CONSERVATION OF ARABIAN GAZELLES - Nwrc.gov.sa

The traditional approach to taxonomy
All attempts to understand the order of living Nature and to express it in an equivalent logicai
structure are based on shared identical features, similarities and differences between organisms. For
the purpose of grouping organisms together, similarities in structure and function are used. Although
this seems like a logical procedure "nobody could deny that judgements and procedures of this sort
are mere unobjectifiable expressions of opinion until there is some causal understanding of the
resemblances between various organisms" (Ax, 1987).
The lack of objective delimiting criteria was a feature of all efforts to classify the natural
world from the zoology of Aristotle (384-322 BC) to the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus (1707-1778).
Throughout this more than two thousand year period the essentialist or typological approach to
classification was dominant. In terms of this approach, organisms were placed together in units on
the basis of the shared possession of particular features, which were chosen subjecti vely and set up as
essential characteristics.
As well as lacking in objectivity this approach is inherently problematic because it uses static
categories to classify dynamic entities which are being modified by the ongoing process of evolution
- in other words, it is an attempt to impose pattern on process. It has the further weakness that it
ignores the question of whether the shared features selected as essential characters are genetically or
environmentally determined.
From the point of view of conservation this approach is particularly unsatisfactory because it
allows virtually anybody to decide that virtually any level of variability is worthy of either specific or
subspecific status. This means that there is uncertainty both about the nature and the consistency of
what is being protected. In other words it raises the questions:
• What kinds of entities are we protecting
• Are we always protecting the same kinds of entities
The typological or essentialist approach was challenged when the emergence of evolutionary
theory provided a causal explanation for the diversity of the natural world. Darwin himself (1859)
pointed out that classifications should ideally be genealogies, thus suggesting a new basis for
systematics.
The purpose of classification
The importance of the purpose of classification is pointed out by De Bono ( 1990): "Just as we can
analyze things in different ways so we can classify them in different ways. We need to choose the
basis of classification and then stick to it... The choice of classification basis depends very much on
the purpose of your thinking. What do you want to do with the classification"
Given the range and the complexity of natural diversity, there is so much scope for
differences in purpose that it is questionable whether unified methods and criteria for taxonomy are
practical or even possible (Rojas, 1992). It is therefore not surprising to find that in modem
taxonomy differences in aims and methods seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
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