Does Conservation Planning Matter in a Dynamic and Uncertain World?

We show that while comprehensive reserve network design is best when the entire network can be implemented immediately, when conservation investments must be staged over years, such solutions actually may be sub-optimal in the context of biodiversity loss and uncertainty

Predicting the deforestation-trend under different carbon-prices

BACKGROUND: Global carbon stocks in forest biomass are decreasing by 1.1 Gt of carbon annually, owing to continued deforestation and forest degradation. Deforestation emissions are partly offset by forest expansion and increases in growing stock primarily in the extra-tropical north. Innovative financial mechanisms would be required to help reducing deforestation. Using a spatially explicit integrated biophysical and socio-economic land use model we estimated the impact of carbon price incentive schemes and payment modalities on deforestation. One payment modality is adding costs for carbon emission, the other is to pay incentives for keeping the forest carbon stock intact. RESULTS: Baseline scenario calculations show that close to 200 mil ha or around 5% of todays forest area will be lost between 2006 and 2025, resulting in a release of additional 17.5 GtC. Today's forest cover will shrink by around 500 million hectares, which is 1/8 of the current forest cover, within the next 100 years. The accumulated carbon release during the next 100 years amounts to 45 GtC, which is 15% of the total carbon stored in forests today. Incentives of 6 US$/tC for vulnerable standing biomass payed every 5 year will bring deforestation down by 50$/year. On the other hand a carbon tax of 12 $/tC harvested forest biomass will also cut deforestation by half. The tax income will, if enforced, decrease from 6 billion US$ in 2005 to 4.3 billion US$in 2025 and 0.7 billion US$ in 2100 due to decreasing deforestation speed. CONCLUSION: Avoiding deforestation requires financial mechanisms that make retention of forests economically competitive with the currently often preferred option to seek profits from other land uses. Incentive payments need to be at a very high level to be effective against deforestation. Taxes on the other hand will extract budgetary revenues from the regions which are already poor. A combination of incentives and taxes could turn out to be a viable solution for this problem. Increasing the value of forest land and thereby make it less easily prone to deforestation would act as a strong incentive to increase productivity of agricultural and fuelwood production, which could be supported by revenues generated by the deforestation tax

Terrestrial Reserve Networks Do Not Adequately Represent Aquatic Ecosystems

Las áreas protegidas son una piedra angular de la conservación y han sido diseñadas principalmente alrededor de atributos terrestres. Las especies y ecosistemas dulceacuícolas se encuentran en peligro, pero la efectividad de las áreas protegidas existentes para representar las características dulceacuícolas es poco conocida. Utilizando las aguas interiores de Michigan como un caso de prueba, cuantificamos la cobertura de cuatro atributos dulceacuícolas clave (humedales, zonas ribereñas, recarga de agua subterránea y especies raras) en las tierras conservadas y las comparamos con la representación de los atributos terrestres. Los humedales estaban incluidos en las áreas protegidas más a menudo que lo esperado por azar, pero las zonas ribereñas estuvieron insuficientemente representadas en todas las tierras protegidas (GAP1–3), particularmente en manantiales y ríos grandes. Sin embargo, las zonas ribereñas estuvieron bien representadas en las tierras con protección estricta (GAP 1–2) debido a la contribución del Programa Nacional de Ríos Silvestres y Escénicos. La representación de áreas de recarga de aguas subterráneas generalmente fue proporcional al área de la red de reservas dentro de cuencas hidrológicas, aunque un sitio importante de recarga asociado con algunos de los ríos más valiosos en Michigan estaba casi totalmente desprotegido. La representación de especies en áreas protegidas difirió significativamente entre las especies acuáticas obligadas, de humedales y terrestres, con una representación generalmente mayor para las especies terrestres y menor para las acuáticas. Nuestros resultados ilustran la necesidad de evaluar y atender la representación de los atributos dulceacuícolas dentro de las áreas protegidas y el valor de ampliar el análisis de brechas y otras evaluaciones de áreas protegidas para incluir los procesos ecosistémicos claves que son requisito para la conservación a largo plazo de especies y ecosistemas. Concluimos que las redes de áreas protegidas orientadas al medio terrestre proporcionan una red de seguridad débil para los atributos acuáticos, lo que significa que se requiere planeación y manejo complementario tanto para objetivos de conservación dulceacuícolas como terrestres.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/1/COBI_1460_sm_AppendixS3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/2/COBI_1460_sm_AppendixS1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/3/j.1523-1739.2010.01460.x.pd

'Organization Science': A new prospective to assess marine protected areas effectiveness

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are widely considered as useful tools to achieve both conservation and resource management goals. They have the potential to produce a wide array of positive socio-ecological effects. Their effectiveness, however, varies dramatically. The sources of this variability are numerous and, in some cases, quite well studied. Yet, a significant portion of the variability in MPAs effectiveness still remains unexplained. MPAs, due to a number of intrinsic features, can be considered "organizational systems", a definition recognizing the fact that 1) their effectiveness can be influenced by their own organizational dimensions and 2) they could be analyzed employing the typical tools provided by 'Organization Science' (hereafter OS). Here we analyze the available literature on MPAs on a worldwide scale to explore whether and how the principles of OS have been used as a scientific basis for the evaluation of MPA effectiveness. We found that no study explicitly used a comprehensive OS framework for evaluating effectiveness in the context of MPAs. Just 20 studies considered some organizational dimensions in their analysis (e.g. professionalism of the organization members, vision, goals, strategy and networking), but not in a comprehensive manner. The outputs of our review stress the limited use of the OS methodologies and principles in the context of MPAs so far. We posit that there is a significant potential for new insights in MPA science thanks to a more integrated implementation of an OS framework for the interpretation and improvement of MPA socio-ecological effectiveness

Protected area gap analysis of important bird areas in Tanzania

Analyses of gaps in protected area (PA) coverage of species distributions have been carried out extensively for the past two decades, aiming to better locate new PAs and conserve species. In this study, progress to close gaps in the protection of the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of Tanzania is assessed between 2002 and 2009, with a detailed GIS analysis from 2007 to 2009. Remaining gaps are ranked according to biological factors such as numbers of red list and restricted range avian species and social pressures such as human population, agriculture and density of the road network. Results show that there has been a 5.3% increase (7615.1 km2) in protection of IBAs between 2007 and 2009. Of the 27 remaining IBA protection gaps, three are of high, nine of medium and fifteen of low priority for action. The current IBA "gap area" of 17,133.3 km2 contains around 26% forest, 13% shrubland, 9% grassland, 36% wetland and 12% agricultural land. This analysis provides a simple template for defining where further action to protect remaining IBA sites in Tanzania would lead to enhanced conservation of avian biodiversity in that country and provides a methodology for analysis leading to conservation action elsewhere in Africa

The active Nea Anchialos Fault System (Central Greece): comparison of geological, morphotectonic, archaeological and seismological data

The Nea Anchialos Fault System has been studied integrating geological, morphological, structural, archaeological and seismic data. This fault system forms the northern boundary of the Almyros Basin which is one of the Neogene-Quaternary tectonic basins of Thessaly. Specific structural and geomorphological mapping were carried out and fault-slip data analysis allowed the Late Quaternary palaeo-stress field to be estimated. The resulting N-S trending purely extensional regime is consistent with the direction of the T-axes computed from the focal mechanisms of the summer 1980, Volos seismic sequence and the April 30, 1985 Almyros earthquake. A minor set of structural data indicates a WNW-ESE extension which has been interpreted as due to a local and second order stress field occurring during the N-S regional extension. Furthermore, new archaeological data, discovered by the author, have improved morphology and tectonics of the area also allowing a tentative estimate of the historic (III-IV century AD. to Present) fault slip rate. Several topographic profiles across the major E- W topographic escarpment as well as along the streams, have emphasised scarps and knick-points, further supporting the occurrence of very recent morphogenic activity. In the last section, the structural, morphological and archaeological data are compared with the already existing seismological data and their integrated analysis indicates that the Nea Anchialos Fault System has been active since Lower(?)-Middle Pleistocene