Conservation planning and priorities
Issue Date
1-2010
Abstract
In this chapter, Thomas Brooks charts the history, state, and prospects of conservation planning and prioritization in terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Conservation planning and prioritization are essential, because both biodiversity and human population (and hence threats to biodiversity and costs and benefits of conservation) are distributed highly unevenly. Great attention has been invested in global biodiversity conservation prioritization on land over the last two decades, producing a broad consensus that reactive priority regions are concentrated in the tropical mountains and islands, and proactive priorities in the lowland tropical forests. Major remaining research fronts for global biodiversity conservation prioritization include the examination of cross-taxon surrogacy, aquatic priorities, phylogenetic history, evolutionary process, ecosystem services, and costs of conservation. Maybe the most important tool for guiding conservation on the ground is the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which assesses the extinction risk of 41 415 species against quantitative categories and criteria, and provides data on their distributions, habitats, threats, and conservation responses. The predominant threat to biodiversity is the destruction of habitats, and so the primary conservation response must be to protect these areas through safeguarding key biodiversity areas. While protecting sites is essential for biodiversity conservation, persistence in the long term also requires the conservation of those landscape and seascape level ecological processes that maintain biodiversity.
Source or Periodical Title
Conservation Biology for All
Page
199-219
Document Type
Book Chapter
Physical Description
illustrations, tables, graphs
Language
English
Subject
Conservation planning, Extinction risk, Phylogenetics, Prioritization, Protection, Red list, Surrogacy
Recommended Citation
Brooks, T. (2010). Conservation planning and priorities. Conservation Biology for All, pp. 199-219. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554232.003.0012.
Identifier
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554232.003.0012.
Digital Copy
yes
