Abstract

If ecologists "live in a world of wounds", then conservation biologists could be said to per-form triage daily in a ward full of chronically hemorrhag-ing patients. In the two decades since its inception, the crisis discipline of conservation biology has reacted to a neverending onslaught of threats. In the face of escalat-ing rates of overharvest, habitat degradation and conver-sion, spread of exotic species, and exponential growth of the human population, it seems inevitable that we as conservation biologists and managers should become in-creasingly jaded and pessimistic as our careers advance. Nevertheless, I challenge us instead to adopt a positive outlook in our work. An optimistic attitude should increase the conserva-tion biologist's ability to initiate and sustain collabora-tions with colleagues, as few professionals choose to work with consistently pessimistic individuals. As conserva-tion and management strategies incorporate broader spatial scales, where professionals with different train-ing, paradigms, legislative mandates, and jargon come together, truly collaborative effort becomes a necessity. Consequently, an overly skeptical perspective may re-sult in missed opportunities to create revolutionary ideas, develop new methods, or formulate new questions. We conservation biologists should foster optimism in professional life also because the success of conservation efforts depends on how we are perceived by decision-makers and the public at large. Although we must alert these groups to impending ecological challenges, we must also give them reasons for hope. If we do not, resis-tance to conservation biology and a negative perception of its practitioners could marginalize our efforts at all scales. In addition to advantages that optimism conveys pro-fessionally, it also may have tangible personal benefits. Individuals espousing a positive worldview are consis-tently more effective than those with a negative operat-ing paradigm. Optimism correlates with improved performance of real-world tasks and performance in classes and helps prevent the development of distress, anxiety, and other health problems. An optimistic mentality may help us maintain sanity and avoid apathy or misanthropy when confronted with un-ending onslaughts to biotic diversity. Optimism is particularly crucial in conservation educa-tion, outreach activities, and policy. Finger com-pared the ability of three strategies, scare tactics, infor-mational, and experiential, to transmit and activate ecological knowledge among Swiss adults. He found that scare tactics were least effective in imparting eco-logical knowledge, and adults receiving this "treatment" were later least likely to retain learned principles and translate these into "environmental behavior". Optimism-inspired educational strategies include heralding past achievements of conservationists and highlighting the fi-nancial and other benefits gained by integrating conser-vation philosophies into projects in diverse academic disciplines. Because an informed public can contribute to the success of future strategies for biodiversity, efforts to improve the amount and quality of conservation edu-cation should remain resolute, even aggressive. Although there are usually not institutional rewards for participating in extension-style activities or present-ing research results to local agencies or environmental interest groups, these actions may indirectly benefit conservation biologists. Instead of increasing incompati-bility between academia and applied conservation, biol-ogists should engage in continuous communication. Man-agers may contribute large data sets for examining temporal trends and community dynamics, and academicians may provide assistance with hypothesis formation, experi-mental design, and analysis. Similarly, instead of assum-ing that individual voices advocating biodiversity to leg-islators will be drowned out by opposing lobbyists, conservation biologists should realize that legislators Paper submitted March 29, 1999; revised manuscript accepted July 27, 1999.