Hunting and sale of Pangolins across Sub-Saharan Africa: a preliminary analysis

Pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) are hunted and traded for their meat and scales. We conducted preliminary analyses on the hunting and sale at markets of four species of pangolin across Sub-Saharan Africa based on data from the OFFTAKE database. Our analyses show that all four species of African pangolin are hunted and sold at markets throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa. The proportion of pangolins as part of the total vertebrates hunted has increased significantly during the 43 years, from 1972-2014, for which we have data

Towards understanding interactions between Sustainable Development Goals: the role of environment–human linkages

Only 10 years remain to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally, so there is a growing need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of action by targeting multiple SDGs. The SDGs were conceived as an ‘indivisible whole’, but interactions between SDGs need to be better understood. Several previous assessments have begun to explore interactions including synergies and possible conflicts between the SDGs, and differ widely in their conclusions. Although some highlight the role of the more environmentally-focused SDGs in underpinning sustainable development, none specifically focuses on environment-human linkages. Assessing interactions between SDGs, and the influence of environment on them, can make an important contribution to informing decisions in 2020 and beyond. Here, we review previous assessments of interactions among SDGs, apply an influence matrix to assess pairwise interactions between all SDGs, and show how viewing these from the perspective of environment-human linkages can influence the outcome. Environment, and environment-human linkages, influence most interactions between SDGs. Our action-focused assessment enables decision makers to focus environmental management to have the greatest impacts, and to identify opportunities to build on synergies and reduce trade-offs between particular SDGs. It may enable sectoral decision makers to seek support from environment managers for achieving their goals. We explore cross-cutting issues and the relevance and potential application of our approach in supporting decision making for progress to achieve the SDGs

Shortfalls and Solutions for Meeting National and Global Conservation Area Targets

Governments have committed to conserving greater than or equal to 17% of terrestrial and greater than or equal to 10% of marine environments globally, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity through ecologically representative Protected Area (PA) systems or other area-based conservation measures , while individual countries have committed to conserve 3-50% of their land area. We estimate that PAs currently cover 14.6% of terrestrial and 2.8% of marine extent, but 59-68% of ecoregions, 77-78% of important sites for biodiversity, and 57% of 25,380 species have inadequate coverage. The existing 19.7 million km super(2) terrestrial PA network needs only 3.3 million km super(2) to be added to achieve 17% terrestrial coverage. However, it would require nearly doubling to achieve, cost-efficiently, coverage targets for all countries, ecoregions, important sites, and species. Poorer countries have the largest relative shortfalls. Such extensive and rapid expansion of formal PAs is unlikely to be achievable. Greater focus is therefore needed on alternative approaches, including community- and privately managed sites and other effective area-based conservation measures

Egg and skin collections as a resource for long-term ecological studies

Volume: 123AStart Page: 165End Page: 17

call for data: PREDICTS: Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems

The PREDICTS project (www.predicts.org.uk) is a three-year NERC-funded project to model and predict at a global scale how local terrestrial diversity responds to human pressures such as land use, land cover, pollution, invasive species and infrastructure. PREDICTS is a collaboration between Imperial College London, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UCL and the University of Sussex. In order to meet its aims, the project relies on extensive data describing the diversity and composition of biological communities at a local scale. Such data are collected on a vast scale through the committed efforts of field ecologists. If you have appropriate data that you would be willing to share with us, please get in touch ([email protected]). All contributions will be acknowledged appropriately and all data contributors will be included as co-authors on an open-access paper describing the database

call for data: PREDICTS: Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems

The PREDICTS project (www.predicts.org.uk) is a three-year NERC-funded project to model and predict at a global scale how local terrestrial diversity responds to human pressures such as land use, land cover, pollution, invasive species and infrastructure. PREDICTS is a collaboration between Imperial College London, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UCL and the University of Sussex. In order to meet its aims, the project relies on extensive data describing the diversity and composition of biological communities at a local scale. Such data are collected on a vast scale through the committed efforts of field ecologists. If you have appropriate data that you would be willing to share with us, please get in touch ([email protected]). All contributions will be acknowledged appropriately and all data contributors will be included as co-authors on an open-access paper describing the database

PREDICTS: Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems

The PREDICTS project (www.predicts.org.uk) is a three-year NERC-funded project to model and predict at a global scale how local terrestrial diversity responds to human pressures such as land use, land cover, pollution, invasive species and infrastructure. PREDICTS is a collaboration between Imperial College London, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UCL and the University of Sussex. In order to meet its aims, the project relies on extensive data describing the diversity and composition of biological communities at a local scale. Such data are collected on a vast scale through the committed efforts of field ecologists. If you have appropriate data that you would be willing to share with us, please get in touch ([email protected]). All contributions will be acknowledged appropriately and all data contributors will be included as co-authors on an open-access paper describing the database.</p

Data from: Emergent global patterns of ecosystem structure and function from a mechanistic General Ecosystem Model

Anthropogenic activities are causing widespread degradation of ecosystems worldwide, threatening the ecosystem services upon which all human life depends. Improved understanding of this degradation is urgently needed to improve avoidance and mitigation measures. One tool to assist these efforts is predictive models of ecosystem structure and function that are mechanistic: based on fundamental ecological principles. Here we present the first mechanistic General Ecosystem Model (GEM) of ecosystem structure and function that is both global, and applies in all terrestrial and marine environments. Functional forms and parameter values were derived from the theoretical and empirical literature where possible. Simulations of the fate of all organisms with body masses between 10 µg and 150,000 kg (a range of 14 orders of magnitude) across the globe led to emergent properties at individual (e.g. growth rate), community (e.g. biomass turnover rates), ecosystem (e.g. trophic pyramids) and macro-ecological scales (e.g. global patterns of trophic structure) that are in general agreement with current data and theory. These properties emerged from our encoding of the biology of, and interactions among, individual organisms without any direct constraints on the properties themselves. Our results indicate that ecologists have gathered sufficient information to begin to build realistic, global and mechanistic models of ecosystems, capable of predicting a diverse range of ecosystem properties and their response to human pressures

Study 4 - Global predictions

Outputs from the Madingley model for Study 4 of Table 3 of the manuscript. This study is comprised of one simulation over a global model grid at 2 degree by 2 degree resolution and extending from 65 degrees north to 65 degrees south, and from 180 degrees west to 180 degrees east. Outputs files are described in more detail in 'ReadMe.txt' and model setup files are described in 'ReadMe-ModelSetup.txt'