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the decade when most of the great environmental struggles will be either won or lost <br />(Lovejoy 1988). <br />What is biological diversity? The definitions are as diverse as the biological re- <br />source. As definitions become broader and less specific, conservation action becomes <br />increasingly more burdensome. How does an agency, a regional director, or a local <br />resource specialist manage for the "variety of life?" What can be done? What cannot <br />be done? Wildlife managers/conservation biologists must assure that actions to con- <br />serve biological diversity will not, in practice, become counterproductive (Murphy <br />1989). I detect an overwhelming sense of anxiety within the profession relative to <br />resolving the complexities of diversity conservation. <br />Ecology, as a science, is a diverse subdiscipline. What ecology Dnngs to the larger <br />science of biology is environmental perspectives for viewing genetics, organisms, <br />populations, and ecosystems. Inquiries into biological diversity must be viewed as <br />ecologically dynamic, including spatial scales that range from habitats to landscapes <br />and continents, and temporal scales that include instantaneous, seasonal, life span, <br />or evolutionary perspectives. It is the complexities of scales that have fostered op- <br />erational disillusion with attempts to define and manage biological diversity. This <br />session, as structured, is about the biological and ecological scales of viewing and <br />conserving the diversity of wildlife in North America. <br />References <br />Carson, R. 1962. Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. <br />Kennedy, J. J. 1984. Understanding professional career evolution-an example of Aldo Leopold. <br />Wildl. Soc. Bull. 12:215-226. <br />Lovejoy, T. E. 1988. Will unexpectedly the top blow off? BioScience 38:722-726. <br />Murphy, D. D. 1989. Conservation and confusion: Wrong species, wrong scale, wrong conclusions. <br />Cons. Biol. 3:82-84. <br />Scott, J. M., E. D. Ables, T. C. Edwards, R. L. Eng, T. A. Gavin, L. D. Harris, J. B. Haufler, <br />W. M. Healy, F. L. Knopf, O. Torgerson, and H. P. Weeks, Jr. 1992. Conservation of bio- <br />logical diversity: Some perspectives and a look to the future for the wildlife profession. Wildl. <br />Soc. Bull. (In press). <br />242 ? Trans. 57" N. A. Wildl. & Nat. Res. Conf. (1992)