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Conservation of biodiversit has been largel a s!ecies b s!ecies
a"air# $he
creation of the %ndangered S!ecies Act has made the reservation
of land on which
decreasing !o!ulations of !articular s!ecies reside into a
social instrument# &ierce
'!olitical battles have been waged in the name of !articular
s!ecies (S!otted wl*Snail Darter* Cheetah) and huge sums of mone
have been s!ent to resolve claims
made to +t with actions to 'save endangered s!ecies without
regard concomitantl
and necessaril to conserving the land and,or other s!ecies on
which and with
which the reside ('%arth and ife evolve together - eon Croi.at)#
/or has
su0cient consideration been given to the genetic diversit of
endangered
meta!o!ulations with res!ect to sister demes which might not
match with e1tant
sstematic (s!ecies) delineations#
2ere a !anbiogeogra!hic atlas !ro3ection o"ers the
conservationist a multi-state
view of the evolutionaril im!ortant and historicall contingent
as!ect of certain
connected landsca!es#
4t suggests a need to revisit the notion of !rotecting
biodiversit s!ecies b s!ecies
while o"ering in its !lace* tools towards decision making that
!rotects instead5 the
!anbiogeogra!hic landsca!es on which the reside and have
evolved#
4t is a di"erent view than that suggested b new naming
conventions
su!!orted b S%6A*
in that it becomes !ossible !anbiogeogra!hicall to assert that
!articular
disconnected (often mult-state) networks of localities rather
than locall or
regionall named areas need legislative su!!ort (when
conservation of !ast
evolutionar change is the goal)#
As such !ro!osed su!!ort legislation must s!an state !olitical
boundaries
and re7uires both national and international e1ecution rather
than local and
!lace based instrumental decision-making even-though the
networks
themselves are sim!l local areas connected in com!licated was
(not sim!le
ma!!ings of the 8d geo-!olitical surface to itself)#
Panbiogeogra!h !rovides a means to determine common s!ace usage
of man
di"erent s!ecies over all of geological time and thus shows
where the s!ace is that
needs to be set aside rather than the to be !rotected s!ecies
!o!ulations
themselves which are the sub3ects of the conservative
action#
ne s!ecies is related to another to another9 4f we !rotect one
---where do we
sto!: $his is a matter for vicariant time;;
Snail darter Starga.ing darter-other Percina other darters other
+sh other
+shlike other am!hibians9#
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$his is a 7uestion for !anbiogeogra!h to answer for regions# 4t
is not one that is
going to be due to a name for a region even if the names are
di"erent for di"erent
subregions unless names donrehn has argued for a revision of
Conservation Stratigies in /ew
?eland based on !anbi!ogeogra!hic units rather than the
conservation strateg
ado!ted# $he force of a large !olitical decision making
!recluded ob3ective
deduction from the argument and held the da# $his is the same
kind of inertia that
needs to be overcome in the @S as it contem!lates how resources
are to bedistributed in the ever increasing human im!act (as long
as humans increase in our
!o!ulation) on living things#
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$hus we can describe a network of state locals that have
multi!le e"ects in timeand thus have !ro!ortional need for relative
conservation# $hus on this analsis
Arkansas should receive the most funds and >eorgia the least
for instance (if funds
were to be a!!lied to the snail darter) even though no darters
live in Arkasas and
but some do live in >eorgia# Ehen this analsis is shown to
a!!l
!anbiogeogra!hicall and not 3ust as a generali.ed track for
su!!ort then funds for
all of conservation e"orts might also be united with the same
snthesis e1tended
nationall and,or globall# 4t makes little sense to name this
location weighted
function for su!!ort since there is not time that the !articular
network formed a
natural 'area but rather is the result of an %arth and ife that
evolved together# 4n
other words sim!l naming regions of the %arth as of ancestral
im!ortance might
work on the largest scale of conservation e"orting but makes
little sense for si.e of
actual !olitical boundaries where states and countries are the
si.e often of multi!le
@S states rather 7uarter continents (though that is the case for
a few) 3udiciousl#
