Globally dispersed local challenges in conservation biology.

Contemporary challenges in conservation biology seem more formidable than 20 years ago, when the founding of the journal Conservation Biology more or less co- incided with the emergence of conservation biology as a distinct scientific discipline. Several years ago, David Ehrenfeld, the founding editor of the journal, and one of the cofounders of the discipline, likened conservation bi- ologists to practitioners of medicine and urged that we evaluate the success or development of our discipline by the condition of our patient (Ehrenfeld 2000). Of course, our patient-biodiversity-is not well, particularly in the tropics where most biodiversity is found. Although de- forestation rates have slowed in some parts of the world, forest degradation has accelerated in other parts (Jha & Bawa, 2006). Moreover, improved monitoring methods indicate that previous rates of biodiversity loss may have been gross underestimates (Laurance et al. 2004). Some might argue that were it not for the contributions made by conservation biologists, biodiversity loss may have been much higher, but for most parts of the world we lack the evidence to validate such an argument.