The Future of Biodiversity

Environmental Explorations 2012

Captive Breeding

• From the presentations, it is obvious that captive breeding does not really work.

Preserve habitats and ecosystems

• Preservation of habitat is certainly the best way to save species

• Unfortunately, some species require so much land area that it is not possible due to 7 billion

Conservation Strategies

• Focus on hotspots• Identify areas of native habitat that

communities are willing to preserve• Promote eco tourism and eco friendly

products• No easy answers and too many questions

Legal protection

• US Endangered Species Act• Designed to protect species in danger of

extinction• Fish and Wildlife Service in charge of compiling

lists yearly• Protects species from human harm, buying or

selling of products• Any Federal project that harms a species will be

cancelled

Species Recovery Plan

• Part of ESA• USFWS must prepare a species recovery plan

for each endangered species• Protect or restore habitat• Often conflicts with developers• Often trade offs/ compromises worked out,

some of which do not really benefit the species but gets the government to back off

International Law

• International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)

• Publishes Red List of species in danger of extinction worldwide

CITES Treaty

• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

• Bans sales on wildlife products such as ivory and rhino horn

• Has been effective in stopping poaching in some cases

Biodiversity Treaty

• Sponsored by UN• Came out of Earth Summit, 1992• Goal of treaty is to preserve biodiversity

worldwide to ensure sustainability and fair use of genetic resources

Balancing

• Human needs versus wildlife needs• A very big dilemma• No easy answers