Vulnerability and Irreplaceability

1 CHAPTER 11 Conservation planning and priorities Thomas Brooks Maybe the first law of conservation science should and irreplaceability. It does not attempt to be be that human population—which of course drives comprehensive, but rather focuses on the bound- both threats to biodiversity and its conservation—is ary between theory and practice, where successful distributed unevenly around the world (Cincotta conservation implementation has been explicitly et al. 2000). This parallels a better-known first law planned from the discipline’s conceptual frame- of biodiversity science, that biodiversity itself is also work of vulnerability and irreplaceability. In distributed unevenly (Gaston 2000; Chapter 2). other words, the work covered here has success- Were it not for these two patterns, conservation fully bridged the “research–implementation gap” would not need to be planned or prioritized. A (Knight et al. 2008). The chapter is structured by conservation investment in one place would have scale. Its first half addresses global scale planning, the same effects as that in another. As it is, though, which has attracted a disproportionate share of the contribution of a given conservation investment the literature since Myers’ (1988) pioneering “hot- towards reducing biodiversity loss varies enor- spots” treatise. The remainder of the chapter mously over space. This recognition has led to the tackles conservation planning and prioritization emergence of the sub-discipline of systematic con- on the ground (and in the water). This in turn is servation planning within conservation biology. organized according to three levels of increasing Systematic conservation planning now dates ecological and geographic organization: from spe- back a quarter-century to its earliest contributions cies, through sites, to seascapes and landscapes. (Kirkpatrick 1983). A seminal review by Margules fi and Pressey (2000) established a rm conceptual 11.1 Global biodiversity conservation framework for the sub-discipline, parameterized planning and priorities along axes derived from the two aforementioned laws. Variation in threats to biodiversity (and re- Most conservation is parochial—many people sponses to these) can be measured as vulnerability care most about what is in their own backyard (Pressey and Taffs 2001), or, put another way, the (Hunter and Hutchinson 1994). As a result, breadth of options available over time to conserve a maybe 90% of the US$6 billion global conserva- given biodiversity feature before it is lost. Mean- tion budget originates in, and is spent in, econom- while, the uneven distribution of biodiversity can ically wealthy countries (James et al. 1999). be measured as irreplaceability (Pressey et al. 1994), Fortunately, this still leaves hundreds of millions the extent of spatial options available for the conser- of dollars of globally flexible conservation invest- vation of a given biodiversity feature. An alternative ment that can theoretically be channeled to wher- measure of irreplaceability is complementarity—the ever would deliver the greatest benefit. The bulk degree to which the biodiversity value of a given of these resources are invested through multilat- area adds to the value of an overall network of areas. eral agencies [in particular, the Global Environ- This chapter charts the history, state, and pro- ment Facility (GEF) (www.gefweb.org)], bilateral spects of conservation planning and prioritiza- donors, and non-governmental organizations. tion, framed through the lens of vulnerability Where should they be targeted? 199 © Oxford University Press 2010. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: [email protected] Sodhi and Ehrlich: Conservation Biology for All. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199554249.do 200 CONSERVATION BIOLOGY FOR ALL 11.1.1 History and state of the field Wilson et al.’s (2005) classification recognizes four types of vulnerability measures: environ- Over the last two decades, nine major templates mental and spatial variables, land tenure, of global terrestrial conservation priorities have threatened species, and expert opinion. All five been developed by conservation organizations, to of the global prioritization templates that guide their own efforts and attract further atten- incorporated vulnerability did so using the first tion (Figure 11.1 and Plate 9; Brooks et al. 2006). of these measures, specifically habitat extent. Brooks et al. (2006) showed that all nine templates Four of these utilized proportionate habitat loss, fit into the vulnerability/irreplaceability frame- which is useful as a measure of vulnerability work, although in a variety of ways (Figure 11.2 because of the consistent relationship between and Plate 10). Specifically, two of the templates the number of species in an area and the size of prioritize regions of high vulnerability, as “reac- that area (Brooks et al. 2002). However, it is an tive approaches”, while three prioritized regions imperfect metric, because it is difficult to assess in of low vulnerability, as “proactive approaches”. xeric and aquatic systems, it ignores threats such The remaining four are silent regarding vulnera- as invasive species and hunting, and it is retro- bility. Meanwhile, six of the templates prioritize spective rather than predictive (Wilson et al. regions of high irreplaceability; the remain- 2005). The “frontier forests” approach (Bryant ing three do not incorporate irreplaceability. et al. 1997) uses absolute forest cover as a To understand these global priority-setting measure, although this is only dubiously reflec- approaches, it is important to examine the metrics tive of vulnerability (Innes and Er 2002). Beyond of vulnerability and irreplaceability that they habitat loss, one template also incorporates land use, and the spatial units among which they pri- tenure, as protected area coverage (Hoekstra et al. oritize. 2005), and two incorporate human population CE BH EBA CPD MC G200 HBWA FF LW Figure 11.1 Maps of the nine global biodiversity conservation priority templates (reprinted from Brooks et al. 2006): CE, crisis ecoregions (Hoekstra et al. 2005); BH, biodiversity hotspots (Mittermeier et al. 2004); EBA, endemic bird areas (Stattersfield et al. 1998); CPD, centers of plant diversity (WWF and IUCN 1994–7); MC, megadiversity countries (Mittermeier et al. 1997); G200, global 200 ecoregions (Olson and Dinerstein 1998); HBWA, high‐biodiversity wilderness areas (Mittermeier et al. 2003); FF, frontier forests (Bryant et al. 1997); and LW, last of the wild (Sanderson et al. 2002a). With permission from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). © Oxford University Press 2010. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: [email protected] 1 CONSERVATION PLANNING AND PRIORITIES 201 A Proactive ReactiveB Proactive Reactive EBA, CPD HBWA BH MC, G200 FF CE Irreplaceability LW Vulnerability Figure 11.2 Global biodiversity conservation priority templates placed within the conceptual framework of irreplaceability and vulnerability (reprinted from Brooks et al. 2006). Template names follow the Figure 11.1 legend. (A) Purely reactive (prioritizing high vulnerability) and purely proactive (prioritizing low vulnerability) approaches. (B) Approaches that do not incorporate vulnerability as a criterion (all prioritize high irreplaceability). With permission from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). density (Mittermeier et al. 2003; Sanderson et al. one using regions defined a posteriori from the dis- 2002a). tributions of restricted-range bird species (Statters- The most common measure of irreplaceability field et al. 1998), and the other seven using units like is plant endemism, used by four of the templates, “ecoregions”,defined apriori(Olson et al. 2001). with a fifth (Stattersfield et al. 1998) using bird This latter approach brings ecological relevance, endemism. The logic behind this is that the more but also raises problems because ecoregions vary endemic species in a region, the more biodiversity in size, and because they themselves have no re- lost if the region’s habitat is lost (although, strict- peatable basis (Jepson and Whittaker 2002). The use ly, any location with even one endemic species is of equal area grid cells would circumvent these irreplaceable). Data limitations have restricted problems, but limitations on biodiversity data com- the plant endemism metrics to specialist opinion pilation so far have prevented their general use. estimates, and while this precludes replication or Encouragingly, some initial studies (Figure 11.3) formal calculation of irreplaceability (Brummitt for terrestrial vertebrates (Rodrigues et al. 2004b) and Lughadha 2003), subsequent tests have and, regionally, for plants (Küper et al. 2004) show found these estimates accurate (Krupnick and considerable correspondence with many of the Kress 2003). Olson and Dinerstein (1998) added templates (da Fonseca et al. 2000). taxonomic uniqueness, unusual phenomena, and What have been the costs and benefits of global global rarity of major habitat types as measures of priority-setting? The costs can be estimated to lie in irreplaceability, although with little quantifica- the low millions of dollars, mainly in the form of tion. Although species richness is popularly but staff time. The benefits are hard to measure, but erroneously assumed to be important in prioriti- large. The most tractable metric, publication impact, zation (Orme et al. 2005), none of the approaches reveals that Myers et al. (2000),

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