---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Timothy Wilken, MD <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 5:54 AM Subject: Update on Biodiversity To: Timothy Wilken <[email protected]> Hey Thinkers, I came across the following article today. Worth my time. Timothy Wilken, MD From: *MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES*, July 28, 2011 *Ongoing global biodiversity loss and the need to move beyond protected areas: a review of the technical and practical shortcomings of protected areas on land and sea* Camilo Mora1, 3,*, Peter F. Sale2 1Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada 2Institute for Water, Environment and Health, United Nations University, Port Carling, Ontario P0B 1J0, Canada 3Present address: Department of Geography, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA ABSTRACT: A leading strategy in international efforts to reverse ongoing losses in biodiversity is the use of *p*rotected *a*reas. We use a broad range of data and a review of the literature to show that the effectiveness of existing, and the current pace of the establishment of new, *p*rotected * a*reas will not be able to overcome current trends of loss of marine and terrestrial biodiversity. Despite local successes of well-designed and well-managed *p*rotected *a*reas proving effective in stemming biodiversity loss, there are significant shortcomings in the usual process of implementation of *p*rotected *a*reas that preclude relying on them as a global solution to this problem. The shortcomings include technical problems associated with large gaps in the coverage of critical ecological processes related to individual home ranges and propagule dispersal, and the overall failure of such areas to protect against the broad range of threats affecting ecosystems. Practical issues include budget constraints, conflicts with human development, and a growing human population that will increase not only the extent of anthropogenic stressors but the difficulty in successfully enforcing protected areas. While efforts towards improving and increasing the number and/or size of *p*rotected *a*reas must continue, there is a clear and urgent need for the development of additional solutions for biodiversity loss, particularly ones that stabilize the size of the world’s human population and our ecological demands on biodiversity. < SNIP > [image: http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/divers_charts.jpg] Conclusion: THE WAY FORWARD The causes of biodiversity loss are varied and some are unlikely to be regulated as part of the management of a Protected Area (PA). Developing actions to address those other threats requires increased research and attention, but that is not addressed here (see Mora et al. 2009, Butchart et al. 2010). It is clear from the on - going loss of biodiversity that current conservation efforts, whether through PAs alone or in combination with other approaches, are not coping with the challenge. The data also indicate that the likelihood of success is small unless the conservation community radically rethinks the strategies needed. One could safely argue that biodiversity threats are ultimately determined by the size of the world’s human population and its consumption of natural resources. The explosive growth in the world’s human population in the last century has led to an increasing demand on the Earth’s ecological resources and a rapid decline in biodiversity. According to recent estimates, about 1.2 Earths would be required to support the different demands of the 5.9 billion people living on the planet in 1999. This ‘excess’ use of the Earth’s resources or ‘overshoot’ is possible because resources can be harvested faster than they can be replaced and because waste can accumulate (e.g. atmospheric CO2). The cumulative overshoot from the mid-1980s to 2002 resulted in an ‘ecological debt’ that would require 2.5 planet Earths to pay (Kitzes et al. 2008). In a business-as-usual scenario, our demands on planet Earth could mount to the productivity of 27 planets Earth by 2050. Exceeding ecological demand beyond regenerative levels leads to the degradation of ecological capital (Kitzes et al. 2008), which is evident in the ongoing declining trend in biodiversity. Recognizing that biodiversity loss is intrinsically related to our high demand for ecological resources suggests to us that global initiatives need to address our demand for resources more directly if preservation of biodiversity is to be achieved. While we can limit human use of natural resources locally through the effective implementation of PAs, this will only address some causes of biodiversity loss, and, as shown in this review, there are numerous challenges to implement this strategy adequately across the world. As long as our demand for ecological goods and services continues to grow so will the extent of those challenges and the difficulty of using PAs to reduce biodiversity loss. Therefore, alternative solutions targeting human demand for ecological goods and services, while ensuring human welfare should be prioritized and brought to the forefront of the international conservation agenda. In our view, the only scenario to achieve sustainability and to resolve the ongoing loss of biodiversity and its underlying causes will require a concerted effort to reduce human population growth and consumption and simultaneously increase the Earth’s biocapacity through the transference of technology to increase agricultural and aquacultural productivity (Kitzes et al. 2008). The fact that human population growth may also lead to economic e.g. high competition for and/or shortages of jobs; Becker et al. 1999) and societal (e.g. shortages of food 261 Mar Ecol Prog Ser 434: 251–266, 2011 and water, lack of universal primary education, in - crease in communicable disease, etc.; Campbell et al. 2007) problems suggests that targeting human population growth directly would be worthwhile and could become more effective if advocated simultaneously from social, economic and ecological perspectives. The need for a merging of ecology and economics has been recognized for the last 25 yr, ever since Vitousek et al. (1986) pointed out the high rate of co - option of primary production by our species and the lack of capacity in the biosphere to continue to provide for an increasing human population. There has been significant progress (e.g. Arrow et al. 1995, Costanza 1996, O’Neill 1996), and an explicit call for a restructuring of world views to bring them into line with a world of finite resources has been made (Beddoe et al. 2009). Apart from continuous growth being ecologically untenable, the negative economic effects of population growth need greater recognition. Independent of whether the human use of natural resources is the ultimate driver of biodiversity loss, it is clear that the range, and growing seriousness, of human threats is too great to be addressed through creation of more PAs. The inexorable and steep loss of biodiversity and the fact that it is leading to the irreversible loss of many species suggest that we cannot afford much delay before choosing the right solution to this problem. See Attached PDF for the full article More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/30/richness-of-life-on-earth_n_913958.... -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens