Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund Research Articles

Современный статус балобана в России и в Казахстане

Современный статус балобана в России и в Казахстане

Моделирование распространения, численности и выживаемости видов: новые возможности и методы

Моделирование распространения, численности и выживаемости видов: новые возможности и методы

Хищные птицы и ветроэнергетика в Казахстане: какие перспективы для орлов?

Хищные птицы и ветроэнергетика в Казахстане: какие перспективы для орлов?

CERRADO KNOWLEDGE PLATFORM: A SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT TOOL TO CONSERVE BRAZILIAN SAVANNAS

Abstract. In the last decade, the access to geographic information through Web platforms has grown substantially in Brazil, and is now a strategic condition for the social and environmental governance of large biomes such as Cerrado (savanna) and Amazonia. This paper aims to present the first version of the Cerrado Knowledge Platform, designed within the scope of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) for the Brazilian savanna. The Platform aims to provide geospatial and census data, organize and systematize the accumulated knowledge about the Cerrado, and also highlight the actions of researches and social networks in this region. It was developed based on three components: (1) protocols and data formats; (2) adaptation of computational tools for social and environmental analysis and monitoring, in order to notify possible threats to the ecosystem (e.g. burning and deforestation); (3) training and maintenance database component. Although still in a beta version, our platform already has some active features, including access to dynamic land use maps, deforestation, and aerial imagery provided by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). With its enhancement and constant data input from partners, we expect the Cerrado Knowledge Platform can better assist the management of land use and land cover of Cerrado, with a perspective of maintaining key areas for biodiversity conservation.

Rapid Assessment of Ecosystem Service Co-Benefits of Biodiversity Priority Areas in Madagascar.

The importance of ecosystems for supporting human well-being is increasingly recognized by both the conservation and development sectors. Our ability to conserve ecosystems that people rely on is often limited by a lack of spatially explicit data on the location and distribution of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits provided by nature to people. Thus there is a need to map ES to guide conservation investments, to ensure these co-benefits are maintained. To target conservation investments most effectively, ES assessments must be rigorous enough to support conservation planning, rapid enough to respond to decision-making timelines, and often must rely on existing data. We developed a framework for rapid spatial assessment of ES that relies on expert and stakeholder consultation, available data, and spatial analyses in order to rapidly identify sites providing multiple benefits. We applied the framework in Madagascar, a country with globally significant biodiversity and a high level of human dependence on ecosystems. Our objective was to identify the ES co-benefits of biodiversity priority areas in order to guide the investment strategy of a global conservation fund. We assessed key provisioning (fisheries, hunting and non-timber forest products, and water for domestic use, agriculture, and hydropower), regulating (climate mitigation, flood risk reduction and coastal protection), and cultural (nature tourism) ES. We also conducted multi-criteria analyses to identify sites providing multiple benefits. While our approach has limitations, including the reliance on proximity-based indicators for several ES, the results were useful for targeting conservation investments by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). Because our approach relies on available data, standardized methods for linking ES provision to ES use, and expert validation, it has the potential to quickly guide conservation planning and investment decisions in other data-poor regions.

DEFINING PRIORITIES IN THE MIDST OF UNCERTAINTY: THE CEPF ECOSYSTEM PROFILE PROCESS FOR WALLACEA

Conservation priorities in Wallacea were identified to inform planning of a Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) grants facility. Priorities were defined using locality data for 560 globally threatened species which occur in Wallacea, as defined by IUCN. 251 terrestrial and freshwater Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) were identified. Locality records also allowed the identification of 74 marine KBAs, and information on range and habitat was used to identify a further 66 candidate marine KBAs. Approximately one-third of terrestrial KBAs have protected area status. To help focus conservation efforts, twenty-four terrestrial KBAs with single-site endemics and critically endangered species were identified. The study highlights the lack of data on many species, and the lack of a centralized repository for biodiversity information on Wallacea. Urgent research needs include survey work to confirm the presence of species in more sites, taxonomic work to clarify the status of some species and sub-species, and expert-lead threat assessments to update the Red List.

Conservation partnerships and biodiversity governance: fulfilling governance functions through interaction

ABSTRACTOver the last decades, new governance mechanisms such as partnerships have been increasingly accepted as instruments for sustainable development. This article contributes to an improved understanding of the contributions of partnerships, and their interactions with and consequences for intergovernmental regimes. It answers the question to what extent the roles of international intersectoral partnerships in biodiversity governance can be assessed using a positive, negative, or utilitarian qualification. To answer this question, the article develops and applies a methodology to analyze the governance functions that partnerships fulfill, and the institutional interaction (in terms of content, discourses, and rules) between the partnerships and intergovernmental regimes. Two case studies are analyzed: the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), which works on biodiversity hotspots. Contrary to most partnerships, these conservation partnerships do not use the market as a steering mechanism for sustainable development, but focus on enhancing international policy processes. The article concludes that the partnerships reinvent biodiversity policy and politics, which is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the biodiversity governance system, and that they complement intergovernmental regimes, albeit with varying effectiveness. Recommendations are developed for governments to strategically enhance public–private interaction. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The IUCN global assessments: partnerships, collaboration and data sharing for biodiversity science and policy

AbstractThe development of standards, data sharing, and initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and others have advanced research in many fields, including in conservation of biodiversity. Global assessments of extinction risk to species have been completed by IUCN for multiple taxa. The IUCN global assessments have had a major impact on conservation science and practice as well as biodiversity funding mechanisms though the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). A signature of the assessments is a process of sustained interaction between conservation organizations and the research and academic community, effectively integrating science and policy on global scale. The model relies on several critical components: openness of the conservation community to scientific input and debate, engagement of the scientific community, conservation organization mediated data collation, and data sharing with ease of access. This model can be applied to other challenges to conserve biodiversity and assess how biodiversity loss affects the well‐being of societies across the world. The recognition of the importance of biodiversity in meeting the Millennium Development Goals and the recognition of the failure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity Target illustrate the gap between what needs to be achieved and our current trajectory.

Conservation biogeography forum: Neil D. Burgess

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

Checklist of the fishes of the Achankovil forests, Kerala, India with notes on the range extension of an endemic cyprinid Puntius chalakkudiensis

We report the results of an ichthyofaunal inventory carried out in the Achankovil Reserve Forest in the southern Western Ghats as part of a Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund Project on lesser known freshwater fishes of Kerala . Forty-six species of freshwater fish, belonging to 17 families and 31 genera were collected from 11 sites inside the Achankovil Reserve Forest. Family Cyprinidae dominated with 21 species, followed by Bagridae, Balitoridae and Channidae (three species each). Out of the 46 species, 14 were endemic to the Western Ghats, three were endemic to Kerala region and one was exotic to the country. In this paper, we also report the range extension of an endemic cyprinid, Puntius chalakkudiensis to the Achankovil River and the Achankovil Reserve Forest. The fish diversity of this region is higher than many protected areas within southern Western Ghats, and stresses the need for immediate protection and monitoring programs.

Seeing the wood for the trees: an assessment of the impact of participatory forest management on forest condition in Tanzania

We thank the staff of the Forestry and Beekeeping Division for sharing data obtained through the national assessment of PFM in Tanzania, and their agreement to use these data. The national PFM assessment, as well as the forest assessment work undertaken by J. Isango, was made possible by a grant to the government of Tanzania from the Danish government under a wider grant in support of PFM. The work by K. Pfliegner around Uluguru was supported by a research grant from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and undertaken in cooperation with the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania. Much of the work undertaken by E. Zahabu was supported by the Netherlands Directorate for Development Cooperation through the University of Twente, Netherlands. Disturbance transect data from the Eastern Arc Mountains analysed by A. Ahrends come from reports produced mainly by Frontier-Tanzania (a collaboration of the Society for Environmental Exploration and the University of Dar es Salaam). We gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the Society for Environmental Exploration staff in London (especially E. Fanning) and the many Frontier-Tanzania staff and volunteers who collected data, especially N. Doggart, K. Doody, C. Bracebridge, V. Williams and N. Owens. Data for the coastal forests were primarily collected by A. Ahrends and B. Mhoro using funding from CEPF, WWF-Tanzania and the University of Greifswald, Germany. We also thank WWF-US and University of Cambridge, UK (Valuing the Arc) for covering the time of N. Burgess during the preparation of this paper. A. Ahrends was funded by the Marie-Curie Excellence programme of the European 6th Framework under contract MEXTCT- 2004-517098 to Dr. Rob Marchant, who we also thank for useful comments on an earlier draft. Two anonymous referees also provided valuable suggestions. Fig. 1 was prepared by J. Green, supported by WWF-US.

Vegetation of the Hantam-Tanqua-Roggeveld subregion, South Africa. Part 1: Fynbos Biome related vegetation

The Succulent Karoo Hotspot stretches along the western side of the Republic of South Africa and Namibia. A lack of botanical information on the Hantam-Tanqua-Roggeveld area of the Succulent Karoo Hotspot was identified during the SKEP (Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Plan) process. A grant from CEPF (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund) funded a study to produce a vegetation map of the area to serve as baseline for ecosystem management.Vegetation surveys were conducted over an area of more than three million hectares from August to October 2004. Two major floristic units were identified, namely the Fynbos Biome related (Mountain Renosterveld) and Succulent Karoo Biome related units. An analysis of the floristic data of the predominantly Mountain Renosterveld vegetation unit is presented in this paper. Three associations were identified, which were subdivided into nine subassociations, one of which contains four variants. The vegetation units are described in terms of their species composition and their relationships with the physical environment. A vegetation map is provided depicting the geographical distribution of the different vegetation types. The main threat to the vegetation of the region identified by the farming community was a lack of infrastructure.

Contested Sovereignties and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a new global conservation funding project created in 2000 through start‐up funds from Conservation International, the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility, and the MacArthur Foundation. It aims to protect the world's biodiversity hotspots, promote civil society, and assist in the Millennial Development Goals to eradicate poverty worldwide. This essay analyzes the CEPF through the making of the Mountains of Southwest China eco‐profile and in light of Hardt and Negri's much‐debated critique of globalization. While the CEPF imagines itself as a universal project with planetary ambitions, which move around the world empirelike, in China it has had to funnel its monies through a range of organizations connected to an increasingly anxious state. What results is a transformed global project, where the meanings of environmental activism, civil society, and grassroots resistance are up for grabs. The CEPF thus provides a window in the production of contested sovereignties in the bold new age of imperial sovereignty.

Protected Birds of Nepal: A Review of their Status, Distribution and Habitat

National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1973 is the major Act that forms the basis for biodiversity protection in Nepal. The Act lists nine species of birds protected by law. These species are Tragopan satyra (Satyr Tragopan), Lophophorus impejanus (Danphe), Catreus wallichi (Cheer), Buceros bicornis (Great Hornbill), Houbaropsis bengalensis (Bengal Florican), Sypheotides indica (Lesser Florican), Grus antigone (Sarus Crane), Ciconia ciconia (White Stork) and C. nigra (Black Stork). As these birds were listed on the Act several years back, there is a need to update the list taking into account the available information on Nepal's birds. Himalayan Nature funded by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and World Wildlife Fund (WWF Nepal) is working to recommend updated list to Nepal government. Key Words: National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act, Protected birds of Nepal, Status update DOI: 10.3126/init.v3i0.2429 The Initiation Vol.3 2009 p.66-80