Conservation Biology in the Pacific

Abstract

MANY readers will have received emails asking for support to form an Australasian branch of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). The idea is a good one and I do not discourage anyone from participating in the branch and joining its activities. Nonetheless, it makes me reflect on why a conservation biology society never formed in Australia and New Zealand. At the 1993 Brisbane meeting, "Conservation Biology in Australia and Oceania", which saw the launch of Pacific Conservation Biology, there was enthusiastic support for forming an Australasian conservation biology society with nearly all 300 participants at the meeting indicating they would join. So vigorous was the support, that representatives of the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) and the Australian Institute of Biology (AlB) requested a meeting of key individuals to discuss the proposal. At that meeting, they argued that there was no need for a separate society for conservation biology and that a new society could adversely affect established professional societies, such as the ESA and AlB. They also argued that their societies were or could be strong and effective voices for conservation biology in Australia and Oceania. The ESA and AlB were persuasive in their assurances that they would be strong voices for conservation biology and that there was no need to form a separate conservation biology society. In the end, their arguments prevailed and the new society did not proceed.