Conservation biologists have endeavored to preserve biodiversity from the most extreme excesses of human environmental destruction. Most of these efforts to reverse, halt, and even slow biodiversity decline have proven ineffective, with the downward trends in most biotic groups showing no signs of abating. Human pressure on remaining tracts of natural habitat has not eased and will likely intensify because of climate change. Although the quest for ever-increasing standards of living by an ever-growing human population is the cause of the biodiversity crisis, it can also be the source of its mitigation by harnessing the technological innovation that is driving economic development to stem biodiversity loss. Such an effort will require much greater invasive mediation in biological processes, thereby further blurring the line between nature and humans that conservation biologists have long sought to preserve. But perhaps it is time to embark on a more explicitly symbiotic relationship with our environment and the biota that it harbors. As a species, humans are distinguished by their ambition and capacity to control natural phenomena through technological innovation. This innovativeness is now needed by conservation biologists to combat the threats to biodiversity that technology itself has helped to create.
Competition for space remains an almost insurmountable challenge for biological conservation, and future efforts to provide habitat to secure species and biological processes will focus on maintaining and managing (rather than consolidating) protected areas. Globally, the protected status of established terrestrial and marine parks may be eroded if it becomes clear that their boundaries no longer preserve intact habitats or trophic webs due to mismanagement or other threats such as climate change and pollution, or even if their location is seen to impede economic development. For example, the plans for development along the northeast Australian coast are threatening the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Status of the Great Barrier Reef.