Premium
The Role of Fish Biologists in Helping Society Build Ecological Sustainability
Author(s) -
Angermeier Paul L.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
fisheries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.725
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1548-8446
pISSN - 0363-2415
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8446(2007)32[9:trofbi]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - sustainability , biodiversity , environmental resource management , ecosystem , ecosystem services , ecology , business , environmental ethics , environmental planning , geography , biology , economics , philosophy
Biodiversity and ecosystem functions are discounted in most environmental decisions and market transactions. The ongoing pervasive losses of aquatic biodiversity reflect unsustainable uses of the biosphere but society is profoundly ignorant and apathetic regarding this degradation. Conserving aquatic biodiversity will require fundamental changes in the human economy, which fish biologists can help catalyze by re‐configuring their role in conservation. Biologists concerned about biodiversity loss could become more engaged in assessing sustainability, in understanding relations among biodiversity, ecosystem function, and sustainability, and in promoting sustainable uses of ecosystems. Fish biologists can most effectively help build ecological sustainability by educating policymakers and publics about how biodiversity loss diminishes the quality of human lives. Via education, fish biologists should seek to influence people's values and ecological behavior, especially consumption patterns. The societal literacy needed for sustainability includes understanding how humans affect biota, dispelling the misconception that quality‐of‐life depends on consumption, and recognizing how intact ecosystems contribute to aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual dimensions of human lives. I advocate a more proactive, interdisciplinary commitment to conservation that elevates conservation education to equal importance with scientific research in the collective activities of fish biologists. These shifts will be difficult and require serious dialogue to reach consensus regarding fish biologists' role in building ecological sustainability.