"From the Mountains to the Sea"

As one of the 1,200 or so conservation biologists who registered for the conservation biology bio-fest in Chattanooga Tennessee, I spent all last week bouncing between sessions on ecological responses of various creatures to our rapidly changing environment.

Amidst this sea of beards and beige, by the end of the week, the creature I was most concerned about was the conservation biologist him/herself. We all want to measure stuff, and at the moment we are spending a huge amount of time and energy on monitoring our own decline. Take all the data on "winners and losers" in our changing climate, put on a clean pair of shoes and hotfoot to the doors of policy makers, papers, tv and radio producers. Get the warnings out there and see if you can get the world to understand the word biodiversity before it becomes irrelevant.