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  A handbook for the Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas Registry (2010) »

  Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) are managed areas that are voluntarily conserved by local or indigenous communities for conservation and cultural purposes. This handbook is intended as a guide for those who wish to learn about ICCAs and the newly developed ICCA Registry tool, which aims to develop awareness, recognition and documented values of ICCAs through a community-supported database, maps and an interactive, multimedia website. Communities who govern and manage ICCAs will find this handbook particularly helpful to understand how they can contribute to and benefit from the Registry if they wish. This handbook adheres to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and supports the application of bio-cultural community protocols in maintaining the integrity of community knowledge and resources.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Prospects for Biodiversity »

  Assuming no radical transformation in human behavior, we can expect important changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services by 2050. A considerable number of species extinctions will have taken place. Existing large blocks of tropical forest will be much reduced and fragmented, but temperate forests and some tropical forests will be stable or increasing in area, although the latter will be biotically impoverished. Marine ecosystems will be very different from today's, with few large marine predators, and freshwater biodiversity will be severely reduced almost everywhere. These changes will not, in themselves, threaten the survival of humans as a species.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy »

  Sustainability requires living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere. In an attempt to measure the extent to which humanity satisfies this requirement, we use existing data to translate human demand on the environment into the area required for the production of food and other goods, together with the absorption of wastes. Our accounts indicate that human demand may well have exceeded the biosphere's regenerative capacity since the 1980s. According to this preliminary and exploratory assessment, humanity's load corresponded to 70% of the capacity of the global biosphere in 1961, and grew to 120% in 1999.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Defining Protected Areas International Conference Almeria 2007 »

  The IUCN Summit on Protected Area Management Categories was held in Almeria, Spain in May 2007. It aimed to test the opinions of key thinkers and policy makers regarding the revision of guidelines to interpretation of the six IUCN protected area categories. The meeting was generously supported by the Junta de Andalusia, the Spanish Ministry of Environment and the foundation Biodiversidad. The meeting operated through plenary sessions and a series of specialised workshops, with many presentations and time for detailed discussion. There were two field trips, midway through the meeting and at the end. More than a hundred people attended from over fifty countries around of the world.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Biodiversity priorities for the World Heritage List »

  This study reviews the biogeographic and biodiversity coverage of the current World Heritage network and identifies broad gaps. It also identifies priority sites for biodiversity conservation that may merit World Heritage listing in the future and reviews how these could help fill the existing gaps in the network.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Review of the World Heritage Network: Biogeography, Habitats and Biodiversity »

  Over the past 10 years a number of studies and consultations have been carried out to develop and refine the Global Strategy for achieving a balanced, representative and credible World Heritage List that reflects the world’s diverse heritage. This review is an important addition to that process, focusing on the inter-related elements of biogeography, habitats and biological diversity that underpin much of what we consider ‘natural heritage’.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Model-based uncertainty in species range prediction »

  Our analyses show significant differences between predictions from different models, with predicted changes in range size by 2030 differing in both magnitude and direction (e.g. from 92 loss to 322 gain). We explain differences with reference to two characteristics of the modelling techniques: data input requirements (presence/absence vs. presence-only approaches) and assumptions made by each algorithm when extrapolating beyond the range of data used to build the model. The effects of these factors should be carefully considered when using this modelling approach to predict species ranges. Main conclusions We highlight an important source of uncertainty in assessments of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and emphasize that model predictions should be interpreted in policy-guiding applications along with a full appreciation of uncertainty.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Patterns of isozyme variation as indicators of biogeographic history in Pilgerodendron uviferum (D. Don) Florin »

  The effects of Pleistocene glaciations on the genetic characteristics of the most austral conifer in the world, Pilgerodendron uviferum, were analysed with specific reference to the hypothesis that the species persisted locally in ice-free areas in temperate South America.

  Results indicated that Pilgerodendron populations are highly monomorphic, probably reflecting past population bottlenecks and reduced gene flow. Southernmost populations tend to be the least genetically variable and were therefore probably more affected by glacial activity than northern ones. Populations located outside ice limits seem to have been isolated during the glacial period. The presence of centres of genetic diversity, together with the lack of a significant correlation between genetic and geographical distances and the absence of geographical patterns of allelic frequencies at most analysed alleles, may indicate that Pilgerodendron did not advance southward after the last glaciation from a unique northern refugium, but spread from several surviving populations in ice-free areas in Patagonia instead.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  World Heritage Thematic Studies »

  The objectives of the World Heritage Convention are the identification, protection, conservation and presentation of the world's natural and cultural heritage and ultimately, the successful transmission of them to future generations. UNEP-WCMC and IUCN have undertaken a range of global and regional studies to support State Parties to the Convention in the selection of potential sites, and to assist in the evaluation of nominations.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Dead planet, living planet: Biodiversity and ecosystem restoration for sustainable development »

  This report is a contribution to the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity and is a complement to the UNEP-hosted Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) which is bringing visibility to the wealth of the world’s natural capital. It documents over 30 successful case studies referencing thousands of restoration projects ranging from deserts and rainforests to rivers and coasts. The report confirms that restoration is not only possible but can prove highly proftable in terms of public savings; returns and the broad objectives of overcoming poverty and achieving sustainability. It also provides important recommendations on how to avoid pitfalls and how to minimize risks to ensure successful restoration.

  Resource Type: Reports