Open AccessMammal Conservation: Old Problems, New Perspectives, Transdisciplinarity, and the Coming of Age of Conservation Geopolitics
Author(s) -
David W. Macdonald
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
annual review of environment and resources
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.01
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1545-2050
pISSN - 1543-5938
DOI - 10.1146/annurev-environ-101718-033039
Subject(s) - transdisciplinarity , geopolitics , wildlife conservation , environmental ethics , wildlife , anthropocene , geography , conservation psychology , complementarity (molecular biology) , conservation biology , environmental planning , environmental resource management , ecology , biodiversity , sociology , political science , social science , politics , biology , environmental science , philosophy , law , genetics
I review the shocking current status of terrestrial mammals and then describe an approach to solving it, embracing a continuum of spatial and intellectual scales, from groundedness to geopolitics. Starting with an illustrative arena, the interface between agriculture and wildlife, I then outline the litany of threats to mammals and some successful approaches to their conservation, and document some broad-scale patterns regarding ecosystems, the mammalian communities within, and some implications for conservation. Observing that the battle for mammalian conservation is being badly lost, I dedicate the third part of this article to a combination of top-down and bottom-up, interdisciplinary studies, aspiring to a holistic approach that sets conservation in the wider sphere of the human enterprise and that I term transdisciplinary conservation.