Ecological Integrity and Sustainability: Buzzwords in Conflict?

Abstract

The politics of conservation might be seen by an outside observer as a battle of buzzwords. On one side stand the deep ecologists, wilderness advocates, and many biologists proclaiming the values of wildness, naturalness, biodiversity, and ecological integrity. On the other side the bureaucrats, politicians, resource managers, international development planners, and a few biologists chant sustainable development, multiple use, and ecosystem management. Sometimes the distinctions blur as “moderate” conservationists in the middle discuss sustainability, ecosystem management, and biodiversity all in one breath, optimistically believing that development and conservation are interdependent and compatible. A major problem is that everyone seems to have something different—sometimes slightly and other times radically different—in mind when using these terms. What one person sees as sustainable development, another sees as destruction of a priceless heritage. A timber company may justify clearcutting as enhancing biodiversity, while an environmentalist claims that such cutting will lead to loss of old-growth species.