Also seeking common ground in conservation.

In his response to my recent editorial (Soule 2013), Kareiva (2014) seeks to “correct some misimpressions” while seeking common ground. I am grateful for Kareiva’s collegial response and his agreement that nature (biodiversity) must be protected and conserved for its own sake as well as for utilitarian reasons.1 Kareiva celebrates the achievements of his employer, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), globally the most influential conservation NGO. TNC has been a powerful actor and an effective implementer of habitat protection as well as a key voice for educating the public about the threats to nature. Its scientists, staff, and donors deserve our gratitude. If TNC did not exist, conservationists would need to invent such an organization. Not only do I harbor no hostility to the hundreds of dedicated staff of TNC, I salute their manifold contributions to conservation. Another point of agreement is that protected areas, by themselves, are too limited in size. Combined they constitute only about 13% of Earth (Le Saout et al. 2013), considered far too little to achieve comprehensive biodiversity protection (Noss et al. 2012). The solution is to create more protected areas and to improve their management when possible. We agree, as well, that lands subject to resource extraction, agriculture, grazing, and logging must be managed in ways that minimize damage to biodiversity, in part because diverse ecosystems are more stable and resilient (Tilman 2012). But wishing does not make it so. Not nearly enough sensitively managed wildlife habitat is effectively protected in the Unites States or elsewhere to arrest the extinction crisis. In addition, ecological degradation is exacerbated by some government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services antipredator program and The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s aggressive leasing of public lands for fossil fuel exploration and extraction in Wyoming and other states (Beckman et al. 2012).