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  A comparison between Tundra and wet grassland breeding waders with special reference to the Ruff (Philomachus pugnax) »

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  Status of the Baikal Teal in the Lower Indigirka Basin, Siberia »

  Small local hunting communities in Siberia are very distant from any governmental control. Hunted waterbird species, including globally and regionally threatened species, rely for their well-being on the self regulation of remote hunting communities. Interviewed hunters showed a profound knowledge of Baikal Teal, its population status, and the causes of their past decline. Whether the knowledge is shared by other communities in the region and beyond in Northern Siberia needs verification.
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  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Coral reefs and mangroves: implications from the tsunami one year on »

  The countries affected by the 2004 Asian tsunami contain the most diverse and extensive coral reefs and mangroves of the Indian Ocean, and some of the richest in the world. Not only are these ecosystems among the most threatened in the world, they also provide numerous essential ecosystem services.

  It is thus not surprising that reefs and mangroves received widespread attention after the tsunami, with three principal questions posed: Are the tsunami's impacts on reefs and mangroves a further threat to their future survival? Did reefs and mangroves play a role in shoreline protection and reduce structural damage and human mortality? How could reconstruction efforts include actions to maintain these ecosystems and reduce further threats to them?

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Siberia - Asia's great wilderness »

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  Some important birds and forests in Nepal »

  A table is provided of 122 bird species with restricted breeding distributions and for which Nepal may hold significant populations. Habitat threats and population changes are detailed for 33 species for which Nepal may be especially important. The vital importance of Nepal's forests to Nepal's avifauna is emphasised.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Distribution and conservation status of forest bamboo biodiversity in the Asia-Pacific Region »

  Although Asian bamboo species constitute a non-timber forest product of major cultural and economic importance, no detailed regional assessment of their distribution patterns has previously been made. To assess the potential of the existing bamboo species distribution data for production of regional mapping tools for planning the conservation of forest-based biodiversity, data on bamboo distribution and forest cover were combined. Over 1000 bamboo species from 60 genera of woody bamboos were incorporated, allowing the mapping of individual species or groups of species and genera, along with potential species richness and biodiversity hotspots. Over 6.3 million km2 of Asian forest potentially contains bamboo, with highest densities indicated from northeastern India through Burma to southern China, and through Sumatra to Borneo. The highest figures for potential species richness (144 spp per square km) were recorded in forests of south China, including Hainan Island. Despite substantial inadequacies and inconsistencies in knowledge of the taxonomy and distribution of bamboo species, this approach may provide a valuable tool for planning in situ conservation of forest biodiversity.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity terrestrial 2010 and marine 2012 targets for protected area coverage »

  In the past few years, a number of analyses have been undertaken to measure progress towards the 2010 and 2012 CBD targets. This report demonstrates how the measurement of progress is influenced by decisions on which protected areas are included (for instance, whether internationally designated sites, or sites without an assigned IUCN category are included) and which biogeographic datasets used (for instance which mountain dataset is chosen), and highlights the need for standardised methods and datasets.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Biodiversity Conservation: Challenges beyond 2010 »

  Moving beyond 2010, successful conservation approaches need to be reinforced and adequately financed. More radical changes are required that recognize biodiversity as a global public good, that integrate biodiversity conservation into policies and decision frameworks for resource production and consumption, and that focus on wider institutional and societal changes to enable more effective implementation of policy.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Mapping community change in modified landscapes »

  We generated biodiversity surfaces for both present-day and pre-human landscapes to map spatial patterns of change in a diverse ecological community to calculate the combined biodiversity impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation that accounts for the exact spatial pattern of deforestation. Our spatially-explicit, landscape-scale index of community change shows how the fine-scale configuration of habitat loss sums across a landscape to determine changes in biodiversity at a larger spatial scale. After accounting for naturally occurring within-forest heterogeneity, we estimate that the conversion of 43% of forest to grassland in a 1300 km2 landscape in New Zealand resulted in a 47% change to the beetle community.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Assessing progress towards global marine protection targets: shortfalls in information and action »

  Current global marine protection targets aim to protect 10–30% of marine habitats within the next 3–5 years. However, these targets were adopted without prior assessment of their achievability. Moreover, ability to monitor progress towards such targets has been constrained by a lack of robust data on marine protected areas. Here we present the results of the first explicitly marine-focused, global assessment of protected areas in relation to global marine protection targets.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers