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Can We Defy Nature's End?

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www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 293 21 SEPTEMBER 2001 2207
In the catalog of global environmental
insults, extinctions stand out as irre-
versible. Current rates are high and ac-
celerating (1). After a recent conference
(2), we concluded that preventing extinc-
tions is practical, but requires innovative
measures. Enforceable protection of re-
maining natural ecosystems is an overar-
ching recommendation. Our deliberations
regarding the implementation of this led
us to attempt to answer a number of ques-
tions. The answers outlined here represent,
if not consensus, then the opinion of the
majority. Supplementary material summa-
rizes unresolved debates (3).
Is Saving Remaining Biodiversity Still
Possible?
Globally, the harm we inflict on biodiversi-
ty often stems from impacts on vulnerable,
biodiverse areas that contribute relatively
little to overhall human well-being and of-
ten diminish it. For example, tropical hu-
mid forests house two-thirds of terrestrial
species (4). Within half a century, tropical
forests have shrunk by half, a loss of 9 mil-
lion km2(5), with several times more forest
damaged than cleared each year (6). Yet
clearing tropical forests has created only
~2 million km2of the planet’s 15 million
km2of croplands (7). The poor soils under-
lying many tropical forests soon degrade
and are abandoned or contribute only
marginally to the global livestock produc-
tion (7, 8). About 10% of these cleared
forests are on steep mountain slopes where
high rainfall has predictably tragic conse-
quences to those who settle there (8).
The Amazon, the Congo, and rivers in
Southeast Asia hold almost half the world’s
freshwater fish species. Their fates depend
on the surrounding forest watersheds. Else-
where, most accessible rivers are dammed
and channeled (9), causing their faunas to be
more threatened than terrestrial ones (10).
Diversion of water for irrigation threatens
ecosystems, such as the Mesa Central (Mex-
ico) and the Aral Sea and its rivers (Central
Asia). Irrigation projects are often economic
disasters (11, 12), as salt accumulation
quickly destroys soil fertility (13).
Fishing contributes only 5% of the glob-
al protein supply, yet is the major threat to
the oceans’ biodiversity. The multitude of
fish species caught on coral reefs constitutes
only a small, though poorly known, fraction
of the total catch, but fisheries severely
damage these most diverse marine ecosys-
tems. Most major fish stocks are overfished
(14); thus, mismanagement diminishes our
welfare and biodiversity simultaneously.
Conversely, protected areas enhance biodi-
versity and fish stocks (15). It is at regional
and local scales that human actions and bio-
diversity collide. On land, 25 areas, called
hotspots, contain concentrations of endemic
species that are disproportionately vulnera-
ble to extinction after regional habitat de-
struction (16). These areas retain <10% of
their original habitat and have unusually
high human population densities (17). Lo-
cally, those who destroy biodiversity do so
because they are displaced, marginalized,
and perceive no alternative. Others do so for
short-term profit (3).
Is Protecting Biodiversity Economically
Possible?
Although a global reserve network covering
~15% of each continent might cost ~$30 bil-
lion annually (18), reserves in tropical
wilderness areas and hotspots need only cost
a fraction of this. Tropical wilderness forests,
predominantly the relatively intact blocks of
the Amazon, Congo, and New Guinea are
remote and sparsely populated. Land values
are low and sometimes equivalent to buying
out logging leases. Recent conservation con-
cessions suggest ~$10/ha for acquisition and
management (3). Securing an additional ~2
million km2and adequately managing the ~2
million km2already protected for biodiversi-
ty and indigenous peoples requires a one-
time investment of ~$4 billion. Land prices
for the densely populated hotspots are much
higher. Of the 1.2 million km2of unprotect-
ed land, some will remain intact without im-
mediate intervention, some is already too
fragmented, and perhaps one-third consti-
tutes the highest priority. A study of the
South Africa fynbos hotspot (3) suggests a
one-time cost of ~$1 billion, and so by ex-
trapolation, ~$25 billion for the protection
and adequate management of all hotspots.
Additional marine reserves would likely re-
quire ~$2.5 billion (3).
These sums, although large, undercut
arguments that saving biodiversity is unaf-
fordable. They are of the same order of
magnitude as the individual wealth of the
world’s richest citizens—and 1/1000th the
value of the ecosystem services that biodi-
versity provides annually (19). This sug-
gests a strategy of leveraging funding from
governments and international agencies
through private sector involvement.
Will Protecting Areas Work?
The pressures to destroy ecosystems are of-
ten external (20). For example, the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund
have indirectly encouraged governments to
deplete their natural resources to pay off
debt (21). Even when available, some coun-
tries may view foreign purchase of conser-
vation concessions as imperialism in a 21st-
century guise. Almost all the hotspots were
European colonies; one is still French terri-
tory (3). Some countries have unstable gov-
ernment, and others are at war.
Some countries have welcomed pre-emp-
tive purchasing of logging rights and other
conservation actions, recognizing the advan-
tages of protecting forests and receiving
funds to do so. Unfortunately, cutting forests
and otherwise depleting resources is too of-
ten a way to personal aggrandizement among
some government officials (22). How good is
even a well-intentioned government’s guaran-
tee of a forest’s security when its peoples
need wood for cooking or land for farms?
Will the government return the concession
fees to those whose livelihoods are affected?
Protected areas may be respected in one
country, ignored in another, even attract ex-
ploitation in a third. Although more money
generally yields more protection, richly en-
dowed parks may be severely threatened (Ev-
erglades National Park; USA) and significant
accomplishments are possible in the most
economically unlikely places (Odzala Na-
tional Park; Democratic Republic of Congo).
Whereas overall assessments of what
conservation actions work, what do not,
and why they are long overdue, discus-
sions of possible factors typically devolve
into idiosyncratic case histories. Likely,
there is no single answer to these multi-
S. L. Pimm is at the Center for Environmental Re-
search and Conservation, MC 5556, Columbia Uni-
versity, New York, NY 10027, USA. Other author ad-
dresses are available on
Science
Online (
3
).
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-
mail: StuartPimm@aol.com
SCIENCESCOMPASS
POLICY FORUM
POLICY FORUM: ENVIRONMENT
Can We Defy Nature’s End?
Stuart L. Pimm,* Márcio Ayres,Andrew Balmford, George Branch,
Katrina Brandon,Thomas Brooks, Rodrigo Bustamante, Robert Costanza,
Richard Cowling, Lisa M. Curran,Andrew Dobson,Stephen Farber,
Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca, Claude Gascon,Roger Kitching, Jeffrey McNeely,
Thomas Lovejoy,Russell A. Mittermeier, Norman Myers, Jonathan A. Patz,
Bradley Raffle, David Rapport, Peter Raven, Callum Roberts, Jon Paul Rodríguez,
Anthony B. Rylands, Compton Tucker, Carl Safina,Cristián Samper,
Melanie L. J. Stiassny, Jatna Supriatna, Diana H.Wall, David Wilcove
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21 SEPTEMBER 2001 VOL 293 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
2208
scaled problems. One process, however,
emerges as a unanimous choice: to train
and empower conservation professionals
in each biodiversity-rich country.
Should Conservation Research and
Management Be Centralized or
Distributed?
At present, these capabilities are highly
centralized in industrialized nations, while
many key tropical areas have few conser-
vation professionals. Our experiences
point to the pressing need for more and
better-trained people. Those at La Selva
(Costa Rica), Comision Nacional Para el
Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad
(CONABIO), Mexico, the Humboldt Insti-
tute (Colombia), the Centre for Ecological
Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science
(India), and the International Centre for Liv-
ing Aquatic Resources (ICLARM), Philip-
pines have been in place long enough to as-
sist in training a new generation. Budgets
for effective centers are a few million dol-
lars per year. Roughly half a billion dollars
would support 25 centers for a decade,
enough for each hotspot and wilderness for-
est without centers plus additional centers
for marine and freshwater hotspots.
Should Efforts Concentrate on
Protection or on Slowing Harm?
Most of us agree that immediate protec-
tion of ecosystems and training of in-coun-
try professionals is vital. Nonetheless,
some effort should be allocated to actions
to lighten the burden on future generations
of conservation professionals (3). Others
argue in favor of actions that stem the pro-
cesses that harm biodiversity and encour-
age those that protect it, with priority giv-
en to actions yielding near-term results.
Economic subsidies that degrade the
environment are a common problem
across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine
ecosystems (23,24). For instance, massive
economic subsidies make unsustainable
fishing practices possible (25, 26). Biodi-
versity can be depleted if property rights
give ownership to those whose “economic
use” translates into short-term forest clear-
cutting, transient crops or grazing, and
longer-term land degradation.
The public is often unaware of the costs
of environmentally damaging policies. An-
nually, subsidies for such policies cost $2
trillion globally (24). We recommend a fo-
cused analysis on those governmental poli-
cies that artificially alter market dynamics
and that have the most detrimental impact
on biodiversity. The overarching message is
that sound economic and ecological strate-
gies may often involve the same, and not
conflicting, strategies. Alliances of the fis-
cally frugal and the environmentally con-
cerned are a still unexplored possibility.
We recommend a major outreach to na-
tional and international institutions that
make loans for actions that degrade biodi-
versity. Many of them could benefit from
improved ecological standards that factor
biodiversity protection into their decision-
making. Obligations of parties to existing le-
gal instruments (such as the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity) should
also be used to promote adequate incentives.
Biodiversity-rich countries often lack le-
gal mechanisms to encourage conservation.
Tax savings, transferable development
rights, and mitigation credits would at least
allow private, public or indigenous landown-
ers to secure economic benefits. Globally,
the wilderness forests, if lost, would greatly
exacerbate increasing atmospheric CO2.
Their value as carbon sinks alone appears to
be broadly similar to our estimates of what it
would take to protect them (27). Capturing
these values could save large areas through
efforts designed to highlight their true value.
Do We Know Enough to Protect
Biodiversity?
Most debate centers on identifying priority
areas for conservation. Surely all remain-
ing habitats across the species-rich tropics
must be priorities, ones that do not depend
on our knowing the scientific names for 1
of 10, or the geographical distributions of
1 of 100 species, or not having resolved
complex issues of reserve selection (28).
However, even modest scientific advances
greatly improve the efficiency of our ac-
tions. Knowing which areas within
hotspots are especially important could re-
duce costs considerably.
Paradoxically, we are not limited by lack
of knowledge, but by our failure to synthe-
size and distribute what we know. Museums
and herbaria are vast repositories of data on
what species occurred where, while decades
of remote-sensing imagery detail how fast
the remains of species’ ranges are shrink-
ing. Although a few of us question the utili-
ty of these taxonomic repositories, the ma-
jority emphasize the urgent need for more,
globally distributed taxonomy (29).
In contrast, there was broad consensus
for a greatly expanded research effort into
the links between biodiversity, ecosystems,
their services, and people (30). Infectious
diseases are entering human populations as
our numbers increase and as we encroach
upon tropical forests and other pathogen
reservoirs. Global climate change will have
major impacts on human health through
changes in food production, access to fresh
water, exposure to vector- and water-borne
disease, sea-level rise and coastal flooding,
and extreme weather events (31).
In conclusion, we share mixed senses of
concern, urgency, and optimism. Concern,
because humanity’s numbers (and consump-
tion) are increasing. Across several human
generations, a transition to sustainable use
of natural resources is essential, and we
must protect biodiversity in the interim. The
urgency is driven by the pending loss of a
major portion of biological diversity in the
first half of this century if we do not act im-
mediately. Our optimism stems from the re-
alization that greatly increasing the areas
where biodiversity is protected is a clear and
achievable goal, one potentially attainable
by using funds raised in the private sector
and leveraged through governments.
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SCIENCESCOMPASS
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Harmonious coexistence between humans, other animals and ecosystem services they support is a complex issue, typically impacted by landscape change, which affects animal distribution and abundance. In the last 30 years, afforestation on grasslands across Great Britain has been increasing, motivated by socio-economic reasons and climate change mitigation. Beyond expected benefits, an obvious question is what are the consequences for wider biodiversity of this scale of landscape change. Here, we explore the impact of such change on the expanding population of common buzzards Buteo buteo , a raptor with a history of human-induced setbacks. Using Resource-Area-Dependence Analysis (RADA), with which we estimated individuals' resource needs using 10-day radio-tracking sessions and the 1990s Land Cover Map of GB, and agent-based modelling, we predict that buzzards in our study area in lowland UK had fully recovered (to 2.2 ind km ⁻² ) by 1995. We also anticipate that the conversion of 30%, 60% and 90% of economically viable meadow into woodland would reduce buzzard abundance nonlinearly by 15%, 38% and 74%, respectively. The same approach used here could allow for cost-effective anticipation of other animals' population patterns in changing landscapes, thus helping to harmonize economy, landscape change and biodiversity.
Thesis
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he research undertaken for the elaboration of this thesis has as contextualization the influence of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) on Brazilian national policies within the Union Government. The hypothesis is that the implementation of the National Biodiversity Policy (PNBio) favored the knowledge and conservation of the biodiversity of Brazilian flora, in order to ensure the conservation of areas necessary for the conservation of species of Brazilian flora. This policy was analyzed in three contexts: 1) the political context of its elaboration (1992 to 2002) and implementation (2002 to 2018); 2) the economic context, in which effectiveness was assessed by estimating the allocation of Union resources to the Policy; 3) the ecological context, with the objective of analyzing whether the protected areas created would be protecting 75% of the endangered species, which meets GSPC target 7 and Aichi target 20. The main results are described through analytical axes a) priority areas; b) list of species; c) red list; d) in situ conservation; e) ex situ conservation; f) deforestation; g) institutional capacity; h) legislation; and i) policy (programs and actions). There has been a significant increase in knowledge about biodiversity and conservation strategies, such as the formation of networks of experts working towards the goals of the convention, as well as the strengthening of protected areas through the creation of new areas, institutions (ICMBio), (SNUC) and conservation programs, projects and actions. The budget analysis presented by institution, by function (spending on biodiversity) and by programs confirmed the low budget priority for the Environment sector. Public environmental spending remained virtually constant over the period analyzed, spending on biodiversity increased until 2014 followed by an abrupt fall. Finally, the effectiveness analysis showed that the period from 2008 to 2011 was the most effective. The ecological analysis was spatially elaborated with data from the Brazilian red list species available in herbariums, with analysis of Density of Species Records, observed richness and potential richness with Species Distribution Modelling (SDM). The analyzes showed that the SNUC houses threatened species within the UC’s, which demonstrates the effectiveness of PNBio and confirms the initial hypothesis of the thesis research. The conclusion is that although biodiversity loss rates remain high, PNBio has reinforced the obligation of the government to conserve biodiversity, as stated in the Union Constitution of 1988, institutionalizing the CBD, its objectives and goals, and making Brazil a country protagonist in environmental issues.
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