I have wondered this, myself. I think I’ve even written it somewhere here, or elsewhere. I do think that diversity will continue to crop up, as the environment changes. As to protecting species, I really think we only protecting a few, mostly large mammals, and that won’t make a significant difference in terms of evolutionary success. Hmmm. Will polar bears learn to survive without ice?

I don’t think conservation is inherently wrong. I think that humans are doing what they think best to maintain a salutary environment for ourselves. We’ll stop conserving if it doesn’t make any difference, but I’d have to say that our efforts to clean up pollution have made a big difference in the quality of our lives.

I don’t distinguish between human pressures and meteor strikes. It’s not like we’re the only animal that has grow too profligate and dramatically changed its environment. We’re a part of nature, as far as I’m concerned. The planet will survive, with or without us. Life forms will change with or without us. There is only one course of history, so what-ifs are useless. We do what we will, and to ask whether conservation efforts are inherently wrong will change little, I think. We will do what we are doing, regardless.

I don’t think so. Humans and other species are not equal in terms of exceeding the balance of nature. The impact of other species on the planet is drastically less than that of humans. This, in my mind, is because of the human brain, in that we keep devising ways to make life easier, which then contribute to the destruction of the planet.

The difference, in terms of evolution, is the difference in selective pressures; some are caused by an ecosystem or random events in nature and others are caused solely by one species. I think, especially when it involves the gathering and the consumption of natural resources, that we are unnaturally putting pressure where it ordinarily wouldn’t be. Thus, it is our responsibility to be mindful of it and also reverse it when possible.

The species we save may be our own. If we sufficiently reduce biodiversity we are laying the grounds for possible catastrophic results which may very well wipe ourselves out. Even if we are not all wiped out, there could be serious problems in selected areas. And even if we maintain natural habitats, we could get similar disasters if we do not take measures to reduce the influence of invasive species, which do not play well with others and have a tendency to mess up entire ecosystems.

There is something else to consider. To take an extreme case, supppose it were possible to reduce nature to commercially usable plants and animals. From a human point of view the quality of life would be greatly diminished. I shudder to imagine what such a world would be like.

Evolution does not ‘choose’ which species survive in order to create perfection; it simply tends to create species better suited to their environment. Given this, I cannot imagine what basis an ethical distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ can claim. If you do want to put the forces of evolution on a pedestal as the most natural and the best process available, one could always say that our decision to conserve the environment is simply an integral part of natural selection. As for selecting for weaker species- we are simply changing the environment in which animals live, and evolution will continue to select for species best suited to that environemnt. If we do not conserve, however, evolution will not be able to keep up with the changes we make, and will break down entirely.

We’re “damaging” the planet only to the extent that we’re increasing the odds that we ourselves will be wiped out and take other species with us by our actions. Conservation, I feel, is neither noble or ignoble; it’s just us looking to preserve ourselves. The planet itself is only going to be truly damaged when Sol, as it becomes a red giant, burns Terra to a crisp in about 5,000,000,000 years hence. Or a meteor socks it to Greenland. Or something.

I firmly agree with @aprilsimnel and @Jayne . Evolution is about the adaptation to survive, regardless of the environment, and I hate the way that it is used in common conversation today.

Conservation certainly makes some sense, as long as we keep in mind that we are talking about conserving (preserving) a snapshot , a very tiny moment, of the earth’s history. If we tailor human existence to maintain the planet just as it is today (2009? 1950? 1900?) then we are creating a museum exhibit.

I look at it like this. Human beings are having what can be thought of as an all-night drunken frat party, what with our disproportionate ability to foul up the place. The animals and plants are our neighbors, and they’ve had to put up for years with our empty beer bottles, drunken off-key singing, belching, rutting, and pissing in the bushes, and they are being forced to move out of the neighborhood time and time again into extinction.

There comes a time when even a frat boy wakes up the next morning with a hangover and realizes he’s made a fool of himself. He wakes himself up, scrapes the fur off of his tongue, locates some underwear, and takes a look outside. The neighbors’ lawns are filled with refuse, empty and half-full bottles of stale beer, puddles of puke, saggy condoms, oil spills, CO2, and even a couple passed-out pledges. He takes a look at this and thinks, “Gack!”

Now, just because he’s reached college age and is legally allowed to drink (or gained sentience and technology which allows him to mess up the place) doesn’t mean that it’s right for him to do so. And because he has been gifted with some kind of intelligence and forethought and a concept of self, he is obligated to clean up the mess he made on the neighbors’ lawns.

Sure, we can go around messing the place up and calling ourselves “just another agent of change and evolution” and go stick it to the bears. It’s possible. But it really isn’t very responsible. And, frankly, we’re fouling our own nest so it behooves us to at least tidy up a bit, whether or not Mom is coming in an hour…

Does it really matter either way? Aren’t we just a flyspeck on the planet’s timeline?

When we depart, this world will just keep on cranking. Life will spring up and life will die off.

When placed within the context of galactic age, our concepts of right and wrong don’t amount to a footnote.

In answer to your question:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Yes. Look at the spotted owl debacle. Environmentalists fought for years to get them protected, and now they are being put out not by people, but by another invading species of owl.

I find conservation is not the same as cleaning up our messes. We should of course clean up the pollution we create, but that’s just good house (planet) keeping, not conservation.

Conservation actions are not inherently wrong or right. However, in my experience they often have an inherent rational basis for challenging the logic of continuing to pursue short-sighted goals which result in long term negative ecological consequences for us and future generations.

“How are human-caused pressures different from outside forces, like a meteor strike?”

Unlike a meteor strike we have a vested interest in the continued ecological state of this planet. So this question has a inherent implication that perhaps we too can look on as an outside force, with relative indifference to the loss of species. But species loss doesn’t just affect the emotions of the conservation minded. Every one of us relies on ecosystems and their component biodiversity for support services (nutrient cycling), provisioning services (foods, freshwater), and regulating services (climate regulation, flood regulation), not to mention biopharmaceuticals etc.

“Of course, diversity in animal and plant life is important, but, by protecting species that would otherwise go extinct, are we, ourselves, selecting for weaker species?”

I understand the issue you’re raising, but I think this is confusing the pattern and the process. Our actions are resulting in a pattern of extinction which is operating at approximately 100+ times the natural back ground rate of extinction. The processes which drive this pattern (over-exploitation, habitat degradation, exotic species introductions, climate change) affect both the abiotic and the biotic environment, and thus ourselves. Overfishing and fisheries collapses, land clearing and salinity problems in agricultural lands/increased carbon emissions, loss of wetlands and inland storm flooding/loss of fish nurseries, excess fertilizer and algae bloom fish kills, habitat change and pollinator declines, all these things link the loss of species with negative impacts on human lives. So if the protection targets the causal factor for the extinction, it may well be protecting far more than just the poster species used to sell the concept (if your talking about an environmental NGO for instance).

So yes, some conservation actions which target an individual species may be attempting to save a species which is unlikely to ever be suited to the conditions that we are increasingly creating on this planet. However, conservation actions are increasingly focused less on individual species, and more on degrading processes and associated changes to whole communities. Such actions are often as much in our long-term interest as they are in the interest of the individual species which reap the benefits.

that depends on your goal. If you want to preserve a species because it is pretty (the big cat species) or unique so we will have it around to look at for awhile longer, than it’s not bad. If you actually believe you are somehow “saving the planet” that’s just plain nonsense.

I must disagree that conservation of all species is useless, or merely ornamental in nature. I’m thinking here of food plants. Most of the commodity farming done nowadays is of huge plots of monoculture grain/soy – where the farmer just plants large swaths of the same thing, and so do all his neighbors. All we need is one pest adapted to that variety to wipe it all out. That would be Bad.

So, by keeping ancestral and heirloom varieties alive (genetic diversity), there is always something enough different (one hopes) to breed back from. Saving rare and/or older forms (especially non-hybridized, non-GMO forms) might not save the planet, I guess, but it could very well save us.

@laureth I tried to take the ‘go native’ to heart a few years ago when I bought my house, but after going to several seminars with master gardeners here in our area, I found out there is no such thing. The spread of non-native species is so prevalent that it is not possible to take the land back to nature, not to mention the climate changes that have been wrought by mankind.

Keeping ancestral and heirloom varieites alive is not truly an option. It has been shown that the only viable way to do that is in climate controlled, covered hot houses, because they do not stay in their original form for very long when exposed to nature.

Interesting. I wonder how it is that the wild ancestors of things like corn, wheat, and barley still grow wild in their ancestral homes?

Also, it’s not totally necessary to keep them in growing form all the time. That’s why there are seed banks in various areas around the world – in case we need them someday.

@laureth I was thinking along the lines of roses and tomatoes. Good point about the seeds, a very worthy plan.

Ah yeah. Those things hybridize like the dickens!