Title: Climate change forcing a 'move it or lose it' approach to species conservation?
[ScienceDaily Oct. 1, 2010] -- What does it
take to save a species in the 21st century? The specter of climate change, with
predicted losses to biodiversity as high as 35 percent, has some scientists and
managers considering taking their conservation strategies on the road. Managed
relocation (MR) is literally the physical relocation of endangered or threatened
species of plants and animals, by humans, to new, and foreign geographical
climes. It addresses the concern that climate shifts may make many species'
historical ranges environmentally inhospitable, and that the rapid speed of
change and habitat fragmentation will prevent them from adapting to these new
conditions or moving themselves. And while conservationists argue that the
practice may not preserve some species, such as the polar bear, relocation is a
hotly debated option for others' long-term survival.
Arizona State University environmental ethicist Ben Minteer and ecologist
James P. Collins ask hard questions about the practice, also known as assisted
colonization, assisted migration or assisted translocation, in their article
"Move it or Lose it" published October 1 in the journal Ecological
Applications.
Stress on native species is just one of the unknowns that come into play with
translocation of species. There also remains the more critical question of how
to evaluate such management decisions, according to Minteer, an associate
professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and researcher in the Center for
Biology and Society, and Collins, a Virginia G. Ullman Professor of Natural
History and the Environment in ASU's School of Life Sciences in the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"New approaches to conservation, such as MR mean the need for a new
'ecological ethics' geared toward problem-solving in ecological research and
policy," says Minteer. "Beyond asking 'should' we do it, there's the more
pragmatic ethical question: what separates a 'good' from a 'bad' MR activity?"
In a time of rapid global change, Collins says that "ecologists and biodiversity
managers will have to think hard about not only what management actions are
possible, but also which ones are acceptable ethically."
Such discussion is as critical as the technical and scientific questions of
relocation: the "can we do it and how we do it," the authors state.
Minteer points out that while moving species around is nothing new, the
climate change rationale for doing so is. "Looking past creating parks and
shielding species from bullets, bulldozers and oil spills in favor of the
anticipatory relocation for conservation purposes strikes many as different, in
terms of motive and perhaps the extent of the consequences."
Minteer and Collins's call to reassess conservation goals in the face of
climate change is timely. While the practice has no guarantees of success,
managed relocation of species is already being put into practice. The Florida
torreya tree is an example, along with the proposed relocation of the Quino
Checkerspot butterfly and the Iberian lynx.
Collins says that the real scientific concern with species relocation --
voiced by prominent skeptics -- is that crossing evolutionary boundaries via
managed relocation will produce a number of negative ecological and genetic
consequences for species and systems on the receiving end.
How to leap the ethical gulf separating decisions about which species should
be moved and "saved" is also critical to the debate. Though some argue that
human activity has already played an active role in shifting species and that
some populations are "naturally" undergoing range shifts without assistance due
to climate change in response to human pressures as well as natural ones.
However, as Minteer points out, "There is also the more philosophical
objection to the fact that 'we' are doing this, rather than the populations
themselves, and that this is therefore another example of human arrogance toward
wild species and the environment more generally."
Does the shift to focus on relocation strategies mean that more traditional
routes to preserve species, such as species migration corridors that connect
forest patches, will become anachronistic?
"Traditional philosophy and policy of conserving species will likely change
to reflect a more anticipatory and interventionist mode of thinking," Minteer
says. "What this spells for conventional norms of ecological preservation is
that they may have to give way to a more dynamic and 'novel systems' model
rather than historical ones."
In other words, the "metabolism" of conservation will have to speed up to
keep in step with climate change, Minteer believes.
Some believe that the distraction from the use of traditional protected areas
and historical systems models, will also, once managed relocation is
legitimized, open the floodgates and that people will start moving species willy
nilly around the landscape. "I think that fear is exaggerated, though the
precedent that would be set for ecological policy by formally adopting MR, even
as a last resort, is indeed a significant issue," says Minteer.
"How to formulate new approaches to ecological research and management
landscapes in an era of rapid and global environmental change raises original
and difficult ethical questions about how to save species and protect
landscapes," Collins states. "We can improve the decisions we make by using more
collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to such problem-solving and
decision-making."
Journal Reference:
Ben A. Minteer, James P. Collins. Move it or lose it? The
ecological ethics of relocating species under climate change.
Ecological Applications, 2010; 20 (7): 1801 DOI: 10.1890/10-0318.1