The Role of Megafauna Restoration in Dryland, Natural and Cultural Heritage Conservation

Abstract

Eurasia and North Africa are traversed by the world’s largest continuous belt of drylands. It has harboured the earliest manifestation of many endeavours of mankind and most major domestication events. Deserts and the challenges they provide have generated extraordinarily elaborate responses by biological evolution and by human technological and cultural development. The achievements of these processes can still be admired today in species of unique emblematic value and in manifestations of cultural know-how. This inestimable cultural and natural heritage is gravely threatened, in part by ignorance of its significance. Deserts have a negative image in dominant socio-economic models. The value of their biological diversity resides in beta-diversity, so that they escape the attention of many actors of conservation, focused on centres of species richness. Identifying conservation processes for their distinctive species and communities is thus urgent. The megafauna is a determinant factor of these efforts. Its constitutive species are key components of dryland ecosystems. They are an essential source of inspiration for cultural traditions, extensively represented since earliest times in art and myths of the region. They have an unparalleled attraction potential, extending well beyond the generation of tourism as a source of cultural, scientific and recreational interest in the land. They can be flagship species, guaranteeing sustainability of conservation efforts. Linking major archaeological and historical sites, in which the region is exceptionally rich, with natural sites of unique quality, through the theme of the great mammals, is a particularly promising approach to the revalorisation of the resources of drylands.