conservation = protection?

Well . . . sorta kinda . . .

To preserve means to keep something in its (alleged) original state. If something threatens the maintenance of its original state, then you would be protecting it. But, take for example those who re-enact the English civil wars. They dress up in 17th clothing, and they march around with 17th century weapons, and they "re-enact" 17th century battles. No one is trying to destroy them, but nevertheless they are preserving those aspects of the 17th century.

Without more context, it would be difficult to say (no, i'm not going to go read your article0, but the sentence doesn't seem to imply that the genetic code is threatened (inferentially, it might be abstractly threatened, but i don't see that in the text), so i'm not sure that protection is a good synonym.

Thanks.