[P2P-F] Fwd: Update on Biodiversity

Sun Jul 31 09:20:02 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Timothy Wilken, MD <timothy.wilken at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 5:54 AM
Subject: Update on Biodiversity
To: Timothy Wilken <timothy.wilken at gmail.com>

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.html

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