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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
Global biodiversity conservation planning andpriorities
Conservation planning and priorities on the ground
Coda: the completion of conservation planning
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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
Species level conservation planning
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.
Species level conservation planning
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-m48/13/2019 Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities
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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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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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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Site level conservation planningand priorities
Australia
Africa
Site level conservation planning
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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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
Site level conservation planning
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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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
Conservation planning for Key
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Conservation planning for KeyBiodiversity Areas in Turkey
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
Conservation planning for Key
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Conservation planning for KeyBiodiversity Areas in Turkey
Site level conservation planning
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Site level conservation planningand priorities
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=-FS62x9ASc48/13/2019 Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities
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Current challenges and future directions
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.
Current challenges and future directions
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Current challenges and future directions
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?
Sea/landscape level conservation
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Sea/landscape level conservationplanning and priorities
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
Sea/landscape level conservation
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Sea/landscape level conservationplanning and priorities
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
Sea/landscape level conservation
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pplanning and priorities
Scales of conservation required for all threatenedterrestrial vertebrate species have been reviewed
Sea/landscape level conservation
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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).
Current challenges and future directions
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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
Current challenges and future directions
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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.
Current challenges and future directions
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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=l7PkZu8oT1I8/13/2019 Nov 12 Conservation Planning and Priorities
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Outline
Global biodiversity conservation planning andpriorities
Conservation planning and priorities on the ground
Coda: the completion of conservation planning
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.