Medawar?s medicine: the local-global prescription for conservation actions

Abstract

Duffy and Kraus (2008) provide a broadly relevant and generally insightful overview of what plagues implementation of effective conservation science. That their overview is true is largely because many, if not all, of their insights and proffered solutions to remedy the ineffectiveness of conservation science apply globally. That is, one could replace ?Hawai?i? with any number of other Pacific islands and continental venues, a depressing and rapidly growing list of threatened ecosystems. In essence, the conservation issues raised by Duffy and Kraus are not local, regional, or by any means, unique to Hawai?i, although Hawai?i does represent one of the more challenging places to implement conservation practice successfully. Distinctions between regional (viz., island) and continental environmental crises are becoming blurred as ecosystems become increasingly fragmented and isolated, and their supporting processes altered. For example, California at approximately 40.5 million hectares, 38 million residents, and 150 years of habitat fragmentation now consists of many much smaller natural habitat fragments surrounded by a matrix of human-altered landscapes than only 50 years ago. These island fragments vary in size, number and spatial orientation not unlike island archipelagos. Furthermore, current knowledge gaps are universal, invasive species are invading every island and continent, more species are endangered or extinct than we can possibly know, document or protect, millions of ecosystems worldwide would benefit from some type of protection, active restoration, and management, and all types of conservation activities are grossly under funded around the globe.