Is the world failing at conservation?

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A #ScienceLive Chat on Thursday, 28 March at 3pm EDT

Moderated by Erik Stokstad, a staff  journalist covering environmental research and policy, with a focus on natural resources and sustainability, for the Science Magazine news team.

Obstreperous Peter Kareiva, chief scientist of the Nature Conservancy, who has ruffled feathers in the conservation community with his strong views on new directions for environmentalism, will be online and taking questions. We featured Kareiva in an EcoTone post about a year ago when he was making waves posing the question Do we love environmental horror stories too much? Kareiva has argued for less adherence to “purity,” less focus on protected parks and wilderness, and more consideration for the needs of disadvantaged people affected by conservation policy and projects.

Joining Kareiva is zoologist John Robinson, executive vice president for conservation and science at the Wildlife Conservation Society (formerly known as the New York Zoological Society) and an adjunct professor of anthropology at the City University of New York.  He has a long interest in forest fragmentation and the effects of subsistence hunting on wildlife, especially primates, and has worked to secure protected zones for threatened charismatic megafauna like chimps, tigers, and elephants. But this strategy “is unlikely to be socially and economically sustainable,” he said during a symposium at the annual AAAS meeting in Boston last month.

The Chat sprang from that AAAS symposium, “Is the Future of Conservation at a Crossroads?” Now they are opening the question to the online conservation community at large. They’ve posed a few interlinked questions to get the conversation started:

  • What should be done to preserve biodiversity, especially as climate changes?
  • Should some parks be sold to improve other protected areas?
  • And how can the conservation of nature be reconciled with development in poor nations?

Tune in here or at AAAS ScienceNOW.