Biodiversity Legislation
Biodiversity legislation refers to laws and regulations aimed at protecting and conserving the variety of life on Earth. These laws often focus on preserving ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity. Biodiversity legislation can include measures such as protected area designations, species conservation plans, and regulations on habitat destruction and pollution to safeguard the natural environment and its inhabitants.
6 Key excerpts on "Biodiversity Legislation"
eBook - ePubDesign for Biodiversity
A Technical Guide for New and Existing Buildings
- Kelly Gunnell, Carol Williams, Brian Murphy(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- RIBA Publishing(Publisher)
...Chapter Two Legislation, policy and regulations This chapter provides an overview of wildlife and planning legislation, the current policy surrounding the superseded Biodiversity Action Plan and the Building Regulations. The intention is to illustrate the processes and common areas that link legislation, policy and regulations together, and then view the whole picture in the context of the theme of this book. It is, however, natural that some readers may wish to explore certain aspects in more depth and so alongside the key facts there are links to further sources of information. 2.1 Wildlife legislation and what it means There is a range of wildlife legislation that applies to species that use buildings. This legislation falls into two types: To protect those species that have been deemed sufficiently vulnerable to require either protection under national legislation or from European Directives which have subsequently been implemented into UK law. Some species, including all bat species, are protected by both and are commonly referred to as European Protected Species (EPS). There is also legislation that emphasises the need to maintain and enhance biodiversity. Importantly, this book deals with enhancing biodiversity by providing potential roosting and nesting sites that low or zero carbon buildings are otherwise unlikely to support...
- Justin Garson, Anya Plutynski, Sahotra Sarkar, Justin Garson, Anya Plutynski, Sahotra Sarkar(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Such uses would include recreation and customary harvesting by indigenous peoples, but they would also extend to “results and benefits arising from biotechnologies based upon genetic resources” (19 (e)). While the conservation legislation of individual states is often not couched in terms of biodiversity, the idea of biodiversity nonetheless plays a significant political role in the conservation endeavours of many countries. For example, while New Zealand’s main conservation legislation (the Environment Act, the Conservation Act, and the Resource Management Act) makes no reference to biodiversity, a search on the website of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation finds over 700 web pages and policy documents containing the term. The combination of all these factors has led to considerable difficulty in providing a philosophical characterization of biodiversity which both addresses its importance in conservation ethics, and its centrality in the public understanding of conservation aims and which provides advice to scientists about how they might best measure biodiversity across different contexts and use biodiversity in the setting of both large- and small-scale conservation goals. In Philosophies of Paradise: The Idea of Biodiversity, David Takacs (1996) asks a group of well-known biologists for their preferred definitions of “biodiversity.” Even taking into account the fact that these definitions are brief and given in an interview situation, there is nonetheless a distinct lack of uniformity (pp. 46–50). Some stress that biodiversity is hierarchical or multi-level (Peter Brussard, Donald Falk, Daniel Janzen, Thomas Lovejoy, Jane Lubchenco, Gordon Orians, Michael Soulé, E. O. Wilson). Others see it as fundamentally phylogenetic (Thomas Eisner, Gordon Orians, G. Carelton Ray). Only a few talk about interactions as well as types of entity (e.g. Terry Erwin, Jerry Franklin, Daniel Janzen, Peter Raven). Vickie Funk ties it to conservation and particularly to triage...
eBook - ePub- Michael J. Jeffries(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The report spotlighted the need for longer term, smaller money projects, linked to economic growth and security, involving local communities (who were only heavily involved in 30 per cent of projects), build local capacity and expertise to manage the ecosystems and addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss. It would be easy to criticise, but mean spirited, the GEF represents a major contribution to the conservation of biodiversity, increasingly rooted in the wider social and economic context. Protected areas The benefits of international treaties requiring signatories to designate protected reserves work via reciprocal rewards. A country may incur costs or forgo opportunities to establish reserves within its borders but benefits from similar sites set up in other states. Biotechnology rights Organisms, their parts and products, were typically excluded from treaties regulating patents, ownership and exploitation rights but biotechnology and the potential of genetic diversity have propelled biotechnology rights to the forefront of international conservation law. In particular there is concern as to how to ensure source countries, so often the developing world, benefit from exploitation of their biodiversity which is refined in the recipient countries, mostly the developed world. Until the Rio Convention, international treaties did allow some exclusive rights over plant varieties and other organisms. Plant varieties could be registered with the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (1961). Patents, designed for rights over new and useful inventions, were extended to organisms in 1980 in the United States as the result of a court case, Diamond versus Chakrabarty, over a genetically engineered bacterium...
- Navale Pandharinath(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Thus Biodiversity means Biological diversity or variation. United Nations Conference of Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janerio is in 1992. It was agreed at the Conference to protect the environment and social and economical development for sustainable development. After 10 years at World Summit, world members of UN Assembly in Johannesburg (South Africa) 2-4 Sept 2002 committed for the sustainable development, a collective effort at local, national, regional and global level which ensures economic development, social development and environmental protection. For conservation of Biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of biological resources and knowledge, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity was held at Rio de Janerio in 1992, wherein the Sovereign rights of the States over their biological resources were reaffirmed. India was signatory to this Convention. Accordingly the Biological Diversity Bill was introduced in Parliament (2002) and was approved by both the Houses of Parliament, received the assent of the President on 5 th February 2003. It came on the Statute Book as THE BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY Act, 2002. 11.2 THE NATIONAL GREEN TRIBUNAL ACT 2010 Amendments to the Biological Diversity Act 2002 by the National Green Tribunal Act 2010. Biodiversity or Biological diversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources and the ecological complexes of which they are parts and includes diversity within species or between species and of ecosystems. 11.3 BIODIVERSITY Bio-means life and diversity means variations. The variations of all living organisms at the species level may be termed bio-diversity. This includes plants, animals, fungi and microbes...
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 - ePubLand and Limits
Interpreting Sustainability in the Planning Process
- Richard Cowell, Susan Owens(Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Much national and international legislation (at least on paper) confers strong protection upon species and habitats beyond what could plausibly be justified in terms of optimising human welfare, even if prudence is stretched to the limit. The US Endangered Species Act comes close to creating an inviolable status for designated species (Baden and Geddes 2000; Gerrard 1994), while, in a more spatially specific sense, Norwegian legislation rules out the possibility of hydro-power on a number of undeveloped river systems. The first UK strategy for sustainable development acknowledged that there were limits to trade-off: ‘Sometimes environmental costs have to be accepted as the price of economic development, but on other occasions a site, or an ecosystem … has to be regarded as so valuable that it should be protected from exploitation’ (UK Government 1994a: para 3.15, emphasis added). And it would surely be challenging to defend all of the targets adopted in the Biodiversity Action Plan (UK Government 1994b) on grounds of utility and precaution. As a final, and important, example, the European Habitats Directive severely circumscribes the potential to ‘balance’ or trade off the integrity of Special Areas of Conservation against economic and social benefits...
