How to Save Wildlife

My professional focus has been on saving and recovering endangered wildlife species and their natural functioning ecosystems. Despite all the gloom and doom one hears from ‘conservationists’ I believe this wildlife recovery is possible. 

As important, I believe it is possible without denying the growing human needs and aspirations for modernity and development. I do not believe such denial is neither feasible nor essential for effectively recovering wild nature. 

Therefore, I am an eco-pragmatist arguing in favor of creating sustainable landscapes, which are partitioned among three major land use categories: First strictly protected nature reserves essential for many threatened species; Second, shared rural spaces where some species of wildlife as well as human populations at low densities can co-occur, and third densely populated, technically advanced habitats for most of humanity.

In all these land use categories, science-based rational management -rather than blind faith, hidebound traditions or excessive ‘love’ for individual wild animals should be the primary guideline.

I believe it is possible to reduce the current unsustainable levels of human exploitation and extractions from natural, biological ecosystems only by gradually “decoupling” the two from each other, and not by intensifying or glorifying such extractions and dependencies. Such decoupling is not possible without deploying appropriate, advanced technologies. Such technologies must necessarily shrink the current excessively large human footprint on nature that is continuing to degrade wild nature and wildlife across the globe.      

Professionally defined, the term “Wildlife” covers terrestrial, free-ranging, vertebrates. Thus defined it excludes marine habitats (e.g. the deep seas), domesticated and feral animal species (e.g. dogs, horses) and invertebrates (all animals without backbones).

“Wildlife Conservation” can have primary goals: Recovery of threatened Species/Habitats; Sustainable harvest of wildlife species, and the elimination of individual animals of wild species which are causing harm to humans and their interests (man-eating tigers, crop destroying animals or birds). 

The tactics to achieve the above goals may need to include: reasoning, incentives or coercion, depending on context.  In this series of occasional commentaries I will share my thoughts and experiences expanding on the above theme.