A New Challenge by Edward T. LaRoe National Biological Service R esource managers at many state and federal agencies are in the middle of a fundamental change in the practice and objectives of conservation. Traditional management has been directed toward maintaining, usually for harvest purposes, populations of individual species such as ducks, deer, or salmon. Increasingly, however, resource managers are recognizing the critical importance of conserving biological diversity, or biodiversity.
Biodiversity is important for many reasons.
Additionally, most foods were domesticated from wild stocks, and interbreeding of different, wild genetic stocks is often used to increase crop yield. In turn, animals convert oxygen back to carbon dioxide, providing the building blocks for the formation of sugars during photosynthesis by plants. Biodiversity provides the reservoir for change in our life-support systems, allowing life to adapt to changing conditions. Like air, water, and soils, biological diversity is part of the capital upon which all life depends. The need for this diversity is greatest in times of environmental stress when plants, animals, and microbes must develop new characteristics or strategies for survival.