Reasons for Hope.Naive and Unrealistic?

Just finished my executive summary of Myer's Conservation of Biodiversity: How are We Doing? 

Admittedly, reading the article did affect my outlook for the future of conservation. I knew I needed to brace myself once the author mentioned that, despite not being defeatist, the article is to be realistic about the current progress of various efforts for biodiversity. Nevertheless, I felt some degree of hopelessness. The present situation was even described to be deteriorating, and the author kept mentioning that even the best efforts to date have only slowed down what it repeatedly implied to be inevitable. I also disliked reading the part on delayed-fallout species, apparently referred to by biologists as the ‘living dead’ for which there is likely no hope unless their habitats are saved. 

Then there was the discussion in our last meeting in my biodiversity class before the break. Many in class said they generally had a negative outlook for conservation's future.

This all reminds me of Jane Goodall's four reasons for hope: the human brain, nature's resilience, the indomitable human spirit and youth. But then, I couldn't subdue surfacing feelings that these reasons may be naive and unrealistic. -__-

Are they?