Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action – ‘Water for Life’ – 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and ...approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million – almost 6% of all described species. Inland waters and freshwater biodiversity constitute a valuable natural resource, in economic, cultural, aesthetic, scientific and educational terms. Their conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. Yet this precious heritage is in crisis. Fresh waters are experiencing declines in biodiversity far greater than those in the most affected terrestrial ecosystems, and if trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species losses continue at current rates, the opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the ‘Water for Life’ decade ends in 2015. Why is this so, and what is being done about it? This article explores the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We document threats to global freshwater biodiversity under five headings: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Their combined and interacting influences have resulted in population declines and range reduction of freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Conservation of biodiversity is complicated by the landscape position of rivers and wetlands as ‘receivers’ of land-use effluents, and the problems posed by endemism and thus non-substitutability. In addition, in many parts of the world, fresh water is subject to severe competition among multiple human stakeholders. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate conservation challenge because it is influenced by the upstream drainage network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and – in the case of migrating aquatic fauna – downstream reaches. Such prerequisites are hardly ever met. Immediate action is needed where opportunities exist to set aside intact lake and river ecosystems within large protected areas. For most of the global land surface, trade-offs between conservation of freshwater biodiversity and human use of ecosystem goods and services are necessary. We advocate continuing attempts to check species loss but, in many situations, urge adoption of a compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods in order to provide a viable long-term basis for freshwater conservation. Recognition of this need will require adoption of a new paradigm for biodiversity protection and freshwater ecosystem management – one that has been appropriately termed ‘reconciliation ecology’.
Understanding the ecology of environmentally acquired and multi-host pathogens affecting humans and wildlife has been elusive in part because fluctuations in the abundance of host and pathogen ...species may feed back onto pathogen transmission. Complexity of pathogen-host dynamics emerges from processes driving local extinction of the pathogen, its hosts and non-hosts. While the extinction of species may entail losses in pathogen–host interactions and decrease the proportion of hosts infected by a pathogen (prevalence), some studies suggest the opposite pattern. Niche-based extinction, based on the species tolerance to environmental conditions, may increase prevalence of infection because the pathogen and its hosts persist, while other species go extinct. Hence, understanding prevalence of infection requires disentangling random- and niche-based extinction processes occurring simultaneously. To contribute to this exercise, we analysed the prevalence of an environmentally acquired, multi-host pathogen, Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU), in a unique dataset of 16 communities of freshwater animals, surveyed during 12 months in Akonolinga, Cameroon in equatorial Africa. Two different ecosystems were identified: rivers (lotic) and swamps and flooded areas (lentic). Increased prevalence of MU infection was correlated with niche-based extinction of aquatic host invertebrates and vertebrates in the lentic ecosystems, whereas decreased prevalence was associated with random disassembly of the lotic ecosystems. This finding suggests that random and niche-based extinction of host taxa are key to assessing the effect of local extinction of species on the ecology of environmentally acquired and multi-host pathogens.
Biodiversity is of critical value to human societies, but recent evidence that biodiversity may mitigate infectious-disease risk has sparked controversy among researchers. The majority of work on ...this topic has focused on direct assessments of the relationship between biodiversity and endemic-pathogen prevalence, without disentangling intervening mechanisms; thus study outcomes often differ, fuelling more debate. Here, we suggest two critical changes to the approach researchers take to understanding relationships between infectious disease, both endemic and emerging, and biodiversity that may help clarify sources of controversy. First, the distinct concepts of hazards versus risks need to be separated to determine how biodiversity and its drivers may act differently on each. This distinction is particularly important since it illustrates that disease emergence drivers in humans could be quite different to the general relationship between biodiversity and transmission of endemic pathogens. Second, the interactive relationship among biodiversity, anthropogenic change and zoonotic disease risk, including both direct and indirect effects, needs to be recognized and accounted for. By carefully disentangling these interactions between humans' activities and pathogen circulation in wildlife, we suggest that conservation efforts could mitigate disease risks and hazards in novel ways that complement more typical disease control efforts.
This article is part of the themed issue ‘Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications’.
•Knowledge about ecosystem service production and distribution can foster sustainability.•Ecosystem service governance best practices can improve ecosystem management.•Ecosystem services research ...needs to become more transdisciplinary.•ecoSERVICES will advance co-designed, transdisciplinary ecosystem service research.
Ecosystem services have become a mainstream concept for the expression of values assigned by people to various functions of ecosystems. Even though the introduction of the concept has initiated a vast amount of research, progress in using this knowledge for sustainable resource use remains insufficient. We see a need to broaden the scope of research to answer three key questions that we believe will improve incorporation of ecosystem service research into decision-making for the sustainable use of natural resources to improve human well-being: (i) how are ecosystem services co-produced by social–ecological systems, (ii) who benefits from the provision of ecosystem services, and (iii) what are the best practices for the governance of ecosystem services? Here, we present these key questions, the rationale behind them, and their related scientific challenges in a globally coordinated research programme aimed towards improving sustainable ecosystem management. These questions will frame the activities of ecoSERVICES, formerly a DIVERSITAS project and now a project of Future Earth, in its role as a platform to foster global coordination of multidisciplinary sustainability science through the lens of ecosystem services.
After the collective failure to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD's) 2010 target to substantially reduce biodiversity losses, the CBD adopted a plan composed of five strategic ...goals and 20 "SMART" (Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time-bound) targets, to be achieved by 2020. Here, an interdisciplinary group of scientists from DIVERSITAS - an international program that focuses on biodiversity science - evaluates these targets and considers the implications of an ecosystem-services-based approach for their implementation. We describe the functional differences between the targets corresponding to distinct strategic goals and identify the interdependency between targets. We then discuss the implications for supporting research and target indicators, and make several specific suggestions for target implementation.
Evolutionary biologists have long endeavored to document how many species exist on Earth, to understand the processes by which biodiversity waxes and wanes, to document and interpret spatial patterns ...of biodiversity, and to infer evolutionary relationships.Despite the great potential of this knowledge to improve biodiversity science, conservation, and policy, evolutionary biologists have generally devoted limited attention to these broader implications. Likewise, many workers in biodiversity science have underappreciated the fundamental relevance of evolutionary biology. The aim of this article is to summarize and illustrate some ways in which evolutionary biology is directly relevant. We do so in the context of four broad areas: (1) discovering and documenting biodiversity, (2) understanding the causes odiversification, (3) evaluating evolutionary responses to human disturbances, and (4) implications for ecological communities, ecosystems, and humans. We also introduce bioGENESIS, a new project within DIVERSITAS launched to explore the potential practical contributions of evolutionary biology. In addition to fostering the integration of evolutionary thinking into biodiversity science, bioGENESIS provides practical recommendations to policy makers for incorporating evolutionary perspectives into biodiversity agendas and conservation. We solicit your involvement in developing innovative ways of using evolutionary biology to better comprehend and stem the loss of biodiversity.
The potential for disease transmission at the interface of wildlife, domestic animals and humans has become a major concern for public health and conservation biology. Research in this subject is ...commonly conducted at local scales while the regional context is neglected. We argue that prevalence of infection at local and regional levels is influenced by three mechanisms occurring at the landscape level in a metacommunity context. First, (1) dispersal, colonization, and extinction of pathogens, reservoir or vector hosts, and nonreservoir hosts, may be due to stochastic and niche‐based processes, thus determining distribution of all species, and then their potential interactions, across local communities (metacommunity structure). Second, (2) anthropogenic processes may drive environmental filtering of hosts, nonhosts, and pathogens. Finally, (3) phylogenetic diversity relative to reservoir or vector host(s), within and between local communities may facilitate pathogen persistence and circulation. Using a metacommunity approach, public heath scientists may better evaluate the factors that predispose certain times and places for the origin and emergence of infectious diseases. The multidisciplinary approach we describe fits within a comprehensive One Health and Ecohealth framework addressing zoonotic infectious disease outbreaks and their relationship to their hosts, other animals, humans, and the environment.
A metacommunity framework can help explain the occurrence patterns of diseases by linking the spatial, ecological, and evolutionary relationships between pathogens, hosts (including vectors), and non‐host species.
There is growing evidence of the inter‐relationships between ecosystems and public health. This creates opportunities for the development of cross‐sectoral policies and interventions that provide ...dual benefits to public health and to the natural environment. These benefits are increasingly articulated in strategy documents at national and regional level, yet implementation of integrative policies on the ground remains limited and fragmented. Here, we use a workshop approach to identify some features of this evidence–implementation gap based on policy and practice within a number of western European countries. The driving forces behind some recent moves towards more integrative policy development and implementation show important differences between countries, reflecting the non‐linear and complex nature of the policy‐making process. We use these case studies to illustrate some of the key barriers to greater integrative policy development identified in the policy analysis literature. Specific barriers we identify include: institutional barriers; differing time perspectives in public health and ecosystem management; contrasting historical development of public health and natural environment disciplinary policy agendas; an incomplete evidence base relating investment in the natural environment to benefits for public health; a lack of appropriate outcome measures including benefit–cost trade‐offs; and finally a lack of integrative policy frameworks across the health and natural environment sectors. We also identify opportunities for greater policy integration and examples of good practice from different countries. However, we note there is no single mechanism that will deliver integrative policy for healthier people and ecosystems in all countries and situations. National governments, national public agencies, local governments, research institutions, and professional bodies all share a responsibility to identify and seize opportunities for influencing policy change, whether incremental or abrupt, to ensure that ecosystems and the health of society are managed so that the interests of future generations, as well as present generations, can be protected.
There is growing evidence of the links between ecosystems and public health, but cross‐sectoral policies across health and environment are rare. We highlight some opportunities for greater policy integration across these sectors but caution that no single mechanism will deliver integrative policy for healthier people and ecosystems in all countries and situations. National governments, national public agencies, local governments, research institutions, and professional bodies all share a responsibility to identify opportunities for policies that prioritise the health of ecosystems and the public for the benefit of future generations.
•Cities represent greatest interdependencies among the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.•A systems approach is rarely adopted but urgently needed in urban research and practice.•A systems approach ...can help maximize co-benefits and synergies, and manage inevitable trade-offs.•Future Earth UKAN aims at co-producing cutting-edge and actionable knowledge with stakeholders.
The sustainable development of cities is increasingly recognized as crucial to meeting collectively agreed sustainability goals at local, regional and global scales, and more broadly to securing human well-being worldwide. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a goal on cities (Goal 11), with most other goals and targets have urban applications and multi scalar implications for their implementation. Further, the interdependencies—including synergies and trade-offs—among the various SDGs are greater in cities, presenting both challenges and opportunities. A systems approach is urgently needed in urban research and policy analysis, but such an approach rarely features in current analysis or urban decision-making for various reasons. This paper explores four questions: why a systems approach is necessary, what defines such an approach, why has this rarely been adopted in practice, and what can be done to promote its use. We argue that a systems approach can reveal unrecognized opportunities to maximize co-benefits and synergies, guide management of inevitable trade-offs, and therefore inform prioritisation and successful solutions. We present four key issues for the effective implementation of the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda, which emerged from UN Habitat III Conference, namely: (a) a radical redesign of the multilateral institutional setup on urban issues; (b) promoting regenerative culture, behaviour, and design; (c) exploring ways to finance a systems approach; and (d) a new and enhanced role for science in sustainable development. The latter issue could be addressed through Future Earth's Urban Knowledge-Action Network, which aims at co-designing and co-producing cutting-edge and actionable knowledge for sustainable cities bringing together researchers and urban decision-makers and practitioners.
Non-technical abstract
Decisions on the use of nature reflect the values and rights of individuals, communities and society at large. The values of nature are expressed through cultural norms, rules ...and legislation, and they can be elicited using a wide range of tools, including those of economics. None of the approaches to elicit peoples’ values are neutral. Unequal power relations influence valuation and decision-making and are at the core of most environmental conflicts. As actors in sustainability thinking, environmental scientists and practitioners are becoming more aware of their own posture, normative stance, responsibility and relative power in society. Based on a transdisciplinary workshop, our perspective paper provides a normative basis for this new community of scientists and practitioners engaged in the plural valuation of nature.
Technical abstract
During a workshop held in Oaxaca, Mexico, a shared vision, mission and strategies to foster a more plural valuation of nature were developed. The participants represent a wide range of backgrounds and are active in science, policy and practitioner networks and activities. Their common ground is the recognition of the need to change the prevailing culture of how nature is valued and subsequently managed as an essential step towards a more just and sustainable world. After an open plenary session in which the goal of the workshop was determined and the diverse perspectives and backgrounds of the participants were heard, breakout groups developed the components of a shared vision, mission and strategies for plural valuation of nature. Consequently, these components were discussed back in plenary and consolidated into a consensus text, which was further debated and its main building blocks agreed upon. The compilation of our shared views converged into a normative call and perspective to share with our peers. The information generated throughout the workshop was collaboratively synthesized, amended, reviewed and validated by all workshop participants/co-authors. Our message aims to contribute to advancing plural valuation approaches as a science-policy field, as well as to raise personal awareness among researchers and practitioners on implicit inequality and power issues.
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