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  Parks or arks: where to conserve threatened mammals? »

  Growing deterministic and stochastic threats to many wild populations of large vertebrates have focused attention on the conservation significance of captive breeding and subsequent reintroduction. However, work on both gorillas and black rhinos questions this shift in emphasis. In these species, field-based conservation can be effective if properly supported and, although this is not cheap, per capita costs may still be considerably lower than for ex situ propagation in captivity. Here we attempt to broaden the scope of this debate by contrasting the breeding success and costs of in situ and captive programmes for a range of threatened mammals.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Progress towards international targets for protected area coverage in mountains »

  Through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the world’s governments recently adopted a target to protect at least 17% of the global land area by 2020. This paper evaluates current levels of protection for mountains at multiple scales. It shows that the CBD’s 17% target has already been almost met at a global scale: 16.9% of the world’s mountain areas outside Antarctica fall within protected areas. However, protection of mountain areas at finer scales remains uneven and is largely insufficient, with 63% (125) of countries, 57% (4) of realms, 67% (8) of biomes, 61% (437) of ecoregions and 53% (100) of Global 200 priority ecoregions falling short of the target. The CBD target also calls for protected areas to be focussed “especially [at] areas of particular importance for biodiversity”. Important Bird Areas and Alliance for Zero Extinction sites represent existing global networks of such sites. It is therefore of major concern that 39% and 45% respectively of these sites in mountain areas remain entirely unprotected. Achievement of the CBD target in mountain regions will require more focused expansion of the protected area network in addition to enhanced management of individual sites and the wider countryside in order to ensure long term conservation of montane biodiversity and the other ecosystem services it provides.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Global congruence of carbon storage and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems »

  Deforestation is a main driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. An incentive mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here we use the best available global data sets on terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage to map and investigate potential synergies between carbon and biodiversity-oriented conservation.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Synthesis of Effects in Four Arctic Subregions »

  An assessment of impacts on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems has emphasized geographical variability in responses of species and ecosystems to environmental change. This variability is usually associated with north-south gradients in climate, biodiversity, vegetation zones, and ecosystem structure and function. It is clear, however, that significant east-west variability in environment, ecosystem structure and function, environmental history, and recent climate variability is also important.Some areas have cooled while others have become warmer.

  Overall, the subregional synthesis demonstrates the difficulty of generalizing projections of responses of ecosystem structure and function, species loss, and biospheric feedbacks to the climate system for the whole Arctic region and implies a need for a far greater understanding of the spatial variability in the responses of terrestrial arctic ecosystems to climate change.

  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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  Letters: Benefits of self-reporting »

  This brief note suggests that Laurance and Venter’s proposal to replace developing countries’ role in the process of monitoring forest carbon stocks for the REDD programme may not be in the long-term interests of promoting reduced emissions from forests in developing countries.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers

• REDD-plus and biodiversity: opportunities and challenges »

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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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  Achieving Multiple Benefits through a UNFCCC Mechanism on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation »

  The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is currently discussing the development of a mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (RED). An effective RED mechanism could provide an unprecedented opportunity to contribute towards the goals of a range of multilateral environmental agreements and mechanisms, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), by helping to ensure that forests continue to provide vital ecosystem services, conserve biodiversity, and enhance livelihoods. The design and implementation of the mechanism will affect the degree to which these other benefits are obtained.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Protecting the future: carbon, forest, protected areas and local livelihoods »

  Protected areas can act as a case study for REDD: lessons can be learnt from their success or otherwise in reducing deforestation and supporting local livelihoods. Further research into the most effective management and governance frameworks for acheiving goals on carbon emissions, biodiversity and communities, and the extent to which protected areas reduce (or merely displace) deforestation within national boundaries would be useful in informing REDD implementation.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers