Good point, but when we talk about non-charismatic organisms we should focus
on your question, "what ones are not important?". In my unpublished article
to which I refer below I take the unpopular position that we really do need
to set priorities and not take the view that all god's creatures deserve
equal protection. Clearly the earthworm is essential and I think that the
public would be sympathetic to this yucky creature. But one of the worst
public relation fiascos in biodiversity conservation was mustering forces to
fight millions of dollars of development to preserve the critical habitat of
a sand fly -- even the scintists who had studied the fly couldn't come up
with a decent picture of its ecological role, it boiled down to, "well you
never know".
I think we need to focus on ecosystem function (or ecosystem services if you
prefer) rather than species. Our best chance for getting the public and
politicians to back environmental protection is to show what is at risk, and
not just take the view that all species must be protected (after all,
natural extinctions are common no matter what we do). Unfortunately the laws
on the books of many countries do not reflect this view.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: "William Silvert" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: segunda-feira, 3 de Maio de 2010 15:21
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] State Microbes
Bill, I agree with you in principle. We should have a public awareness of
and appreciation for non-charismatic but important organisms (and what
ones are not important?). However, politically, mainly because the
publicity battle is more easily won by those with tons of money than by
conservationists, the endangered species program has created serious
backlash even when the organisms protected have been "lovable."
Protection of obscure and even oddly named organisms (like lousewort) has
provoked outrage and ridicule, leading to public disenchantment with
protection.
So, how to do what you suggest successfully? After all, almost everyone
has "learned" in school or from public media that most microbes are
beneficial, and that simple and benign products like soap are as good as
such things as Triclosan (trademarked product) in combating those that
might do harm. Guess who has won that battle.
DMc
---- William Silvert <[email protected]> wrote:
I recently read that Gary Hebl, a Wisconsin legislator, has nominated the
cheese-making bacterium Lactococcus Lactis to be the state microbe. I
really
like this idea and suggest that ecologists should think about this as a
serious development with implications for biodiversity conservation and
other ecological issues.
For centuries the scientific community has been in conflict with general
society about whether form or function is important in dealing with the
natural world. Ben Franklin advocated that the turkey should be the
official
bird of the USA, but the bald eagle won out and the wild turkey ended up
as
the symbol of a brand of whiskey. Today's ENGOs focus on cute baby seals
and
cuddly pandas and there is little public concern for the segmented worms
that are essential to most of our ecosystems. (I wrote a paper on this
that
has been rejected by several journals for its non-scientific language,
available at http://bill.silvert.org/pdf/Biodiversity.pdf). If we can
generate some degree of public attention for organisms which are
important
because of what they do rather than how nice they look, then I think we
will
have made real progress in gaining popular support for meaningful
measures
to conserve biodiversity.
