Conservation Compromises: The MAB and the Legacy of the International Biological Program, 1964–1974

Abstract

Abstract. This article looks at the International Biological Program (IBP) as the predecessor of UNESCO's well-known and highly successful Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB). It argues that international conservation efforts of the 1970s, such as the MAB, must in fact be understood as a compound of two opposing attempts to reform international conservation in the 1960s. The scientific framework of the MAB has its origins in disputes between high-level conservationists affiliated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) about what the IBP meant for the future of conservation. Their respective visions entailed different ecological philosophies as much as diverging sets of political ideologies regarding the global implementation of conservation. Within the IBP's Conservation Section, one group propagated a universal systems approach to conservation with a centralized, technocratic management of nature and society by an elite group of independent scientific experts. Within IUCN, a second group based their notion of environmental expert roles on a more descriptive and local ecology of resource mapping as practiced by UNESCO. When the IBP came to an end in 1974, both groups' ecological philosophies played into the scientific framework underlying the MAB's World Network or Biosphere Reserves. The article argues that it is impossible to understand the course of conservation within the MAB without studying the dynamics and discourses between the two underlying expert groups and their respective visions for reforming conservation.

Plant science decadal vision 2020–2030: Reimagining the potential of plants for a healthy and sustainable future

“…Although fully operative digital biospheres would provide powerful new tools for exploring alternative scenarios of ecosystem and evosystem change and appropriate interventions, the likelihood of our achieving the levels of detail and accuracy that will eventually be needed is low within the time frame of the Decadal Vision for 2020–2030. Indeed, earlier efforts at comprehensive ecological modeling during the International Biological Program (1964–1974) were unsuccessful (Schleper, 2017). Although we have far more data and massively more computational capacity than we did in the 1960s and 1970s, the scope and inherent complexity of the problem remain immense (Peters, 1991).…”

On the history and future of soil organic phosphorus research: a critique across three generations

“…forest, savanna, tundra, and so on) across the globe (Worthington, 1976;Schleper, 2017). I summarize these key factors, which have conditioned my activities and literature output because they could help others involved in research careers on soil organic phosphorus.…”

“…This international programme ran from 1964 to 1974, with the objectives of acquiring data on the productivity, organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling in typical ecosystems in the various biomes (e.g. forest, savanna, tundra, and so on) across the globe (Worthington, 1976;Schleper, 2017). Three key factors that arose from this experience, which had a big influence on my future research approach, were: (i) working with a multidisciplinary scientific team, (ii) research of a whole ecosystem and its function and (iii) the global dimension of the overall programme.…”

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“…210-211). Irlandés de padres ingleses, Nicholson había fundado el British Trust for Ornithology y trabajaba desde 1943 en el British Nature Conservancy, desde donde había organizado la reordenación de los Parques Naturales en el Reino Unido con vistas a la compatibilidad entre investigación científica, aprovechamiento económico y recreación (Allen, 1976(Allen, /1994Schleper, 2016). A medida que la UICN se perfilaba como una institución científica de referencia en el estudio de problemas ecológicos globales, una segunda razón que motivó la creación del WWF fue la necesidad de dotar a la UICN de medios económicos.…”

“…Aún más importante, nuevas concepciones de la conservación y la ecología favorecían el énfasis en productividad económica. Como principal responsable del área de conservación del IBP, la mayor preocupación de Nicholson en aquellos años era la de hacer compatible el bienestar económico a escala planetaria con la conservación (Schleper, 2016;Lawrence, 2015). En crítica explícita a los postulados originales del WWF, Nicholson defendía ahora que la conservación solo funcionaría si era capaz de ir a la raíz de los problemas: "desarrollo, energía y crecimiento de la población" (Schwarzenbach, 2011, p. 164).…”