Biodiversity Conservation
Biodiversity conservation refers to the protection, management, and restoration of the variety of life on Earth, including ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity. It aims to maintain the balance of natural systems and ensure the sustainable use of resources for future generations. Conservation efforts often involve the establishment of protected areas, habitat restoration, and sustainable resource management practices.
6 Key excerpts on "Biodiversity Conservation"
eBook - ePub- Richard John Huggett(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...PART IV CONSERVATION BIOGEOGRAPHY 17 CONSERVING SPECIES AND POPULATIONS Biological diversity is plummeting, mainly due to habitat degradation and loss, pollution, overex-ploitation, competition from alien species, disease, and changing climates. There is an urgent need to preserve species and populations. This chapter covers: • justifying species conservation • conservation bodies and categories • conservation strategies Biodiversity responds to changes in the physical and biological environment in a maze of complex ways. Many scientists think the recent steep fall in global biodiversity levels alarming and fear that the human species is single-handedly manufacturing a mass extinction far speedier than any past mass extinctions. Two big worries about current biodiversity decline are that it is an irrevocable process set to undermine the basis of human existence, and that it will deny hosts of species their right to exist. WHY CONSERVE SPECIES? Underpinning conservation biogeography is the assumption that humans should protect species, communities, and ecosystems wherever necessary. The justification for this assumption is that the environment has value and deserves protecting. Conservationists present at least five types of justification: economic, ecological, aesthetic, moral, and cultural (Botkin and Keller 2003, 263–4): 1 Economic or utilitarian justification for conservation stems from a need of individuals or societies for an environmental resource to gain an economic benefit or even to survive. For instance, farmers make their living from the land and need a supply of crops or livestock to do so. A common argument upheld under the economic justification banner is that it is unwise to destroy species that may prove useful to humans, say as anticancer agents (Table 17.1)...
eBook - ePubBiogeography
An Integrative Approach of the Evolution of Living
- Eric Guilbert, Eric Guilbert(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley-ISTE(Publisher)
...Future directions Conservation biogeography appears to have made progress since 2005 in its attempt to delineate, conceptually and empirically, a portion of the spatial (and thereby, probably temporal) scale (landscape to geographic) within the vast realm of conservation biology that has not always been of a focal concern among biodiversity researchers. However, to continue to become even more relevant, practitioners would find value in making advances in several ways. First, it appears that conservation biogeography has, to date, concentrated focus on a subset of the very large research themes that are conceivably nested within its purview. An array of very general research themes demonstrates a respectable frequency of topics “hits” in the subdiscipline’s flagship journal (Table 14.5); however, there is a broad range of usage frequency of different topics embedded within each of these themes (Table 14.4). This result might indicate scope for a “fleshing out” of some concepts as researchers seek greater explanatory power in approaches to Biodiversity Conservation. Second, as with all progressive disciplines in science, conservation biogeography will be well-served by continuing to incorporate advances in methods, theory and large datasets. Genomics, for example, is poised to make large and rapid strides in sequencing whole genomes for entire groups of major radiations (e.g. Earth BioGenome Project; https://www.earthbiogenome.org/). The wealth of data that could result from such endeavors was unimaginable in 2005 when conservation biogeography was conceived. Likewise, species distribution models continue to become more powerful and useful tools to predict biotic responses across geographic regions to, for example, global and climate change, and biotic invasions (Zurell et al., 2020)...
eBook - ePubUrban Nature Conservation
Landscape Management in the Urban Countryside
- Stephen Forbes, Tony Kendle(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
...5 Biogeography and Conservation Planning in the Urban Countryside It is becoming increasingly apparent that many of the assumptions underlying conservation planning have been too simplistic to guide management accurately, or to explain adequately all of the relationships seen between species and reserves. Slowly ecologists are developing an understanding of the ways in which broader habitat patterns, comprising shapes, sizes, internal structure and the spatial relationship between all of these and between the habitats and the surrounding landscape influence the diversity of species found within a reserve or wildlife area. The discipline of landscape ecology has been defined by the UK branch of the International Association of Landscape Ecology as the interactions between the temporal and spatial aspects of a landscape and its flora, fauna and cultural components (Griffith, 1995). In many ways it is a direct extension of the subject of biogeography. The subject grew largely out of the interests of central European biogeographers in the regional and local scale patterns and processes in the landscape (Naveh and Liebermann, 1994), although the terminology inevitably has become entangled and confused with those aspects of work of the landscape professions which have an ecological orientation, such as have been discussed in earlier chapters regardless of their scale. For the purposes of this chapter, the term landscape ecology is used in keeping with the above definition – the objective is to review the interaction between the pattern and distribution of habitats and sites within the urban fabric and to consider how the relationships between them may affect their function. The significance of such a study lies in its potential contribution towards strategic planning and the identification of areas where green space creation, protection and management strategies may be targeted towards regional benefits...
- Justin Garson, Anya Plutynski, Sahotra Sarkar, Justin Garson, Anya Plutynski, Sahotra Sarkar(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Part V Social contexts and global justice 20 Putting Biodiversity Conservation into practice The importance of local culture, economy, governance, and community values Anya Plutynski and Yayoi Fujita-Lagerqvist 1 Biodiversity Conservation as a practical discipline has been significantly transformed over the past twenty years. Given the extent to which humans influence not only biodiversity loss, but also geographical distribution, and ecological dynamics, there has been a shift in the study of conservation as a scientific discipline from a concern strictly with ecological and biological diversity measures to an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon the human sciences. What has now been called “conservation science” – as opposed to “conservation biology” (Kareiva and Marvier 2012) – is currently more interdisciplinary in character, for two reasons: one pragmatic, and another normative (Callicott et al. 1999, Sarkar 2012, Norton 2015). First, there is a growing realization that effective Biodiversity Conservation must draw upon research in psychology, economics, politics, geography, and anthropology. Second, there is a growing realization that conservation and international justice issues are significantly intertwined (Figueroa and Mills 2001, Dowie 2009, Sarkar 2012). Turning to the pragmatic issue, the human sciences provide important insights into collective decision-making, economic forces governing institutions and individual behaviors, methods and aims of sustainable practices, and cultural norms and their roles in active resistance to, or commitment to, conservation (Sarkar 2008). Without evidence-based assessment of the role of human actors and institutions in conservation planning and policy, no amount of biological understanding is sufficient to put conservation policy effectively into practice...
eBook - ePubBiodiversity
An Introduction
- Kevin J. Gaston, John I. Spicer(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Whilst there are some important similarities, there are also significant differences, which caution against assuming that planning based on those groups that we know well will suffice for those that we do not (e.g. Brooks et al. 2001). (c) Regulate or manage biological resources important for the conservation of biological diversity whether within or outside protected areas, with a view to assuring their conservation and sustainable use; (d) Promote the protection of ecosystems, natural habitats and the maintenance of viable populations of species in natural surroundings; (e) Promote environmentally sound and sustainable development in areas adjacent to protected areas with a view to furthering protection of these areas; Of course, whether on land or in the ocean, protected areas, whilst vital, are not sufficient in themselves for the conservation of biodiversity. First, they are not isolated from events beyond their boundaries, and the more degraded conditions become outside, the greater the reduction of population viability within. Second, they are often vulnerable to threats and accidents emanating from outside, such as resource exploitation and chemical contamination. Thus, for example, extinction rates of large mammals in protected areas in West Africa have been shown to increase with human density in the surrounding areas, presumably reflecting the increased hunting pressures that they face (Brashares et al. 2001). Third, much biodiversity will not be contained within protected areas. For example, an unknown but doubtless large proportion of species is unrepresented within protected areas, and large numbers of some flagship species occur outside their boundaries; 80% of Africa’s elephants live outside protected areas (Ginsberg 2002). Fourth, many fundamental processes, such as migration and population replenishment (especially in marine systems), occur at scales much larger than those protected areas can reasonably attain...
eBook - ePub- John Blewitt(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The IUCN recognizes eight different types of protected areas, ranging from scientific reserves to resource reserves and multiple-use management areas, including what have become known as ‘biosphere reserves’, which allow for the sustained production and consumption of natural resources such as fish, water, timber, wildlife and outdoor recreation. The idea is that sustainability and development, conservation and production are compatible and complementary rather than contradictory and opposed, although in practice this is quite hard to achieve practically and conceptually. Erich Hoyt sums up the essence of the biosphere reserve according to three aspects or roles: 1 A conservation role including the conservation of genetic material, ecosystems and species. 2 A logistic role providing interconnected facilities for research and monitoring within and internationally co-ordinated scientific programme. 3 A development role fostering a connection with human populations near the protected area through the rational and sustainable use of ecosystem resources. (2005: 25–6) Nature conservation and accommodating the interests of disadvantaged groups are often quite distinct: biologists are concerned with wildlife preservation and maintaining biodiversity while local people are concerned with earning a living and protecting their crops from whoever may decide to feast on them, including elephants and gorillas or other endangered species. One way of squaring this particular circle has been to apply a market mentality to wildlife resources. The motivation behind ecotourism, for example, whether it is expensive big game safaris on the African savannah or whale watching in Alaska, is to make the wildlife ‘pay their way’...
