| Vol 1, No. 1, July 1998. Conservation, Science and Activism: Dr. Michael Soule speaks
" The human race was driving the sixth great extinction crisis, Soulé believed, on par with the disappearance of the dinosaurs and Pleistocene creatures like the woolly mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger. It was only natural, he thought, to search for ways to protect life, and his profession. Taking the cue from Aldo Leopold and others, he added conscience to science. Soulé's conservation biology has been likened to medicine; it's science aimed at healing the land. " "Conservation biology grew largely out of a school of thought called island biogeography. The theory was pioneered by such notable naturalists as Charles Darwin, and captured in the 1967 book, The Theory of Island Biogeography, by ecologist Robert MacArthur and biologist Edward O. Wilson. Its basic principle is that large islands close to the mainland can support more types of plants and animals than smaller, more isolated islands. As islands shrink, species fall prey to inbreeding and accidents, and start dying off. " |
July 28th, 1999: This date marks ten years since the first
meeting between Dr. Michael Hamilton and Charles Convis at the James Reserve
that started the ESRI Conservation Program. Steve Beckwitt and Peter Morrison
(pictured above) joined the program in late 1989, providing the needed
computer and GIS technical skills. Since that time the ECP has hosted
9 conferences and expanded into areas including Native American/First
Nations, Environmental Justice, Archeology and Health Care.
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The
Society for Conservation GIS is fortunate to have Dr. Michael Soule as
the keynote speaker for our second annual conference. I first met Dr.
Soule when he took the reins of the Environmental Studies Dept. at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. It was one of only a handful of
schools offering rigorous degrees in field natural history under the guidance
of noted biologists like Dr. Kenneth Norris and Dr. Raymond Dasmann. Dr.
Soule grew up in the canyons, shores and deserts around San Diego and
the San Diego Natural History Museum. He went on to Stanford to become
one of Dr. Paul Ehrlich's first graduate students, then on to help found
the first university in Malawi. Besides over 100 articles and books on
topics including evolutionary biology, biodiversity policy, and ethics,
he is widely known for being one of the founders of the Society for Conservation
Biology and the Wildlands Project. Greg Hanscom described Dr. Soule's
work in an excellent overview (High Country News Apr 26, 1999, www.hcn.org):
"Michael Soulé, a slight, goateed scientist in his 60s....concluded
that he could not sit back and be an 'objective' scientist while the natural
world went to hell. "
The
core of the ECP is grants of GIS software, training and equipment, and
in the last 10 years we have carried out 4000 grants in over 80 countries.
The ECP also helped found the Society for Conservation GIS and the Conservation
Technology Support Program (see center section of this issue).