Biodiversity - political responsibilities and agendas for research and conservation

Abstract

Global and national authorities have devised international conventions and national strategies for biodiversity management which commit them to a variety of courses of action in diversity inventory and management. In many instances these refer to "species", displaying a naivety about the nature of "species" and our knowledge of species' taxonomy and diversity. Questions arise about the relative importance of species and this has led to an unfortunate concatenation between the research and management agendas relating to endangered species and those concerning multi-species assemblages. There are compelling reasons for preserving functional ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain: for the maintenance of ecological services, as repositories of biological information, and as a reflection of human conscience and responsibility. Although useful concepts have been defined for evaluating species within such species sets ("keystone species", "guilds", "indicator species", etc.) we lack basic information on the numbers of species within assemblages, which of these species play "keystone" roles, what proportion of any particular ecological guild is vital, and what biological species or sets of species are proper surrogates for measures of overall diversity. A national research agenda must be set which matches national and international commitments with respect to biodiversity and the crucial lack of knowledge in these areas. We need a national strategy for the design and funding of such research activities. Biodiversity management demands a landscape approach, already well developed in Australia, and an on-going involvement of government in overseeing and directing activities.