Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities

8/13/2019 Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities

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Conservation planning and priorities

LIFS 4301 Conservation BiologyNov 12th 2013


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Conservation planning

The first law of conservation science should be thathuman populationwhich of course drives both

threats to biodiversity and its conservationisdistributed unevenly around the world

This parallels a better-known first law of biodiversityscience, that biodiversity itself is also distributed

unevenly

Therefore, conservation would need to be plannedor prioritized


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Conservation planning

Variation in threats to biodiversity can be measuredas vulnerability, or, the breadth of options available

over time to conserve a given biodiversity featurebefore it is lost.

The uneven distribution of biodiversity can be

measured as irreplaceability, the extent of spatialoptions available for the conservation of a givenbiodiversity feature.

An alternative measure of irreplaceability iscomplementaritythe degree to which the

biodiversity value of a given area adds to the valueof an overall network of areas


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Outline

Global biodiversity conservation planning andpriorities

Conservation planning and priorities on the ground

Coda: the completion of conservation planning


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Conservation budget

Many people care most about what is in their ownbackyard

90% of the US$6 billion global conservation budgetoriginates in, and is spent in, economically wealthy

countries

The bulk of these resources are invested through

multilateral agencies (in particular, the GlobalEnvironment Facility)


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History and state of the field

Over the last two decades, nine major templates ofglobal terrestrial conservation priorities have been

developed by conservation organizations, to guidetheir own efforts and attract further attention

All nine templates fit into thevulnerability/irreplaceability framework, although ina variety of ways


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The costs and benefits of globalpriority-setting

Costs: several millions dollars, mainly in the form ofstaff time

Benefits: over the preceding 15 years, the hotspots

concept had focused US$750 million of globallyflexible conservation resources. Entire fundingmechanisms have been established to reflect global

prioritization, such as the US$150 million CriticalEcosystem Partnership Fund (www.cepf.net) andthe US$100 million Global Conservation Fund

(www.conservation.org)


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Current challenges and futuredirections

First, it remains unclear the degree to whichpriorities set using data for one taxon reflect

priorities for others

Another open question is the extent to whichconservation priorities represent not just currentdiversity but also evolutionary history

Conservation costs per unit area vary over sevenorders of magnitude, but elusive, because they arehard to measure


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Outline





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Species is the fundamental unit of biodiversity.Avoiding species extinction can be seen as the

fundamental goal of biodiversity conservation

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Thisincludes comprehensive assessments of allmammals, birds and amphibians, as well as

partially complete datasets for many other taxa.Global assessments are underway for reptiles,freshwater species (fish, mollusks, odonata,

decapod crustaceans), marine species (fish,corals), and plants.

Species level conservation planning

and priorities


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The first volumes published in the 1960s

Quantitative assessments across entire taxa

The heart of the IUCN Red List lies in assessmentof vulnerability at the species level, specifically in

estimation of extinction risk


and priorities


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i l l i l i


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Benefits: informing site conservation planning,environmental impact assessment, national policy,

and intergovernmental conventions

One problem: Climate change is now widelyrecognized as a serious threat to biodiversity.However, it is hard to apply the Red List criteria

against climate change threats, especially forspecies with short generation times, becauseclimate change is rather slow-acting.


and priorities


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Setting Global Priorities for Biodiversity

Conservation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIM4wsxn-

m4

Sit l l ti l i
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIM4wsxn-m4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIM4wsxn-m4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIM4wsxn-m4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIM4wsxn-m4


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Site level conservation planningand priorities

With 16 306 species known to be threatened withextinction, it is impossible to protect them one at a

time

Habitat destruction is the overwhelming driver,threatening 90% of threatened species

The logical implication of this is that the cornerstoneof conservation action must be conserving thehabitats in which these species liveestablishingprotected areas

Sit l l ti l i


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The World Database on Protected Areas: 104 791protected areas worldwide covering 12% of the

worlds land area

Much biodiversity is still wholly unrepresentedwithin protected areas

Sit l l ti l i


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Broadly, approaches to planning protected areasystems can be classified into four groups

1. The oldest is ad hoc establishment, which often

increases protected area coverage with minimalvalue for biodiversity

2. The 1990s saw the advent of the rather moresuccessful consensus workshop approach, whichallowed for data sharing and stake-holder buy-in

Sit l l n ti n pl nnin


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3. Developments in theory and advances insupporting software, led to large scale applications

of wholly data-driven conservation planning, mostnotably in South Africa

4. The trend in conservation planning forimplementation on the ground is now towards

combining data-driven with stakeholder-driventechniques

Site level conservation planning


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Australia

Africa



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This approach actually has a long history in birdconservation, and important bird area identification

is now close to being complete worldwide

Over the last decade, the approach has beenextended to numerous other taxa and thencegeneralized into the key biodiversity areas

approach



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Conservation planning for Key


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Conservation planning for KeyBiodiversity Areas in Turkey

Turkey is a key country for global biodiversitymainly because of its exceptionally rich flora, which

includes nearly 9,000 species of vascular plantsand ferns and 34% endemism (3,022 species).

An impressive set of projects has already beencarried out to map priority areas for conservation inTurkey

These include three inventories of Important Bird

Areas, a marine turtle areas inventory, and anImportant Plant Areas inventory



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The results of these projects were used as inputs toidentify the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) of

Turkey, using standard KBA criteria across eighttaxonomic groups: plants, dragonflies, butterflies,freshwater fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and

mammals



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All of the worlds international conservationorganizations, and many national ones, have come

together as the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE),to identify and implement action for the very highestpriorities for site-level conservation


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Identifying Priority Sites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS62x9ASc4

KBA Prioritization and The Alliance for Zero

Extinction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqySP7mx

XQ

Current challenges and future directions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS62x9ASc4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS62x9ASc4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqySP7mxXQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqySP7mxXQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqySP7mxXQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqySP7mxXQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS62x9ASc4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS62x9ASc4


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1. Most applications of these approaches to datecome from fragmented habitatsit often proves

difficult to identify sites of global biodiversityconservation significance in regions that retain awilderness character, for instance, in the Amazon.

2. Extension of site level conservation planning toaquatic environments. Human threats to bothfreshwater and marine biodiversity are intense, butspecies assessments in these biomes are in their

infancy, seriously hampering conservation planning.



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3. Prioritizationonce sites have been identifiedand delineated as having global biodiversity

conservation significance, which should beassigned the most urgent conservation action?

Sea/landscape level conservation


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Sea/landscape level conservationplanning and priorities

The conservation community has more than 40years experience with conservation planning at the

species level, and more than 20 at the site level.

Can we do conservation planning beyondrepresentation?



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Conserving biodiversity in isolated protected areasmight not ensure persistence

Long-term extinctions of mammal species from

North American national parks

Similar patterns were uncovered across many taxa

in Latin America, Africa, and Asia



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The mechanisms determining persistenceorextinctionin individual sites spans the full

spectrum from the genetic scale throughpopulations and communities, to the level ofecosystem processes across entire landscapes



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pplanning and priorities

Scales of conservation required for all threatenedterrestrial vertebrate species have been reviewed



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pplanning and priorities

20% (793) of these threatened species requiredurgent broad scale conservation action, with this

result varying significantly among taxa

Why each of these species required broad scaleconservation: 43% of these 793 species werearea-demanding and so required corridors for

movement, no less than 72% were dependent onbroad scale ecological processes acting across thelandscape (15% require both).



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g

As at the species and site levels, the incorporationof broad scale targets into conservation planning in

aquatic systems lags behind the terrestrialenvironment.

Given the regimes of flows and currents inherent inrivers and oceans, the expectation is that broadscale conservation will be even more important infreshwater and in the sea than it is on land



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g

Changes in the nature and intensity of threats overtime have important consequences for the

prioritization of conservation actions among sites

Climate change is one such threat that will very

likely require extensive landscape scale response,and may be even more serious in freshwater andthe ocean.



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g

Move from maintaining current biodiversity towardsrestoring biodiversity that has already been lost

However, restoration is much more expensive andmuch less likely to succeed than is preservation of

biodiversity before impacts occur

A few ambitious plans for landscape levelrestoration have already been developed (wetlands)


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Identifying Priority Landscapes and Seascapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7PkZu8oT1I

Restoring Southern California's Wetlands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGYnpWs-uU

Outline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7PkZu8oT1Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGYnpWs-uUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGYnpWs-uUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7PkZu8oT1I


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Outline




Future directions for conservation planning


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The completion and continuous updating of IUCNRed List assessments of all vertebrate and plantspecies, plus selected invertebrate groups.

Iterative identification of key biodiversity areas,based on these data, representing the full set ofsites of global biodiversity conservation significance.

Measurement and mapping of the continuous globalsurface of seascape and landscape scale ecologicalprocesses necessary to retain these species and

sites into the future.

Future directions for conservation planning


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Continuous measurement and mapping of thethreats to these species, sites, and sea/landscapes,and of the costs and benefits of conserving them.

Free, electronic, continuously updated access tothese datasets, and to tools for their interpretation,planning, and prioritization.

Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities

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