In an era of climate change, deforestation and massive habitat loss, we can no longer rely on parks and protected areas as isolated 'islands of wilderness' to conserve and protect vital biodiversity. ...Increasing connections are being considered and made between protected areas and 'connectivity' thinking has started to expand to the regional and even the continental scale to match the challenges of conserving biodiversity in the face of global environmental change. This groundbreaking book is the first guide to connectivity conservation management at local, regional and continental scales. Written by leading conservation and protected area management specialists under the auspices of the World Commission on Protected Areas of IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, this guide brings together a decade and a half of practice and covers all aspects of connectivity planning and management The book establishes a context for managing connectivity conservation and identifies large scale naturally interconnected areas as critical strategic and adaptive responses to climate change. The second section presents 25 rich and varied case studies from six of the eight biogeographic realms of Earth, including the Cape Floristic Region of Africa, the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains, the Australian Alps to Atherton Corridor, and the Sacred Himalayan Landscape connectivity area (featuring Mount Everest.) The remarkable 3200 kilometre long Yellowstone to Yukon corridor of Canada and the United States of America is described in detail. The third section introduces a model for managing connectivity areas, shaped by input from IUCN workshops held in 2006 and 2008 and additional research. The final chapter identifies broad guidelines that need to be considered in undertaking connectivity conservation management prior to reinforcing the importance and urgency of this work. This handbook is a must have for all professionals in protected area management, conservation, land m
Evidence-based Conservation Sunderland, Terry C. H; Sayer, Jeffrey; Minh Ha, Hoang Thi
2013, 20120910, 2012, 2012-09-10
eBook
There is a considerable gap between the science of conservation biology and the design and execution of biodiversity conservation projects in the field. Science is often failing to inform the ...practice of conservation, which remains largely experience-based. The main reason is the poor accessibility of evidence on the effectiveness of different interventions. This is the basis for this book adopting an 'evidence-based approach', modelled on the systematic reviews used in health sciences and now being applied to many policy arenas.
Evidence-based Conservation brings together a series of case studies, written by field practitioners, that provides the evidence-base for evaluating how effective conservation and poverty alleviation strategies can be better implemented. A series of systematic reviews uses experiences and data from fifteen integrated conservation and development projects conducted in the Lower Mekong region, specifically in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They provide wide-ranging overviews of the effectiveness of protected areas and how innovative tools and methods for monitoring and evaluation can be utilised for more effective outcomes. Results are in the form of management and policy recommendations, based on the quality of evidence and the cost-utility of the intervention. By bridging the gap between field practice and conservation, the analysis should lead to more effective integrated conservation and development interventions. The book represents one of the first attempts to apply the evidence-based approach to conservation and development.
Wild Profusiontells the fascinating story of biodiversity conservation in Indonesia in the decade culminating in the great fires of 1997-98--a time when the country's environment became a point of ...concern for social and environmental activists, scientists, and the many fishermen and farmers nationwide who suffered from degraded environments and faced accusations that they were destroying nature. Celia Lowe argues that biodiversity, in 1990s Indonesia, implied a particular convergence of nature, nation, science, and identity that made Indonesians' mapping of the concept distinct within transnational practices of nature conservation at the time.
Lowe recounts the efforts of Indonesian biologists to document the species of the Togean Islands, to "develop" Togean people, and to turn this archipelago off the coast of Sulawesi into a national park. Indonesian scientists aspired to a conservation biology that was both internationally recognizable and politically effective in the Indonesian context. Simultaneously, Lowe describes the experiences of Togean Sama people who had their own understandings of nature and nation. To place Sama and scientist into the same conceptual frame, Lowe studies Sama ideas in the context of transnational thought rather than local knowledge.
In tracking the practice of conservation biology in a postcolonial setting,Wild Profusionexplores what in nature can count as important and for whom.
Today, the East African state of Tanzania is renowned for wildlife preserves such as the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Selous Game Reserve. Yet few know that most ...of these initiatives emerged from decades of German colonial rule. This book gives the first full account of Tanzanian wildlife conservation up until World War I, focusing upon elephant hunting and the ivory trade as vital factors in a shift from exploitation to preservation that increasingly excluded indigenous Africans. Analyzing the formative interactions between colonial governance and the natural world,The Nature of German Imperialism situates East African wildlife policies within the global emergence of conservationist sensibilities around 1900.
This innovative volume is the first to address the
conservation of contemporary art incorporating biological materials
such as plants, foods, bodily fluids, or genetically engineered
organisms. ...Eggshells, flowers, onion peels, sponge cake,
dried bread, breast milk, bacteria, living organisms-these are just
a few of the biological materials that contemporary artists are
using to make art. But how can works made from such perishable
ingredients be preserved? And what logistical, ethical, and
conceptual dilemmas might be posed by doing so? Because they are
prone to rapid decay, even complete disappearance, biological
materials used in art pose a range of unique conservation
challenges. This groundbreaking book probes the issues associated
with displaying, collecting, and preserving these unique works of
art. The twenty-four papers from the conference present a range of
case studies, prominently featuring artists' perspectives, as well
as conceptual discussions, thereby affording a comprehensive and
richly detailed overview of current thinking and practices on this
topic. Living Matter is the first publication to explore
broadly the role of biological materials in the creative process
and present a variety of possible approaches to their preservation.
The free online edition of this open-access publication is
available at www.getty.edu/publications/living-matter/ and includes
videos and zoomable illustrations. Also available are free PDF,
EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book.
An essential foundation of any science is a standard lexicon. Any given conservation project can be described in terms of the biodiversity targets, direct threats, contributing factors at the project ...site, and the conservation actions that the project team is employing to change the situation. These common elements can be linked in a causal chain, which represents a theory of change about how the conservation actions are intended to bring about desired project outcomes. If project teams want to describe and share their work and learn from one another, they need a standard and precise lexicon to specifically describe each node along this chain. To date, there have been several independent efforts to develop standard classifications for the direct threats that affect biodiversity and the conservation actions required to counteract these threats. Recognizing that it is far more effective to have only one accepted global scheme, we merged these separate efforts into unified classifications of threats and actions, which we present here. Each classification is a hierarchical listing of terms and associated definitions. The classifications are comprehensive and exclusive at the upper levels of the hierarchy, expandable at the lower levels, and simple, consistent, and scalable at all levels. We tested these classifications by applying them post hoc to 1191 threatened bird species and 737 conservation projects. Almost all threats and actions could be assigned to the new classification systems, save for some cases lacking detailed information. Furthermore, the new classification systems provided an improved way of analyzing and comparing information across projects when compared with earlier systems. We believe that widespread adoption of these classifications will help practitioners more systematically identify threats and appropriate actions, managers to more efficiently set priorities and allocate resources, and most important, facilitate cross-project learning and the development of a systematic science of conservation.
Reconnecting the city Bandarin, Francesco; Oers, Ron van
2014., 2014, 2014-10-23, 2014-10-24
eBook
Historic Urban Landscape is a new approach to urban heritage management, promoted by UNESCO, and currently one of the most debated issues in the international preservation community. However, few ...conservation practitioners have a clear understanding of what it entails, and more importantly, what it can achieve. * Examples drawn from urban heritage sites worldwide – from Timbuktu to Liverpool * Richly illustrated with colour photographs * Addresses key issues and best practice for urban conservation
Despite broad recognition of the value of social sciences and increasingly vocal calls for better engagement with the human element of conservation, the conservation social sciences remain ...misunderstood and underutilized in practice. The conservation social sciences can provide unique and important contributions to society's understanding of the relationships between humans and nature and to improving conservation practice and outcomes. There are 4 barriers—ideological, institutional, knowledge, and capacity—to meaningful integration of the social sciences into conservation. We provide practical guidance on overcoming these barriers to mainstream the social sciences in conservation science, practice, and policy. Broadly, we recommend fostering knowledge on the scope and contributions of the social sciences to conservation, including social scientists from the inception of interdisciplinary research projects, incorporating social science research and insights during all stages of conservation planning and implementation, building social science capacity at all scales in conservation organizations and agencies, and promoting engagement with the social sciences in and through global conservation policy-influencing organizations. Conservation social scientists, too, need to be willing to engage with natural science knowledge and to communicate insights and recommendations clearly. We urge the conservation community to move beyond superficial engagement with the conservation social sciences. A more inclusive and integrative conservation science—one that includes the natural and social sciences—will enable more ecologically effective and socially just conservation. Better collaboration among social scientists, natural scientists, practitioners, and policy makers will facilitate a renewed and more robust conservation. Mainstreaming the conservation social sciences willfacilitate the uptake of the full range of insights and contributions from these fields into conservation policy and practice. A pesar del reconocimiento general del valor de las ciencias sociales y los crecientes llamados por un mejor compromiso con el elemento humano de la conservación, las ciencias sociales de la conservación siguen siendo malentendidas y poco utilizadas en la práctica. Las ciencias sociales de la conservación pueden proporcionar contribuciones únicas e importantes para el entendimiento de la sociedad de las relaciones entre los humanos y la naturaleza y para la mejora de las prácticas de la conservación y sus resultados. Existen cuatro barreras - ideológicas, institucionales, de conocimiento y de capacidad - para la integración significativa de las ciencias sociales dentro de la conservación. Proporcionamos una guia práctica sobre cómo sobreponerse a estas barreras paraJncorporar la perspectiva de las ciencias sociales a la ciencia, las prácticas y las políticas de conservación. En general, recomendamos promover el conocimiento sobre el alcance y las contribuciones de las ciencias sociales para la conservación, incluir a los científicos sociales desde el origen de los proyectos de investigación interdisciplinaria, incorporar la investigación de las ciencias sociales y las percepciones durante todas las fases de la planificación y la implementación de la conservación, construir la capacidad de las ciencias sociales en todas las escalas de las organizaciones y agencias de conservación y promover el compromiso con las ciencias sociales en y a través de organizaciones de conservación con influencia política. Los científicos sociales de la conservación, también, necesitan estar dispuestos a involucrarse con el conocimiento de las ciencias naturales y a comunicar percepciones y recomendaciones de manera clara. Le urgimos a la comunidad de la conservación que vaya más allá del compromiso superficial con las ciencias sociales de la conservación. Una ciencia de la conservación más incluyente y integradora - una que incluya a las ciencias sociales y naturales - permitirá una conservación más justa socialmente y más efectiva ecológicamente. Una mejor colaboración entre los científicos sociales, los científicos naturales, los practicantes y quienes elaboran las políticas facilitará una conservación más renovada y más sólida. Incorporar la perspectiva de las ciencias sociales de la conservación facilitará la absorción de la extensión completa de conocimiento y contribuciones de estos campos a la práctica y las políticas de la conservación.
Many of the challenges conservation professionals face can be framed as scale mismatches. The problem of scale mismatch occurs when the planning for and implementation of conservation actions is at a ...scale that does not reflect the scale of the conservation problem. The challenges in conservation planning related to scale mismatch include ecosystem or ecological process transcendence of governance boundaries; limited availability of fine-resolution data; lack of operational capacity for implementation; lack of understanding of social-ecological system components; threats to ecological diversity that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales; mismatch between funding and the long-term nature of ecological processes; rate of action implementation that does not reflect the rate of change of the ecological system; lack of appropriate indicators for monitoring activities; and occurrence of ecological change at scales smaller or larger than the scale of implementation or monitoring. Not recognizing and accounting for these challenges when planning for conservation can result in actions that do not address the multiscale nature of conservation problems and that do not achieve conservation objectives. Social networks link organizations and individuals across space and time and determine the scale of conservation actions; thus, an understanding of the social networks associated with conservation planning will help determine the potential for implementing conservation actions at the required scales. Social-network analyses can be used to explore whether these networks constrain or enable key social processes and how multiple scales of action are linked. Results of network analyses can be used to mitigate scale mismatches in assessing, planning, implementing, and monitoring conservation projects. Muchos de los retos que enfrentan los profesionales de la conservación pueden ser catalogados como discordancia de escalas. El problema de discordancia de escalas ocurre cuando la planificación e implementación de acciones de conservación se llevan a cabo en una escala que no refleja la escala del problema de conservación. Los retos de la planificación de la conservación relacionados con la discordancia de escala incluyen el rebase de límites de gobernanza por los procesos ecológicos; la disponibilidad limitada de datos de resolución fina; la carencia de capacidad operativa para la implementación; la falta de entendimiento de los componentes socio-ecológicos del sistema; amenazas a la diversidad ecológica que operan en escalas espaciales y temporales diversas; discordancia entre el financiamiento y la naturaleza a largo plazo de los procesos ecológicos; tasa de implementación de acciones que no refleja la tasa de cambio del sistema ecológico; ausencia de indicadores apropiados de las actividades de monitoreo y ocurrencia de cambio ecológico en escalas menores o mayores que la escala de implementación o monitoreo. El no reconocimiento y consideración de estos retos al planificar la conservación puede resultar en acciones que no abordan la naturaleza multiescala de los problemas de conservación y que no se alcancen los objetivos de conservación. Las redes sociales enlazan organizaciones e individuos en el tiempo y espacio y determinan la escala de las acciones de conservación; por lo tanto, el entendimiento de las redes sociales asociadas con la planificación de la conservación ayudará a determinar el potencial para la implementación de acciones de conservación en las escalas requeridas. El análisis de redes sociales puede ser utilizado para explorar si esas redes constriñen o facilitan procesos sociales claves y como se relacionan las múltiples escalas de acción. Los resultados del análisis de redes pueden ser utilizados para mitigar la discordancia de escalas en la evaluación, planificación, implementación y monitoreo de proyectos de conservación.
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