Contesting the best of what’s left: Inevitable development pressures on our large natural systems
Large natural systems provide the necessary foundation for biodiversity conservation, and ultimately the well-being of the planet. Increasingly, our society is coveting the resources that such systems hold. The tension between these perspectives will be magnified as global climate change and unsustainable population growth blights our currently most productive and populated lands. Our profession can, and should, contribute to this debate, through explicit evaluation of biodiversity assets; through evaluation of the worth to society of such systems; through describing the ecological processes that hold such systems together; and through describing or predicting the extent and manner of interruption or dysfunction that modification may bring to these processes. The success of any such contribution will be dependent upon the extent of local, regional and global support, and hence of how well science is communicated and how well societal interests and perspectives are incorporated. I use northern Australia, my home, as a case study for this framework. I conclude that while we have advanced the conservation case substantially, the rate of development pressure is increasing even more rapidly.