Conservation Of Biodiversity Resources Research Articles

Community Leaders’ Knowledge and Perceptions about Biodiversity and Conservation Method in Misamis Oriental, Mindanao, Philippines

The very heart of sustainable growth and the one that ensures life for this changing world is Biodiversity. The study’s main focus was to evaluate the community leaders’ knowledge and perceptions about biodiversity and conservation method in Misamis Oriental, Mindanao, Philippines. The study was conducted in the two cities and twenty three municipalities. The mixed-methods design (cross-sectional descriptive survey) was used in the study. A total of 1,685 assessment data were collected from 1,688 interviewees (male and female). The results showed that more than 50% of the community leaders were found to have above mastery level in their knowledge and had shown positive perception, respectively, regarding biodiversity conservation. Therefore, many community leaders were able to get the expected change in knowledge and perception about conservation of biodiversity resources. Keywords : biodiversity, conservation, community leaders, perception, resources

Indigenous peoples' ways of life and the environment: an ecofeminist authority assertion

What is the ecological value of the indigenous ways of life? For several years now, there has been a widespread conviction, at the institutional and academic levels, that indigenous or native ways of life are a resource for biodiversity conservation. In contrast to this idea, which leads to strategies with significant implicit dangers, this article defends the thesis that the way of life of the original peoples is a valuable experience that contributes to enhance the necessary wisdom to sustain those actions aimed to genuinely repair the current fracture between humanity and nature. With this in mind, the author explores ecofeminist proposals that offer grounds for acknowledging authority over experiences that have remained at the periphery of the modern mainstream: precisely those that are carried out by indigenous peoples.

A multi-criterion approach for prioritizing areas in urban ecosystems for active restoration following invasive plant control.

Resources for biodiversity conservation and invasive plant management are limited, and restoring invaded vegetation is labour-intensive and expensive. Managers must prioritize their actions to achieve their goals efficiently and effectively. They must distinguish between areas that require only the removal of invasive alien plants ("passive restoration") from those that require additional restoration measures ("active restoration"). This study used a multi-criterion approach (Analytical Hierarchical Process) to develop a framework for identifying areas that require active restoration, and then to prioritize these areas for active restoration. The South African city of Cape Town is used as a test case to illustrate the utility of the framework. Framework criteria selected in determining the need for active restoration included: dominant alien species invading the area, density of invasion, duration of invasion, indigenous vegetation cover, adjacent land use, level of disturbance, size of the area, aspect, soil texture, soil depth and erodibility, slope and vegetation type. In deciding which areas to prioritize for active restoration, factors such as vegetation conservation status, selection in a regional conservation plan and connectivity function were assessed. Importance in ecosystem functioning (by providing a diversity of habitats and soil conservation) and the delivery of ecosystem service benefits were also considered. The resulting framework provides an objective tool for prioritizing sites for active restoration.

Socioeconomics of biodiversity conservation in the protected areas: a case study in Bangladesh

ABSTRACTKaptai National Park (KNP) was declared a protected area (PA) in 1999 to protect its degrading biodiversity. This created conflicts between the forest-dependent communities and the KNP managers since in a PA everything is prohibited unless permitted. For the effective conservation of biodiversity resources of the PAs, Bangladesh has adopted forest co-management systems where forest-dependent people play an important role. Surveying a total of 150 households and using generalized logistic regressions, this study has investigated the socioeconomic factors that affect people’s attitude towards biodiversity conservation of KNP and the level of their dependency on its resources. The study revealed that education, income, and forest dependency were positively linked to the likelihood of people’s supports for management of KNP as a PA. However, the distance of household from KNP had a negative relationship with such perception. Similarly, people’s income from forest, permanent residency in the study area, and forest-related occupation were positively aligned with their forest dependency. However, their education level significantly reduced their dependency on forest resources. Thus, educating the forest-dependent people, empowering the local and co-management communities, and supporting alternative income generation activities should be appreciated for effective management of KNP. The study has identified the factors that require sufficient attention of the policymakers and forest managers to enhance biodiversity conservation at KNP and other PAs of the country.

Modelling deadwood supply for biodiversity conservation: Considerations, challenges and recommendations

There are concerns that deadwood supply (both snags and downed wood) may become a limiting resource for biodiversity conservation as the bio-economy develops. Despite this concern, it remains difficult to monitor all elements of biodiversity to ensure that forest management activities are not reducing deadwood below minimum thresholds. As a dynamic resource, deadwood quantity and quality does change throughout forest succession. Simulation modelling represents one approach to integrating this variability and supporting the refinement of forest management guidelines. In this paper, we review important considerations for developing deadwood models that address biodiversity concerns. These include defining initial conditions, estimating deadwood inputs over time, identifying parameters necessary to represent biodiversity, identifying data available to parameterize, calibrate and validate models, and identifying requirements for model validation and documentation. In addition, we consider how deadwood characteristics such as form, size, state of decay, tree species, cause of mortality and position can be treated in models to represent the full range of biodiversity requirements. Lastly, we review examples of stand-alone and study-specific deadwood modelling approaches to provide a road map for development of a robust, temporally dynamic deadwood model that addresses biodiversity and sustainability issues related to biomass harvest for bioenergy.

The importance of novel and agricultural habitats for the avifauna of an oceanic island

Conservation management can no longer rely on protecting pristine habitats, but must consider the wider landscape. This is especially true on oceanic islands where endemic species are believed to be particularly susceptible to the extinction risks that accompany land conversion. Despite this, there is a paucity of studies examining how endemic communities on oceanic islands may be distributed across such human-modified habitats. Taking Príncipe Island in West Africa as a case study, we investigate how avian communities vary across the habitats (primary forest, secondary forest, agricultural areas) of this globally important centre of endemism. Here, recent policy reforms aimed at poverty alleviation and increased food production are rapidly altering the current land-use mosaic. Across all habitats, 27 bird species were encountered. Survey points in secondary forest and agricultural areas were, on average, more diverse and held higher overall abundances of birds than those within primary forest. This was true for both the entire avian assemblage and the endemic species alone. Nevertheless, two IUCN-listed species were restricted to primary forest, and many other endemics occurred at higher densities within this habitat. We demonstrate that agricultural areas and novel habitats, such as secondary forest, can hold high abundances of endemic species and thus have the potential to act as a resource for biodiversity conservation. A double-stranded approach to conservation is therefore required that both protects the integrity of the primary forest and controls the rapid changes in agricultural land-use to ensure that it continues to support a large component of the endemic avifauna.

An Intercultural Examination of Cooperation in the Commons

We design a real-time, intercultural common pool resource experiment using participants from cultures that derive different benefits from a global public good (extraction vs. conservation of biodiversity resources) to analyze the effect of group affiliation on cooperative behavior. We also collect survey attitudes toward conservation to augment our experimental results. We find that when participants interact interculturally, extraction choices change significantly and that these changes can be attributed to an amplification of the relationship between attitudes and choices cued by the intercultural treatment.

Mapping the Economic Costs and Benefits of Conservation

Resources for biodiversity conservation are severely limited, requiring strategic investment. Understanding both the economic benefits and costs of conserving ecosystems will help to allocate scarce dollars most efficiently. However, although cost-benefit analyses are common in many areas of policy, they are not typically used in conservation planning. We conducted a spatial evaluation of the costs and benefits of conservation for a landscape in the Atlantic forests of Paraguay. We considered five ecosystem services (i.e., sustainable bushmeat harvest, sustainable timber harvest, bioprospecting for pharmaceutical products, existence value, and carbon storage in aboveground biomass) and compared them to estimates of the opportunity costs of conservation. We found a high degree of spatial variability in both costs and benefits over this relatively small (~3,000 km2) landscape. Benefits exceeded costs in some areas, with carbon storage dominating the ecosystem service values and swamping opportunity costs. Other benefits associated with conservation were more modest and exceeded costs only in protected areas and indigenous reserves. We used this cost-benefit information to show that one potential corridor between two large forest patches had net benefits that were three times greater than two otherwise similar alternatives. Spatial cost-benefit analysis can powerfully inform conservation planning, even though the availability of relevant data may be limited, as was the case in our study area. It can help us understand the synergies between biodiversity conservation and economic development when the two are indeed aligned and to clearly understand the trade-offs when they are not.

A Framework for Socioeconomic Valuation of Biodiversity in the PABITRA Focal Sites in Fiji

In Fiji, one of the underlying causes of historical and current losses of biodiversity has been lack of recognition of the value of many biological resources. The Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect (PABITRA) project provides an opportunity for integration of social and economic valuation of biodiversity. This is critical for any decision relating to management and conservation of biodiversity resources. Socioeconomic valuation of biodiversity can assist communities and policy makers to better understand the net benefits of managing and conserving biodiversity. This paper presents a framework that can be applied for valuing the socioeconomic attributes of biodiversity in the PABITRA focal sites. This framework has two components. First is the quantitative method of valuation. For this, environmental economics can be applied, in particular the use of nonmarket valuation methods. Second is the qualitative method. This is based on application of participatory economic valuation methods. This second method of eliciting economic values incorporates institutional, social, and cultural activities and equity issues at the village or community levels.

Putting action into biodiversity planning: assessing preferences towards funding

Water companies in England and Wales are responsible for the management of large areas of land. This land is under little pressure for development and is often free from the pollutants associated with conventional agriculture and is therefore a potentially valuable resource for biodiversity conservation. The value of this resource will only be realized if sufficient investment is made in the management of the habitats associated with these sites. This paper reports an exploratory case study based on customers of Southern Water which uses a mixture of questionnaire surveys and focus groups to investigate whether or not consumers are willing to pay higher utility bills to fund such management. In particular, it explores the public's willingness to forgo potential bill reductions in order to fund biodiversity conservation and examines how payment instruments could be designed to maximize and maintain the agreement from consumers. Results suggest that customers are willing to forgo a proportion of a potential bill reduction to pay for biodiversity schemes but are not necessarily willing to face a bill increase for the same public good benefits. Participants in the focus groups suggested that schemes could be made more acceptable to customers by ensuring that the outcomes were both visible and local and that their achievements were well publicized. Similarly, administration of the scheme through a trust fund alleviates some of the concerns of consumers while raising several new ones.

Issues in Biodiversity Conservation Including the Role of Local Communities

Although many publications have appeared in recent years purporting to address the economics of conservation of biodiversity, most do not address the diversity issues as such. This shortcoming appears only to have been recognized recently. Furthermore, from the literature it is clear that natural living areas — apart from conserving biodiversity — jointly give rise to other conservation benefits, and therefore, their conservation needs to be evaluated holistically.It is suggested that when constraints are placed on available resources for biodiversity conservation, some criteria for species preservation such as those associated with SMS (safe minimum standard) may exhibit unsatisfactory features. While imperfection of knowledge is a serious limitation on rational decision-making about conservation of biodiversity, we have some knowledge and we may be able to use that to determine rational probabilities. In addition, it is important to scrutinize ecological claims about biodiversity. For example, ecosystems containing greater biodiversity may not be more sustainable than those with less diversity. It is also argued that the SMS criterion needs further development because there may be no standard which ensures the survival of any species.