Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 May 2014 | 6(5): 5677–5685 Species and habitat conservation through small locally recognised and community managed Special Conservation Communication Sites ISSN Online 0974–7907 1 2 3 4 5 Hem Sagar Baral , Bittu Sahgal , Samiul Mohsanin , Kuenga Namgay & Aleem Ahmed Khan Print 0974–7893 1 Himalayan Nature, PO Box 10918, Lazimpat, Kathmandu, Nepal, OPEN ACCESS 1 Currently at Zoological Society of London Nepal Office, Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal 2 Sanctuary Asia, 602, Maker Chambers V, Nariman Point, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400021, India 3 Bangladesh bird club, House 11, Apt. 4B, Road 4, Bonani DOHS, Dhaka 1206, Bangladesh 4 Policy Planner, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Thimphu, Bhutan 4 currently School of Environmental Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Australia 5 Institute of Pure & Applied Biology, Bahauddin Zakaria University, Multan 60800, Pakistan 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected], 5 [email protected] Abstract: Species’ extinction rate is accelerating at an alarming rate all over the world. Conservation organizations are working day and night to halt this process by mapping areas for important biodiversity and highlighting these as priority areas for conservation. Most priority sites for conservation so far have been very large in area. Although some biodiversity is already lost, there is still much to conserve in the Himalayan region. Special Conservation Site (SCS) is an innovative concept for the conservation of small but important biodiversity congregation sites through a people participatory approach. Various guidelines and criteria are set as standard towards making this initiative readily accepted by all conservationists. By initiating this concept, we argue that SCS become a centre for education and awareness on the significance of biodiversity, mentor community-based conservation leaders, provide some income and ultimately add value to the larger landscape level initiatives and protected areas. SCS conservation should be an agenda for all. Keywords: Congregation, conservation, people, species, stewardship. Logo Details: Blue on the top: Mountain/land formations, Green middle: Plants, Blue on the bottom: water, Birds in flight: represent animals and their dynamacity, White border: Human settlement and agriculture showing an interface with the natural world DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3792.5677-85 Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of publication: 26 May 2014 (online & print) Manuscript details: Ms # o3792 | Received 29 September 2013 | Final received 14 May 2014 | Finally accepted 15 May 2014 Citation: Baral, H.S., B. Sahgal, S. Mohsanin, K. Namgay & A.A. Khan (2014). Species and habitat conservation through small locally recognised and community managed Special Conservation Sites. Journal of Threatened Taxa 6(5): 5677–5685; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3792.5677-85 Copyright: © Baral et al. 2014. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication. Funding: The project was initiated and funded by Himalayan Nature through its core funds. A pilot project in the lowland was supported through funds from WWF Nepal. Competing Interest: The authors declare no competing interests. Author contribution: The coordination for paper writing was done by Hem Sagar Baral/Nepal with contributions from the co-authors from different countries. Author Details: Hem Sagar Baral has a PhD in ecology from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has been involved in wildlife conservation for over two decades and has held important positions for BirdLife Nepal, founded charities like Himalayan Nature and Nepalese Ornithological Union and very recently has taken up the position of Country Manager of Zoological Society of London for Nepal. Bittu Sahgal is an environmental activist and writer, the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, India’s premier wildlife and ecology magazine. He is also a member of the National Board for Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. He has been active in the field of wildlife conservation for more than four decades.Samiul Mohsanin is a young ornithologist, wildlife conservationist and a well-known wildlife photographer in Bangladesh. He is an active member of Bangladesh bird club and has already authored several papers and books regarding wildlife of Bangladesh. Kuenga Namgay holds a PhD from Charles Sturt University, Australia and currently works as a Government Officer with Royal Government of Bhutan. Kuenga is a leading wildlife conservationist and think tank member of Bhutan. Aleem Ahmed Khan is the first ornithological PhD in Pakistan and is one of the youngest professors in Pakistan. He has taught in many countries on taxonomy, wildlife and ecology. He is the founder of Ornithological Society of Pakistan - the leading bird conservation organisation in the country. He has authored numerous books and scientific papers. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Marcus Cotton, Dr. Paul Sterry, Prof. Karan Bahadur Shah, Carol Inskipp and Dr. Shalu Adhikari for their comments. Thanks are due to Kim Elliman, CEO of Open Space Institute, USA who provided seed money to pilot this program in Nepal through the WWF Nepal. A separate Nepal paper is due to come out after this paper has been produced describing the piloting of SCS in Nepal. We thank staff at Himalayan Nature, Dr. Hemanta Mishra, Jim Ottaway Jr., Brian Williams for their support. 5677 Community managed Special Conservation Sites Baral et al. INTRODUCTION on many fronts. Systematists are describing biodiversity and reconstructing the phylogeny of different life forms We are living in a critical period of Earth’s history in with regard to their evolutionary history and their terms of the rapid changes in its environment. Many relatedness. In recent years, as many as 353 new species scientists have argued that as a consequence of human have been described from mainly the eastern section of activities, the Earth is now entering the sixth mass the Himalaya (Thomson & Thomson 2009). Ecologists extinction event in its four-billion-year history (and the are mapping the distribution of biodiversity and global only such event precipitated by a biotic agent) (Sackler hotspots that merit special conservation attention 2007). Globally, we lose 5000 species per year as a (Sackler 2007). As a result, conservation organizations result of urbanization, habitat loss and degradation, working at the international level have launched unsustainable harvesting of natural resources, climate various programs aiming at safeguarding priority change, and the spread of invasive species (Groom et conservation sites and conserving the best examples of al. 2006). Recent extinction rates are 100 to 1000 times biological diversity. Some of these include Conservation their pre-human levels in well-known, but taxonomically International’s biodiversity hotspots (Mittermeier et diverse groups from widely different environments. al. 2004) and key biodiversity areas (KBAs) (Eken et al. Pimm et al. (1995) further state that if all species 2004; Langhammer et al. 2007), World Wildlife Fund’s currently deemed threatened become extinct in the (WWF) 200 global eco-regions (Olson & Dinerstein next century, the future extinction rates will accelerate 1998), MacArthur Foundation’s geographic priorities at 10 times the recent rates. This means only a few for conservation, BirdLife International’s endemic bird threatened species will survive the century, but many areas (Stattersfield et al. 1998) and important bird areas species that are not currently in the threatened list will (IBAs), Plantlife International’s important plant areas succumb. On the basis of mid-range climate-warming (IPAs) (Hamilton & Radford 2007), Alliance for Zero scenarios for 2050, a recent study ranging different Extinction (AZE sites) and sites, IUCN-led important continents predicted that 15–37 % of species in certain freshwater biodiversity areas (Foster et al. 2012), area will be ‘committed to extinction’ (Thomas et al. Zoological Society of London’s Evolutionarily Distinct 2004). The global scenario paints a gloomy picture for and Globally Endangered (EDGE) (species) zones (Safi et biodiversity and environment around us that we depend al. 2013), etc. In the Himalayan region, WWF together on. with government institutions and other regional It is shocking to think of a world without plants and stakeholders like International Centre for Integrated animals, but species loss is just the tip of the iceberg. Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have launched-sacred Conservation problems in our region are complex and Himalayan landscape, Terai arc landscape, Kailash often interlinked with poverty, illiteracy and lack of sacred landscape initiative and the living Himalayas awareness. It is a dilemma that most biodiversity rich initiative which aim to preserve the landscape on a countries face today. They are very poor and conserving larger scale (WWF Nepal 2008; ICIMOD 2010). In the the natural heritage bestowed upon them appear to be context of climate change, such greater landscape level a losing battle and an unsustainable work of art. Recent conservation ideas, especially those including larger information suggests that the Himalaya which forms the vertical gradients and multiple