Conservation Planning Flashcards
what is systematic conservation planning?
How to prioritise conservation effort across regions, countries and the world
what concept is conservation planning based on?
the concept of triage was developed in WW1, who was at the greatest risk.
Species and ecosystems can be thought of in the same way as patients: we must prioritise in order to conserve them most effectively
what 3 things does conservation planning have to consider?
–Distribution of biodiversity (is uneven)
–Distribution of threats (is uneven)
–Distribution of costs
what are the key concepts for conservation planning
Vulnerability
Irreplaceability
what is vulnerability
- Variation in the threats to biodiversity is called Vulnerability
- It is a measure of the likelihood or imminence of destruction or alteration of habitat
what 4 kinds of information is used to measure vulnerability
–Environmental and spatial variables (Habitat extent, or proportional habitat loss)
–Land tenure – regions with a higher proportion of protected areas are less vulnerable
–Number of threatened species
–Expert opinion
what are the issues with using environmental and spatial variables to measure vulnerability?
This is far from perfect: habitat loss is easy to measure in forests, but much harder in drier systems, or in rivers/lakes.
It ignores cryptic disturbance events such as hunting, invasive species, spread of diseases.
what is irreplaceability?
- The uneven distribution of biodiversity can be measured as irreplaceability
- It is a measure of the importance of a site for a specific conservation goal
what is the most common measure of irreplaceability? what is the rationale for this?
endemism, based on either plant endemism or bird endemism (have reasonably good data for these)
- The rationale for endemism is simple: the more endemic species that a region contains, the more the world would lose if that region were lost
what is the conservation resource allocation problem?
- Many reserves have been selected on ad hoc basis (criteria include the low cost of land, lack of alternative uses, natural beauty, amenity value)
- However, there are very limited funds for conservation - total most complete estimate of global conservation spending is $19.8 billion per year (in 2013)
what are the 5 types of cost with conservation planning?
- Acquisition - costs of acquiring property rights to a parcel of land
- Management - those associated with management of a conservation program
- Transaction- cost of negotiating an economic exchange
- Opportunity - costs of foregone opportunities
- Damage – costs associated with damages to economic activities arising from conservation programs
what are some examples of nature classifications in the uk and are they based on vulnerability, irreplaceability or aesthetic?
- Special Protection Areas - Vulnerability
- Special Areas of Conservation - Vulnerability and Irreplaceability
- Areas of Natural Outstanding Beauty - aesthetic reasons
what is the method of planning a region for conservation?
- Divide the planning region into planning units eg. grid squares, land ownership parcels etc.
- Collect biodiversity data for each planning unit
- Compile cost data for each planning unit
- Set conservation goals eg. conserve at least 15% of each habitat type in the planning region in a network of protected areas
what is the minimum area problem?
select the sites that represent all natural features a given number of times with a minimum number of sites, area or cost
what is the maximum coverage problem?
given a limit on cost or area, select the combination of sites that maximizes the representation of natural features
what was the method of prioritising regions of conservation in Madagascar?
- Step 1: Collate occurrence records for 869 species in 6 taxonomic groups
- Step 2: Map distribution for all species
- Step 3: Define conservation goal (tripling of land area under protection)
- Step 4: Use software (Zonation) to identify the optimal expansion sites for the existing reserve network
- Step 5: Map & disseminate information.
Conservation priority zones in Madagascar, showing the top 10% prioritized area for each of six single taxon solutions (ants, butterflies, frogs, geckos, lemurs and plants). - Greatest overlap is the top point and the lowest south coast area
what are the issues with cost data?
–Hard to obtain adequate cost data
–Hard to separate many different types of costs (acquisition, stewardship, etc)
what different cost data influences planning outcomes?
- Higher with stewardship costs
- Always irreplaceable
- Comparable in both
- Reserved
- Aboriginal tenure
- Higher with acquisition cost
what are the 9 global biodiversity conservation priority templates?
- biodiversity hotspots
- global 200 ecoregions
- endemic bird areas
- megadiversity countries
- the last of the wild
- frontier forests
- high-biodiversity wilderness areas
- crisis ecoregions
- centres of plant diversity
Describe the Biodiversity Hot Spot template
- Developed by Conservation International - “The richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on earth”
- To qualify as a hotspot, an area must contain at least 0.5% or 1,500 of the world’s 300,000 plant species as endemics
- Four vertebrate groups (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) comprise 27,298 species, and serve as back up for assessing congruence (do plants represent other taxa?).
- No invertebrates included – too little data
describe the Global 200 ecoregions template
- The “Global 200” ecosystems approach has been developed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
- Aim is to focus on “The most biologically distinct terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecoregions of the planet.”
- An ecoregion is defined as a large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities that
(a)share a large majority of their species and ecological dynamics;
(b)share similar environmental conditions
(c)interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term persistence.
Describe the Endemic Bird Areas template
- Out of the world’s 10,000 or so bird species, more than 2,500 are endemic, being restricted to a range smaller than 50,000 km2
- BirdLife has identified 218 regions of the world where the distributions of two or more of these restricted-range species overlap
- Covers just 4.5% of the world’s land surface, but includes 93% of range-restricted birds.
- 70% overlap with priority areas based on plants (e.g. hotspots)
describe the megadiversity countries template
- “Just as the G-7 countries concentrate a major portion of the world’s economic wealth, the 17 Megadiversity Countries have within their borders more than two thirds of our planet’s biological wealth, its biodiversity,”
- Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, United States, Madagascar, Indonesia, Philippines and Australia are some of the seventeen nations that have been called Megadiversity Countries.
Describe the last of the wild template
- Developed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University
- The Human Influence Index and Human Footprint are produced through an overlay of a number of global data layers that represent the location of various factors presumed to exert an influence on ecosystems
- These include: Human population distribution, urban areas, roads, navigable rivers, and agriculture
- Each activity is given a Human Influence score
- The areas that have the least influence (Human Footprint grid values less than or equal to 10) are included in The Last of the Wild data set.
