Why is wildlife conservation important? Five powerful reasons

If you’re anything like me, you may not have spent much time thinking about the question ‘why is wildlife conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More important?’ Naturally, almost all conservationists on the planet accept the importance of wildlife at the very start of their careers. After thirty years though, I challenged myself to find an answer. What I discovered has refreshed my perspective and made me question things anew. At the same time, it’s made me realise the greater importance of wild animals for human survival.

The irony is, that knowing how and why animals matter inspires a different philosophy around protecting wildlife, one that could empower conservation even more. It makes us more likely to be able to persuade others about the fundamental importance of wildlife and make better decisions for our own survival.

#1 Only animals can ‘manage’ ecosystems

You’ll often hear conservationists talking about wildlife management but we have to be very careful what we mean by that. Wild animals create ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More so every time we manipulate, kill or hamper wildlife’s progress in re-establishing balance, we disrupt ecosystem processes. We set the clock back on restoration.

I get concerned when I hear projects sold under the mantra of wildlife management that might be suppressing wildlife activity in order to build the landscape people want, rather than the landscape we all need. For our survival, we need landscapes that are stable and sustain themselves based on their animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would not be habitable for humans, because it's animals that stabilise ecosystems. It’s a fundamental law of nature that animals (and humans) exist because we are the most likely lifeforms to minimise environmental chaos. Animal impact, therefore, is a measure of how much all wildlife is collectively responsible for creating a habitable Earth. The More.

Humans managing ecosystems is impossible, since their complexity transcends anything we can ever control. Abundant and diverse wildlife is the only mechanism that can create that stability. Without animal conservation, we don’t stand a chance.

#2 Endangered species are important security for our future survival

There are those that would argue that the cost of trying to save an endangered species isn’t worth it, that money can be better spent elsewhere. I can’t agree. We just don’t know what species (or combination of species) is going to be the greatest benefit to our livelihoods. If we play god with the existence of species, we are playing a lottery with our own future. Trade-offs aren’t tenable in a world where we’ve already lost almost three-quarters of all wild animals.

The problem is that we have relegated most endangered species to the very brink of survival and pushed them into tiny areas of habitat that we have to manipulate, just in order to keep them alive. United Kingdom conservationists are resorting to feeding seed to once abundant Turtle Doves. Australia does the same with rare parrots. Conservationists are spending more and more time and money on these last-gasp efforts when the majority of our liveable country falls into disrepair due to catastrophic wildlife declines. It’s impossible to let go of endangered species without harming prospects for our own future recovery.

• Fat-handed Shrimp at Ricketts Point, plus Bearded Crab, 16 May
• Restoring soil biodiversity takes animals
• Cryptic Sacoglossum in Port Phillip Bay, Sacoproteus smaragdinus, 5 May
• Sapsucking sea slugs at Beaumaris, 4 May
• Night snorkel at Blairgowrie Pier, Sat 27 April

#3 The viability of land that feeds us relies on wildlife conservation

Our farmland is mostly centred on areas that used to be grassland or floodplains, rich in migratory animals. The decline of abundant migratory wildlife is one of the greatest causes of concern. The transfer(of nutrients) the thing that sets animals apart from plants, is that they can move. Some of the biggest migrations on Earth every day, are the movement of insects like caterpillars, from the stem of a plant to a leaf and back, before turning into butterflies and transferring the energy elsewhere. Large-scale migration of grazing animals and migratory songbirds moves More, amplificationAmplification (of nutrients and energy). Animals consume plants and other animals and in doing so, reintroduce important energy-containing nutrients back into the environment, at even higher concentrations and in patches. Amplification of energy is driven by migration and happens at every scale, from insects moving daily in and out of your vegetable patch, to African wildebeest herds and the seasonal More and concentration of nutrientsEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More underpins all soil structure, coastal fish productivityThe power of an ecosystem to process energy. The most productive ecosystems have reached a steady stable-state with maximum entropy production. That’s to say, the number of species has reached an optimum and the functions they fulfil, have translated free surplus energy into nutrients that is either stored inside plants and animals, or is entrained within the biological cycles that More and clean water. When the energy that is normally locked up in those processes is released into the atmosphere, that’s when we get climate instability. Without these animal-driven systems, our food security and everything is thrown into chaos(Of energy and ecosystems). Ecosystems are thermodynamically driven. Disorder occurs when energy dissipates and becomes more chaotic. For example, the release of hot air into the atmosphere results in that energy is freer to disperse (maximum entropy). The opposite is true when energy is locked into biological processes, when it is stored inside molecules (minimum entropy). Stability in ecosystems occurs More.

According to The Economics of Land Degradation Initiative, the recovery of ecosystems would create more than USD 75.6 trillion in the world economy. A tenth of that could be realised in farm income and yield, if agricultural-based ecosystem were restored.

#4 Wildlife conservation increases our species’ probability of survival

Every time we kill any wild animal we are reducing the probability of human survival by removing one of the most important components of ecosystem functionality.

The World Economic Forum reports that 79% of all threatened and near-threatened species are impacted by loss of nature. It’s actually the other way around (see #5, below) … nature is threatened by the loss of species. If most of the world’s animals are threatened with extinction and we are an animal too, how long can we avoid the reality that we are putting ourselves under threat by killing all other animals?

In particular, if we kill large animals with similar food-density needs as us, we destabilise the processes that deliver soil, water and nutrients, in the right quantity and in the right places. For instance, if we kill birds of prey on farmland, this has a disproportionate impact on our food economy. If we catch seabirds, whales and dolphins in fisheries, or shoot seals to protect aquaculture, we are degrading the very ecosystems on which these industries depend.

#5 Nature and Nature-based Solutions are by their very definitions, about wildlife conservation

Use of words like ‘nature’ and nature-based solutions are relatively new. These buzzwords now accompany terms like biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More, sustainability and other important humanitarian outcomes that society seeks to fulfil. Nature-based solutions are central to the UN Environment Program.

We are facing a planetary emergency for climate, nature and humanity. Unsustainable human activities, from farming and mining to industry and infrastructure, are undermining the productivity of vast areas of farmland, forests and other ecosystems. This degradation threatens food security, water supplies and the biodiversity upon which human development depends. It drives and is exacerbated by the climate crisis.

UN Environment Program

Without animals though, nature is non-existent because ecosystems cannot be sustained; and without ecosystems, there is none of the life support that our species and civilisation depends on.

The greatest threat to our future isn’t the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, forest cover or food in the sea, it’s the ecosystem chaos that forms when we remove the majority of animals from Earth. Our biggest challenge and opportunity is to rebuild wildlife populations because that stability adds up to a fairer climate with less extreme weather events, deeper soils, cleaner water and a richer ocean. Knowing where and when to find food and water is critical for our entire lives and economies.

It’s time for conservationists to shout this loud! Rebuilding a world rich with diverse and abundant wildlife is the only solution for a habitable planet.

And that is why wildlife conservation is important!