Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2.
Global biodiversity conservation
priorities: an expanded review
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Thomas M. Brooks, Russell A. Mittermeier,
Gustavo A.B. da Fonseca, Justin Gerlach,
Mike Hof mann, John F. Lamoreux,
Cristina G. Mittermeier, John D. Pilgrim and
Ana S.L. Rodrigues
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Human actions are causing a biodiversity crisis, with species extinction
rates now up to 1000 times higher than the background rate (Pimm et al.,
1995). Moreover, the processes driving extinction are eroding the envi-
ronmental services on which humanity depends (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment, 2005). People care most about what is close to them, so most
responses to this crisis will be local or national (Hunter and Hutchinson,
1994). Thus, approximately 90 per cent of $6bn annual conservation
funding originates in, and is spent within, economically rich countries
(James et al., 1999). However, this still leaves globally l exible funding of
hundreds of millions of dollars annually from multilateral agencies (for
example, Global Environment Facility), bilateral aid and private sources
including environmentally focused corporations, foundations and indi-
viduals (Balmford and Whitten, 2003). These resources are frequently the
only ones available where conservation is most needed, because biodiver-
sity is unevenly distributed and the most biodiverse places are often the
most threatened and poorest economically (Balmford and Long, 1994;
Balmford et al., 2003; Baillie et al., 2004). Accordingly, geographically
l exible resources exert disproportionate inl uence on conservation world-
wide, and have a key role in the recently agreed intergovernmental 2010
target to reduce signii cantly the rate of biodiversity loss (Balmford et al.,
2005).
Since the pioneering work of Myers (1988) on how to best allocate l ex-
ible conservation resources, no less than nine major institutional templates
of global biodiversity conservation prioritization have been published,
each with involvement from non-governmental organizations (Figure 2.1).
These strategies have attracted considerable attention (Figure 2.2), result-
ing in much progress as well as controversy. The diversity of approaches
has raised criticisms of duplication of ef orts and lack of clarity (Mace et
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