In my opinion the way that academia works is not entirely suited for the field of conservation biology. There seems to be too many studies, which take place because Professor Whoever at the University of Nowhereinparticular is really interested in something, which may have some vague conservation implications. So he/she applies for funding for the project and just like all the other interest driven projects it gets funded because there are not enough priority driven projects out there to compete for funding.

I have heard about many conservation biology studies, which receive conservation funding but are not actually providing any immediately useful information to help the plight of many threatened and endangered species or critical habitats.

I think that we need to take a look at the way conservation science is currently being led.

We can't rely on the current research interests of scientists to effectively preserve the earth's biodiversity. It's fortunate that many dedicated scientists are actually interested in some of the most pressing issues, which our planet faces. However, I suspect that this fortune alone is not enough to assure us the goals, which we would otherwise be capable of achieving in order to have the most positive impact on the current extinction crisis.

Conservation Biology could have a much stronger impact on the future of our planet if it was driven by priorities a lot more. I realize a lot of scientists do have links with or are funded by conservation management organizations and many current needs are being addressed however, this is not a universal mechanism for conservation biology research and I think it should be.

The conservation scientists decide what to study, apply for the funds and then the managers make use of whatever studies they can. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? The managers (or conservation organizations) apply for the funding and hire the scientists like consultants to answer their specific questions? Scientists would still get to choose what they wanted to work on to some degree, they could publish just as many papers and would no longer have the bother with applying for grants! I realize that to some degree conservation biology does work like this but I would like to see it working this way a lot more.

For example: Bermuda, where I live and study, is one of the most widely studied islands in the world. There are thousands of scientific papers written which cover many aspects of our island's biology. However, our only terrestrial endemic vertebrate (the Bermuda Skink, Eumeces longirostris), which has been on the IUCN critically endangered list since 1996 (and had been locally recognized as once abundant but now rare for many years previously) has hardly been studied.

I am not sure if many would agree with me that this is a true outlook on the way our industry works but I would be interested to hear from anyone about what they think!

I am hoping to eventually compose a letter with input from others focusing on “what’s wrong with Conservation Biology and how we can make it better” (without wishing to sound too negative about the current situation!) and send it off to the Board of Governors of SCB and other organizations in the hope that we may be able to begin to restructure the way conservation research is driven.

A start could be the creation of a database available on the web where managers and organizations can find contact details for scientists with specific research skills in order to assist priority driven conservation research. I think this would be especially useful for island countries like Bermuda where there are few local scientists and no university.

e.mail me if you have any thoughts on this or if only just to chat about conservation in general or what you thought of the SCB conference this year:

biobabe@ibl.bm

Lisa Kitson <biobabe@ibl.bm>
Sunday, July 13, 2003 at 03:33:00