The World’s Wildlife Preserves

Humans use about half of the 12 percent of the Earth reserved for nature, meaning only 6 percent of the Earth’s land area truly serves wildlife and provides a natural habitat. For this reason conservation biologists and organizations like Greenpeace now propose that at least 20 percent of all land area must be returned to nature to halt the current rate of species
extinction. This is because the current land mass occupied by wildlife may no longer be able to sustain these populations over the long term. South African economist James Blignaut and U.S.-born ecologist James Aronson, based in France, wrote in 2008 in Conservation Letters, “One fascinating characteristic of natural capital is that, unlike built capital, it is capable of maintaining itself. However, that ability of natural capital to maintain itself depends on its ‘health.’ If critical ecological thresholds are crossed, ecosystems may not only lose their capacity to maintain, renew and replenish themselves, but may also begin to deteriorate spontaneously.” Food and water and migration corridors have already declined, and less land for wildlife means that competition will increase to a point at which species cannot continue their normal behavior.

International organizations have tried to battle land developers who desire undeveloped land for businesses, housing, or recreation areas. These conservation organizations team with like-minded governments, businesses, and private groups to carry out an ecosystem
approach to saving biodiversity. Conservation in its strictest sense would set aside as much land as possible for wildlife with no intervention from humans in these areas. The public and many politicians have argued that this approach is too strict and that national parkland belongs to the people. Recreation and business interests should even take precedence over
preservation, they say. Gale Norton was secretary of the interior under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006 and held opinions many ecologists found bewildering for a person meant to protect the country’s unspoiled habitats. In 2008 Norton told an audience in Colorado her

The giant panda is an example of an endangered species that has been preserved
mainly through the establishment of nature reserves. China’s 50 panda preserves
protect habitat for about 50 percent of the world’s remaining giant panda population.
This panda is at home in a zoo in Beijing. (Connor and Kellee Brennan)

views on “cooperative conservation,” meaning a sharing of all wilderness between wildlife and people. She argued, “. . . many environmental laws are unbending and counterproductive, none more so than the Endangered Species Act. [A farmer] can’t harvest his trees because it’s full of woodpeckers. That produces exactly the wrong incentives.” The New York Times spoke for many environmentalists in 2006 in an editorial: “In public Ms. Norton spoke winningly of what she called her four C’s, ‘cooperation, communication and consultation, all in the service of conservation.’ But this was little more than comfy language diverting attention from her main agenda, which was to open up Western lands, some of them fragile, to the extractive industries.” The extractive industries referred to here are oil, gas, and mining. Establishing more space for wildlife in an increasingly crowded and energy-starved world has become a difficult challenge for conservationists.

Conservation biology’s goal of attaining additional land for wildlife includes three complementary approaches. The first approach involves the immediate end to all destruction of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. A second approach focuses on halting the current destruction of oldgrowth forests. Third, conservationists should save rapidly disappearing lake and river ecosystems. Costa Rica has concentrated on the third tactic
to become a model for turning ecology into a business. Between 1963 and 1983 most of this Central American country’s forests had been cut for ranch land and Costa Rica had one of the world’s highest deforestation rates. Ranching contributed to the economy in a small way; but it mainly benefited a few powerful ranching families. In the 1970s Costa Rica’s leaders began a program for reserving land for untamed animals and plants. To counter arguments from ranchers, national funds go to paying landowners who refrain from cutting down forests for cattle grazing land.

Costa Rica’s conservation represents one of the world’s largest ecological restoration projects. Costa Rican environmental teams have linked large reserves with migration corridors and have surrounded the corridors with buffer zones. Local communities use the buffer zones for sustainable agriculture rather than heavy industry, meaning they grow crops and raise livestock only for their needs in a way that reduces their carbon footprint. For example, farmers use biological pest control, organic fertilizers, soil and water conservation, and minimal nonrenewable fuels in the buffer zones. Costa Rican communities receive additional income by using the buffer zones for ecotourism. This combination
of ecology and economy to restore habitat is called biocultural restoration. Ecotourism has in fact become the largest income source in Costa Rica, a yearly billion-dollar business that supports schools and public services.

Countries that previously depended on heavy industry have taken note of Costa Rica’s success. Costa Rica has preserved about 80 percent of its biodiversity; this country the size of West Virginia now contains more bird species than all of North America, and ecotourists put Costa Rica at the top of their favorite places to visit. Ecotourism has the potential to give other countries with biodiversity hotspots a long-term income, which industry cannot promise.