Like a street sweeper at the end of an Elephant Parade - Is conservation missing the point?

Nine billion humans will inherit the earth by 2050 and we're already seeing the effects of over population with a limit to food production technology, either with species loss or degraded habitats - right now.

In fact almost every single conservation effort on the world scene, from pandas to sharks, can be looked at through a lens of overpopulation.

Does the world conservation scene need to widen their conservation lens to look at the bigger picture, or like the little Dutch Boy, is conservation happy to keep a finger in failing dike?

The RTSea Blog waded into this issue today with it's usual calm demeanor and brings up some great points:

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is getting restless again. I've used that metaphor in the past to describe the growing human population that is driving so much of our consume-not conserve behavior. At the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the issue of population growth, and what toll that will take on our natural resources, was raised again by Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund.

Complete post here.