Chapter Five: Conclusions
Conservation priorities set during the next decade or so, if they are actually used to guide investment, will influence conservation activities in many places for decades and perhaps centuries into the future. There are two reasons for this. First, habitat loss and genetic erosion are likely to continue at rates at least as high as they were during the 1980s. Already, a growing number of countries have less than 10 percent of their original natural habitat remaining, and some biomes - most of them in the temperate zones - have been reduced to only a few fragmented remnants of relatively undisturbed habitat (WRI, 1994). Second, a combination of factors and events, including the establishment of the Global Environmental Facility and the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity, will inevitably drive governments and intergovernmental agencies (e.g., GEF, UNDP, UNEP, FAG, etc.) to focus on setting conservation priorities during much of the rest of this decade. Biodiversity priorities set in the 1 990s will not be the last, but they very well could be the most important.
Despite the growing literature and experience concerning biodiversity priorities, very little attention has been focused on policies and actions required to build institutional capacities to set effective priorities that - taken together - will help to conserve the world's variety of genetic resources, species, habitats, and ecosystem functions. As efforts to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity increase, institutions at national and international levels are groping for frameworks to help them allocate resources for biodiversity conservation.
Several issues, in particular, are vital to using priority-setting effectively to support bio-diversity conservation policies and strategies. First, explicit objectives are essential both to provide guidance to the priority-setting process and to make clear what elements of biodiversity are included in the priorities and which are not. Second, biodiversity is important everywhere, and biogeographic representation should be an objective of initial efforts to set priorities. Third, the conservation of biodiversity is less a question of biology than of social, economic, and political factors. Therefore, while priorities must be scientifically sound, their proponents should consider how priorities can have an impact in the social context in which conservation decisions are made. Fourth, priority-setting must become an integral part of national biodiversity strategies, action plans, and related policy and planning processes. This will require investing in national capacities to develop and implement comprehensive conservation priorities. Finally, at the inter-national level, priority-setting should complement but not supersede nationally and locally determined biodiversity conservation priorities.
Clear Objectives A Prerequisite To Effective Priorities
One of the perils in establishing biodiversity priorities is setting them in isolation from clearly defined conservation goals. Indeed, the goals of biodiversity conservation set out in the Convention on Biological Diversity, Agenda 21 (the consensus document passed at UNCED), and documents establishing the GEF, are so broad that working definitions are left by default to various institutions carrying out actions pursuant to the larger framework. Ironically, the danger is that biodiversity conservation goals, priorities, and actions will be defined too narrowly to adequately protect the broad array of economic, scientific, moral, and cultural values that biodiversity represents.
For example, the GEF is the funding mechanism through which multilateral financial resources will flow to help developing countries meet their obligations under the Biological Diversity Convention. The rationale for Intervention by the GEF is to capture the global values of biodiversity conservation, while individual countries are expected to take conservation actions that are in the country's self-interest. Incremental costs - costs which exceed national benefits from conservation investments but are less than global benefits - are, in principle, the basis for grant financing at the GEF (Mirter-meser and Bowles, 1995). As Pearce et al. (1993) note, the GEF is concerned primarily with financing projects that will yield net global economic benefits.
Although those most familiar with incremental cost concepts (e.g., Pearce et al., 1993; King, 1993) take pains to note the broad nature of economic benefits and costs, it is clear that priority-setting efforts driven by the quantification of economic values will not encompass many dimensions of biodiversity. This is because little is known about the economic value of the overwhelming majority of genetic resources, species, ecosystems and ecological processes. The risk is that conservation actions (in countries, biomes, or habitats, or for species and genetic resources) which do not meet 1990s definitions of "cost-effectiveness" will not be included in priority lists at one of the most critical junctures in the history of life on earth.
What is needed - under a broad conservation goal - is a series of specific objectives to conserve biodiversity; these objectives should encompass the range of biodiversity values (e.g., scientific, economic, cultural, moral, etc.) that society wants to sustain (see Box 5.1). In all likelihood, supporting these objectives will require different sets of priorities determined by using more than one approach. Examples of conservation objectives can be seen in Box 5.2.
Box 5.1 An Illustrative Biodiversity Conservation Goal Statement
The overall goal of biodiversity conservation - at global, national, and local scales - must be broadly defined. The broad overall goal of biodiversity conservation, upon which to base conservation objectives and supporting priorities, could be defined as follows: The goal of biodiversity conservation is protecting and using biological resources in ways that do not diminish the world's or a nation's variety of genes, species, habitats, and ecosystems.
The Importance Of Biogeographic Representation
Biodiversity is important everywhere. Ecosystems and people in desert, grassland, and even tundra biomes depend on their biotic diversity just as ecosystems and people do in humid tropical forests. In practice, priorities for funding, research, and conservation programming have focused on a limited number of biomes and bioregions, in part, because priority-setting approaches have emphasized the use of a few easily measured indicators (e.g., species rich-ness, species endemism, tropical deforestation rates, etc.). Too often, biodiversity priority-set-ting is reduced to counting species and assuming that threats to biodiversity are synonymous with tropical deforestation rates; this results in many biomes not being considered at all.
Box 5.2 Illustrative Examples Of National Biodiversity Conservation Objectives
The Convention on Biological Diversity calls on member countries to undertake a wide range of actions to conserve biodiversity. Article 7, for example, requires each party to "identify components of biological diversity important for its conservation and sustainable use," and Article 8 sets out a series of in-situ management objectives. To meet these requirements, a country might set objectives to maintain or recover:
a) Biodiversity in representative natural ecosystems and habitats (terrestrial and marine);
b) Biodiversity in landscapes where agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and grazing are dominant land-uses;
c) Threatened and endangered populations of wild species;
d) Agricultural and other economically important species and their wild relatives;
e) Species or habitats of significant social or cultural importance (e.g., "sacred" forest groves)
f) Habitats or ecosystems associated with key evolutionary (e.g., "refugia" during times of climatic change) or biological processes (e.g., migratory habitats or corridors).
Under each of these objectives, a different priority-setting approach or set of approaches might be employed - some of which are likely to be adapted from the examples discussed in Chapter III. The sum of these objectives and their supporting priorities should encompass the national biodiversity conservation goal (see Box 5.1).
The folly of this is vividly illustrated by Mares (1992). In comparing the mammalian diversity of lowland Amazonia with that of drier South American ecosystems, Mares found that deserts, scrublands, and grasslands have 53 per-cent more endemic species and 440 percent more endemic genera than the humid tropical forests of the Amazon basin. Marine ecosystems, desert and grassland biomes, and temperate and boreal forests are virtually absent from the list of priorities generated by "hotspots," "megadiversity," and other approaches that rely on species numbers and endemism levels. There is no doubt about the importance of humid tropical forests as immensely rich and threatened repositories of biodiversity, but their importance should not blind scientists, donor agencies, and governments to the many biodiversity values of other threatened ecosystems around the world or in a particular country.
Noting the bias toward humid tropical forest conservation and the relative neglect of marine ecosystems and arid and semi-arid biomes (e.g., deserts, grasslands, and scrublands), Redford et al. (1990) argue that "a pluralistic view towards the conservation of biodiversity is imperative."1 The gaps in our knowledge of global biodiversity should prompt more humility on the part of international biodiversity conservation policymakers and priority setters. This is explicitly recognized in the Global Biodiversity Strategy (WRI/IUCN/UNEP, 1992).2 The Strategy offers ten principles for conserving biodiversity; one of them suggests how priorities should be addressed in the context of a comprehensive biodiversity conservation goal:
"Priorities for biodiversity conservation differ when viewed from local, national, and global perspectives; all are legitimate, and should be taken into account. All countries and communities also have a vested interest in conserving their biodiversity; the focus should not be exclusively on a few species-rich ecosystems or countries."
This principle should be the starting point of efforts to set conservation priorities. Representation of all species and ecosystem types in conservation programs, therefore, should be a conservation objective around which priorities are initially set.
The Social Context For Setting Biodiversity Conservation Priorities
The issues raised above are concerned principally with ensuring that priority-setting overall is not biased toward a particular subset of the diversity of life forms and processes. It is equally important to stress that biodiversity conservation priority-setting should not take place in a socioeconomic vacuum. Successful implementation of conservation priorities ultimately depends on the support of important biodiversity stakeholders, the public, and various government agencies - all of whom have social, economic, and political needs they consider at least as important as conserving biodiversiry.3
The best way to ensure that priority-setting both informs and is informed by the range of actors who influence the fate of biodiversity is to develop an effective process for setting priorities. An effective priority-setting process, notwithstanding its technical integrity, is one that starts with clearly defined conservation goal(s) and objectives, is guided by the widest possible array of relevant information, and links priorities to discrete institutions, actions, and constituencies. In practice, this means involving potentially affected stakeholders in the priority-setting process.4 This is especially important at the beginning of the process when goals and objectives are defined and toward the conclusions of the process when follow-up actions to conserve priorities are defined.
As priorities are identified with increasing geographic specificity, participation will become more important. Specific communities, institutions, and individuals have important information, local priorities, land and resource tenure regimes, and a variety of socioeconomic needs and constraints that will determine the ultimate disposition of the identified priorities. The experience of a number of priority-setting projects (see, for example, the profile of the Papua New Guinea Conservation Needs Assessment in Chapter III) shows the importance of local involvement in the priority-setting process. Without such involvement, distrust and even antagonism toward the process can result.
It should, however, be noted that the relationship of many social factors (and institution-al, economic, and political factors) to biodiversity and its conservation are not well known and they can change rapidly. Much more work is needed to develop appropriate frameworks for the consideration of social factors in biodiversity priority-setting approaches.5
With rare exceptions, the biodiversity priority-setting process is left to the "usual suspects" - government natural resource management agencies, academics in the biological sciences, and large national and international conservation NGOs. Those who think of priorities in terms of economic or agricultural development might be involved as well - if only to see where overlaps and conflicts are likely to be. Setting biodiversity conservation priorities is an enormously educational experience for everyone involved. Including such interests as social scientists, development-oriented NGOs, finance and agriculture agencies, and farmer and rancher groups, for example, could develop support for biodiversity conservation in important institutions outside the usual conservation circles.
Although biodiversity conservation priorities are most often intended to lead to the establishment of new protected areas, endangered species programs, or ex-situ conservation programs, geographically defined priorities could have tremendous policy implications in other ways. For example, information on species and ecosystem distribution and trends, habitat quality, and human land-use and demographic patterns, could be correlated to land tenure and other policies (e.g., tax, agricultural subsidies, etc.) that contribute to ecological degradation. This would allow priority-setters to identify specific policy reforms that could help conserve biodiversity outside of traditional protected areas.
Similarly, cultural/demographic/land-use data (in conjunction with species and ecosystem information) could be used to identify biologically important areas where people use natural resources in ways that are relatively compatible with biodiversity conservation. Strategies could then be developed to encourage the preservation of such land uses and protect them from rapid and ecologically destructive change.
Finally, what follow-up will take place after the priorities have first been established? Conservation priorities have been developed in hundreds of places - some of them very solid and well-evaluated - but most have never amounted to anything more than a list in a study. Who will be responsible for translating the priorities into actions, how will progress be monitored, and what strategies can be used to ensure that all those who should know about the priorities understand their significance? In other words, how will the priorities be used to influence land-use policy, development decisions, conservation policy, etc.? One way to address these concerns is to link biodiversity priority-setting to the development of national biodiversity strategies and action plans as called for under Article 6 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (see below).
Priorities Should Be Integral To National Biodiversity Strategies And Action Plans
The Convention on Biological Diversity calls on countries to use a wide range of measures to conserve and sustainably use their biodiversity. Each country, however, must determine what steps it should take to implement the Convention. The first substantive article of the Convention, Article 6 (UNEP, 1992), calls on countries to:
(a) Develop national strategies, action plans or programs for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity or adapt for this purpose existing strategies, plans of programs which shall reflect, inter alia, the measures set out in this Convention relevant to the Contracting Party concerned; and
(b) Integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programs and policies."
Setting biodiversity conservation priorities, or using existing priorities, can help define what specific steps should be emphasized in such strategies and plans.
Few countries have approached biodiversity planning in the comprehensive manner required by the Convention (Miller and Lanou, 1995). Fewer still have comprehensively assessed priori-ties for biodiversity conservation. Nevertheless, planning efforts pursuant to Article 6 provide a great opportunity to define an influential role for the establishment and implementation of conservation priorities. Priority-setting can take place either as an integral part of the national strategy or action plan process, or as a result of key strategy elements or action points that put priority-setting efforts in motion.
In any country, a range of institutions and interests can be called upon for information and knowledge and for the financial, technical, and human resources needed to set priorities to address national biodiversity conservation goals. Universities, NGOs, museums, botanical gardens, zoos, professional societies, and local communities, as well as various government agencies, all have legitimate roles to play in setting effective conservation priorities. National resources and, where needed, international donor resources and technical assistance, should be invested in priority-setting as an integral or complementary process to the development of national biodiversity strategies and action plans. These national level priorities can then guide implementation and provide donors with clear indications of where they can best support national conservation programs.
International Priorities Should Support National Priorities
The biodiversity of any ecosystem - from the tropics to the poles - has values that benefit people beyond the watershed, province, and country in which the ecosystem is located. Priorities based on the premise that biodiversity around the world is important to all peoples have an important role to play. However, the role of international priorities should be defined in ways that avoid unnecessary conflicts between national / local and international perspectives on biodiversity. As a matter of principle, international priority-setting should identify gaps that exist after national level priorities have been identified - and the international community should be prepared to fund conservation in areas that are clearly not national priorities. In reality, of course, this may not be possible for some time, since most countries have not yet comprehensively assessed biodiversity conservation priorities.
The case for establishing de novo global or international priorities to allocate donor resources can be compelling - every year more species and habitats become endangered, conservation options narrow, and budgets decline - but it should not become a habit. A bottom-up approach to identifying international priorities will take more time, money, and dialogue, but it will yield more durable and achievable results, for participation will always result in priorities having wider ownership and political support. Yet participation is increasingly difficult as the geographic scale increases. A top-down approach to identifying international priorities, on the other hand, sacrifices participation and ownership of priorities in order to save time and improve the technical or conceptual approach. This presumably increases the "objectivity" of the priority-setting process.
In the future, international priority-setting will require a synthesis of priorities developed through bottom-up and top-down processes6. Local perspectives will nor always include elements of biodiversity that are important when viewed from larger scales. International perspectives will not always encompass biodiversity elements that are of vital importance to local peoples or national economies. Top-down approaches are relatively easy to undertake. Meshing those priorities with priorities selected from local and national perspectives is often not possible today, because so few countries have had the human, technical, and financial resources to systematically evaluate priorities.
Donors, therefore, should view national and local-level priority-setting as an important and long-term investment in conservation planning capacity and commit themselves to using the results to help guide their programming and funding decisions. Donors can start by working with recipient countries to build priority-setting into the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan process.
There is no single formula for developing effective biodiversity conservation priorities. The process of setting priorities will vary between countries according to available information, local perceptions, and development objectives. Priority-setting will increase in sophistication and more effective approaches and processes will emerge in coming years. However, as WCMC (1994) notes, "For most countries and the world as a whole there is sufficient information on species richness and endemism to allow realistic decisions to be made on where these attributes are likely to be most pronounced, and where investment in safe-guarding them would be most effective." Priority-setting and revising earlier priorities will be a recurrent activity, not a one-time event. There-fore investments in building the information base, making appropriate technologies available (e.g., computer mapping and databases), defining participatory mechanisms, and training, will have long-term value and contribute significantly to the conservation of biodiversity, particularly if policymakers and donors pay attention.
There will never be a better time to invest in developing the capacity to set priorities at all levels - local, national, and global.
Endnotes
1. The point expressed by Redford et al. (1990), Ray (1988), and others is that tropical rainforests are nor synonymous with biological diversity. They are a subset (albeit, a very important one) of the diversity of life forms and ecological processes.
2. The Global Biodiversity Strategy defines the goal of biodiversity conservation as supporting sustainable development by protecting and using biological resources in ways that do not diminish the world's variety of genes and species or destroy important habitats and ecosystems.
3. Usually they consider these factors more important than, and often separate from, conserving biodiversity.
4. Biodiversity stakeholders will range from local communities living in or depending on natural habitats, government agencies with responsibilities over natural resources and economic development, private sector businesses with control or access to significant biological resources, and the interested public and the independent institutions (e.g., nongovernmental organizations) that represent them
5. One possibility, for example, is to use two separate frameworks. The first would consist of biological, environmental, threat (e.g., rate of habitat loss) and certain social factors (population density, demographic trends) that are quantifiable and generally agreed to be of importance to selecting bio-diversity priorities - a "stable framework." A second framework would consist of social, institutional, and economic factors that are important for determining feasibility, but which change rapidly, are difficult to quantify, and the relationship of which to biodiversity conservation is not always clear. This feasibility" framework would then be overlaid on the preliminary priorities identified using the "stable framework" to select priorities for implementation (Olivieri, personal communication).
6. In an ideal world, it would be useful to have a framework that would lead to the identification of global priorities to conserve the variety of genetic resources, species, habitats, and ecological processes in each of the world's major biomes or biogeographic zones. The framework would be "filled-in" as individual countries reported their progress in implementing obligations of the Biodiversity Convention. The framework could then be used to guide the allocation of limited international financial and technical resources to "global" conservation priorities not addressed by individual countries. In other words, the international framework should be designed to both assist individual countries in developing or refining national priorities, and to identify "gaps" in biodiversity conservation from a global perspective.
References Cited
Abate, T. 1992. Environmental rapid-assessment programs have appeal and critics. BioScience 42: 486-489.
Abramovitz, J.N. 1994. Trends in Biodiversity Investments. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Abramovitz, J.N. 1991. Investing in Biological Diversity. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Adisewojo, S., S. Tjokronegro, and R. Tjokronegro. 1984. Natural biological compounds traditionally used as pesticides and medicine. Environmentalist, 4 (Supplement 7): 11-14.
Alcorn, J.B. 1994. A new national planning tool: Papua New Guinea site of Conservation Needs Assessment. Diversity 10(2): 28-31.
Alcorn, J.B. 1993. Introduction to the CNA Report, Volume I. In: J.B. Alcorn (ed.), Papua New Guinea Conservation Needs Assessment: Volume 1. pp. 1-5. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, DC.
Alcorn, J.B. 1984. Development policy, forest and peasant farms: Reflections on Huastec-managed forests' contributions to commercial production and resource conservation. Economic Botany 38: 389-406.
Atkinson, I. 1994. Ecological measures for conserving terrestrial biodiversity: a New Zealand perspective. In: Forey, P.L., C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.) Systematics and Conservation Evaluation. pp. 63-80. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Bailey, R.G. 1989. Ecoregions of the Continents. Monograph and map. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D.C.
Bailey, R.G. and R. Hogg. 1989. Ecoregions of the United States. Monograph and map. U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, Washington, DC.
Bedward, M., R.L. Pressey, and D.A. Keith. 1992. A new approach for selecting fully representative reserve networks: Addressing efficiency, reserve design, and land suitability with an iterative analysis. Biological Conservation 62: 115-125.
Beehler, B.M. 1993. Introduction to the CNA report, Volume 2. In: B.M. Beehler (ed.), Papua New Guinea Conservation Needs Assessment: Volume 2. pp. 1-14. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, DC.
Bibby, C.J., M.J. Crosby, M.F. Heath, T.H. Johnson, T.H. Long, A.J. Sattersfield, and S.J. Thirgood. 1992. Putting Biodiversity on the Map: Global Priorities for Conservation. International Council for Bird Preservation, Cambridge, U.K.
Braarz, S., C. Davis, S. Shen, and C. Rees. 1992. Conserving Biodiversity: A Strategy for Protected Areas in the Asia-Pacific Region. World Bank Technical Paper #193, Asia Technical Series, The World Bank, Washington, DC.
BSP. 1994. Conserving Bulgaria's Biological Diversity: The Bulgarian National Biological Diversity Conservation Strategy. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, DC.
BSP/CI/TNC/WCS/WRI/WWF 1995. A Regional Analysis of Geographic Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, DC.
Burley, EW 1988. Monitoring Biolgical Diversity for Setting Priorities in Conservation. In: E.G. Wilson (ed.). Biodiversity. pp. 227-230. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
CI. 1990. The rainforest imperative. Conservation International, Washington,. DC.
Collar, N.J. and P. Andrew. 1988. Birds to Watch: The ICBP World Checklist of Threatened Birds. International Council for Bird Preservation, Cambridge, UK
Cox, PA., T. Elmquist, E.D. Pierson and WE. Rainey. 1991. Flying foxes as strong interactors in South Pacific island ecosystems: A conservation hypothesis. Conservation Biology 5: 448-454.
Cumming, D.H., R.E DuToit, and SN. Stuart. 1990. African Elephants and Rhinos. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN Species Survival Commission African Elephant and Rhino Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Dahl, A.L. 1986. Review of the Protected Areas System in Oceania. IUCN/UNEP, Gland, Switzerland.
Daniels, R.J., M. Hegde, NV. Joshi, and M. Gadgil. 1991. Assigning conservation value: A case study from India. Conservation Biology 5: 464-475.
Daugherty, C.H., A. Cree, J.M. Hay, and MB. Thompson. 1990. Neglected taxonomy and continuing extinctions of tuatara (Sphenodon). Science 347: 177-179.
Davis, S.D., S.J. Droop, P. Gregerson, L. Henson, C.J. Leon, J.L. Villa-Lobos, H. Synge, and J. Zantovska. 1986. Plants in Danger: What Do We Know? IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Diamond, J. 1989. Overview of recent extinctions. In: D. Western and M. Pearl (eds.), Conservation for the Twenty-first Century. pp. 37-41. Oxford University Press, New York.
Dinerstein, E. and E. D. Wikramanayake. 1993. Beyond "Hotspots:" How to prioritize investments in biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific Region. Conservation Biology 7: 55-65.
Dinerstein, E., ED. Wikramanayake, and M. Forney. 1993. From reservoirs to remnants: on serving the tropical moist forests of the Indo-Pacific region. In: T. Lovejoy (ed.), The Ecology, Management, and Conservation of Southeast Asian Rainforests.
Dinerstein, E., D.M. Olson, D.J. Graham, AL. Webster, SA. Primm, M.A. Bookbinder, and G. Ledec. 1995. A Conservation Assess-ment of the Terrestrial Ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Bank, Washington, DC.
Eudey, A. A. 1987. Action Plan for Asian Primate Conservation: 1987-1991. IUCN Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Faith, DR 1994. Phylogenetic diversity: a general framework for the prediction of feature diversity. In: P.L. Forey, C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.), Systematics and Conservation Evaluation. pp. 251-268. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Falk, DA. and KE. Holsinger. 1991. Genetics and Conservation of Rare Plants. Oxford University Press, New York.
Forey, EL., C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.). 1994. Systematics and Conser-vation Evaluation. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Gamez, R., A. Piva, A. Sittenfeld, E. Leon, J. Jimenez, and G. Mirabelli. 1993. Costa Rica's conservation program and National Biodiversity Institute (INBio). In: W.V. Reid, SA. Laird, CA. Meyer, R. Gamez, A. Sirrenfeld, D.H. Janzen, MA. Golin, and C. Juma. (eds.), Biodiversity Prospecting: Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development. pp. 53-68. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Grassle, JE, P Laserre, AD. McIntyre, and G.C. Ray. 1991. Marine biodiversity and ecosystem function. Biology International, Special Issue 23:1-19.
Grumbine, 1993. Ghost Bears: Exploring the Biodiversity Crisis. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Hamilton, L.S. (ed.). 1993. Ethics, Religion and Biodiversity: Relations Between Conservation and Cultural Values. The White Horse Press, Cambridge, UK.
Hansen, A.J., TA. Spies, EJ. Swanson and J. L. Ohmann. 1991. Conserving biodiversity in managed forests. BioScience 41: 382-392.
Hartl, DL., and AG. Clark. 1990. Principles of Population Genetics. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Hawkes, J.G. 1988. Ranking Plants of Economic Value for Conservation and Development. A feasibility study for the IUCN Plants Conservation Office, Richmond, Surrey, U.K
IBAMA/INPA/CI. 1991. Workshop 90: Biological priorities for conservation in Amazonia. Map and legend prepared from January 1990 conference in Manaus sponsored by IBAMA, INPA, Conservation International, the New York Botanical Garden, the Smith-sonian Institution, and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Conservation International, Washington, D.C.
Indonesia Ministry for Population and Environment. 1991. Biodiversity Action Plan for Indonesia. Ministry of State for Population and the Environment, Jakarta.
Iremonger, S. and R. Sayre. 1994. Rapid Ecological Assessment: Bladen Nature Reserve, Toledo District, Belize. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.
IUCN. 1984. Categories, objectives and criteria for protected areas. In JA. MeNeely and KR. Miller (eds.), National Parks, Conservation and Development, pp. 47-53. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.
IUCN. 1987. Centres of Plant Diversity: A Guide and Strategy for their Conservation. IUCN Threatened Plans Unit, Kew, Richmond, U.K.
IUCN. 1988. Antelopes: Global Survey and Regional Action Plans - Part I. East and northeast Africa. IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Johannes, RE. 1984. Marine conservation in relation to traditional lifestyles of tropical artisanal fishermen. Environmentalist 4 (Supplement 7): 30-35.
Johnsgard, PA. 1991. Crane Music: A Natural History of American Cranes. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
Kapoor-Vijay, P. 1992. Biological Diversity and Genetic Resources. The Commonwealth Science Council, The Commonwealth Secretariat, London.
Kelleher, G., C. Bleakley, and S. Wells. 1995. A Global Representative System of Marine Protected Areas. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (Australia), IUCN Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas, Gland, Switzerland, and The World Bank, Washington, DC.
Kelleher, G. and R. Kenchington. 1992. Guidelines for Establishing Marine Protected Areas. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
King, K. 1993. The Incremental Costs of Global Environmental Benefits. GEF Working Paper #5, The Global Environment Facility, Washington, DC.
Kirkpatrick, J.B. 1983. An iterative method for establishing priorities for the selection of nature reserves: An example from Tasmania. Biological Conservation 25: 127-134.
Krever, V., E. Dinerstein, D. Olson, and L. Williams. 1994. Conserving Russia's Biological Diversity: An Analytical Framework and Initial Investment Portfolio. World Wildlife Fund/U.S., Washington, DC.
Ledig, FT. 1986. Conservation strategies for forest gene resources. Forest Ecology and Management. 14: 77-90.
Ledig, ET. 1988. The conservation of diversity in forest trees. BioScience 38: 471-479.
Lynch, O.J. 1992. Securing community-based tenurial rights in the tropical forests of Asia. Issues in Development Series, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Lynch, O.J., and J.B. Alcorn. 1994. Tenurial rights and community-based conservation. In: D. Western, M. Wright, and S. Strum (eds.), Natural Connections. Perspectives in Community-Based Conservation. pp. 373- 392. Island Press, Washington, DC.
MacKinnon, J. and K. MacKinnon. 1986a. Review of the Protected Areas System in the Indo-Malayan Realm. IUCN/UNEP, Gland, Switzerland.
MacKinnon, J. and K. MacKinnon. 1986b. Review of the Protected Areas System in the Afro-tropical Realm. IUCN/UNEP, Gland, Switzerland.
Mann, CC. and ML. Plummer. 1995. Noah's Choice: The Future of Endangered Species. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, NY.
Mares, MA. 1992. Neotropical mammals and the myth of Amazonian biodiversity. Science 255: 976-979.
Margules, CR., ID. Cresell, and A.O. Nicholls. 1994. A scientific basis for establishing networks of protected areas. In: Forey, P.L., C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.). Systematics and Conservation Evaluation. pp. 327-350. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Margules, CR., A.O. Nicholls, and R.L. Pressey. 1988. Selecting networks of reserves to maximize biological diversity. Biological Conservation 43: 63-76.
Master, L.L. 1991. Assessing threats and setting priorities for conservation. Conservation Biology 5: 559-563.
May, R.M. 1990. Taxonomy as destiny. Science 347: 129-130.
Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species. Columbia University Press, New York.
McAllister, DE., EW. Schueler, CM. Roberts, and JR Hawkins. 1994. Mapping and GIS analysis of the global distribution of coral reef fishes on an equal-area grid. In: RI. Miller (ed.), Mapping the Diversity of Nature. pp. 113-121. Chapman and Hall, London.
McCloskey, J.M. and H. Spalding. 1989. A reconnaissance-level inventory of the amount of wilderness remaining in the world. Ambio 18: 221-227.
McNaughton, S.J. 1989. Ecosystems and conservation in the Twenty-first Century. In: D. Western and M. Pearl (eds.) Conservation for the Twenty-First Century. pp. 109-120. Oxford University Press, New York.
McNeely, J.A. 1988. Economics and Biological Diversity: Developing and Using Economic Incentives to Conserve Biological Resources. International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland.
McNeely, JA., KR. Miller, W.V. Reid, RA. Mittermeier, and TB. Werner. 1990. Conserving the World's Biological Diversity. World Resources Institute, IUCN, World Bank, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International. Washington, D.C. and Gland, Switzerland. 193 pp.
McNeely, JA., Harrison, J. and Dingwall, R (eds). 1994. Protecting Nature. Regional Reviews of Protected Areas. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Meffe, G.K. and CR. Carroll. 1994. Princijples of Conservation Biology. Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA.
Miller, K.R. and L. Tangley. 1991. Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealth. Beacon Press, Boston.
Miller, KR. and S.M. Lanou. 1995. National Biodiversity Planning: Guidelines Based on Early Experiences Around the World. World Resources Institute, Washington DC, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, and The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland.
Mittermeier, RA. 1988. Primate diversity and the tropical forest: Case studies from Brazil, Madagascar and the importance of the megadiversity countries. In: E.O. Wilson and EM. Peter, (eds.), Biodiversity. pp. 145-154. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 521 pp.
Mittermeier, R.A., and IA. Bowles. 1993. The GEF and Biodiversity Conservation: Lessons to Date and Recommendations for Future Action. Conservation International, Washington, DC.
Mittermeier, RA., and TB. Werner. 1990. Wealth of plants and animals unites "megadiversity" countries. Tropicus 4(1): 1, 4-5.
Mlot, C. 1989. Blueprint for conserving plant diversity. BioScience 39: 364-368.
Myers, N. 1988. Threatened biotas: "Hotspots" in tropical forests. Environmentalist 8 (3): 1-20.
Myers, N. 1991. The biodiversity challenge: Expanded "hotspots" analysis. Environmentalist 10 (4): 243-256.
Natural Heritage Center Network. 1993. Perspectives on Species Imperilment. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.
Norse, E.A. 1993. Global Marine Biodiversity: A Strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Noss, R.E 1993. Sustainable forestry or sustainable forests. In: G.H. Aplet, N. Johnson, J.T. Olson, and V.A. Sample (eds), Defining Sustainable Forestry. pp. 17-43. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Olivieri, S., IA. Bowles, RB. Cavalcanti, GAB. da Fonseca, RA. Mittermeier, and C.B. Rodsrrom. 1995. A participatory approach to biodiversity conservation: The regional priority-setting workshop. Discussion paper. Conservation International, Washington, DC.
Parker, TA., BK. Hoist, L.H. Emmons, JR. Meyer. 1993. A Biological Assessment of the Columbia River Forest Reserve, Toledo District, Belize. Conservation International, Washington, DC.
Pearce, D, K. Brown, T. Swanson, and C. Per-rings. 1993. Economics and the Conservation of Biological Diversity. A report to the Global Environment Facility. Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) at University College London, London.
Peterson, AT., O.A. Flores-Villela, L.S. Leon-Paniagua, J.E. Llorente-Bosquets, MA. Luis-Martinex, AG. Navarro-Siguenza, MG. Tortes-Chavez, and I. Vargas-Fernandez. 1993. Conservation priorities in Mexi-co: moving up in the world. Biodiversity Letters 1:33-38.
Pickett, S.TA. and J.N. Thompson. 1978. Patch dynamics and the design of nature reserves. Biological Conservation, 13: 27-37.
Pimentel, D., U. Stachow, DA. Takacs, H.W. Brubaker, A.R. Dumas, J.J. Meaney, JAS. O'Neil, D.E. Onsi, and D.B. Corzilius. 1992. Conserving biological diversity in agricultural/forestry systems. BioScience 42: 354-362.
Prendergast, J.R., R.M. Quinn, J.H. Lawton, B.C. Eversham, and D.W. Gibbons. 1993. Rare species, the coincidence of diversity hotspots and conservation strategies. Nature, 365: 335-337.
Pressey, R.L., M. Bedward, and DA. Keith. 1994. New procedures for reserve selection in New South Wales: Maximizing the chances of achieving a representative network. In: Forey, ,RL., C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.). Systematics and Conservation Evaluation. pp. 351-374. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Pressey, R.L., and A.O. Nicholls. 1989. Efficiency in conservation evaluation: scoring versus iterative approaches. Biological Conservation, 50: 263-278.
Primack, RB. 1993. Essentials of Conservation Biology. Sinauer Associates, Cambridge, MA.
Raven, P. 1988. Our diminishing tropical forests. In: E.O. Wilson and F.M. Peter (eds.). Biodiversity. pp. 119-122. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Raup, D.M. 1988. Diversity crises in the geologic past. In: E.O. Wilson and EM. Peter (eds.), Biodiversity. pp. 51-57. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Ray, G.C. 1988. Ecological diversity in coastal zones and oceans. In: E.O. Wilson and EM. Peter (eds.), Biodiversity. pp. 36-50. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Redford, K.H., A. Taber, and JA. Simonetti. 1990. There is more to biodiversity than the tropical rain forests. Conservation Biology, 4: 328-330.
Reid, WV. 1992a. How many species will there be? In: IC. hitmore and JA. Sayer (eds.), Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction. pp. 55-74. Chapman Hall, London.
Reid, WV. 1992b. The United States Needs a National Biodiversity Policy. Issues and Ideas Brief. World Resources Institute, Washington.
Reid, WV., J.A. MeNeely, D.B. Tunstall, DA. Bryant, and M. Winograd. 1993. Biodiversity Indicators for Policy-Makers. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Reid, WV. 1994. Setting objectives for conservation evaluation. In: Forey, P.L., C.J. Humphries, and RI. Vane-Wright (eds.). Systematics and Conservation Evaluation pp. 1-14. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Rodgers, WA., and H.S. Panwar. 1988. Planning a Wildlifr Protected Area Network in India: Volume I - The Report, and Volume II - State Summaries. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun.
Rojas, M. 1992. The species problem and conservation: What are we protecting? Conservation Biology 6: 170-178.
Ruben-Vila, A. and C. Bertonatti. 1993. Situa-ambiental de Ia Argentina: recommendacions y prioridades de accion. Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina. Boletin Tecnico 14.
Sanderson, SE., and K.H. Redford. 1994. Naming, claiming, and distributing biota: Biodiversity politics and the contest for ownership of the world's biodiversity. In: (ed.). Saving Rainforest Biodiversity: Protecting the Protected Areas.
Schonewald-Cox, CM., SM. Chambers, B. MacBryde and L. Thomas (eds.). 1983 Genetics and Conservation. A Refrrence for Managing Wild Animal Plant Populations. Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, CA.
Schreiber, A., R. Wirth, M. Riffel, and H. Van Rompaey. 1989. Weasels, Civets, Mongooses, and their Relatives. IUCN Species Survival Commission Mustelid and Viverrid Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Scott, J.M., B. Csuti, and S. Caicco. 1991. Gap Analysis: Assessing Protection Needs. In: WE. Hudson (ed.), Landscape Linkages and Biodiversity. pp. 74-91. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Sherman, K., and T. Laughlin. 1992. The Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) concept and its application to regional marine resources management. Marine Conservation Development Reports, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Sizer, N. 1994. Opportunities to save and sustainably use the world's forests through international cooperation. Issues and Ideas series. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Stolzenburg, W 1992. Detectives of diversity. The Nature Conservancy News 42(1): 22-27.
Stuart, S.N. 1987. Why we need Action Plans. Species. Newsletter #8 of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, February, 1987. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Stuart, SN., R.J. Adams, and M.D. Jenkins. 1990. Biodiversity in Sub-Saharan Africa and its Islands. Occasional Papers of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Swartzendruber, J. E 1993. Papua New Guinea Conservation Needs Assessment: Synopsis Report. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, D.C.
Synge, H., and V. Heywood. 1988. Preamble to: Ranking Plants of Economic Value for Conservation and Development. A feasibility study for the IUCN Plants Conservation Office, Richmond, Surrey, U.K.
Taylor, M. 1993. Foreword. In: Swartzendruber, J.F. Papua New Guinea Conservation Needs Assessment. Synopsis Report. Biodiversity Support Program, Washington, DC.
Terborgh, J. 1974. Preservation of natural diversity: The problem of extinction-prone species. BioScience 24: 715-722.
Terborgh, J. 1986. Keystone plant resources in the tropical forest. In ME. Soulé (ed.), Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity, pp. 330-344. Senauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
TNC. 1988. Natural Heritage Program Model Operations Manual. Revised edition. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.
Udvardy, M.D.E 1975. A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. Occasional Paper 18. International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Gland, Switzerland.
UNDP/World Bank/UNER 1991. Report by the chairman to the participants' meeting to discuss the Global Environment Facility. World Bank, Washington, DC.
UNEP. In press. Global Biodiversity Assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
UNEP. 1992. Convention on Biological Diversity. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
USAID. 1994. Strategies for Sustainable Development. U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, DC.
Vane-Wright, RI., C.J. Humphries, and RH. Williams. 1991. What to protect? - systematics and the agony of choice. Biological Conservation 55: 235-254.
Vithousek, R, R Ehrlich, A. Erlich, and P Matson. 1986. Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis. BioScience, 36: 368-373.
WCMC. 1992. Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earths Living Resources. Compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Center, Cambridge, U.K. Chapman and Hall, London.
WCMC. 1994. Priorities for conserving global species richness and endemism. Report prepared for the Overseas Development Administration, United Kingdom. June 1994. World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, U.K.
Weinstock, JA. 1985. Rattan: A complement to swidden agriculture. Unasylva, 36: 16-22.
Whittemore, AT, and BA. Schaal. 1991. Interspecific gene flow in sympatric oaks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 88: 2540-2544.
Wilson, E.O. 1988. The current state of biological diversity. In: E.O. Wilson and F.M. Peter, (eds.), Biodiversity. pp 3-18. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Wilson, E.O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Woodruff, D.S. 1992. Biodiversity Conservation and Genetics. Proceedings of the 2nd Princess Chulabkorn Congress of Scientific Technology, Bangkok.
WRI. 1994. World Resources 1994-1995. Oxford University Press, New York.
WRI. 1992a. 1993 Directory of Country Environmental Studies. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
WRI. 1992b. World Resources 1992-1993. Oxford University Press, New York.
WRI/IUCN/UNER 1992. Global Biodiversity Strategy. Guidelines for Action to Save, Study, and Use Earth's Biotic Wealth Sustainably and Equitably. World Resources Institute, Washington.
WWF and IUCN. 1994. Centres of Plant Diversity. A Guide and Strategy for Their Conservation: Volume 1 (Europe, Africa, The Middle East and Southwest Asia). Volume 2, in press, (Asia and the Pacific). Volume 3, in press, (The Americas). World Wildlife Fund/UK, Godalming, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland.
About The Author
Nels C. Johnson is a Senior Associate in the Biological Resources and Institutions Program at the World Resources Institute. Trained as a forest ecologist, he has spent the last decade conducting policy research on sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation issues in Asia, the Caribbean, and the United States. Before joining WRI, he worked for the International Institute for Environment and Development and Oregon State University's cooperative forest research program. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Biodiversity Support Program.