Plenary Speakers
Marine Conservation Challenges for the Next Century
Ian Boyd, UK
Ian Boyd is a Professor in Biology at the University of St Andrews. He is Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute and the NERC Sea Mammal Research Unit. He has been chairman of the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) and was Chief Executive of SMRU Ltd. His research field is in marine ecology with a specialisation in marine mammals and he has gained awards for his research in polar science, zoology and marine science. He led a UK research programme in Antarctica for 14 years, has led several international research projects as chief scientist, and he is an adviser to the Government about issues concerning marine management. He has degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge, is a Fellow of the Society for Biology and The Royal Society of Edinburgh, and he is a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council. He is a holder of the Bruce Medal for polar science. He has also served on two inquiries in to the future of Scottish fisheries and chairs a Scientific Advisory Board on offshore decommissioning for Oil and Gas UK. He has published over 150 peer reviewed science articles and 9 books as author or editor. He is also on the editorial advisory Board of Science.
Marine Conservation Challenges for the Next Century
Ian L Boyd
Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 8LB, UK
The marine environment is the next great frontier for industrial development. In his book,Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained how human society operates around the ownership of capital. A challenge for conservation over the next century is to turn the human predilection for capital accrual to an advantage. The idea widely held in conservation thatnatural capital should be in common ownership may have to change. The greatest contrast between the marine environment and elsewhere is that there is common ownership of resources and many resources are spatially and temporally highly transient. Consequently, we have demonstrated singular failure to managemarine natural capital that is in common ownership and most indicators suggest this failure will continue.Codifying common ownership throughinstruments like the Common Fisheries Policy counteracts the natural tendency for individuals to accrue capital and to manage that capital wisely. Common ownership does not equate to a public shareholding. In future, increasing marine industrial development will result in cumulative harmful effects and could generate ecosystem collapse which is in nobody’s interest. Preventing this is the greatest challenge for the next century. Experience shows that systemsof common ownership do not work.
Extinction Threshold in Fragmented Landscapes
Ilkka Hanski, Finland
Ilkka Hanski’s studies – on animals ranging from butterflies, dung beetles and water fleas to voles, lemmings and bears – have made metapopulation ecology a substantial research area. The aim of the research is to elucidate the conditions that allow species to persist in fragmented landscapes but also to examine the genetic and evolutionary consequences of habitat fragmentation. Today, Hanski’s metapopulation theories are among the cornerstones of research on biodiversity, and the metapopulation concept and models have a bearing on practical management of the natural environment and on conservation policy.
Professor Hanski was awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences the 2011 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for his pioneering studies on how spatial variation affects plants and animals. He is also a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Extinction threshold in fragmented landscapes
Ilkka Hanski
Department of Biosciences
PO Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Habitat loss and fragmentation continues to be the greatest threat to biodiversity in Europe and worldwide. Innumerable populations become completely isolated, and their viability is threatened by demographic and environmental stochasticities and accumulation of deleterious mutations. Nonetheless, species may survive in networks of even small habitat fragments if the colonization rate exceeds the extinction rate when the species is rare at the landscape level. I describe an example for the Glanville fritillary butterfly and for forest-inhabiting small mammals. Ecologists have debated what matters most for the viability of species living in fragmented landscapes, the total amount or the spatial configuration of the remaining habitat. Spatial fragmentation becomes increasingly important towards the extinction threshold, at which point viability is lost. Importantly, time to extinction is especially long when the new equilibrium following habitat loss and fragmentation is close to the extinction threshold. Therefore, the extinction debt following environmental change can be expected to be especially large in communities with many rare (endangered) species, which means that we are likely to underestimate the level of threat imposed by habitat loss and fragmentation.
The cautionary tale of Australia’s many marine re-zonings
Hugh Possingham, Australia
Hugh Possingham has championed the role of decision science in conservation. His group developed Marxan – a conservation planning software – and first used it to help re-zone the Great Barrier Reef. It is now used in over 110 countries to build marine and terrestrial spatial conservation plans. Other decision-making tools influence spending on threatened species, pest and weed eradication and the way people monitor. Aside from his day job, Hugh has a variety of broader public roles advising policy makers and managers sitting on 16 committees and boards outside the University. He and Dr Barry Traill wrote “The Brigalow Declaration”, used by the Queensland Government to save over 20 million hectares of forest and woodland.
Hugh is Professor of Biology and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Queensland and Director of The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. In 2005 he was elected to the Australian Academy of Science. He has published over 300 Web of Science listed papers. Hugh suffers from an incurable disease - birdwatching.
Islands, Invasions, Conservation, and Sustainability
Peter Vitousek, USA
Peter Vitousek is a Clifford G. Morrison Professor in Population and Resource Studies at the Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University.
The Vitousek Group carry out research on ecosystems, including understanding the processes that maintain soil fertility and plant productivity in tropical forests, evaluating interactions between ecosystems and societies in the Pacific (prior to European contact), and using the Hawaiian Islands as a model system to understand how the world works. Much of his research has focused on biological invasions and human-caused changes in the global nitrogen cycle as components of contemporary global environmental change. In the course of our work, he has made a systematic effort to reach out to the Hawaiian public.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA from 1992. He won the prestigious Japan Prize in 2010 for his contributions to biological production and the environment; he was named by CNN and TIME magazine as one of America's Best in Science and Medicine.