One of the interesting unspoken secrets of the conservation world is that taxonomists are in charge. More specifically, what taxonomists consider interesting enough to name as a species or a subspecies determines what can be protected. After all, it is the Endangered Species Act. But what if the taxonomists can't agree on what a species is?
This excellent short article in the Atlantic provides examples form hawthorn trees, which, depending on who you talk to, are either in decline and in need of conservation, or so widely distributed and common that it would be like trying to preserve Kentucky Bluegrass.
"A few years ago, conservation groups were gearing up to assign the [balsam-mountain hawthorn] tree the rarest rank a species can receive, which would imply an urgent necessity to conserve it. But [a botanist] decided it was probably a hybrid of two other hawthorns. He still believed the tree should be protected, but instantly, the species went from critically rare to nonexistent, from a conservation point of view."
"A prominent evolutionary biologist, wrote in 1976, that perhaps no true hawthorn species exist at all—that they make up a sort of genetic continuum that doesn’t allow for coherent species classification."
"[another] botanist... told me the biggest threat to the trees is not land-use changes but botanists themselves, who are unwilling to meet the taxonomic challenge. If no one takes on the task of categorizing hawthorns, then no conservation group can take any measures to save them."
"Now whatever solution [the botanists] come to will determine what we try to save."
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