CONSERVATION OF ARABIAN GAZELLES - Nwrc.gov.sa

most that can be done is to simulate what was previously present and to restore the ecological and
evolutionary processes which generate diversity. The latter is what the priority for the future should,
in my view, be.
A pragmatic approach to reintroduction should draw on all the knowledge available in
behavioural ecology, genetics, small population biology, taxonomy and so forth, but it should not be
sidetracked by idealistic and impossible objectives and it should not be inhibited by undue caution.
Our factual and conceptual iguorance of all the factors that impinge on reintroduction is so great that
risk and trial and error are unavoidable.
Thus it may well transpire that carefully conducted
experimental reintroductions with achievable objectives will do more to increase our capacity for
restoring biodiversity than idealistically motivated, elaborate and painstaking efforts to recreate a
largely unknown and unknowable past.
The whole enterprise of reintroduction, indeed of conservation, is so new that there is not
only scope for a diversity of approaches and objectives but also a positive need for flexibility and
openness.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Abdulaziz Abuzinada, Secretary General of the NCWCD, for authorizing
the holding of this workshop and thereby stimulating the writing of this paper. I would also like to
thank colleagues at the NWRC for their contribution to the debate on the important issues raised in
this paper.
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