Conservation biogeography forum: Neil D. Burgess

Abstract

profiles ISSN 1948-6596 conservation biogeography forum Neil D. Burgess Senior Conservation Scientist (Africa), WWF US Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cam- bridge http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/csg/nburgess.html Interviewed by Antje Ahrends Neil Burgess obtained a PhD in the evolution of plants in 1987. Since then he worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, WWF (USA)‚ The Natural History Museum of the University of Copenhagen‚ The Danish Ornithological Society‚ the Danish Development Assistance Agency (DANIDA)‚ the United Na- tions Development Programme (UNDP)‚ the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and Cambridge Univer- sity. Neil Burgess worked as a conservation scientist and conservation manager specialising in projects in the developing countries‚ especially in East Africa. These have included forest and marine conservation‚ conservation planning‚ capacity building‚ biodiversity inventory‚ costing conservation‚ improving pro- tected area databases and measuring the management effectiveness and the costs and benefits of pro- tected areas. Relevance of biogeography to your work Antje Ahrends: Is biogeography – “the study of the geography of life” – a relevant discipline to your work? Neil Burgess: Yes, biogeography is relevant to my work. It is particularly important to my work for WWF. We devised a system of Ecoregions that are used to prioritise where WWF should focus con- servation efforts at a global and at continental scales - Africa being the area where I work. This prioritisation scheme (called “Global 200”) identi- fies the most important areas for endemic species within major taxonomic groups - mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other taxa. However, Global200 is not only driven by endemics but also considers ecological processes. African savannahs are a good example for that – they are not high in endemism but have the largest concentration of large mammals on earth, and some of the last re- maining large mammal migrations. A conservation prioritisation scheme that does not include such ecological process values would leave out impor- tant areas. So yes, from a practical point of view biogeography is very relevant to my work as it de- fines the areas where WWF works on the ground. AA: Do you think biogeography is relevant to prac- tical conservation planning in general? NB: Yes, biogeography, or rather conservation biogeography, is important to all conservation organisations, whether they are Conservation In- ternational, WWF or BirdLife International. All of these organisations developed their own conser- vation prioritisation scheme underpinned by bio- geographic information, and in many regions these systems agree. These schemes have been developed at a global scale, but also at finer scales – for example the Congo Basin – people use bio- geographic information in order to define where to work on the ground, which landscapes, ecologi- cal processes and species to conserve and how to design the protected area network. I think that the application of biogeographical data and some of the fundamental principals of that discipline becomes more tangible and relevant to practical conservation as you go down in scale. AA: Do you read biogeographic journals, or other- wise receive information on new findings in the field of biogeography? What are your main sources for this? NB: I do not read academic literature on a regular basis. However, working at a university I have ac- cess to biogeographic journals, and I read articles relevant to my work when I find out about them. I also published in and review for biogeographic journals, for example Diversity and Distributions. However, I don’t read these journals systemati- © 2009 the authors; journal compilation © 2009 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 1.1, 2009