Beyond Biology: toward a More Public Ecology for Conservation

The ultimate purpose of conservation science is to inform and affect conservation policy. There- fore, conservation biologists and all the people who produce, review, and apply conservation research should evaluate the success of their knowledge according to its ability to influence conservation decisions. In addi- tion to possessing conventional "scientific" attributes such as validity, generalizability, and precision, conser- vation knowledge must also possess qualities that make it effective in the political arena of decision making. "Public ecology" is a philosophy and practice of conservation science that goes beyond biology and beyond the norms of modern science to construct knowledge that is useful for environmental decision making. As post-normal conservation science, public ecology is defined by the following six attributes: evaluative, contex- tual, multiscalar, integrative, adaptive, and accessible. We discuss the need for a more public ecology and de- scribe the qualites that make it a more powerful ecology.

[1]  Iwan Rhys Morus,et al.  Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science , 1998 .

[2]  D. Haraway.  Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature , 1990 .

[3]  R. Ostfeld,et al.  The Ecological Basis of Conservation: Heterogeneity, Ecosystems, and Biodiversity , 1999 .

[4]  J. Throgmorton.  The rhetorics of policy analysis , 1991 .

[5]  K. Zimmerer,et al.  Nature's Geography: New Lessons for Conservation in Developing Countries , 1999 .

[6]  L. Crowder,et al.  Normative Concepts in Conservation Biology: Reply to Willers and Hunter , 2000 .

[7]  J. Baird Callicott,et al.  The Great New Wilderness Debate , 1998 .

[8]  Kent H. Redford,et al.  Biodiversity in Managed Landscapes: Theory and Practice. , 1996 .

[9]  V. Saberwal.  Pastoral Politics: Gaddi Grazing, Degradation, and Biodiversity Conservation in Himachal Pradesh, India , 1996 .

[10]  D. Stemerding.  How to make oneself nature's spokesman? A latourian account of classification in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century natural history , 1993 .

[11]  Paul L. Angermeier,et al.  The Natural Imperative for Biological Conservation , 2000 .

[12]  James P. Collins,et al.  Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology , 1997 .

[13]  S. Jacobson.  Graduate Education in Conservation Biology , 1990 .

[14]  Jerome R. Ravetz,et al.  Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy , 1990 .

[15]  S. Shapin.  A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England , 1994 .

[16]  Steven Shapin,et al.  The Scientific Revolution , 1997 .

[17]  Constance C. Bergquist,et al.  Post-Decision Assessment , 1999 .

[18]  Kai N. Lee.  Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the Environment, Kai N. Lee. 1993. Island Press, Washington, DC. 290 pages. ISBN: 1-59963-197-X. $25.00 , 1993 .

[19]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences , 1999 .

[20]  Larry B. Crowder,et al.  Current Normative Concepts in Conservation , 1999 .

[21]  Ian Scoones,et al.  New Ecology and the Social Sciences: What Prospects for a Fruitful Engagement? , 1999 .

[22]  R. Tobey,et al.  Saving the prairies : the life cycle of the founding school of American plant ecology, 1895-1955 , 1982 .

[23]  Jan V. Golinski,et al.  Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science , 1998 .

[24]  David P. Robertson,et al.  The language of nature matters: we need a more public ecology , 2000 .

[25]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  Science for the Post-Normal Age , 1993, Commonplace.

[26]  B. Moss,et al.  Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem Solving: Concepts and Case Studies. , 1987 .

[27]  M. Hunter.  Fundamentals of Conservation Biology , 1995 .

[28]  Esa Saarinen,et al.  Conceptual Issues in Ecology , 1982, Springer Netherlands.

[29]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  Rethinking environmental management , 1998 .

[30]  William Cronon,et al.  Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England , 1984 .

[31]  R. P. McIntosh.  The Background of Ecology: Concept and Theory , 1985 .

[32]  Eugene P. Odum,et al.  Energy Flow in Ecosystems: A Historical Review , 1968 .

[33]  B. Latour.  Science in Action , 1987 .

[34]  Bryan G. Norton,et al.  IMPROVING ECOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION: THE ROLE OF ECOLOGISTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY FORMATION , 1998 .

[35]  Lynn Hunt,et al.  Telling the Truth about History , 1995 .

[36]  H. Butterfield.  The Origins of Modern Science , 1965 .

[37]  R. Noss.  Ecological Integrity and Sustainability: Buzzwords in Conflict? , 1995 .

[38]  Walter G. Rosen,et al.  The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise , 1997 .

[39]  J. Nassauer.  Cultural Sustainability: Aligning Aesthetics and Ecology , 1997 .

[40]  R. Naiman,et al.  Evaluating landscape health: integrating societal goals and biophysical process , 1998 .

[41]  P. Phifer,et al.  The Persistence of Positivism in Conservation Biology , 1999 .

[42]  M. Levandowsky,et al.  Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology , 1985 .

[43]  D. Journet.  Ecological Theories as Cultural Narratives , 1991 .

[44]  A. Irwin.  Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development , 1995 .

[45]  Walt Anderson,et al.  The Truth about the Truth: De-confusing and Re-constructing the Postmodern World , 1995 .

[46]  Carole L. Crumley.  Historical ecology : cultural knowledge and changing landscapes , 1996 .

[47]  R. Noss.  Can we maintain biological and ecological integrity , 1990 .

[48]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  A New Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues , 1991 .

[49]  K. Shrader-Frechette.  Hard Ecology, Soft Ecology, and Ecosystem Integrity , 1995 .

[50]  Bruce Hannon,et al.  Environmental Values: A Place-Based Approach , 1997 .

[51]  Carolyn Merchant,et al.  The death of nature : women, ecology, and the scientific revolution , 1982 .

[52]  C. S. Holling.  Cross-Scale Morphology, Geometry, and Dynamics of Ecosystems , 1992 .

[53]  H Roberts,et al.  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity , 1994 .

[54]  Leslie A. Real,et al.  The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative: An Ecological Research Agenda: A Report from the Ecological Society of America , 1991 .

[55]  Sally Eden,et al.  Environmental issues: knowledge, uncertainty and the environment , 1998 .

[56]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Biological Diversity, Ecosystems, and the Human Scale , 1996 .

[57]  B. Norton.  Toward Unity among Environmentalists , 1991 .

[58]  Brian D. Richter,et al.  Conservation of Biodiversity in a World of Use , 1999 .

[59]  Kristin Shrader-Frechette,et al.  Method in Ecology: Strategies for Conservation , 1993 .

[60]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources , 1986 .

[61]  Michael A. Kamrin,et al.  Scientific Uncertainty and Environmental Problem Solving , 1997 .

[62]  P. Ehrlich,et al.  Conservation in Practice: Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation , 1999 .

[63]  S. Pimm.  The Balance of Nature?: Ecological Issues in the Conservation of Species and Communities , 1992 .

[64]  Joan Iverson Nassauer,et al.  Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames , 1995, Landscape Journal.

[65]  A. Escobar.  After Nature , 1999, Current Anthropology.

[66]  Bryan G. Norton,et al.  Ecological Integrity and Social Values: At What Scale? , 2002 .

[67]  H. Longino.  Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry , 1990 .

[68]  A. Chase.  In a Dark Wood: The Fight over Forests and the Rising Tyranny of Ecology , 1995 .

[69]  Sharachchandra Lele,et al.  Sustainability and the Scientist's Burden , 1996 .

[70]  A. Escobar.  Encountering Development : The Making and Unmaking of the Third World , 1994 .

[71]  Thomas L. Hankins,et al.  Science and the Enlightenment , 1970 .

[72]  F. Golley.  A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More Than the Sum o f the Parts , 1993 .

[73]  Joan Iverson Nassauer,et al.  The Aesthetics of Horticulture: Neatness as a Form of Care , 1988, HortScience.

[74]  Daniel B. Botkin,et al.  Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century , 1990 .

[75]  Gary K. Meffe,et al.  Conservation Values, Conservation Science: A Healthy Tension , 1996 .

[76]  J. Pykälä,et al.  Mitigating Human Effects on European Biodiversity through Traditional Animal Husbandry , 2000 .

[77]  M. Soulé,et al.  Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction , 1996 .

[78]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Large‐Scale Management Experiments and Learning by Doing , 1990 .

[79]  A. Kothari,et al.  The Human Dimension in Conservation Biology Curricula in Developing Countries , 1996 .

[80]  D. Worster.  Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas , 1986 .

[81]  S. Yearley.  Making systematic sense of public discontents with expert knowledge: two analytical approaches and a case study , 2000 .

[82]  A. Kaus,et al.  Taming the Wilderness Myth. , 1992 .

[83]  David Policansky,et al.  SCIENCE AND DECISION MAKING FOR WATER RESOURCES , 1998 .

[84]  R. Noss.  Conservation Biology, Values, and Advocacy , 1996 .

[85]  William Cronon.  Uncommon ground : rethinking the human place in nature , 1996 .

[86]  Brian Wynne,et al.  Misunderstood misunderstanding: social identities and public uptake of science , 1992 .

[87]  Tarla Rai Peterson.  Sharing the Earth: The Rhetoric of Sustainable Development , 1997 .

[88]  K. Soper.  What is nature? , 2022 .

[89]  S. Shapin,et al.  A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. , 1997 .

[90]  Dwight Barry,et al.  A Science for Survival: Values and Conservation Biology , 1996 .

[91]  W. Denevan.  The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492 , 1992 .

[92]  J. L. Gittleman,et al.  Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries , 1991 .

[93]  J. Baird Callicott,et al.  Ecological Sustainability as a Conservation Concept , 1997 .

[94]  F. Castri,et al.  Biodiversity, science and development : towards a new partnership , 1997 .

[95]  G. Meffe.  Conservation Biology: Into the Millennium , 1998 .

[96]  Refining Normative Concepts in Conservation , 2000 .