[Coral-List] article on restoration

[Mellipona]

Dear all,

I would like to give a small comment on conservation biology basics,
without getting into the restoration topic itself.
I find it very worrying that large amounts of money go into one approach,
with an uncertain conservation outcome. In conservation biology, there are
some general principles for conservation planning, and one of the most
important is cost-effectiveness.
Under real world conditions, triage for conservation actions is key, so
that more species can be conserved using the available insufficient funds.
Actually, conservation actions targeted at certain species has been
mentioned as being one of the shortcomings of the conservation enterprise
in the last decades, as there never will be enough money and time to
concentrate on conserving a certain species, given the huge biodiversity
crisis.
At this point, I would even say that trying to save coral reefs is taking
away resources that could be better used for improving the condition of
other types of ecosystems that have higher probabilities to transform into
something that still provides ecosystem services needed for human survival.
This statement stems from the fact that the odds for coral reefs are really
bad under the present and future climate conditions.
The claim that climate change needs to be mitigated in order to give reefs
a chance, falls completely into conservation biology principles. In
conservation biology, it is never advised to release animals into the wild
when the underlying problems are ongoing, as the money used to raise those
animals in captivity would have the same impact as throwing it out of the
window.



Best

Mel

Melanie Kolb, PhD
Institute of Geography
UNAM, Mexico