Mountain Protected Areas UPDATE March 2021 # 109 In this issue: A note from the editor: From People and Mountains Welcome to a special 109th edition of the Update where around the world: the mountain ‘priority areas for protection and Global conservation ’ project being undertaken by the Mountain Identification of Global Specialist Group, in association with the USGS is featured. Priorities for New Although still being refined and trialed this exciting Mountain Protected & initiative will help guide priorities for future mountain Conserved Areas protection! Have a look at the decision tool and see what Scree and Talus you think... Tools, Publications other Media ‘scree & talus’ is still included along with ‘tools & publications’ — so happy reading. March 5 2021 Mountain SG Committee Every year hundreds of thousands of people go on expeditions and trekking in remote mountains. This generates increasing amounts of waste that is not managed sustainably...here is alpinist Jost Kobusch surrounded by various mountaineering waste he collected on Mount Everest! Find out more about a new manual in Tools, Publications & other Media page 11 photo: Daniel Hug Mountain Update is a quarterly newsletter distributed to members of the Mountain Protected Areas Network. The views expressed in this UPDATE are not necessarily those of the IUCN WCPA. IUCN WCPA Mountain UPDATE # 109 Editor: Gillian Anderson [email protected] Identification of Global Priorities for New Mountain Protected and Conserved Areas: IUCN WCPA Mountain Specialist Group Why undertake a Project to identify unprotected mountains? The world’s system of protected and conserved areas includes many outstanding areas within the Earth’s mountainous landscape. Excluding Antarctica, about 19% of mountain areas globally are protected or conserved. Nevertheless, significant mountain areas are not adequately protected, and many mountain ranges are completely unprotected. Of over 6000 Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in mountains worldwide, 40.4% are entirely unprotected. As the world conservation movement advocates to expand the global coverage of protected areas over the next decade toward 30%, identifying priorities for new mountain protected and conserved areas will be most effective if it takes a Simien Mountains Ethiopia. photo: strategic approach to ensure areas of highest ecological value and most in need of Marc Foggin protection are identified. A number of people from the Mountain Specialist Group have come together to develop a paper that describes in detail the project and a six step decision support tool. Key authors of the project paper The authors are: Peter Jacobs*, Erik Beever, Clinton Carbutt, Marc Foggin, Diego Juffe-Bignoli, Madeline Martin#, Shane Orchard and Roger Sayre#. * Peter Jacobs is the corresponding author # United States Geological Survey Project Aim Identify inadequately protected mountain areas and prioritise their importance for protection and conservation. Provide a basis for the Mountain Specialist Group and others to advocate for new mountain protected and conserved areas. Tibet. photo: peopleinnature Six Step Decision Support Tool The Mountain Specialist Group paper introduces a six step decision support tool (with tables and links to relevant data) for identifying and prioritising candidate areas for conserving mountain ecosystems, species and habitats. The tool begins with an analysis of the adequacy of the level of protection of mountain Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). It then quantitatively assesses if the inadequately protected mountain KBA is also characterised by: inadequately protected mountain ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, red-listed species and/or communities, Conservation of nature by indigenous other forms of effective conservation i.e. ICCAs & OECMs, and nomadic tribes of Iran photo: ICCA being within a Developing Country Consortium & CENESTA It then guides regional teams through qualitative assessments of other values to develop regionally ranked lists of priority areas to give heightened consideration for protection or conservation. IUCN WCPA Mountain Update # 109 Editor: Gillian Anderson [email protected] 2 Identification of Global Priorities for New Mountain Protected and Conserved Areas: IUCN WCPA Mountain Specialist Group Mountain Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) Protection There are many reasons why it is vital to protect and conserve new mountain areas but identifying unprotected Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) is a good starting point in a strategic and stepped process. The graph below shows breakdown of protection of mountain KBAs. There are over 6,109 identified mountain KBAs Sierra Nevada Mountains USA photo: peopleinnature In addition to KBAs; levels of protection of mountain ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, IUCN red listed ecosystems and species and a range of other values including OECM’s have been taken into account when identifying priorities. Biodiversity Hotspots Around the world, 36 areas qualify as biodiversity hotspots (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund 2019). They represent areas of very high biodiversity value under threat. Covering just 2.4% of Earth’s land surface they contain more than 50% of the world’s plant species as endemics and nearly 43% of bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian species as endemics. About half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are in mountainous regions. Kyrgyzstan Mountains photo: Marc Foggin Red Listed Ecosystems and Species The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems and IUCN Red List of Threatened Species provide standards for assessing the conservation status of ecosystems and species, locally, regionally and globally. Snow Leopard is native to the mountains of Central and South Asia. Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List They are powerful tools to inform action for biodiversity conservation because the global population is estimated to and can influence policy changes that are critical to protecting the number less than 10,000 mature individuals. photo: natural resources and processes that humans rely on (IUCN 2019). WWF IUCN WCPA Mountain Update # 109 Editor: Gillian Anderson [email protected] 3 Identification of Global Priorities for New Mountain Protected and Conserved Areas: IUCN WCPA Mountain Specialist Group Protection of Mountain Biomes and Ecosystems Mountain Biomes The protection of mountains at the biome level gives an indication of relative occurrence and protection of mountain values at a broad scale prior to examining the protection at the ecosystem level. For example Mountain Grasslands make up 15% of the terrestrial landscape but are only 9.6% protected and Mountain Forests even though they have 50% coverage are only 18.7% protected. Mountain Biomes: Proportion of each biome in the mountain landscape, globally (central column), and each biome’s Level of Protection (right-most edge), (not including croplands or settlements): (based on Sayre et al. 2020). (Note that the diagram is a guide and not accurate to scale) Mountain Ecosystems There are 278 natural or semi-natural World terrestrial Ecosystems. Of those, there are 77 mountain ecosystems that cover 32% in area of the world’s natural or semi-natural ecosystems (Sayre et al. 2020). The mountain ecosystems most comprehensively protected by proportion are: Cool Temperate Moist Snow and Ice on Mountains (60%) Polar Moist Snow and Ice on Mountains (43%) Boreal Moist Snow and Ice on Mountains (40%) The mountain ecosystems least protected by proportion are: Boreal Desert Sparsely or Non-vegetated on Mountains (0%) Boreal Desert Grassland on Mountains (0%) and Cool Temperate Desert Grassland on Mountains (0.006%). Moisture/Vegetation classes Grouping the mountain ecosystems into 15 Moisture/Vegetation classes provides a mid level perspective of the protection of biodiversity characteristics between biomes and ecosystems. Percent of each Moisture/Vegetation class that occurs within protected areas IUCN WCPA Mountain Update # 109 Editor: Gillian Anderson [email protected] 4 Identification of Global Priorities for New Mountain Protected and Conserved Areas: IUCN WCPA Mountain Specialist Group Mapping the adequacy of protection of KBAs and Mountain Ecosystems: an example from Jammu Kashmir in India Protection Status of KBAs and Mountain Ecosystems in Jammu Kashmir, India. (USGS) Determining Adequacy of Protection: Protected and Conserved Areas The validation of the protection or conservation status is an important step in the process. Along with legally established protected areas, conserved ICCAs—Territory for Life and OECMs (Other Effective areas may be considered as incorporating all defined areas Conservation Measures) that effectively achieve conservation in situ. Many indigenous peoples and local communities This includes Other Effective Area-based Conservation around the world are custodians, stewards, and/or Measures (OECMs), Indigenous Peoples’ and Community guardians of the land, water, sky, soil, minerals, and Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs-Territories of Life) and unmanaged and ungoverned areas (ICCA 2019) other natural resources and biodiversity that is traditionally occupied or used by them. Many ICCAs – Territories of Life are conserved areas and may be considered OECMs: they conserve nature de facto, as part of biocultural systems, yet without being listed in an official protected area system. Rwanda photo: Elaine Thomas and Mick Keenan IUCN WCPA Mountain Update # 109 Editor: Gillian Anderson [email protected] 5 Identification of Global Priorities for New