuluse of wild animals and plants (usually termed “wildlife”or “natural resources”) and the environments in whichthey live; or, more encompassingly: the restoration, pro-

tection and prudent use of natural resources to providethe greatest aesthetic, social, ecosystem and economicbenefits for present and future generations.

Sustainability14

The notion of sustainability has always been an integralpart of conservation.15 “To sustain” means simply “tokeep in existence or maintain”; “sustainable” means“capable of being sustained or maintained”, as in sustain-able yield or sustainable populations;16 and “sustainability”refers to “the property of being sustainable”.

Hewitt provided an early definition of what we mightnow call “biological sustainability” as early as 1921, withthe simple notion that, “A species must not be destroyedat a greater rate than it can increase”.17 A more moderndefinition may be found in the World Conservation Strategyof 1980, under the heading “sustainable utilization”:

Species and ecosystems should not be soheavily exploited that they decline to levelsor conditions from which they cannot eas-ily recover.18

Different types of sustainability encountered in the con-servation literature are briefly distinguished below.

Biological sustainability versus ecological sustainability

Biological and ecological sustainability are two terms thatare often used interchangeably. Some, however, make adistinction between the two, restricting “biologicalsustainability” to refer to a single species or population.19

“Ecological sustainability” then becomes the multi-species, or ecosystem equivalent, which can be defined asthe maintenance of the structure and function of ecosys-tems over time and space.

The “structure” and “function” of ecosystems referredto above includes the abundance (population sizes) ofindividual species, the diversity of species comprising thebiotic (living) community (often called biodiversity); theabiotic (non-living) components, such as soil productivi-ty, water quality and quantity, and air quality; ecologicalprocesses, including nutrient cycling and energy transfer;and natural evolutionary processes.20

Economic sustainability

Of course, not all discussions of “sustainability” in theconservation field refer to biological or ecological entitiesand, as a consequence, it can be quite misleading to usethe word in the absence of a qualifier that denotes thetype of sustainability being discussed. A case in pointinvolves the term “economic sustainability”, which notonly is something completely different from biological orecological sustainability, but also something that can havevery different consequences for individual populations,

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species or ecosystems. In fact, even a locally extirpatedpopulation or an extinct species can provide sustainableeconomic benefits in perpetuity.

Such a situation appears to exist on the island ofSardinia, where an apparently thriving ecotourism opera-tion takes unsuspecting visitors to view magnificent cavesonce inhabited by Mediterranean monk seals, Monachusmonachus.21 The tourists buy monk seal mementos and t-shirts; they purchase a boat ticket displaying a monk sealand are taken to the Grotto del Bue Marino – the grotto ofthe sea ox. It is only when they reach the cave that theylearn that it is unlikely that they will see a live monk seal.Why? Because monk seals are locally extinct in Sardinia.Legend has it that the last known resident seal was shotyears ago by a fisherman, angry that one of his entrepre-neurial colleagues was making money taking people outto see this elusive and rare animal. Here we have a failureto achieve biological sustainability resulting in a loss ofbiodiversity through the extirpation of a highly endan-gered species, leading to a “sustainable economic use” oversome, as yet unknown, time period.22

A related example involves the enduring popularity ofdinosaurs. In this instance, sustained economic growth isassociated not just with an extinct population but ratherwith an entire group of animals that disappeared some 65million years ago.

A more recent example where the achievement of eco-nomic sustainability may be at odds with the goal of bio-logical or ecological sustainability relates to those so-called“natural resources” where the population growth rate inthe wild is less than the prevailing bank interest rate.Such “resources” include the large whales,23 old-growthforests24 and, likely, elephants (well, at least their tusks).25

Their economic value actually increases faster in banksthan it does in the wild. Viewed in this light, there is noeconomic incentive for the whaling industry, the ivorytraders or the forest industry to conserve stocks in thewild. It makes far more economic sense to over-exploitsuch resources as quickly as possible and invest the pro-ceeds than it does to “harvest” (a conservation euphe-mism) the “resource” in a biologically sustainable manner.All of which goes a long way to explain the overexploita-tion of the great whales and elephants in the 20th centuryand the continued clear-cutting of old growth andtropical rainforests today.26

When people talk about sustainability, it is crucial toask, therefore, whether they are talking about biological orecological sustainability or about economic sustainability.Neither biological nor ecological sustainability are neces-sarily prerequisites for economic sustainability.

CONSERVATION: A BRIEF HISTORY

In order to appreciate where the conservation field istoday and where it is likely headed tomorrow, it is neces-sary to know about its origins and its history (Figure1–1).27 From the beginning, there were essentially two tra-ditions:28 the arcadian (or romantic) tradition of theReverend Gilbert White29 that eventually gave rise in theUnited States to the Protectionist School of Conservation,most often identified with John Muir (Figure 1–1, upperline); and the “utilitarian” tradition of Frances Bacon.Bacon’s anthropocentric and imperialistic view of nature –itself a descendent of the Christian tradition in whichGod gave man “dominion over…”30 – spawned, in the18th century, Progressive Scientific Agriculture and, later,the utilitarian School of Progressive Conservation (Figure1–1, lower line).

Gifford Pinchot, America’s first forester and a huntingcompanion of President Theodore Roosevelt, spearheadedProgressive Conservation in the United States.31 He hasbeen widely credited – by himself, among others32 – ashaving coined the term “conservation” in 1907.33

“Conservation,” Pinchot wrote, “is the wise use ofresources.”

Although Pinchot was an unabashed utilitarian who“liked to refer to forest conservation as tree farming”,34 henonetheless laid the groundwork for the brand of conser-vation that dominated throughout most of the 20th

century.As early as 1910, Pinchot outlined three principles of

conservation:35

• The first principle was development – the use ofnatural resources, for the people who live herenow.

• The second was the prevention of waste – some-thing that disturbed Pinchot about Americanforestry practices at the time.

• The third principle embodied the idea that nat-ural resources must be developed and preserved[i.e. conserved] for the benefit of many and notmerely for the profit of a few.

Pinchot also talked about sustaining natural resources forfuture generations. Conservation, he wrote,

recognizes fully the right of the presentgeneration to use what it needs and all itneeds of the natural resources now avail-able, but it recognizes equally our obliga-tion so to use what we need that ourdescendants shall not be deprived of whatthey need [emphasis added].36

A Brief Introduction 3

At this early stage in the game, Pinchot’s use of words like“development”, “conservation”, “preservation”, and “wiseuse” was clear; the words meant then what a reasonableperson might expect them to mean, even today. But, asimplied earlier, these words would take on other meaningsas the field – and the language – evolved.

The Dawn of Wildlife Conservation and GameManagement

“Wildlife conservation” was born in the early years of the20th century37 out of a desire not to protect nature for itsown sake but rather to protect certain favoured species –then called “game animals” – from the ravages of 19th cen-tury over-exploitation. From the outset, wildlife conserva-tion was an elitist, top-down movement championedmainly by gentlemen hunters in the old British Empire38

and by influential bureaucrats and politicians in NorthAmerica. The North American brand of conservation,however, was always somewhat more egalitarian than theBritish.39

With the publication of Aldo Leopold’s GameManagement in 1933 – arguably the first real textbook onwildlife conservation and management – Pinchot’s “treefarming” was formally extended to wildlife. Initially, gamemanagement was described as “the art of making landproduce sustained crops of wild game for recreationaluse”.40 Of course, at that time, anything that seemed toobstruct that goal – a predator, for example – was target-ed for extermination.

Attempts to “develop” natural resources while at thesame time preserving them required that the yieldsremoved from forests, fisheries, and wildlife should be

sustainable (implicitly meaning biologically and ecologi-cally sustainable). This meant removing so-called surplusproduction while leaving some natural capital protected.Scientists, particularly in fisheries, but in other fields aswell, developed surplus-yield models to predict howmuch of a particular resource could be removed annuallywhile maintaining a viable and somewhat constant popu-lation in the wild in perpetuity. Thus evolved the conceptof “sustainable yields”, including the mathematically sim-plistic and appealing idea of the “maximum sustainableyield” (MSY), which became for a time the objective ofmany fisheries and wildlife-management programs.41

Over the decades, the human animal increasinglybecame an integral part of the conservation agenda. Priorto the early 1960s, progressive conservationists generallyregarded nature and natural resources simply as com-modities. That view, which in some quarters persiststoday, is championed particularly by the “wise-users”mentioned earlier. Aldo Leopold summarized the situa-tion in the 1940s when he wrote, “There is no ethic deal-ing with man’s relation to the land and to the animals andplants which grow upon it…Land,” he continued, “is stillproperty. The land relation is still strictly economic,entailing privileges but not obligations”.42

To address this problem, Leopold proposed a “landethic” to “enlarge the boundaries of the community toinclude soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively:the land”. Importantly, Leopold’s land ethic, “changes therole of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land commu-nity to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respectfor his fellow-members, and also respect for the commu-nity as such”.43 It would take almost 20 years, however,

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1500 1600 1700 1800 1900

Romanticism

G. White 1720-1793

PROTECTIONIST SCHOOLOF CONSERVATION

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Utilitarianism

F. Bacon 1561-1626

Progressive,

scientific agriculture

18th century

PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATION

Sustainable

Development

G.H. Brundtland 1987

Game Management

A. Leopold 1933

Age of Ecology 1945

Earth Summit, Rio, 1992

Environmental

Economics

Land Ethic

A. Leopold 1949

H.D.Thoreau 1817-1862

BiophiliaE.O. W

ilson 1984

Conservation Biology 1980

ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL"WISE-USE" MOVEMENT

19881960 2005

J. Muir 1838-1914

G. Pinchot 1905

Silent Spring

R. Carson 1962

Dominion

M. Scully 2002

Animal Liberation

P. Singer 1975

Figure 1–1. The roots of wildlife conservation.

for Leopold’s view that humans were an integral part ofnature to become part of the wider public discourse.

The Emergence of an Environmental Movement

Beginning in the early 1960s, both progressive and pro-tectionist schools of conservation44 were subsumed by alarger, more encompassing environmental movement thatbegan to realize that humans were very much part of theequation. Concern was no longer limited mainly toexploited species but was extended to other species aswell. The focus broadened to include animal-welfareconcerns 45 and the maintenance of intact and functioningecosystems. From the mid-1960s to mid-1980s there wasan increase in the number of non-governmental organiza-tions, both in the United States and globally, concernedwith animal welfare, pro-animal conservation, and theenvironment. Programs to reintroduce predators were ini-tiated, and attempts were made to restore native ecosys-tems. And the burden of proof began to shift from thosewho wished to protect species and ecosystems to thosewho wished to exploit or develop them.46

Reflecting growing public support for such initiatives,there was a proliferation of national legislation and inter-national conventions aimed at reducing our impacts onother species and ecosystems.47 The publication of thefirst IUCN Red Data Book of endangered mammals in196648 was followed, for example, by the appearance ofnational endangered species legislation in a number ofcountries. The United States played a leading role, intro-ducing its first Endangered Species Act in 1966; its currentAct dates to 1973. Among developed countries, Canadawas an anomaly in this regard. It only passed its Species atRisk Act (SARA) in 2002.49

On the international stage, the world celebrated thefirst “Earth Day” in 1970, and in 1972, the UnitedNations Conference on the Human Environment washeld in Stockholm.50 A number of conventions were soonsigned and ratified, with the intent of providing increasedprotection for nature and natural resources. Examplesinclude the Convention on International Trade inEndangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (1973), theConvention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of WildAnimals (1979), the Convention on the Conservation ofAntarctic Marine Living Resources (1980), the UnitedNations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), and itsoffspring, the UN Fish Stocks Agreement (1995).

In retrospect, it was the publication of Rachel Carson’sSilent Spring in 1962 that not only marked the beginningof the modern environmental movement, but began toinvolve humans directly in the conservation/environmen-tal equation in a novel way.51 Carson’s book was a warn-ing about the dangers of environmental contaminants,not only to non-human animals, but also to humans

themselves. Our concern was no longer limited to con-serving nature and natural resources simply for our use.52

Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book Population Bomb53 drew fur-ther attention to the connection between humans –specifically, our growing numbers – and the exploitationof resources and the environment, a theme developed byGarrett Hardin in his classic paper “The Tragedy of theCommons”, published in the same year.54 Also in 1968,The Club of Rome was established “to come to a deeperunderstanding of the world problematique”.55 In 1972, itpublished Limits to Growth, predicting dire consequencesresulting from the impacts that humans were having onthe planet, and generating widespread controversy in theprocess.56 The idea began to sink in that our actions notonly affected other species and the environment, but alsohad profound implications for the quality of human life,now and into the future.

In other words, it became clear that wildlife conser-vation does not and cannot occur in a vacuum (Figure1–257). Wildlife species are dependent upon plants, soilsand water for their habitat. These, in turn, are influencedby climate and climate change. We humans are animalstoo, and we influence other animals and plants, and soilsand water, in a variety of ways. We also use tremendousamounts of fossil sunlight (i.e. oil and natural gas) and, inthe process, make our own contribution to climatechange. That “everything is connected to everything else”– Barry Commoner’s “first law of ecology”, first publishedin 197158 – is perhaps even more pertinent today than itwas then.

By the early 1970s, it had also become apparent thatachieving biological and ecological sustainability was adifficult undertaking. In some quarters at least, it wasrealized that we really didn’t know how to manage natureand natural resources per se and that what we really shouldbe trying to do is to manage human activities in a waythat minimizes our impacts on wild populations and theenvironment.59 Biological models and natural resourcepolicies were modified accordingly in an attempt toreduce human impacts on wild populations and theirhabitats.60

Among other things, limits were placed on how far wewere willing to risk reducing exploited wildlife popula-tions. In the United States, for example, marine mammalpopulations reduced to about 50 per cent of their unex-ploited stock size were classified as “depleted” and offeredprotection until such time that they recovered to “opti-mum sustainable population levels”.61 Similarly, theInternational Whaling Commission’s (IWC) NewManagement Procedure of the 1970s provided protectionfor whale stocks when their numbers fell 10 per centbelow the level required to produce (in theory, at least) theMSY.62 Consistently, the United Nations Convention onthe Law of the Sea states:

A Brief Introduction 5

In determining the allowable catch andestablishing other conservation measuresfor the living resources in the high seas,States shall: take measures which aredesigned, on the best scientific evidenceavailable…to maintain or restore popula-tions of harvested species at levels whichcan produce the maximum sustainableyield… [emphasis added].63

The IWC’s current Revised Management Procedure64 notonly retains the idea of limiting exploitation when popu-lations are reduced to a predetermined level, but it is alsofar more precautionary in setting catch limits, shouldinternationally-managed commercial whaling65 resume atsome point in the future.

Many of these developments implicitly or explicitlyacknowledged the need for centralized policy formationand management of human activities related to natureand natural resources. Such need was recognized early inthe 20th century; it later became fundamental to the suc-cess of wildlife-management programs, for example, inNorth America.66 Indeed, the need for centralized man-agement was still being acknowledged in some quarters asrecently as 1992. At the Earth Summit in Rio, for example,

States recognized the responsibility of theInternational Whaling Commission for theconservation and management of whalestocks and the regulation of whaling…67

Over the decades, our approach to dealing with natureand natural resources generally became increasinglyprecautionary: scientific uncertainty was no longer an

acceptable reason for postponing measures to prevent seri-ous or irreversible damage to wildlife populations, theirhabitats or entire ecosystems.68 In the latter years of the20th century, national laws (e.g. Canada’s Ocean Act,1996) and international agreements (e.g. United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea and Agenda 21, arisingfrom the Earth Summit in Rio) routinely included refer-ence to the precautionary principle or the precautionaryapproach. The Rio Declaration, for example, states inPrinciple 15:

In order to protect the environment, theprecautionary approach shall be widelyapplied by states according to their capabil-ities. Where there are threats of serious orirreversible damage, lack of full scientificcertainty shall not be used as a reason forpostponing cost-effective measures to pre-vent environmental degradation.69

Throughout the first 80 years of the 20th century, then,the conservation movement evolved, albeit slowly, andlargely through trial and error, into a global movement.Among its success stories, it is credited with halting thedecline and promoting the recovery of numerous NorthAmerican terrestrial wildlife populations devastated bymarket hunting in the late 1800s.70 Key to this successwas the elimination of markets for meat and other prod-ucts derived from vulnerable wildlife, including largemammals and waterfowl. Any material benefits derivedfrom wildlife, such as licenses to hunt for personal use,were allocated by law – following consultation with thepublic, who owned the resource – and not by the market-place, birthright, land ownership, or social position.71

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solar energy

climate

plants animals

soils water

fossil sunlightdiffuse heat

(incl. H. sapiens)

Figure 1–2. Commoner’s First Law ofEcology: “Everything is connected to every-thing else”.

That’s where the mainstream conservation movementwas headed throughout most of the 20th century. Fromthe early 1960s to 1980, the environmental movementappeared to gain ground in the pursuit of biological andecological sustainability. But, as we will soon see, that wasabout to change.

1980 and the Birth of “Sustainable Development”

Two profoundly significant events happened in 1980.The first was the publication by the World Wildlife Fund(WWF), IUCN, and the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP) of the first World ConservationStrategy (WCS).73 At the time, I don’t think many peoplerecognized just how much parts of that strategy deviatedfrom the traditional conservation approaches that hadevolved over the previous decades of the 20th century.73

Most significant was its promotion of an idea it called“sustainable development”. The WCS defined develop-ment as:

the modification of the biosphere and theapplication of human, financial, living andnon-living resources to satisfy human needsand improve the quality of human life.

For such development to be biologically or ecologicallysustainable, the WCS continued:

it must take account of social and ecologi-cal factors, as well as economic ones; of theliving and non-living resource base; and ofthe long term as well as the short termadvantages and disadvantages of alternativeactions.

In this context, “conservation” was defined as:

the management of human use of the bios-phere so that it may yield the greatest sus-tainable benefit to present generations whilemaintaining its potential to meet the needsand aspirations of future generations.

The concept of sustainable development was soon beingdescribed as the marriage between economics and theenvironment, a magic bullet that would save theenvironment and simultaneously solve many other worldills arising from economic disparity and social inequity,especially poverty and hunger.

But the idea would only enter the public consciousnessand discourse in 1987, after the publication of the Reportof the World Commission on the Environment andDevelopment (WCED, also known as the BrundtlandReport, after its chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the for-mer Prime Minister of Norway. Tellingly, in that role, sheargued that Norway should resume commercial whaling

unfettered by any international regulations or limits). Bythen, the definition of “sustainable development” hadbeen reduced to:

…development that meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the abilityof future generations to meet their ownneeds.74

The circularity of the definition – development wasdefined in terms of itself – and the lack of clarity aboutwhat should be sustainable, other than meeting humanneeds today and in the future, didn’t seem to dampenenthusiasm for the idea.

As soon as the Brundtland Report hit the bookstores, therush to jump on the bandwagon of sustainable develop-ment was immediate – from governments and industry tothe academic community and even some prominent mem-bers of the international conservation community, includ-ing IUCN and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).75

The second major development of 1980 was the elec-tion of Ronald Reagan to the White House and theappointment of James Watt as his first Secretary of theInterior. While Reagan once apparently claimed that“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles”,76 Wattpurportedly described the environmental movement as “Aleft-wing cult dedicated to bringing down the type of gov-ernment I believe in”,77 and held the view that God put nat-ural resources on the earth for our use and that we wouldbe abrogating our responsibility if we did not use them.78

These two events foreshadowed what was to come forthe conservation movement over the next 25 years. Oneonly has to look at what has happened since the appearanceof the first World Conservation Strategy, the election ofRonald Reagan, and the subsequent publication of theBrundtland Report to appreciate some of the ramifications.

The Rise of “Wise Use”

Since the early 1980s there has been a backlash against theenvironmental and conservation movements and, partic-ularly, against the gains they extracted between 1960 andthe early 1980s. This backlash – variously described asThe War Against the Greens,79 Green Backlash,80 or “brown-lash”81 – has been orchestrated by those who wish toexploit nature and natural resources solely for short-termeconomic gain.

Thus was born the “wise-use” movement. This move-ment may be seen as an integral part of the shift in wes-tern societies towards the conservative right, which hasalso been promoting with some considerable success, pri-vatization, free trade, economic liberalization, and global-ization.82 This “anti-environmental movement” describesitself as “an informal amalgamation of individuals andgroups” that “fights for private property, individual liber-

A Brief Introduction 7

ties, and free enterprise against environmental oppression”.83

To accomplish its goals, the movement – in trueOrwellian fashion – successfully hijacked and corruptedthe language of the traditional conservation movement.Terms such as “wise use”, “sustainable use”, and the“precautionary principle” no longer mean what they usedto mean (Table 1-1).84 The term “wise use”, for example,is obviously borrowed from Pinchot and the original pro-gressive conservation movement. It used to mean, moreor less, wise (thoughtful or prudent) use. Now, in reality,it often means unwise or ecologically unsustainable use.

What “wise-users” actually advocate is the very antithe-sis of the evolving conservation measures noted earlier(Table 1-2). They say that nature “must pay its own way”,ignoring all the priceless services provided by the bios-phere that make life, including human life, possible in thefirst place. They argue for the privatization of wildlife andpromote its commercial consumptive use and free trade,endangered species included.85 They lobby for reducedlegal protection for wildlife and its habitat and less regu-lation of human activities generally. They pervert theprecautionary principle, arguing that in the face of uncer-tainty we should err on the side of continued economicgrowth. Their ultimate goal, says American Ron Arnold– the movement’s self-proclaimed founder – is:

to destroy, to eradicate the environmentalmovement. We want to be able to exploitthe environment for private gain, absolute-ly. And we want people to understand thatthis is a noble goal.86

And let there be no doubt, the “wise users” are makingheadway. Agenda 21 abandoned older definitions of sus-tainable use in order to promote the commercial consump-tive use of wildlife, an activity that is rarely ecologicallysustainable. The World Trade Organization is now posi-tioned to overturn any national environmental legislationthat it views as an obstacle to free trade. The Conventionon International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Faunaand Flora (CITES), signed in 1973 to protect endangeredspecies from the threats imposed by international tradehas, since the mid-1980s, been used increasingly to facil-itate trade in endangered species.87 The most obviousmanifestation of this is a recent move, promoted by theCITES Secretariat, to integrate economic incentives intonational wildlife trade policies. It recently held aTechnical Workshop on Economic Incentives and TradePolicy. At that meeting, the United Nations Conferenceon Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) BiotradeInitiative “promote[d] trade and investment in productsand services derived from biodiversity in support of sus-tainable development”.88 Most Parties to CITES, however,

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Conservation: Commercial Consumptive Use.

Ecosystem management: 1. A euphemism for the introduction of predator control programs. 2. Anti-environmentalists some-times argue that the “ecosystem” should be the unit of concern in conservation. In other words, if we lose a few species along theway due to things such as over-exploitation for commercial purposes, including international trade, such losses are not particular-ly problematic because the ecosystem (or more correctly, some ecosystem) will still persist. Or, as WWF puts it: “There is a redun-dancy in the ecological roles of species in most ecosystems…” (see text for details).

Endangered species: Animals that must be killed for commercial purposes in order to be saved (conserved). Use only becomesbiologically unsustainable if the species becomes extinct.

Extremists: Anyone who, at any time, questions the ideology of commercial consumptive use. (Such individuals are sometimesalso called “environmental terrorists” or “eco-terrorists”.) The term “extremists” also has been applied to countries, e.g. non-whal-ing nations, in meetings of the International Whaling Commission; it can also be applied to any non-governmental organizationor individual – such as the author of this chapter – who questions the conservation benefits of commercial consumptive use.

Precautionary approach: In the face of uncertainty, err on the side of continued or accelerated economic growth. As noted inthe text, IUCN’s Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group advises that “The precautionary approach should be appliedin this sense, it is risky not to use resources, therefore we should use them”.

Preservation: Commercial Consumptive Use.

Sustainable Development: Accelerated economic growth, i.e. ecologically unsustainable development.

Sustainable Use of Wildlife: Commercial consumptive use; usually biologically unsustainable use.

“Wise Use”: Unwise, imprudent and, usually, biologically or ecologically unsustainable use.

Table 1–1. A glossary of modern “wise use” terms. The traditional words of conservation are given in bold, along with modern def-initions frequently employed by the “wise-use” or anti-environmental movement.

have thus far proved reluctant to integrate economicincentives into national wildlife trade policies.

In 1992, “sustainable use” was enshrined among theobjectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD). “Wise users” have subsequently attempted to usethe CBD to subjugate or “harmonize” older biodiversity-related conventions concluded in the 1970s and 1980s.More recently (late 2003), the US Fish and WildlifeService proposed a rule change to its Endangered SpeciesAct to allow wealthy Americans to import endangeredspecies from the developing world, using the “wise-use”argument that the monies paid could be used to conservethe few specimens remaining in the wild.

The “wise-use” movement’s greatest success, however,may be the extent to which it has successfully deceived somany traditional conservation organizations and much ofthe worldwide media into parroting its dogma unchal-lenged. As early as 1990, the International Union for theConservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN),was advocating the exploitation of endangered species as ameans of furthering their “conservation”,89 a markeddeparture from their earlier incarnation as theInternational Union for the Protection of Nature(IUPN).90 Today, the organization is more concernedabout the “sustainability of uses of biodiversity compo-nents” than with the sustainability of biodiversity, per se.91

Its Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group goeseven further, arguing (in addition to perverting theprecautionary principle) that, contrary to established con-servation principles, “There is no arbitrary populationsize below which use should be prohibited…”, and that“…use can be regarded as sustainable…provided thespecies population is not reduced to the level that extinc-tion is a threat.”92

In other words, “wise-users” argue entirely arbitrarilythat the level at which “extinction is a threat” – a level thatis difficult if not impossible to know in advance – should

guide the extent of exploitation, replacing the moreprecautionary approach (based on the lessons of history)of not reducing populations “to levels or conditions fromwhich they cannot easily recover”.93

In a discussion paper entitled “The commercial con-sumptive use of wild species: Managing it for the benefitof biodiversity”, even the WWF – in its “guidelines for thecommercial consumptive use of wild species” – goes so faras to suggest that, “there is redundancy in the ecologicalroles of species in most ecosystems” and accepts that“some biodiversity may need to be sacrificed…to makewildlands competitive with alternative land uses”.94

Sustainable Development in Retrospect

Over the past 25 years, despite much talk about conserva-tion and sustainable development, the globalenvironment has been further degraded. We have contin-ued to lose biodiversity, and there is now even greater dis-parity between rich and poor nations than there was whenthe Brundtland Report was published in 1987.95 As themedia reported following the release of the UnitedNations annual report for 2001:

Humans are plundering the planet at anunprecedented and unsustainable rate thatneeds to be curbed quickly to avoid world-wide disaster. More people are using moreresources with more intensity than at anypoint in human history.96

The only things we have managed to sustain, it seems, arethe economies of developed nations and – despite all evi-dence to the contrary – the idea that “sustainable develop-ment” is the solution to the world’s ills. In short,sustainable development – as envisioned by the 1987World Commission on Environment and Development –has failed to achieve its objectives in ways that only a fewskeptics predicted it would from the very start.

A Brief Introduction 9

Table 1–2. A comparison of conservation philosophies of traditional progressive conservation and those of the “wise use” movement.

Progressive Conservation “Wise Use”

If it is to be used, it must be conserved. If it is to be conserved, it must be used.

Devalues wildlife in marketplace Values wildlife in marketplace

Opposes commercial consumptive use Promotes commercial consumptive use

Promotes centralized management Promotes decentralized management

Views wildlife as a public resource Promotes privatization of wildlife

Favours laws, enforcement, compliance Promotes less regulation

Places onus on exploiter Does not place onus on exploiter

Emphasizes precaution Emphasizes use

So why, in the face of all the evidence that things havecontinued to deteriorate, do academics, politicians, gov-ernments, big business, and even some prominent mem-bers of the conservation and environmental communities,continue to advocate sustainable development as a viablesolution to the problems confronting the human condi-tion? Indeed, why did so many support such an ill-defined and oxymoronic97 concept in the first place?

A number of critiques of sustainable development havebeen published over the years, and some of the contribu-tors to this volume have additional thoughts on thetopic.98 Consequently, I will simply make a few introduc-tory comments here.

Sustainable development is not an operationallydefined scientific or technical concept, but rather anintentionally vague idea that conveniently can be used byinterested parties with diametrically opposed views andobjectives. In short, it is a political concept.99 Whilesome will argue that the lack of a definition of “sustain-able development” allows for “constructive ambiguity”,100

I have argued that it is more about “deceptive ambiguity”,raising false hopes and obscuring the real agenda of thosewho promote it.101

If it is accepted that “sustainable development” is apolitical term, things begin to make a bit more sense.Politics involves conflict among individuals, groups andnations about alternative values or competing visions ofwhat is good.102 Language is one of the weapons used insuch conflicts and, as Orwell recognized, those who con-trol the language control the debate.103 The participantsin any political debate or conflict will shade the truth, firstfor their audiences; then, in many cases for themselves.104

In other words, politics involves deception and self-decep-tion, and there are elements of both in the sustainable-development debate. As Bill Willers wrote as early as1994, sustainable development is “the new worlddeception”.105

Sustainable development, as defined by Brundtland,cannot possibly raise the standards of living in the devel-oping world, allow the developed world to increase itsstandard of living, and sustain the environment, all at thesame time. Standards of living in the developed world arealready unsustainable, and it would take several planetEarths to achieve these objectives.106

The Brundtland Commission, and particularly the“wise use” movement that followed it, have co-opted andcorrupted the language of conservation, deceptivelyredefining everything from sustainability to precaution.When they “promote” the commercial consumptive useof nature and natural resources, free trade, and globaliza-tion, they do so under the guise of providing benefits topoor nations of the South. The fact of the matter is thatthe North (the developed world) requires the continuedexploitation of the South (the developing world), and free

trade, to maintain and increase the size of its ecologicalfootprint and to sustain its continued economic growthor, in other words, to continue its unsustainable lifestylesunder the mantra of “sustainable development”. Viewedin this light, the concept of sustainable development isentirely consistent with a strategy designed, in the wordsof my colleague Sidney Holt, “to maintain capitalism asthe only and permanent economic system”, and to ensurethe continued domination of the North over the South.107

CONSERVATION TODAY

In 1995, journalist Mark Dowie wrote a book about thedecline of the American environmental movement in thelatter years of the 20th century. The book was titled LosingGround and, in many ways, Dowie’s observations applyequally to the worldwide decline of the traditional conser-vation movement, over much of the same period. 108

Today (2005), the human population continues toincrease, and it will continue to do so for decades, simplyas a result of population momentum alone.109 At the turnof the century we numbered over 6 billion.110 During theearly 1980s, the human ecological footprint111 surpassedthe planet’s capacity to maintain our current lifestylesand, by the end of the 20th century, it was estimated thatit had exceeded the bio-capacity of the planet by some 20per cent, i.e. we now require more than 1.2 planet Earthsto support our present condition.112 By 2050, the UnitedNations predicts that the human population will haveincreased to about 9 billion.113

The problems facing the planet (or, more precisely, thehuman species and the many other species whose fate is inour hands) are well documented. As the global humanpopulation grows, resources continue to be depleted andthe environment becomes increasingly degraded.114 Ourunsustainable practices include the clearing of forests,115

the loss of productive soils,116 and the over-exploitation offisheries,117 all of which are contributing to the ongoingloss of biodiversity that some have characterized as the“sixth extinction”.118 In addition, we are interfering withevolutionary processes through the exploitation of naturalresources (e.g. selective hunting, including trophy hunt-ing,119 fishing, and forestry), the introduction of exotic,alien, or non-native species and, most recently, throughthe production and release of genetically modified organ-isms into the environment. We are also depleting oil andnatural gas reserves,120 increasing greenhouse gas emissionsand contributing to global climate change.121

Superimposed on all these realities is the growing socialinequity and economic disparity between the North andSouth, and between rich and poor within many nations.122

Of particular concern to many is the fact that millions(some say billions) of people, most of whom live in the

10 david lavigne

developing world, are going hungry and suffering frommalnutrition.123

Despite what you may read in Nature or TheEconomist, there are today actually three competing“schools of conservation,” each driven by a different set ofvalues and objectives and each using the same terms toconvey very different messages.

At one end of the spectrum is “protectionist conserva-tion” – characterized largely by moralistic and humanisticattitudes124 towards animals and nature. Because protec-tionist conservationists – especially the animal-rightsmovement – are basically opposed to the consumptive useof animals, they have been largely marginalized in thesustainability debate.125 At the other end is the self-styled“wise-use” movement. Motivated by utilitarian anddominionistic attitudes, it has become a major player, ifnot the major player, on the world stage. The New YorkTimes recently touted it as “… an increasingly popular butcontroversial conservation movement… The philosophyis that saving a species may require commercially exploit-ing it”.126 Yet, for decades, it has been recognized thatthose species which people use as commodities are inher-ently at risk of population depletion or elimination, and

that “wildlife conservation is incompatible with globalmarkets and private ownership” (see Table 1–3).127 Today,these are the very ideals that are being promoted by the“wise-use” movement to achieve its version of sustainable(read unsustainable) use.

Caught between these two extremes is “traditional”progressive conservation. In reality, it is the only “school”of modern conservation that is truly concerned with bio-logically and ecologically sustainable use.

CONCLUSIONS

James Shaw, among others, has depicted the history ofwildlife conservation in North America as a series of dis-tinct eras, spanning the time frame 1600-1984 (Table1–4).128 Although the dates may vary from place to place,the progression, particularly since 1850, seems generallyapplicable to the global situation. Shaw’s chronologyended in 1984, just before the publication of his book. In1999, I argued, along with Victor B. Scheffer and StephenKellert, that by the mid-1980s conservation had entered anew era.129 What was not clear to us then was exactly howthat era would be remembered. At the time, we wrote:

A Brief Introduction 11

“Here there is an inexorable law of Nature, to which thereare no exceptions: No wild species of bird, mammal, reptile, orfish can withstand exploitation for commercial purposes”.

William T. Hornaday 1913

“It is almost a truism that the very best way to exterminateany species of wild life is to put a price on its head. As longas there are dealers in game you will find men who will killit in spite of anything you may do to the contrary”.

Frederick K. Vreeland 1915

“It seems almost axiomatic, however, that a return to wide-open markets would spell the certain doom of wild game,and even edible non-game…With a wide-open market, pub-lic game could not exist, and game laws would become use-less and unnecessary”.

Aldo Leopold 1919

“It is universally recognized now…that the free marketing ofwild game is one of the greatest factors tending rapidly toexterminate our native game resources…”.

C. Gordon Hewitt 1921

“It is now generally recognized that the commercializationof game means its extinction”.

George Grinnell 1925

“The rather strangely assorted leaders of the early conserva-tion movement were unanimous on one point – that themarket hunter had to go”.

James Trefethen 1966

“The reintroduction of markets in wildlife meat and partsjeopardizes North America’s system of wildlife conservation”.

Valerius Geist 1988

“Species that people use as commodities are inherently atrisk of population reduction or elimination”.

Elliot A. Norse 1993

“Virtually all species and stocks of wild living resources…which are being harvested commercially have been or arebeing depleted”.

Lee M. Talbot 1996

“The most severe overexploitation tends to occur whenhunting is done to supply markets rather than just to feedhunters’ families…when strong market demand exists for amammal’s meat, hide, horns, tusks, or bones, species candecline on a catastrophic scale”.

John Tuxill 1998

Table 1–3. Twentieth century views of traditional conservationists on the topic of commercial consumptive use of wildlife.

12 david lavigne

If the trends established between 1966 andthe early 1980s are anything to go by, itmay well end up being remembered as theera of conservation biology, after theemerging field of environmental researchof the same name, with its several journals– e.g., Conservation Biology, BiologicalConservation, and text books bearing simi-lar titles.130

The other possibility is that the currentperiod will be remembered as the era of“wise use”, a time when the conservationgains of the 20th century began to erode,ostensibly to facilitate economic growthand development through the consump-tive use of wildlife and the internationaltrade in wildlife products. If this were tooccur, the 20th century would be viewed,in retrospect, as an anomaly, a time whenpeople tried, for a while at least, to reducetheir impacts on wild populations andtheir habitats, and, to their own detriment,ultimately failed.

It was too early to say, in 1999, whether the “wise-usemovement” would leave a lasting mark on the history ofconservation or whether any apparent gains it had madesince 1980 would be seen in retrospect only as short-termsetbacks to the conservation advances made throughoutthe 20th century. It seemed clear, nonetheless, that as weapproached the end of the millennium, we were at a“crossroads”.131

Writing about “The Collapse of Globalism” in 2005,John Ralston Saul put it, perhaps, a better way:

…we are transiting one of those momentsthat separate more driven or coherent eras.It is like being in a vacuum, except that thisis a chaotic vacuum, one filled with densedisorder and contradictory tendencies...one of those moments…when…there isfurious, disordered activity until one sidefinds the pattern and the energy to give itcontrol.132

Saul goes on to say:

…a period of uncertainty is also one ofchoice, and therefore of opportunity…[and] that we have the power to choose inthe hope of altering society for the greatergood.

The idea embodied in that last sentence is really what theIFAW Forum – Wildlife Conservation: In Pursuit ofEcological Sustainability – was all about: offering an alter-native for achieving biological and ecologicalsustainability to the “wise use” – “use it or lose it” – phi-losophy, emphasizing that we really do have “the power tochoose in the hope of altering society for the greatergood”.133

Today, global threats to wildlife are greater than ever. Ifmodern society really wants to pursue biological or eco-logical sustainability and preserve as much of the remain-ing biodiversity as possible, the only viable option is tolearn from the lessons of history104 and to adapt traditionalconservation principles to deal with the realities of the21st century.

Despite losing ground in recent decades, traditionalconservation still recognizes that the important issue isnot whether the exploitation of wildlife is commercial ornon-commercial, consumptive or non-consumptive, butrather whether a particular use is biologically and ecolog-ically sustainable.

Just before the IFAW Forum in Limerick, I wrote thefollowing:

…in order to achieve its goals, conserva-tion must become more widely embracedthan in the past. [We] must accept thathumans are an integral part of organic evo-lution and that the well being, quality oflife, and the survival of all species, includ-ing Homo sapiens, depends on the mainte-nance of evolutionary processes andfunctioning ecosystems. Thus, whenhumans use nature (as they always will), wemust strive with greater resolve to reduce

1600-1849

1850-1899

1900-1929

1930-1965

1966-1984

1985- ????

Table 1–4. Eras of Wildlife Conservation

Era of Abundance

Era of Over-exploitation

Era of Protection

Era of Game Management

Era of Environmental Management

Era of Conservation Biology or

Era of Commercial Consumptive Use or

Era of Sustainable Development or

Era of Transition…

the risks of causing irreversible damage tothe biosphere and its component parts.135

Today, we have a choice. We can rise to the challenge, ornot.136 If we choose the latter, we, but more so our chil-dren, our grandchildren, and their children, will soonhave no choice but to accept the inevitable consequences.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many of the ideas presented in this chapter were devel-oped over the past two decades, primarily as a result of myinvolvement in teaching undergraduate and graduatecourses at the University of Guelph and my various writ-ings in BBC Wildlife magazine dating back to the late1980s – thanks to the opportunities and guidance provid-ed by its long-time editor, Rosamund Kidman Cox. Myviews have evolved in recent years, largely as a result of myinvolvement in the 2001 & 2002 Kenneth HammondLectures on Environment, Energy and Resources at theUniversity of Guelph and through my experiences asscience advisor to the International Fund for AnimalWelfare. Over the years, my understanding of the subjectmatter has benefited from discussions with – amongmany others – Steve Best, Ron Brooks, CarolynCallaghan, Ward Chesworth, Sheryl Fink, the late StuartInnes, Val Geist, Sidney Holt, Vassili Papastavrou, RickSmith, Vernon Thomas, and Bill Rees. I thank Steve Best,Rosamund Kidman Cox, Ward Chesworth, MichaelEarle, Sheryl Fink, Jan Hannah, Sidney Holt, Barry KentMacKay, Vassili Papastavrou, Rosalind Reeve, and SueWallace for their constructive comments and suggestionson earlier drafts of this chapter. It should not be assumedthat any of the aforementioned individuals agree with myanalysis and, of course, any errors of interpretation or factare mine.

NOTES AND SOURCES1 This chapter traces its roots to a seminar I first delivered as a

“Distinguished Visitor” in the Environmental Research andStudies Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada inJanuary 2003. At that time I was trying to gather mythoughts on the topic and get them down on paper, prior tofinalizing the Forum program and completing the roster ofinvited speakers. Some of the content of the present chapterdraws heavily on earlier writings (e.g. Lavigne 2002a,b;Lavigne et al. 1996; 1999; all referenced elsewhere in theseendnotes). Parts of an essay I wrote for BBC Wildlife maga-zine in May 2004, just prior to the IFAW Forum inLimerick, are also incorporated here with permission of thethen editor, Rosamund Kidman Cox.

2 IUCN – The World Conservation Union, is otherwiseknown by its earlier name, the International Union for theConservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

3 Child, B. 2003. When biodiversity meets humanity. Book

Review. Nature 421:113-114. 4 Child, G. and B. Child. 1990. An historical perspective of

sustainable wildlife utilization. Paper prepared for Workshop7, 18th IUCN General Assembly, Perth, Australia. Also seeLavigne, D.M. 1991a. Your money or your genotype.Special Report. BBC Wildlife, 9(3):204-205.

5 Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group. 1996.Sustainable Use Issues and Principles. Southern AfricaSustainable Use Specialist Group, IUCN Species SurvivalCommission, Gland, Switzerland; also see Lavigne, D.M.,V.B. Scheffer, and S. R. Kellert. 1999. The evolution ofNorth American attitudes toward marine mammals. pp. 10-47. In J.R. Twiss and R.R. Reeves (eds.). Conservation andManagement of Marine Mammals. Smithsonian InstitutionPress, Washington, DC.

6 Anon. 2002. Out of the blue. The Economist. 31 October2002.

7 For an introduction to the anti-environmental movement,see Dowie, M. 1995. Losing Ground. American Environment-alism at the Close of the Twentieth Century. Chapter 4. TheMIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, England.

8 Pinchot, G. 1947. Breaking New Ground. Island Press,Washington, DC and Covelo, CA; Miller, C. 2001. GiffordPinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. IslandPress/Shearwater Books, Washington, Covelo, London;Meine, C. 1988. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Works. TheUniversity of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin.

9 See Orwell, G. 1949. 1984. Signet Classic Edition. 1961.The New American Library of World Literature, Inc. NewYork, NY.

10 I first came across the use of the term “vacuum word” inreference to the concept of globalization, in a discussion of“Globalization and Cinema” (see Peña, R. 2001. The Rootsof Globalization in the Cinema. pp. 3-4. In The CulturalPolitics of Film. Correspondence. An International Reviewof Culture and Society. Issue 8. Summer/Fall 2001.Available at www.cfr.org/pdf/correspondence/CORRSum01.pdf.)

11 See Johnson, W.M. and D.M. Lavigne. 1998. TheMediterranean Monk Seal: Conservation Guidelines.Multilingual Edition: English, French, Greek, Spanish,Turkish. International Marine Mammal Association Inc.,Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Following the Oxford EnglishDictionary, we defined “conservation” as preservation fromdestructive influences…protection from undesirable changes”(OED. 1989. Conservation. pp. 764-765. In The OxfordEnglish Dictionary. Second Edition, Vol. III. Prepared byJ.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner. Clarendon Press, Oxford).

12 Here, I have slightly re-arranged an original quotation fromOlver, C.H., B.J. Shuter, and C.K. Minns. 1995. Toward adefinition of conservation principles for fisheries manage-ment. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,52:1584-1594.

13 Both definitions given here are modified from the many def-initions of “conservation” found in dictionaries and on theInternet.

14 Sidney Holt provides a lengthy discussion of the “notion ofsustainability” in Chapter 4.

A Brief Introduction 13

15 For thorough discussions of sustainability, see the variouscontributions in Levin, S.A. 1993. Forum. Science andsustainability. Ecological Applications 3(4):547-589; also seeHolt, Chapter 4.

16 The US Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972) switchedthe emphasis from “sustainable yields” to “optimum sustain-able populations.” In other words, the focus of managementconcern was shifted from removing “sustainable yields” frompopulations in perpetuity to maintaining populations in thewild. See, for e.g. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/mmpa.htm.

17 Hewitt, G.C. 1921. The Conservation of the Wild Life ofCanada. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

18 IUCN/UNEP/WWF. 1980. World Conservation Strategy.Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development.Gland, Switzerland. See 7.1 Priority requirements: sustain-able utilization. One weakness of this definition – as my col-league Sidney Holt recently reminded me – is that theinclusion of the word “easily” in the definition is both mean-ingless and misleading.

19 Such usage is found, for example, in Papastavrou and Cooke,Chapter 7.

20 The definitions of biological and ecological sustainabilitythat I provided in my opening talk to the IFAW Forum over-looked (explicitly, at least) one important consideration. AsSidney Holt observed during the opening session, the idea ofsustainability also should allow for the continuation of evolu-tionary processes and I have, therefore, added that to the def-inition given here. To put it another way, human activities(including exploitation) should avoid interference with evo-lutionary processes. The degree to which the physical,chemical, and biological components (including composi-tion, structure, and processes) of an ecosystem and their rela-tionships are present, functioning, and capable ofself-renewal is sometimes referred to as “ecological integrity”.Ecological integrity implies the presence of appropriatespecies, populations and communities and the occurrence ofecological processes at appropriate rates and scales as well asthe environmental conditions that support these taxa andprocesses. Source: http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/moni-tor/glossary.htm.

21 Johnson, W.M. 1998. Monk seal myths in Sardinia.Monachus Guardian 1(1):11-15. Available athttp://www.monachus.org/mguard01/01mguard.htm. I haverecounted this story previously in: Lavigne, D.M. 2002a.Ecological footprints, doublespeak, and the evolution of theMachiavellian mind. pp. 61-91. In W. Chesworth, M.R.Moss, and V.G. Thomas (eds.). Sustainable Development:Mandate or Mantra. The Kenneth Hammond Lectures onEnvironment, Energy and Resources 2001 Series. Faculty ofEnvironmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph,Canada.

22 For more on ecotourism, see Mugisha and Ajarova, Chapter10, and Corkeron, Chapter 11.

23 Clark, C.W. 1973a. The economics of overexploitation.Science 181:630-634; Clark, C.W. 1973b. Profit maximiza-tion and the extinction of animal species. Journal of PoliticalEconomy 81: 950-961.

24 Clark, C.W. 1989. Clear-cut economies. Should we har-vest everything now? The Sciences 29: 16-19.

25 Caughley, G. 1993. Elephants and economics. Conser-vation Biology 7:943-945.

26 Clark 1973a; Caughley 1993.27 See Worster, D. 1994. Nature’s Economy. A history of ecolog-

ical ideas. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, New York and Melbourne.

28 Ibid. 29 White, G. 1778. The Natural History of Selbourne. Reprinted

1906. J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London.30 See Genesis 1:26; and, for a different interpretation to the

one implied here, see Scully, M. 2002. Dominion: The Powerof Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. St.Martin’s Press, New York, NY. (especially pp. 90-99).

31 Pinchot 1947; Miller 2001. Several colleagues have indicatedthat my discussion of progressive conservation has a distinctAmerican bias. Readers interested in the history of conserva-tion from the perspective of the old British Empire shouldconsult: Fitter, R. and Sir P. Scott. 1978. The PenitentButchers: 75 years of wildlife conservation. Fauna PreservationSociety. London, UK; Threlfall, W. 1995. Conservation andWildlife Management in Britain. pp. 27-74. In Geist, V.and I. McTaggart Cowan (eds.). Wildlife Conservation Policy.A Reader. Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Calgary, Alberta,Canada; Adams, W.M. 2004. Against Extinction: The Story ofConservation. Earthscan, London UK. Menon and Lavigne,Chapter 12, also include earlier references to the history ofconservation in Asia and elsewhere.

32 Pinchot 1947; Shaw, J.H. 1985. Introduction to WildlifeManagement. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY.

33 Pinchot G. 1907. The Use of the National Forests. U.S.Department of Agriculture. 42 pp. Of course, the word con-servation (as a synonym for preservation) had been aroundfor years before Pinchot and his colleagues gave it new mean-ing (see for e.g. Pinchot 1947, p. 326).

34 Worster 1994, p. 267.35 Pinchot, G. 1910. The Fight for Conservation. Doubleday,

Page & Company. New York, NY.36 Pinchot 1910, p. 80; emphasis added.37 e.g. Hewitt 1921.38 Adams 2004.39 See, for example, Geist, Chapter 19.40 Leopold, A. 1933. Game Management. Charles Scribner’s

Sons, New York. Reprinted 1986. The University ofWisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin.

41 Although the late Peter Larkin wrote “an epitaph to the con-cept of maximum sustainable yield” in 1977 (Larkin, P.1977. An epitaph for the concept of MSY. Transactions ofthe American Fisheries Society, 106(1):1-11), this archaicconcept remains embedded in some international conven-tions (e.g. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)and continues to be the stated objective of many regionalfisheries organizations. It should be added, however, that ref-erence to MSY is still a more conservative approach than the“use it or lose it” approach adopted by “wise-users”. Thefailures associated with the use of MSY as a managementobjective are primarily related to the failure to recognizequickly enough when populations are being depleted morethan expected or desired (S. Holt, pers. comm.).

14 david lavigne

42 Leopold, A. 1970. Sand County Almanac with Essays onConservation from Round River. Sierra Club/Ballantine BooksInc., San Francisco, CA and New York, NY.

43 Leopold’s philosophy toward the end of his career was out-lined in his now famous book, Sand County Almanac, origi-nally published shortly after his untimely death in 1948.(Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1949). Its republica-tion in the 1970s (see endnote 42) led to Leopold beinglabelled in some quarters as the father of the environmentalmovement. For additional details on the remarkable careerof Aldo Leopold, see Meine, 1988.

44 Lavigne 2002a.45 Examples include the U.S. Laboratory Animal Act (1966) and

parts of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (1973). InCanada, the Seal Protection Regulations, promulgated underthe Fisheries Act in the mid-1960s included provisions forregulating the way seals were killed in Canada’s annual sealhunt.

46 e.g. Geiser, K. 1999. Establishing a general duty of precau-tion in environmental protection policies in the UnitedStates. A proposal. pp. xxi-xxvi. In C. Raffensperger and J.Tichner (eds.). Protecting Public Health & the Environment.Implementing the Precautionary Principle. Island Press,Washington, DC and Covelo, CA.

47 See Lavigne et al. 1999.48 Simon, N. 1966. Red Data Book, Vol. 1. International Union

for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.Morges, Switzerland.

49 For more on SARA, see Hutchings, Chapter 6.50 It is noteworthy – in the context of this brief history – to

keep in mind that the 1992 UN Conference in Rio was notjust about the environment, but rather about environmentand development.

51 Carson, R. 1962. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, BostonMA. Many people argue that the appearance of Silent Springmarked the beginning of the environmental movement.

52 Now, we were directly involved, and there is somethingabout being directly involved that focuses the human mind.This point was made explicitly by Robert Worcester duringthe IFAW Forum; see Chapter 17.

53 Ehrlich, P. 1968. The Population Bomb. Sierra Club-Ballantine Books, New York, NY.

54 Hardin, G. 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science,162:1243-1248.

55 See http://www.clubofrome.org/organisation/index.php.56 Meadows, D.H., D.L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W.W.

Behrens III. 1972. Limits to Growth. Universe Books, NewYork, NY.

57 Reprinted from Lavigne, D.M. 2005. Reducing theAgricultural Eco-Footprint: Reflections of a Neo-DarwinianEcologist. pp. 119-166. In A. Eaglesham, A. Wildeman, andR.W.F. Hardy (eds.). Agricultural Biotechnology: FindingCommon International Goals. National AgriculturalBiotechnology Council Report 16. NABC, Ithaca, NY.Available at http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/nabc_16/talks/lavigne_corrected.pdf.

58 Commoner, B. 1971. The closing circle: nature, man, andtechnology. pp. 161-166. In M.A. Cahn and R. O’Brien

(eds.). Thinking About The Environment. M. E. Sharpe, Inc.,Armonk, NY.

59 e.g. Holt, S.J. 1978. Opening Plenary Meeting. Mammals inthe Seas. Report of the FAO Advisory Committee on MarineResources Research. Working Party on Marine Mammals.FAO Fisheries Series, No. 5, Vol. 1: 262-264. This idea wasreiterated on several occasions during the IFAW Forum inLimerick; see, for example, Holt, Chapter 4; de la Mare,Chapter 21.

60 Lavigne, D.M. C.J. Callaghan, and R.J. Smith. 1996.Sustainable utilization: the lessons of history. pp. 250-265.In V.J. Taylor and N. Dunstone (eds.). The Exploitation ofMammal Populations. Chapman and Hall, London.

61 Baur, D.C., M.J. Bean, and M.L. Gosliner. 1999. The lawsgoverning marine mammal conservation in the UnitedStates. pp. 48-86. In J.R. Twiss Jr. and R.R. Reeves (eds.).Conservation and Management of Marine Mammals. Smith-sonian Institution Press, Washington and London. See p. 56.

62 Holt, S.J. and N.M. Young. 1991. Guide to Review of theManagement of Whaling. Second Edition. Center for MarineConservation, Washington, DC; also see Papastavrou andCooke, Chapter 7.

63 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 119(a); also see United Nations Conference on Environmentand Development. 1992. Agenda 21, Programme of Actionfor Sustainable Development, para 17.46(b). United NationsPublications, New York, NY.

64 Holt and Young 1991; Cooke, J.G. 1995. The InternationalWhaling Commission’s Revised Management Procedure asan example of a new approach to fishery management. pp.647-670. In A.S. Blix, L. Walløe, and Ø. Ulltang (eds.).Whales, Seals, Fish, and Man. Developments in MarineBiology 4. Proceedings of the International Symposium onthe Biology of Marine Mammals in the North East Atlantic,Tromsø, Norway, 29 November – 1 December 1994.Elsevier Press, New York, NY.

65 Although there is currently a moratorium on commercialwhaling, whales continue to be killed primarily for commer-cial purposes by Japan, Norway and Iceland. This commer-cial whaling is not regulated by the International WhalingCommission; catches are determined by the whaling nationsthemselves (see Papastavrou and Cooke, Chapter 7).

66 e.g. Geist, V. 1988. How markets in wildlife meat and parts,and the sale of hunting privileges, jeopardize wildlife conser-vation. Conservation Biology, 2:1-12.; Geist, V. 1989. Legaltrafficking and paid hunting threaten conservation. Trans-actions of the North American Wildlife and Natural ResourcesConference, 54:172-178; also see Geist, Chapter 19.

67 United Nations Conference on Environment andDevelopment. 1992. Agenda 21, Programme of Action forSustainable Development. Para 17.62(a). United NationsPublications, New York, NY.

68 e.g. Johnston, D.J., P. Meisenheimer, and D.M. Lavigne.1999. An evaluation of management objectives for Canada’scommercial seal hunt, 1996-1998. Conservation Biology, 14:729-737; Ralls, K. and B.L. Taylor. 2000. Special Section:Better policy and management decisions through explicitanalysis of uncertainty: New approaches from Marine

A Brief Introduction 15

Conservation. Conservation Biology, 14:1240-1242; Taylor,B.L., P.R. Wade, D.P. DeMaster, and J. Barlow. 2000.Incorporating uncertainty into management models formarine mammals. Conservation Biology, 14:1243-1252.

69 United Nations Convention on Environment andDevelopment. 1992. For additional discussion of the pre-cautionary approach, see Campbell and Thomas, Chapter 22.

70 This success story is captured by Geist, Chapter 19.71 Ibid. 72 IUCN/UNEP/WWF. 1980. 73 The late Ian McPhail, one of the founders of WWF, was one

of the first people I knew who warned of the dangers implic-it in the new World Conservation Strategy. I remember himsaying something to the effect that 50 years from now wewould look back and realize what a mistake it was; especiallyits promotion of an idea it called “sustainable development”.Ian recently died but I think he lived long enough to knowthat it did not take 50 years before the false promises of sus-tainable development would be obvious to critical observersin the field. For further discussion, see Beder, S. 1996. TheNature of Sustainable Development. Second Edition. ScribePublications, Newham, Australia; Chesworth, W., M.R.Moss, and V.G. Thomas (eds.). 2002. SustainableDevelopment: Mandate or Mantra. The Kenneth HammondLectures on Environment, Energy and Resources 2001Series. Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University ofGuelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Also see Holt, Chapter4; Beder, Chapter 5; Rees, Chapter 14; Brooks, Chapter 16;Oates, Chapter 18; Czech, Chapter 23.

74 World Commission on Environment and Development.1987. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press,Oxford and New York. p. 43.

75 For other views on sustainable development, see Beder,1996; Lavigne 2002a; and Willers, B. 1994. Sustainabledevelopment: A new world deception. Conservation Biology8:1146-1148. Also see Beder, Chapter 5; Brooks, Chapter 16.

76 Olive, D. 1992. Political Babble. The 1,000 Dumbest ThingsEver Said by Politicians. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York,NY. p 90.

77 Ibid.78 Here I am paraphrasing an old (and apparently long forgot-

ten) quote from James Watt that was buried in my old lec-ture notes from the early 1980s, unfortunately without theoriginal source. Quotes expressing similar sentiments do,however, survive, e.g. “The Earth was put here by the Lordfor His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposeson their way to the hereafter” (see Deem, R. Is Christianityanti-Environmental?, http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/environment.html, citing Wolf, R. 1981. God,James Watt, and the Public Land. Audubon, 83(3):65). It isalso apparent, however, that many quotations attributed toWatt, are apocryphal.

79 Helvarg, D. 1994. The War Against the Greens. Sierra ClubBooks, San Francisco. (A second revised edition was pub-lished by Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado, in 2004.)

80 Rowell, A. 1996. Green Backlash: Global Subversion of theEnvironment Movement. Routledge, London and New York,NY.

81 Ehrlich, P.R. and A.H. Ehrlich. 1996. Betrayal of Science andReason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens our Future.Island Press/Shearwater Books, Washington, DC/Covelo, CA.

82 Rowell, A. 1996; also see Lavigne et al. 1999.83 Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. 1994. The Wise

Use Address Book. One Thousand Names, Addresses of Activistsfor Property Rights, Jobs, Communities, and Access to FederalLands. A Report by the Center for the Defense of FreeEnterprise, Bellevue, WA.

84 Modified from Lavigne 2002a; Lavigne, D.M. 2004. TheReturn of Big Brother. BBC Wildlife, May 2004. pp. 66-68.

85 See Lavigne, D.M. 1991a.86 See PEER (Public Employees for Environmental

Responsibility). 2001. Wise Use or Abuse? Available athttp://www.peer.org/watch/wiseuse/index.php (Accessed 21September 2005).

87 I first heard this view expressed at the 1985-CITESConference of the Parties in Buenos Aires by a delegate fromIndia. He said something to the effect that CITES began asan international convention designed to protect endangeredspecies from the threats imposed by international trade; it isnow turning into a convention that facilitates the trade inendangered species.

88 Lojenga, R.K. and R. Sanchez. 2003. United NationsConference on Trade and Development. UNCTAD BiotradeInitiative. CITES: Workshop on Economic Incentives andTrade Policy. 1-3 December 2003, Geneva Switzerland.Available at http://www.cites.org/eng/prog/economics/ppt/UNCTAD.pdf.

89 Now known as “IUCN – the World Conservation Union”.See Lavigne 1991a.

90 Lavigne, D.M. 1991b. Slipping into the marketplace. SpecialReport. BBC Wildlife, February, pp. 128-129.

91 IUCN. 2004. IUCN welcomes adoption of sustainable useprinciples by CBD. Available at http://www.iucn.org/info_and_news/press/cop7sustainableuse.pdf.

92 Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group 1996.93 IUCN/UNEP/WWF. 1980.94 Freese, C. 1996. The commercial, consumptive use of wild

species: Managing it for the benefit of biodiversity. A coop-erative publication of WWF-US and WWF-International.

95 Lavigne, D.M. 2002b. In my view. BBC Wildlife,September, pp. 65-66.

96 This quotation comes from the Globe and Mail (Canada), 7November 2001, reporting on the publication of the UnitedNations Population Division. 1991. World PopulationProspects: The 2000 revision. Highlights. DRAFTESA/PWP.165, 28 February 2001. United NationsPopulation Division, Department of Economic and SocialAffairs, United Nations, New York.

97 e.g. Chesworth, W., M.R. Moss, and V.G. Thomas. 2001.Malthus and sustainability: A codicil. pp. 163-167. In W.Chesworth, M.R. Moss, and V.G. Thomas (eds.). Malthusand the Third Millennium. The Kenneth Hammond Lectureson Environment, Energy and Resources. 2000 Series.Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph,Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

98 Beder 1996; Chesworth et al. (eds.) 2002, including Lavigne

16 david lavigne

2002a; also see Beder, Chapter 5; Rees, Chapter 14; Brooks,Chapter 16.

99 Caccia, C. 2002. The politics of sustainable development.pp. 35-49. In W. Chesworth, M.R. Moss, and V.G. Thomas(eds.). Sustainable Development: Mandate or Mantra. TheKenneth Hammond Lectures on Environment, Energy andResources. 2001 Series. Faculty of Environmental Sciences,University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

100 e.g. Robinson, J. 2002. Squaring the circle? On the veryidea of sustainable development. pp. 1-34. In W.Chesworth, M.R. Moss, and V.G. Thomas (eds.). SustainableDevelopment: Mandate or Mantra. The Kenneth HammondLectures on Environment, Energy and Resources. 2001Series. Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University ofGuelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

101 Lavigne 2002a.102 Donovan, J.C., R.E. Morgan, and C.P. Potholm, 1981.

People, Power & Politics. An Introduction to Political Science.Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, UK.

103 Orwell 1949.104 Donovan et al. 1981.105 Willers 1994. 106 WWF. 2002. Living Planet Report 2002. Gland,

Switzerland: WWF International, Gland. Available athttp://www.panda.org.

107 From Lavigne 2002a.108 Dowie 1995.109 “Population momentum” refers to the tendency for popula-

tion growth to continue beyond the time that replacement-level fertility has been achieved because of a relatively highconcentration of people in the childbearing years(http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/Demotrans/demodef.htm). In other words, the human population isexpected to increase in the coming decades simply because ofthe number of people already born who will enter theirchild-bearing years.

110 United Nations. 1999. The World at Six Billion.Population Division Department of Economic and SocialAffairs United Nations Secretariat. ESA/P/WP.154. 12October 1999. Available at http://www.un.org/esa/popula-tion/publications/sixbillion/sixbilcover.pdf.

111 Wackernagel, M. and W. Rees. 1996. Our EcologicalFootprint. Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. GabriolaIsland, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers.

112 Rees, W.E. 2002. Footprint: Our impact on Earth is gettingheavier. Nature 420:267-268; Wackernagel, M., L. Onisto,P. Bello, A. Callejah Linares, I.S. López Falfán, J. MéndezGarcia, A.I. Suárez Guerrero, and Ma. G. Suárez Guerrero.1999. National natural capital accounting with the ecologi-cal footprint concept. Ecological Economics 29:375-390;Wackernagel, M., N.B. Schulz, D. Deumling, A.C. Linares,M. Jenkins, V. Kapos, C. Monfreda, J. Loh, N. Myers, R.Norgaard, and J. Randers. 2002a. Tracking the ecologicalovershoot of the human economy. PNAS Vol. 99, No. 149266-9271. Available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.142033699; Wackernagel, M., C. Monfreda,and D. Deumling. 2002b. Ecological footprints of Nations.November 2002 Update. How much nature do they use?

How much nature do they have? Redefining Progress forPeople, Nature, and the Economy. Sustainability Issue Brief.November 2002. 14 pp. Available at http://www.RedefiningProgress.org; WWF. 2002. Living Planet Report 2002.Gland, Switzerland: WWF International, Gland. Available athttp://www.panda.org.

113 United Nations. 2003. World population totals for 1980 –2050, according to the United Nations revisions of worldpopulation estimates and projections. (Medium-fertility vari-ant projections.) United Nations Department of Economicand Social Affairs, Population Division. Available athttp://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/worldpoptotals.doc.

114 Meadows, D., J. Randers, and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits toGrowth. The 30-year Update. Chelsea Green PublishingCompany, White River Junction, VT.

115 Pimm, S.L. 2001. The World According to Pimm. AScientist Audits the Earth. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

116 Jackson, W. 2004. Agriculture: The Primary EnvironmentalChallenge of the 21st Century. pp. 85-99. In W.Chesworth, M.R. Moss, and V.G. Thomas (eds.). TheHuman Ecological Footprint. The Kenneth HammondLectures on Environment, Energy and Resources. 2002Series. Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University ofGuelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

117 FAO. 2002. The State of World Fisheries and Agriculture.Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.Rome, Italy. Available at http://www.fao.org/sof/sofia/index_en.htm; Pauly, D., V. Christensen, S.Guenette, T.J.Pitcher, U.R. Sumaila, C.J. Walters, R. Watson, and D.Zeller. 2002. Toward sustainability in world fisheries.Nature 418:689-695.

118 Leakey, R. and R. Lewin. 1996. The Sixth Extinction:Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind. Anchor Books,New York; Eldredge, N. 2001. The Sixth Extinction.American Institute of Biological Sciences. Available athttp://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html; Ward, P. 2004. The father of all mass extinc-tions. Conservation In Practice 5(3):12-19.

119 But see Geist, Chapter 19.120 Roberts, P. 2004. The end of oil. On the Edge of a Perilous

New World. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.121 IPCC. 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.

Contribution of Working Group I to the Third AssessmentReport of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.J.T. Houghton, Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. vander Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell, and C.A. Johnson (eds.).Cambridge University Press, Cambridge U.K. and NewYork, N.Y.

122 Elliot, J. 2001. The West knows now there is no wall tohide behind. The Guardian. 13 November 2001. Availableat http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,592449,00.html.

123 Mittal, A. 2000. Enough food for the whole world.Washington Post, Friday, 15 September, p. A26; Pimentel,D. 2004. Food Production and Modern Agriculture. InFrom the Ground Up. The Importance of Soil in SustainingCivilization. Symposium. AAAS Annual Meeting. Seattle,WA. 12-16 February. (Abstract).

A Brief Introduction 17

124 Here and elsewhere in this book, I am using StephenKellert’s typology of human attitudes and values (see Lavigneet al. 1999); also see Menon and Lavigne, Chapter 12.

125 A good example is Hoyt, J.A. 1994. Animals in Peril. How“sustainable use” is wiping out the world’s wildlife. AveryPublishing Group, Garden City Park, NY. For additionaldiscussion, see Lavigne et al. 1996.

126 Ellsworth, B. 2004. Saving a Species: Can Profit Make theCaged Bird Sing? New York Times, Section F; Column 2;Science Desk; p. 2, 28 December 2004.

127 Geist, V. 1995. North American Policies of WildlifeConservation. pp. 77-129. In V. Geist and I. McTaggart-Cowan (eds.). Wildlife Conservation Policy. A Reader.Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Lavigneet al. 1996. Table 1–3 is from research conducted by SherylFink. Sources for the quotations are, in chronological order:Hornaday, W.T. 1913. Our Vanishing Wildlife. New YorkZoological Society, New York, NY; Vreeland, F.K. 1916.Prohibition of the sale of game. Conservation of Fish, Birdsand Game. Committee of Fisheries, Game, and Fur-bearingAnimals. Commission of Conservation Canada. Proceedingsof a meeting of the Committee, November 1 and 2, 1915.The Methodist Book and Publishing House, Toronto;Leopold, A. 1991. Wild Lifers vs. Game Farmers: A Plea forDemocracy in Sport [1919]. pp. 62-67. In S.L. Flader andJ. B. Callicott. The River of the Mother of God and OtherEssays by Aldo Leopold. The University of Wisconsin Press,Madison, WI; Hewitt, C.G. 1921; Grinnell, G.B. 1925.American Game Protection. pp. 201-257. In G.B. Grinnell,G. Bird, and C. Sheldon (eds.). Hunting and Conservation:The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. Yale University

Press, New Haven, CT; Trefethen, J.B. 1966. Wildlife regu-lation and restoration. pp. 22-28. In H. Clepper (ed.).Origins of American Conservation. The Ronald BookCompany, New York, NY; Geist, V. 1988.; Norse, E.A. (ed.)1993. Global Marine Biological Diversity. Island Press,Washington, DC; Talbot, L.M. 1996. Living ResourceConservation: An International Overview. Marine MammalCommission, Washington, DC; Tuxill, J. 1998. Livingstrands in the web of life: Vertebrate declines and the conser-vation of biological diversity. Worldwatch Paper 141.Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC.

128 Shaw, J.H. 1985. Table 4 is modified from Lavigne et al.1999, after Shaw, 1985.

129 Lavigne et al. 1999.130 Meffe, G.K. and C.R. Carroll. 1994. Principles of

Conservation Biology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.131 This idea remains extant. As this chapter was about to go

to press, a special issue of Scientific American entitled“Crossroads for Planet Earth” arrived on the newsstands.The cover carried the message that “The human race is at aunique turning point.” (emphasis added; see ScientificAmerican, Special Issue. September 2005).

132 Saul, J.R. 2005. The Collapse of Globalism and TheReinvention of the World. Viking Canada, Toronto.

133 Ibid.134 e.g. Lavigne et al. 1996.135 Lavigne 2004. 136 The September 2005 issue of Scientific American referred to

in endnote 131 also asked: “Will we choose to create the bestof all possible worlds?” (emphasis added).

18 david lavigne

There once was a theory of wise use

For whose logic there is no excuse

In its perversity

It’ll kill biodiversity

And turn the planet into refuse.

Chris Tuite 2004

PART I:

THE GLOBAL CONTEXT