Conservation Biology: a Displacement Behavior for Academia?

Abstract

It is hard to believe that it is nearly all gone. On flights between our field sites in Sumatra—sixth largest island in the world—and Indonesia's capital Jakarta, we used to fly over forests that seemed endless. While in these forests, we found the primary objects of our interests—gibbons, squirrels, and birds—with no great difficulty. If in those exciting years in the 1970s we had been told that in our lifetimes we would see a repeat of the nineteenth century's devastation of American forests, and that the grand and mighty lowland forests of Sumatra would go extinct, we would have scoffed. In these same three decades we have also seen conservation biology rise as a respected and attractive academic discipline, with great successes in producing journals, books, and students. But if conservation biology is ineffective in helping to stop something as globally significant as the devastation of Indonesian forests, then what, please, is the point of it? Back in Sumatra we knew of course that commercial logging was spreading. We knew local people followed the logging operations (in which they had little stake) and removed the smaller and less valuable trees, and that pioneer farmers moved in along the logging trails. But we had all manner of ideas of how to work with the conservation agency and other government officials, with logging companies, with nascent local nongovernmental organizations ( NGOs), and with local communities. We acknowledged that some forests had to be cleared for agriculture and that such clearance could not be eliminated. We also fully recognized the need for reduced-impact, sustainable logging in appropriate areas in the context of a forest-management system. This system would incorporate a representative network of protected areas, forests designated for the protection of watershed values on steep slopes and in coastal fringes. Anyway, there was enough of most types of forest to go around. Nearly 30 years later the extinction of the enormously rich and diverse lowland forests of Sumatra and other Indonesian islands is upon us and conservation biology seems to have little to contribute. Although large-scale commercial logging began in the late 1960s, it was not until the appalling forest fires in Indonesian Borneo during the El Niño drought of 1982–1983 that the world first learned that all was not well. Although the unusual droughts were natural, it was the years of resource mismanagement that allowed the fires to take their toll. The government quickly blamed the small farmers (although genuine shifting cultivators probably know best how to manage fire), but the fires had in fact been fueled by the brushwood left behind by logging. The fires were a foretaste of the conflagrations to come every few years after that. Donors poured money into fire-fighting projects and seminars and analyses, Malaysia sent bucket-carrying troops to Sumatra, but very little changed. The conservation rhetoric of politicians was cynical and deceitful. Even those companies identified as deliberately setting fires after a ban had been imposed have never been sanctioned. Lest our concern seem too specific, we note that the situation is similar to that in Madagascar, Thailand, Philippines, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Vietnam, where lowland forests have been decimated and where only isolated patches of montane forest remain. Even in North America, it cannot be claimed that conservation of original, primary forest has been the dominant paradigm from the days of the Founding Fathers to now. Indonesia has not had an easy run during the last few years. The 1997 Asian financial crisis was followed by the political upheaval that led to the resignation of President Suharto, who had run the country with limited freedoms for over three decades. A circle of cronies had been elevated above the law and enriched themselves through rampant exploitation of natural resources. Modest conservation gains were made, but it seemed as though rapacious exploitation increased lest any resources left unsold today be truly protected (or taken by others) tomorrow. The crisis did, however, provide an opportunity. In 1999 the government agreed to one of the conditions of a major World Bank loan, a loan that would alleviate the country's crippling monetary crisis. The condition was that the government would undertake a nationwide updating of forest-cover maps. It was hot news when it was discovered that the annual rate of deforestation over 12 years, from approximately 1985 to 1997, had increased from 1.0 million ha estimated at the end of the 1980s to an average of at least 1.7 million ha. Assuming (conservatively) that the rates of forest loss have remained constant since then, a further 5 million ha of forest has been lost since 1997. All this has occurred despite the theoretical existence of a “permanent forest estate” (designated as protected areas, protection forests, and production forests) and despite detailed land suitability and spatial planning maps, developed painstakingly with foreign assistance ( Holmes 2001). Further analysis showed that the majority of the forest lost was on the nonswampy plains and low hills, which are the richest source of timber and have the highest biodiversity. The majority of the remaining forest lay either in the hills and mountains, which are officially too steep for logging, or in the alluvial and peat swamps, which are otherwise imperiled by drainage, drying, logging, and burning. Reports of blatant illegal logging spreading ever deeper into the national parks now surface with depressing regularity. The perpetrators are sometimes armed and ruthless, and when it is possible to trace the chain of command, they are found to have powerful backers in business, politics, and the military. From the scale of forest lost we can opine on the different types and sizes of animals and plants which will be most susceptible to extinction, and estimate the numbers of species committed to extinction per year, per day, per hour, per minute. But how much have these efforts really penetrated the inertia of politicians to foment practical responses? Millions of donor dollars have been spent in Indonesia on a wide range of innovative and often well-executed conservation projects. These projects have addressed the whole gamut of possible activities in most of the distinct ecological regions of this megadiverse country. But such projects have tended to target local communities as the groups whose behavior should be changed, and in so doing have missed the bigger picture ( Wells et al. 1999). In addition, in a rush to engage local communities, some conservation projects have been hijacked by a social agenda, and large sums of money, ostensibly assigned to conservation, have never reaped measurable conservation benefit. There was a failure by many to find effective means of entering into dialogue with those big players who owned the business conglomerates and who exerted “influence” over more humble officials who made the planning and land-use decisions. Gaining access to such corporate interests and encouraging them to forge a sustainable path proved difficult, and when it did occur there was little effective action. More, much more, could be done to promote education and awareness by demonstrating (rather than just informing) that the natural world is awe-inspiring, fascinating, and fun. It has been hard to show genuine societal effects of conservation awareness programs, but the alternative of permitting continued ignorance seems hardly more likely to engender success. Whether due to overt efforts to build awareness or not, one of the most encouraging developments over recent years has been the increasing numbers (although still very few) of Indonesian students conducting long-term studies in the field, and the growth of Indonesian conservation NGOs filled with dedicated young people. Few of these NGOs are truly membership organizations, however, and so they do not have the influence that comes from representing a constituency of concern. In addition, despite some efforts, there has not been the same success as there has been in the United States and Europe in getting influential business leaders, royalty, and media figures onto the conservation train. Even so, there has been a steady qualitative and quantitative growth in the coverage of conservation issues within the popular media, which is enjoying new freedom to voice dissent and point fingers. In spite of this, high-ranking individuals with clear evidence against them of involvement in illegal logging are still not being indicted—at least one of these individuals sits in the national Senate—and illegal loggers are prepared to abduct and physically damage campaigners. The generic conservation biology imperatives of large area, connectivity, and representation of all types of ecosystems were known and began to be acted upon 20 years ago in Indonesia. Although attention to certain taxa, especially birds, has resulted in some additional areas being identified, proposed, and gazetted for protection, not much has since been added to the proposed network of the 1982 National Conservation Plan. Conservation International's recent priority-setting exercise of delimiting hotspots (Myers et al. 2000) does not really assist directly because this huge country (as wide as the continental United States) is entirely covered by two very large hotspots (Sundaland and Wallacea) and one “wilderness area” ( Papua). In each of these the importance of conservation has long been acknowledged. The finer global “ecoregion” analysis by the World Wildlife Fund ( WWF ) is equally fascinating, but seems to do little to advance the conservation agenda when conservationists' backs are already against the wall. When conservation is given genuine support, the new mapping exercises might prove to have value. But given the entrenched antipathy among government and much of civil society and the continuing practice of allocating blocks of land to conglomerates as squares on a map, there seems little hope of a new paradigm in resource management planning. This again begs the question of the purpose of conservation biology. Is it merely another scientific discipline, safely nestled within the confines of academia? Or, is it a mission concerned with conservation in the context of judicial reform, political economy, other peoples' spatial planning, community participation, poverty alleviation, human and institutional capacity, consumption, population growth, and agricultural production? At times we seem to be documenting paths to extinction, telling ourselves that we need to do more research, developing theoretical models with insufficient consideration of their practical application, and giving each other advice on what others should be doing. If that is the limit of our expectations, then conservation biology is succeeding as a field. But if we are intent on holding back the forces driving extinction, then we are failing in a major way. We are active for sure, but in the end we are failing to make a global difference. Perhaps conservation biology is merely a displacement activity for concerned biologists within the academic system. Deep inside they would really love to attack the alpha male of conglomerate-led forest destruction, but a lack of access and funds, and the political and social complexities of conservation management, means they huddle together, metaphorically scratching their backsides and snorting. We know that individual conservation biologists are actively and variously engaged in conservation efforts around the world, but just how much of this effort actually depends on detailed knowledge of the science of conservation biology? As has recently been observed by Margules and Pressey (2000)“conservation planning is an activity in which social, economic and political imperatives modify, sometimes drastically, scientific prescriptions.” Providing money for land purchase (not possible in Indonesia) is a better bang for the buck in many situations than supporting another Western graduate student. Inviting politicians and economists to join biologists in the field to see both the enticing complexity of natural systems and the pressures upon them from unplanned and unnecessary human decisions also might make impact where a community awareness program would seem to make little meaningful difference. Perhaps the low rate of submission of papers to Conservation Biology from Asia and other largely developing areas, as indicated in the Editor's last journal report, is due to the fact that Asian conservationists are actually getting on with the action of conservation rather than writing up the details of refined analyses. Should we just give up on Indonesia and conservation biology? Not yet; there is hope in the endogenous NGOs and the freer press. There is hope in those staff of the national conservation agency who are first-class. There is hope in the lessons learned when honest appraisals of conservation efforts are made. There is hope in the suburban middle class who can afford a green conscience and make it acceptable for opinionmakers to adopt and advocate a conservationist approach. There is hope in the donors who are likely to continue to bankroll conservation efforts when there is good cause. But if there is to be any hope from the growing body of conservation biologists (at home and abroad ) now focusing their attention on Indonesia, they will have to move away from priority-setting exercises, scientific studies, and theoretical modeling to on-the-ground management and policy decisions. Are conservation biologists able or willing to take up this challenge?