Scientists seeking to maintain biodiversity have made crucial contributions to conservation by developing strategies for protecting and restoring populations and ecosystems, but changing social, economic, and political conditions are presenting new challenges that are not fully addressed by these strategies. These are explored in this chapter.

So far, we have seen that wild organisms can be managed for utilitarian goals or for preservationist goals. These two threads have been woven through the conservation movements of the western world for nearly a century and a half. Recently, however, a third strand has appeared. This third approach strives to maintain ecosystem structure and function as a means of maintaining both biodiversity and productive capacity. Thus, its twin goals, management to produce goods and services and to maintain species and communities, encompass the goals of both utilitarian and preservationist management. (Of course, it may not be possible to do both in every situation.)

I call this approach to resource management the sustainable-ecosystem approach. Like “biodiversity,” the terms “ecosystem management” and “sustainable development” have both become popular buzzwords. “Ecosystem management” refers to a specific approach adopted by agencies managing federal lands in the U.S.A. (see below). I use the term “sustainable-ecosystem approach” not to refer to the program of any specific agency or organization, but to denote a type of resource management that seeks to conserve biodiversity and productivity by maintaining heterogeneous structures, components, and functions in interconnected ecosystems.