Abstract
Apart from being the main cause of biodiversity loss, humans are also essential for sustainability and biological conservation. Regulations for the conservation of threatened species are key to respond to this challenge. Here we evaluate the efficacy of mandatory regulations in Spain, a decentralized country, for the effective protection of threatened terrestrial vertebrates. We studied the association between the number of both “vulnerable” and “endangered” species on regional lists of threatened species and approved management plans for such species (mandatory) with ecological (e.g. percentage of forest and agricultural areas), social (e.g. environmental awareness and GPD per capita) and geographical (e.g. total and protected areas) variables on the regional scale. Our results showed that an approved management plan is available for only 20% of threatened terrestrial vertebrates and there were important taxonomical and regional biases. Higher protection levels appeared in regions with higher percentages of protected area, more citizens’ environmental awareness, lower GPD per capita and shorter regional lists. Herpetofauna has fewer approved management plans than mammals or birds. Our results highlight the importance of integrating the perspective, knowledge and practices of all stakeholders (Academia, governments and society) to effectively apply environmental regulations.
Highlights
One of the major challenges that today’s society faces is mitigating the biodiversity loss curve (Ceballos et al, 2015; Ceballos et al, 2017; Mace et al, 2018; Ripple et al, 2019; WWF, 2020) as it threatens the essential ecosystem services provided for humanity (Díaz et al, 2006), harming both human well-being and ecosystem functioning (Mace et al, 2005; Tilman et al, 2014)
We found that the mandatory regulations for the conservation of wildlife species in Spain are complied with only by 20% of the species, which highlights generalized under protection of terrestrial vertebrates
Delays in the applica tions for management plans were found, which represented were exceeded the application period described in laws by more than 2-fold for “Vulnerable” species and 3-fold for “Endangered” species
Summary
One of the major challenges that today’s society faces is mitigating the biodiversity loss curve (Ceballos et al, 2015; Ceballos et al, 2017; Mace et al, 2018; Ripple et al, 2019; WWF, 2020) as it threatens the essential ecosystem services provided for humanity (Díaz et al, 2006), harming both human well-being and ecosystem functioning (Mace et al, 2005; Tilman et al, 2014) Global changes, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, soil erosion, water scarcity, development disparities or global warming (Schellnhuber et al, 1997), are the main threats for biodiversity conservation (Bellard et al, 2014). Albeit it helps to protect some species, it can undermine the overall biodiversity conservation goal (Di Marco et al, 2017; Christie et al, 2020a)
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