Habitat fragmentation is one of the main threats to biodiversity in Africa. In this article, we highlight the importance of conserving the Guinean forests of West Africa, which are rich in biodiversity and endemism but threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. The size of forest patches is critical, with larger fragments containing more species than smaller ones. The protection of intact, dense forest patches is vital for any conservation strategy in West Africa, but improving the management of forests that are already used for logging and hunting is also essential. Community forests (CFs) can play a crucial role in conservation, especially if there is a substantial network that can promote ecological connectivity. However, biomonitoring in CFs remains a challenge due to inadequate resources. By developing standardised, easy-to-apply and inexpensive methods for biomonitoring, communities can be involved in biomonitoring instead of relying solely on scientists and expensive equipment. We present a monitoring framework here where we suggest local communities should become the main agents for biomonitoring in their own forests; we highlight a five-step scheme. The importance of the various CFs in terms of conservation should be made through a combination of accurate, standardised face-to-face interviews with selected persons in the target communities and biomonitoring be based on the RAPELD scheme. The latter will be implemented after specifically training local ‘wise’ persons. We are proposing a kind of ‘citizen science’ scheme, applied to enhance the ability of local communities to monitor their own biodiversity.
Tag: biodiversity conservation
Protected areas and the ranges of threatened species: Towards the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030
Despite the protected area expansion over the last decades, biodiversity continues to decline. The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, as well as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, call for 30 % coverage by protected areas of the land and sea in order to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Here, we use European species assessed as threatened on the IUCN Red List – the ones facing the most imminent threat of extinction – to guide the proposed expansion. We overlapped the ranges of 2290 threatened terrestrial and freshwater resident species and 127,046 terrestrial protected areas (28,130 Natura2000 sites and 98,916 nationally designated protected areas) in the EU and we found that species’ EU ranges are covered on average 46.6 % by protected areas (41.5 % by Natura2000 and 34.0 % by nationally designated protected areas). We found 71 Gap0.1 species (<0.1 % coverage), most of which are invertebrates and endemic to southern EU islands. The southern EU countries have the highest number of threatened endemic species, they offer among the highest coverage to threatened species ranges and they have almost reached the 30 % land coverage by protected areas and. Therefore, the expansion of the protected area network, should not be guided solely by percentage of area targets, but instead by biodiversity needs. Although it should not be the only approach, targeting the protected area expansion towards Gap0.1 threatened species, would strengthen the EU protected area network by maximising the ability to conserve biodiversity and prevent extinctions.
Forest disturbance and recovery in Peruvian Amazonia
Amazonian forests function as biomass and biodiversity reservoirs, contributing to climate change mitigation. While they continuously experience disturbance, the effect that disturbances have on biomass and biodiversity over time has not yet been assessed at a large scale. Here, we evaluate the degree of recent forest disturbance in Peruvian Amazonia and the effects that disturbance, environmental conditions and human use have on biomass and biodiversity in disturbed forests. We integrate tree-level data on aboveground biomass (AGB) and species richness from 1840 forest plots from Peru’s National Forest Inventory with remotely sensed monitoring of forest change dynamics, based on disturbances detected from Landsat-derived Normalized Difference Moisture Index time series. Our results show a clear negative effect of disturbance intensity tree species richness. This effect was also observed on AGB and species richness recovery values towards undisturbed levels, as well as on the recovery of species composition towards undisturbed levels. Time since disturbance had a larger effect on AGB than on species richness. While time since disturbance has a positive effect on AGB, unexpectedly we found a small negative effect of time since disturbance on species richness. We estimate that roughly 15% of Peruvian Amazonian forests have experienced disturbance at least once since 1984, and that, following disturbance, have been increasing in AGB at a rate of 4.7 Mg ha−1 year−1 during the first 20 years. Furthermore, the positive effect of surrounding forest cover was evident for both AGB and its recovery towards undisturbed levels, as well as for species richness. There was a negative effect of forest accessibility on the recovery of species composition towards undisturbed levels. Moving forward, we recommend that forest-based climate change mitigation endeavours consider forest disturbance through the integration of forest inventory data with remote sensing methods.
Global disparity of camera trap research allocation and defaunation risk of terrestrial mammals
Quantifying and monitoring the risk of defaunation and extinction require assessing and monitoring biodiversity in impacted regions. Camera traps that photograph animals as they pass sensors have revolutionized wildlife assessment and monitoring globally. We conducted a global review of camera trap research on terrestrial mammals over the last two decades. We assessed if the spatial distribution of 3395 camera trap research locations from 2324 studies overlapped areas with high defaunation risk. We used a geospatial distribution modeling approach to predict the spatial allocation of camera trap research on terrestrial mammals and to identify its key correlates. We show that camera trap research over the past two decades has not targeted areas where defaunation risk is highest and that 76.8% of the global research allocation can be attributed to country income, biome, terrestrial mammal richness, and accessibility. The lowest probabilities of camera trap research allocation occurred in low-income countries. The Amazon and Congo Forest basins – two highly biodiverse ecosystems facing unprecedented anthropogenic alteration – received inadequate camera trap research attention. Even within the best covered regions, most of the research (64.2%) was located outside the top 20% areas where defaunation risk was greatest. To monitor terrestrial mammal populations and assess the risk of extinction, more research should be extended to regions with high defaunation risk but have received low camera trap research allocation.
The role of basic sciences in addressing global challenges to sustainable development: Experiences from CIFOR-ICRAF
Purpose –– This paper highlights the application of the basic sciences in tackling human-induced global challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and broken food systems, that militate against the attainment of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Methods –– It adopted a secondary research approach involving a review of current literature. Findings –– It shows that basic studies in different branches of plant biology contribute to the conservation and management of tree and forest genetic resources while studies in soil biology and principles of chemistry and physics contribute to soil health assessment in landscape restoration efforts. Conclusion & Recommendation –– The paper argues that the success of sustainable development initiatives that leverage the ability of trees to provide ecological goods and ecosystem services could be constrained by the growing threat to botanical education and inadequate funding of basic science disciplines. Recommendations are made to improve funding and inclusion of the basic sciences, particularly in African universities, in sustainability focused research initiatives.
Hunting in Indonesian New Guinea: dogs, conservation and culture
Hunting has a complex and contested relationship with conservation: it can deplete and threaten vulnerable wildlife but can also motivate protection and good stewardship. This study aims to advance the ethnographic information of hunting with dogs, in particular, the increasing use of dogs in hunting, as such practice is a particular concern among conservationists. We present a case study from the lowland costal forest of Tambrauw in West Papua Province – Indonesian New Guinea using information gathered by assessing the activities and success of thirty-three hunters. The hunters identified 301 successful kills in a total of 654 hours of hunting. Five different prey species were reported across the study sites in a 7-month time period. Interestingly, active hunting without dogs had a higher yield (kills per hour) than hunting with them (0.700 versus 0.38 kills per hour), especially for deer, but hunting with dogs is the only method that seems to favour the capture of pigs over deer. Dogs are not valued for their role in hunting alone but also have less tangible cultural values also protect hunters and also their families from animals and spirits. We conclude that hunting with dogs is the only method that seems to favour the capture of pigs over deer. We find that dogs can provoke social conflicts and other problems. More attention should be given to local hunting and the methods used. Hunting with dogs impacts the quantity and composition of the hunt, this requires a careful appraisal, as dogs also provide wider cultural and protective roles.
Even after armed conflict, the environmental quality of Indigenous Peoples’ lands in biodiversity hotspots surpasses that of non-Indigenous lands
Indigenous Peoples lands cover over a fifth of the world’s land surface and support high levels of biodiversity. However, for centuries Indigenous Peoples have suffered from deprivation, often dispossession, and even cultural genocide, a process continuing today in some regions. Biodiversity hotspots, global areas of high endemicity that are heavily threatened by habitat loss and other human activities are also affected by conflict. Although covering only 2.4 % of the world’s surface, over 80 % of armed conflicts occurred in biodiversity hotspots between 1950 and 2000. Given that many hotspots overlap with Indigenous Peoples’ lands, we asked whether the co-occurrence of Indigenous Peoples’ lands and high ecological integrity, measured by using Intact Forest Landscapes as units which still contain significant biological diversity, and the Human Footprint as a proxy for anthropogenic impacts, increased the persistence of biodiversity in hotspots where there has been armed conflict. Our results show that, within biodiversity hotspots, armed conflict was more likely to occur on Indigenous Peoples’ lands than non-Indigenous lands, yet environmental damage and anthropogenic impacts were both lower. We suggest that Indigenous Peoples have been able to moderate ecosystem degradation processes before, during, and after armed conflict because of their strong ties to their lands and their determination to defend their rights and territories. We argue that recognition and support for the efforts of Indigenous Peoples to protect their lands is not only socially just but also essential for meeting the now pressing global post-2020 conservation targets.
A standard approach for including climate change responses in IUCN Red List assessments
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is a central tool for extinction risk monitoring and influences global biodiversity policy and action. But, to be effective, it is crucial that it consistently accounts for each driver of extinction. Climate change is rapidly becoming a key extinction driver, but consideration of climate change information remains challenging for the IUCN. Several methods can be used to predict species’ future decline, but they often fail to provide estimates of the symptoms of endangerment used by IUCN. We devised a standardized method to measure climate change impact in terms of change in habitat quality to inform criterion A3 on future population reduction. Using terrestrial nonvolant tetrapods as a case study, we measured this impact as the difference between the current and the future species climatic niche, defined based on current and future bioclimatic variables under alternative model algorithms, dispersal scenarios, emission scenarios, and climate models. Our models identified 171 species (13% out of those analyzed) for which their current red-list category could worsen under criterion A3 if they cannot disperse beyond their current range in the future. Categories for 14 species (1.5%) could worsen if maximum dispersal is possible. Although ours is a simulation exercise and not a formal red-list assessment, our results suggest that considering climate change impacts may reduce misclassification and strengthen consistency and comprehensiveness of IUCN Red List assessments.
A robust goal is needed for species in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
In 2010, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 to address the loss and degradation of nature. Subsequently, most biodiversity indicators continued to decline. Nevertheless, conservation actions can make a positive difference for biodiversity. The emerging Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework has potential to catalyze efforts to “bend the curve” of biodiversity loss. Thus, the inclusion of a goal on species, articulated as Goal B in the Zero Draft of the Post-2020 Framework, is essential. However, as currently formulated, this goal is inadequate for preventing extinctions, and reversing population declines; both of which are required to achieve the CBD’s 2030 Mission. We contend it is unacceptable that Goal B could be met while most threatened species deteriorated in status and many avoidable species extinctions occurred. We examine the limitations of the current wording and propose an articulation with robust scientific basis. A goal for species that strives to end extinctions and recover populations of all species that have experienced population declines, and especially those at risk of extinction, would help to align actors toward the transformative actions and interventions needed for humans to live in harmony with nature. © 2020 The Authors. Conservation Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC
Global disparity of research allocation and the Aichi biodiversity conservation targets
Tracking progress towards global biodiversity conservation targets requires appropriate allocation of research and monitoring efforts. We conducted a global review of camera trap research on mammals as a proxy for biodiversity research and monitoring over the last two decades. We assessed how 3395 research locations from 2324 studies tracked priority regions for attaining the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. We used a geospatial distribution modelling approach to predict the spatial allocation of biodiversity research and to identify its key drivers. We show that conservation research in the past two decades has often failed to target areas important for conservation, and that 76.8% of the global research allocation can be attributed to country income, biome, mammal richness and accessibility. We predicted lowest probabilities of research allocation in low income countries. The Amazon and Congo Forest basins — two highly biodiverse ecosystems facing unprecedented human alteration — received inadequate research attention. Even in the most researched regions, an average of 51.4% of the research locations were outside the top 20% most important areas for the global biodiversity Aichi Targets. To support biodiversity conservation targets, policy and practice, more research and monitoring is required in regions with high importance for conservation.