Bill,
I agree wholeheartedly that drawing attention to organisms other than the
charismatic megafauna would do a great deal for biodiversity awareness.
There are many projects out there that do focus on these species, not only
documenting their biodiversity but also raising public awareness (e.g., I'm
running one getting kids to go collect earthworms). I think that we have to
be careful when communicating to the public: saying "the earthworm is
essential" is extremely misleading and facilitates the misconception that
there is only one type of earthworm (and most places in the US+Canada "the
earthworm" is an invasive species!!). Stating in the same sentence that
earthworms are "yucky" demonstrates the big problem we're up against, not
just for the public but also in the scientific community.
-Bruce
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruce A. Snyder, PhD
Instructor; REU Program Coordinator
Mail: Kansas State University
Division of Biology
116 Ackert Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-4901
Office: 136 Ackert Hall
785-532-2430
http://www.k-state.edu/earthworm/
On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 9:47 AM, William Silvert <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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 In my unpublished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.
>>>
>>
