Intervention ecology: A new strategic approach for conservation

Background/Question/Methods

Rapid, extensive and ongoing environmental change increasingly demands that humans intervene in ecosystems to maintain or restore ecosystem services and biodiversity.  At the same time the basic principles and tenets of restoration ecology and conservation biology are being debated and reshaped. Escalating global change is resulting in widespread no-analog environments and novel ecosystems that render traditional goals unachievable. The idea of novel ecosystems, or systems arising because of novel species combinations and/or new environmental conditions, has become widely discussed in the ecological literature. Such systems pose immense challenges scientifically and ethically, and also from a practical and policy perspective. While there is considerable discussion, there is, to date, little concrete advice to give to managers and policy makers on how to deal with these systems. In addition, policy makers and the general public hold onto traditional conservation approaches and have embraced restoration as a means to achieve static conservation goals, without an understanding of the limitations to restoration, leading to perverse policy outcomes from offsetting and no-net-loss.

Results/Conclusions

There is a need to focus on meaningful interventions in ecosystems, and in particular deciding on when and how to intervene (or not), and why, in relation to both traditional conservation goals and alternative goals based not only on species and biodiversity but also on function and resilience. Interventions include altering the biotic and abiotic structures and processes within ecosystems and changing social and policy settings. Interventions can be aimed at leverage points, both within ecosystems and in the broader social system, particularly feedback loops that either maintain a particular state or precipitate a rapid change from one state to another.