African Invertebratesin the International Year of Biodiversity

Michelle Hamer

doi:10.5733/afin.051.0201

Abstract

The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity to celebrate biodiversity, increase understanding about how biodiversity is critical for sustaining life on Earth, and to highlight the ongoing and increasing loss of biodiversity. The emphasis of this campaign is on people and biodiversity, and the monetary value of biodiversity in terms of goods and services, rather than the traditional focus on saving iconic threatened species and ecosystems. The change in emphasis away from species conservation may seem misdirected; we monitor biodiversity by tracking the number of species that have gone extinct and by the number of threatened species, species make up ecosystems, which provide people with services, and species are di-

Highlights

BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research
The change in emphasis away from species conservation may seem misdirected; we monitor biodiversity by tracking the number of species that have gone extinct and by the number of threatened species, species make up ecosystems, which provide people with services, and species are diUHFWO\ XVHG E\ SHRSOH +RZHYHU LI ZH UHÀHFW RQ WKH SURJUHVV PDGH LQ WHUPV RI WKH commitments by governments at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 3WR DFKLHYH E\ D VLJQL¿FDQW UHGXFWLRQ RI WKH FXUUHQW UDWH RI ELRGLYHUVLW\ loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation DQGWRWKHEHQH¿WRIDOOOLIHRQ(DUWKLWLVHYLGHQWWKDWWKHWDUJHWVKDYHQRWEHHQPHW Threatened species have become more threatened, natural habitats continue to decline, and the ecological footprint of humans exceeds that of the 2010 target
One of the major arguments used in promoting surveys, inventories and taxonomy is the need to know what species are present in an area before they can be conserved or used

Summary

Introduction

BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. Taxonomists work furiously at describing southern African invertebrate species; even if a conservative estimate of 250 new species per annum are described this will have a minimal impact in terms of documenting biodiversity, and at least 200 \HDUV ZLOO EH UHTXLUHG WR UHDFK DQ\ ¿QDOLW\ LQ WKLV WDVN +RZHYHU LI RI WKH VSH cies described are Red Listed, this will contribute to their conservation, as well as other species with similar distributions or habitats, and will play an important part in advocacy for invertebrate conservation (New 2009).

Results

Conclusion