Chapter 1 Chapter Summary

  Human activities are causing the extinction of thousands of species both locally and globally, with threats to species and ecosystems accelerating due to human population growth and the associated demands for resources.

  Conservation biology is a field that combines basic and applied disciplines with three goals: to describe the full range of biodiversity on Earth; to understand human impact on biodiversity; and to develop practical approaches for preventing species extinctions, maintaining genetic diversity, and protecting and restoring ecosystems.

  Elements of conservation biology can be found in many cultures, religions, and forms of creative expression, and began to develop in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The modern field of conservation biology became a recognized scientific discipline with a professional society and academic journals by the 1980s.

  Conservation biology rests on a number of underlying assumptions that are accepted by most professionals in the discipline: biodiversity has value in and of itself; extinction from human causes should be prevented; diversity at multiple levels should be preserved; science plays a critical role, and scientists must collaborate with nonscientists to achieve our goals.

  The conservation of biodiversity has become an international undertaking. Many successful projects, such as the conservation of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, indicate that progress can be made.