If You Forget Everything Else, Please Remember This

(Vitousek 1994)

Our Population Growth Is Not Sustainable

(World Population Clock,Population Reference Bureau 2010 http://www.prb.org/)

Population

Reproduction, births, natality (B)

Mortality, death (D)

Emigration (E)Immigration (I)

“BIDE”

How Do You Want to Change Growth?How Do You Want to Change Growth?

High food addition

Low food addition

No food added

Shaded area is winter

Townsend’s vole

Regardless, It Will Change: Density Regardless, It Will Change: Density DependentDependent

Density IndependentDensity Independent

The Future is Uncertain, But Not as Uncertain as Some Would Like You to Believe

• “While ecologists involved in management or policy often are advised to learn to deal with uncertainty, there are a number of components of global environmental change of which we are certain—certain that they are going on, and certain that they are human-caused.”

• “…addressing global change will require active collaboration with a wide range of scientists outside our field.., but..it is our responsibility to take the lead in dealing with major components of global environmental change.”

(Vitousek 1994)

Temperatures predicted to rise 1.1 – 6.4 °C over the next 100 years (IPCC)

Figure SPM.5

IPCC 2007

Figure SPM.6

IPCC 2007

2020-2029 2090-2099

SRES A2

Our Activities are Endangering Other Species

(Chapin et al 2000)

Continental extinction rates have increased from 10-7 to 10-4 species/species/year

Nott, et al. 1995. Current Biology 5:14-17

Global Change and Biodiversity

Medicine / Biotechnology

NovelSelectiveRegimes

ChangedEvolutionaryTrajectories

(Modified from Vitousek et al. 1996 to include Palumbi 2001)

Economic, Ecological, Social Costs

BiocentricMorality

We Must Change Our Attitude

•We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.•That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.

1937

1995

(Leopold 1948)

MANY PEOPLE ARE CHANGING: DDT BANNED

Peregrine Falcon The Peregrine Fund established 1970, Boise, Idaho Nesting pairs lower 48: 1940s = 1,500 1970 = 39 2005 = 1,200

“Let there be no doubt: the banning of DDT in 1972 was the single most important action taken to ensure the survival and recovery of the Peregrine Falcon in North America. Without it, we would not have celebrated the delisting of the American Peregrine in 1999, for it made possible everything good that happened to the Peregrine in the last decades of the 20th Century.”

The Peregrine Fund, Return of the Peregrine, 2003, p. 18

Endangered Species Act (ESA, 1973)• Lists Species by Petition• Stresses maintaining integrity of the ecosystems • Goal = “recover” listed species• Prohibits federal agencies from authorizing,

funding, or carrying out any action that would jeopardize a listed species or destroy or modify its "critical habitat"

• Distinctions made between threatened and endangered

Our Laws Help Force Change

Recovery is a Long Road, But it is Possible

• Captive breeding and release has brought the condor from 22 birds and extirpation from the wild to 300+ birds and 150+ wild birds in two decades

• Condors survive in the wild only through constant and costly human assistance and intervention

José

You Can Make A Difference

Restoring Habitat

Steve and Suzy

Humphrey

Fernando Sanchez

Playa Hermosa,

CR

(Shafer 1997)

If We Don’t Change It’ll Be Ugly