The role of wilderness in protecting biodiversity

Arguments for and against Wilderness designation often revolve around decidedly unecological themes, such as commodity values, recreational opportunities, and esthetics. Yet one of the strongest arguments in support of Wilderness is ecological: the preservation of biodiversity. Wilderness Areas are important reservoirs of biodiversity, and their value increases as unprotected wildlands are developed. However, in recent years some writers have argued that Wilderness preservation is counterproductive to good wildlife management. Upon closer examination, it can be shown that: (1) most of the ecological arguments against Wilderness are unsubstantiated or inaccurate: and (2) the Wilderness Act provides sufficient flexibility to address the major management issues that are likely to arise in Wilderness Areas

High conservation value or high confusion value? Sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation in the tropics

Green labeling of products that have been produced sustainably is an emerging tool of the environmental movement. A prominent example is the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies timber that is harvested to manage and maintain forests defined as having High Conservation Value (HCV). The criteria for HCV are now being applied to four rapidly expanding crops in the tropics: oil palm, soy, sugarcane, and cacao. However, these criteria do not provide adequate protection for biodiversity when applied to agriculture. The only criterion that provides blanket protection to forests is one that protects large expanses of habitat (≥20,000-500,000 ha, depending on the country). Absent of other HCVs, the collective clearing of forest patches below these thresholds could result in extensive deforestation that would be sanctioned with a green label. Yet such forest patches retain much biodiversity and provide connectivity within the agricultural matrix. An examination of forest fragments in biodiverse countries across the tropics shows that future agricultural demand can be met by clearing only forest patches below a 1,000 ha threshold. We recommend the development of a new HCV criterion that recognizes the conservation value of habitat patches within the agricultural matrix and that protects patches above 1,000 ha. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Gaps and weaknesses in the global protected area network for safeguarding at-risk species

Protected areas are essential to biodiversity conservation. Creating new parks can protect larger populations and more species, yet strengthening existing parks, particularly those vulnerable to harmful human activities, is a critical but underappreciated step for safeguarding at-risk species. Here, we model the area of habitat that terrestrial mammals, amphibians, and birds have within park networks and their vulnerability to current downgrading, downsizing, or degazettement events and future land-use change. We find that roughly 70% of species analyzed have scant representation in parks, or occur within parks that are affected by shifts in formal legal protections or are vulnerable to increased human pressures. Our results also show that expanding and strengthening park networks across just 1% of the world’s land area could preserve irreplaceable habitats of 1191 species that are particularly vulnerable to extinction

Going, Going, Gone: Is Animal Migration Disappearing

Many of the world's migratory animals are in decline. This essay explores the unique scientific and political challenges of protecting migratory species while they are still common

Climate change: Helping nature survive the human response

Climate change poses profound, direct, and well-documented threats to biodiversity. A significant fraction of Earth\u27s species is at risk of extinction due to changing precipitation and temperature regimes, rising and acidifying oceans, and other factors. There is also growing awareness of the diversity and magnitude of responses, both proactive and reactive, that people will undertake as lives and livelihoods are affected by climate change. Yet to date few studies have examined the relationship between these two powerful forces. The natural systems upon which people depend, already under direct assault from climate change, are further threatened by how we respond to climate change. Human history and recent studies suggest that our actions to cope with climate change (adaptation) or lessen its rate and magnitude (mitigation) could have impacts that match-and even exceed-the direct effects of climate change on ecosystems. If we are to successfully conserve biodiversity and maintain ecosystem services in a warming world, considerable effort is needed to predict and reduce the indirect risks created by climate change. ©2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cost-effective conservation: Calculating biodiversity and logging trade-offs in Southeast Asia

The Sundaland Biodiversity Hotspot of Southeast Asia is widely regarded as one of the most imperiled biodiversity hotspots due to high degrees of endemism coupled with extensive logging and forest conversion to oil palm. The large financial returns to these activities have made it difficult to conserve much of the region\u27s lowland primary forest, suggesting a large trade-off between economic interests and biodiversity conservation. Here, we provide an empirical examination of the magnitude of this trade-off in Borneo. By incorporating both financial values and biodiversity responses across logging regimes, we show that selectively logged forests represent a surprisingly low-cost option for conserving high levels of biodiversity. In our study, the standing value of timber dropped from ∼$10,460 ha-1 to ∼$2,010 ha-1 after two logging rotations, yet these forests retained over 75% of bird and dung beetle species found in primary unlogged forest. We suggest that the conservation of selectively logged forests represents a highly cost-efficient opportunity to enlarge existing protected areas, improve connectivity between them, and to create new, large protected areas. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Global shortfalls in documented actions to conserve biodiversity

Threatened species are by definition species that are in need of assistance. In the absence of suitable conservation interventions, they are likely to disappear soon1. There is limited understanding of how and where conservation interventions are applied globally, or how well they work2, 3. Here, using information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and other global databases, we find that for species at risk from three of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss—habitat loss, overexploitation for international trade and invasive species4—many appear to lack the appropriate types of conservation interventions. Indeed, although there has been substantial recent expansion of the protected area network, we still find that 91% of threatened species have insufficient representation of their habitats within protected areas. Conservation interventions are not implemented uniformly across different taxa and regions and, even when present, have infrequently led to substantial improvements in the status of species. For 58% of the world’s threatened terrestrial species, we find conservation interventions to be notably insufficient or absent. We cannot determine whether such species are truly neglected, or whether efforts to recover them are not included in major conservation databases. If they are indeed neglected, the outlook for many of the world’s threatened species is grim without more and better targeted action

Evaluating staging habitat quality to advance the conservation of a declining migratory shorebird, Red Knot <i>Calidris canutus</i>

Identifying where and when population ‘bottlenecks’ occur is critical to the conservation of migratory species, many of which are declining precipitously worldwide. Especially challenging is the evaluation of changes to staging sites. These sites are indispensable links in the migratory cycle but are typically used only briefly. We devised a field-based approach to assess the quality and carrying capacity of a critical staging site in Nanpu, China, for the declining, migratory Red Knot (Calidris canutus rogersi &amp; C. c. piersmai) during northward migration. The Nanpu tidal flat supports 50,000–100,000 Red Knots annually, and while there, the knots feed almost exclusively on the bivalve Potamocorbula laevis. We simultaneously monitored changes in the abundance of Red Knots and bivalves across this entire staging site in spring 2018. After taking into account potential competition with other shorebird species, we estimated that the Nanpu tidal flat was capable of supporting approximately 1.46–1.70 times the observed level of Red Knot usage of this site, and therefore is operating below, but close to, carrying capacity with respect to food resources for Red Knots. This result suggests that any further habitat loss or degradation at this site could harm the Red Knot population along the entire East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Synthesis and applications. Quantitative monitoring and evaluation of habitat quality of staging sites are essential to successfully conserve declining migratory species. In particular, researchers and conservation practitioners should incorporate both population size and staging duration to more accurately assess the importance of different sites and to quantify how changes in staging habitat quality may translate into changes in the population sizes of migratory species at both local and global scales.</p

Tree plantations displacing native forests: The nature and drivers of apparent forest recovery on former croplands in Southwestern China from 2000 to 2015

China is credited with undertaking some of the world's most ambitious policies to protect and restore forests, which could serve as a role model for other countries. However, the actual environmental consequences of these policies are poorly known. Here, we combine remote-sensing analysis with household interviews to assess the nature and drivers of land-cover change in southwestern China between 2000–2015, after China's major forest protection and reforestation policies came into effect. We found that while the region's gross tree cover grew by 32%, this increase was entirely due to the conversion of croplands to tree plantations, particularly monocultures. Native forests, in turn, suffered a net loss of 6.6%. Thus, instead of truly recovering forested landscapes and generating concomitant environmental benefits, the region's apparent forest recovery has effectively displaced native forests, including those that could have naturally regenerated on land freed up from agriculture. The pursuit of profit from agricultural or forestry production along with governmental encouragement and mobilization for certain land uses – including tree planting – were the dominant drivers of the observed land-cover change. An additional driver was the desire of many households to conform with the land-use decisions of their neighbors. We also found that households' lack of labor or financial resources, rather than any policy safeguards, was the primary constraint on further conversion of native forests. We conclude that to achieve genuine forest recovery along with the resulting environmental benefits, China's policies must more strongly protect existing native forests and facilitate native forest restoration. Natural regeneration, which thus far has been grossly neglected in China's forest policies, should be recognized as a legitimate means of forest restoration. In addition, social factors operating at the household level, notably the pursuit of profit and conformation to social norms, should be harnessed to promote better land-cover, biodiversity, and environmental outcomes. More generally, for China and other countries to succeed in recovering forests, policies must clearly distinguish between native forests and tree plantations