For a very long time I've thought, as Bill mentioned in an early post in this thread, that we need to focus on ecosystems, communities, whatever term works best for communicating with the public. And, as Bill said the emphasis needs to be on ecosystem services, emphasizing value to humans. If we just keep saying look at the beautiful prairie, and we're loosing it, we'll get no further than we have with emphasis on rare, threatened, or endangered species. A side benefit of emphasis on ecosystems is that if we save those, we've saved their species, too (often, anyway. We still need to keep up with population loss and try to reverse it). DMc
---- William Silvert <cien...@silvert.org> wrote: > Well, I do think that the earthworm (or earthworms) is essential, I don't > see what the problem is in using collective nouns. As for its being an > invasive species, it is my understanding that the native earthworms were > pretty nearly wiped out during the ice ages and the European invaders filled > an essential gap. > > And they are yucky. Some useful species, like hagfish, are incredibly yucky. > Why is this a problem? My point was that we have to focus on the value of > organisms, not their aesthetic appeal. In an earlier posting I discussed the > importance of fly maggots, aren't they pretty yucky too? > > By the way, I work with jellyfish, which manage to be both beautiful and > yucky at the same time. > > Bill Silvert > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bruce A. Snyder > To: William Silvert > Cc: ECOLOG-L@listserv.umd.edu > Sent: segunda-feira, 3 de Maio de 2010 17:11 > Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] State Microbes > > 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 <cien...@silvert.org> 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. -- David McNeely
