In an era when global biodiversity is increasingly impacted by rapidly changing climate, efforts to conserve global biodiversity may be compromised if we do not consider the uneven distribution of ...climate-induced threats. Here, via a novel application of an aggregate Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) that combines changes in mean annual temperature and precipitation with changes in their interannual variability, we assess multi-dimensional climate changes across the "Global 200" ecoregions - a set of priority ecoregions designed to "achieve the goal of saving a broad diversity of the Earth's ecosystems" - over the 21(st) century. Using an ensemble of 62 climate scenarios, our analyses show that, between 1991-2010 and 2081-2100, 96% of the ecoregions considered will be likely (more than 66% probability) to face moderate-to-pronounced climate changes, when compared to the magnitudes of change during the past five decades. Ecoregions at high northern latitudes are projected to experience most pronounced climate change, followed by those in the Mediterranean Basin, Amazon Basin, East Africa, and South Asia. Relatively modest RCCI signals are expected over ecoregions in Northwest South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, yet with considerable uncertainties. Although not indicative of climate-change impacts per se, the RCCI-based assessment can help policy-makers gain a quantitative and comprehensive overview of the unevenly distributed climate risks across the G200 ecoregions. Whether due to significant climate change signals or large uncertainties, the ecoregions highlighted in the assessment deserve special attention in more detailed impact assessments to inform effective conservation strategies under future climate change.
Expansion of cropland in tropical countries is one of the principal causes of biodiversity loss, and threatens to undermine progress towards meeting the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. To understand this ...threat better, we analysed data on crop distribution and expansion in 128 tropical countries, assessed changes in area of the main crops and mapped overlaps between conservation priorities and cultivation potential. Rice was the single crop grown over the largest area, especially in tropical forest biomes. Cropland in tropical countries expanded by c. 48,000 km(2) per year from 1999-2008. The countries which added the greatest area of new cropland were Nigeria, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Brazil. Soybeans and maize are the crops which expanded most in absolute area. Other crops with large increases included rice, sorghum, oil palm, beans, sugar cane, cow peas, wheat and cassava. Areas of high cultivation potential-while bearing in mind that political and socio-economic conditions can be as influential as biophysical ones-may be vulnerable to conversion in the future. These include some priority areas for biodiversity conservation in tropical countries (e.g., Frontier Forests and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas), which have previously been identified as having 'low vulnerability', in particular in central Africa and northern Australia. There are also many other smaller areas which are important for biodiversity and which have high cultivation potential (e.g., in the fringes of the Amazon basin, in the Paraguayan Chaco, and in the savanna woodlands of the Sahel and East Africa). We highlight the urgent need for more effective sustainability standards and policies addressing both production and consumption of tropical commodities, including robust land-use planning in agricultural frontiers, establishment of new protected areas or REDD+ projects in places agriculture has not yet reached, and reduction or elimination of incentives for land-demanding bioenergy feedstocks.
The geographically most comprehensive case study (Chapter 8), for example, compares elevational gradients of regional and local species richness based on data sets from four continents; one of its ...key conclusions is that data mining of regional archive data provides different insights into biodiversity patterns and processes than local field data, and that both approaches are thus complementary and cannot replace each other. Highly relevant from a practical perspective are Chapters 12 and 14, which show how georeferenced databases can act as management tools for biodiversity conservation and protected area management, and Chapters 13-15, which demonstrate how data mining techniques can be used to study climate change effects on mountain biota.
Protected areas present a global heritage. Assessing conservation achievements in protected areas is of crucial importance with respect to the on-time delivery of international biodiversity ...conservation targets. However, monitoring data from publicly accessible databases for comparative studies of conservation achievements in the protected areas of the world are very scarce, if not non-existent. At first glance this is surprising because, with regards to protected areas, at least according to well established protected area management guidelines and widely accepted public mandates, a great deal of monitoring work and data gathering is to be conducted. This would imply that data on changes of biodiversity in protected areas could be expected to exist, and the constant progress in information technologies and Web tools engenders hope that some of it might even be available online for the global public.
This review article presents the results of an extensive online search and review of existing monitoring data from freely accessible online databases for its use in an assessment of conservation achievements in a larger sample of protected areas.
Results show two contrary sides to the status quo of accessible data from the World Wide Web for conservation science: data overkill and data scarcity with poor metadata provision.
While ever more research is, in fact, based on open-access online data, such as extrapolations of species ranges used in conservation management and planning, it remains almost impossible to obtain a basic set of information for an assessment of conservation achievements within a larger number of protected areas. This awareness has triggered a detailed discussion about the discrepancies in sharing data at the level of protected areas; mismatching relationships between expected activities in protected areas and the capacity for delivering these requirements are certainly among the main challenges. In addition, the fear of data misuse potentially resulting in harm for nature, careers, and competencies still seems to be a critical barrier strictly controlling the willingness to share data. Various initiatives aimed at tackling technical and cultural obstacles are introduced and discussed to reach the goal of a modern resource management based on adaptive management using digital opportunities of the new millennium for a sustainable global village.
Rangers are on the frontline of conservation, providing a crucial service to nature – and humanity. Many of them face difficult and dangerous situations on a regular basis. They may encounter ...poachers and other criminal and potentially armed groups while on patrol, support rescue missions, fight fires or prevent wildlife from damaging crops, thus risking and sometimes even losing their lives. Despite these dangers and hardships, the provisions in place to safeguard their interests and safety often fall short of providing meaningful response and protection and they lack the same acknowledgement other frontline workers receive. The ‘Principles for Safeguarding the Rights and Well-being of Rangers’ were developed in an effort to contribute towards the improvement of the situation rangers face around the world and to provide clear standards for practitioners and decision-makers to guide policy and action. Guidance and tools for the implementation of the principles were also developed to help close the gap between theory and practice.
In an era when global biodiversity is increasingly impacted by rapidly changing climate, efforts to conserve global biodiversity may be compromised if we do not consider the uneven distribution of ...climate-induced threats. Here, via a novel application of an aggregate Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) that combines changes in mean annual temperature and precipitation with changes in their interannual variability, we assess multi-dimensional climate changes across the "Global 200" ecoregions - a set of priority ecoregions designed to "achieve the goal of saving a broad diversity of the Earth's ecosystems" - over the 21.sup.st century. Using an ensemble of 62 climate scenarios, our analyses show that, between 1991-2010 and 2081-2100, 96% of the ecoregions considered will be likely (more than 66% probability) to face moderate-to-pronounced climate changes, when compared to the magnitudes of change during the past five decades. Ecoregions at high northern latitudes are projected to experience most pronounced climate change, followed by those in the Mediterranean Basin, Amazon Basin, East Africa, and South Asia. Relatively modest RCCI signals are expected over ecoregions in Northwest South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, yet with considerable uncertainties. Although not indicative of climate-change impacts per se, the RCCI-based assessment can help policy-makers gain a quantitative and comprehensive overview of the unevenly distributed climate risks across the G200 ecoregions. Whether due to significant climate change signals or large uncertainties, the ecoregions highlighted in the assessment deserve special attention in more detailed impact assessments to inform effective conservation strategies under future climate change.
To reduce the effects of climate change on humans and biodiversity, there is a need not only to adapt to climate change impacts that cannot be avoided but also to mitigate climate change, that is, to ...reduce the sources and enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Mitigation can be undertaken in a wide variety of ways, targeting all the different sources of GHG emissions. Land-use change is one of the largest sources of GHGs. Land management for climate change mitigation, here referred to as ecosystem-based mitigation, can substantially reduce carbon emissions, and thus provides an important tool for countries’
EARTH’S NATURAL HERITAGE Bastian Bertzky; Monika Bertzky; Graeme L. Worboys ...
Protected Area Governance and Management,
04/2015
Book Chapter
Odprti dostop
Earth is a very special place. It may seem large, maybe even infinite in size, but when viewing images captured by remote robots from Mars early in the 21st century, we quickly appreciate how Earth ...is just one bright dot in a vast expanse of space. From Mars, Earth is dwarfed by an immensity of the Milky Way Galaxy and the Universe beyond, and images like these are what help us appreciate that Earth really is a finite ark of life. Earth hosts extraordinary natural wonders, formed over 4.5 billion years of geological and evolutionary change. It is a dynamic
Human population growth, unsustainable development, and their consequences have taken and will continue to take their toll on the world’s biodiversity and natural resources. Establishing and ...effectively managing protected areas is a cornerstone of in-situ conservation of biodiversity and natural resources. To date, more than 13% of the world’s forest area has been designated primarily for biodiversity conservation, and these forest protected areas are part of a global network of more than 120,000 protected areas established for conservation purposes.
Managing protected areas effectively despite development and other pressures has always been a challenge. Here we argue, however, that effective protected area management has become a task of growing complexity because of the following obstacles that have emerged in the recent past:
Changing conservation paradigms that expect protected areas to reconcile biodiversity conservation and sustainable developmentChallenging conservation targets that increasingly require protected area managers to measure, monitor, and report on the performance of protected areasGlobal change and climate change, which have begun to exacerbate the impact on protected areas of conventional pressures, and therefore start to challenge the whole concept of in-situ conservation
Here we discuss these challenges with the emphasis on forest protected areas and consider the widening gap between what is expected from protected areas and what they can achieve given the resources and support provided. We argue that without the following steps, a great deal of the biodiversity that still exists in protected areas, especially in the tropics, will be lost within a few decades:
Re-positioning of biodiversity conservation at the top of political and public agendasSignificant investments in the effective management of protected areasSimilar investments in the establishment of biodiversity-friendly landscapes around protected areas
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