How to protect half of Earth to ensure it protects sufficient biodiversity.
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2018-08-29
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It is theoretically possible to protect large fractions of species in relatively small regions. For plants, 85% of species occur entirely within just over a third of the Earth's land surface, carefully optimized to maximize the species captured. Well-known vertebrate taxa show similar patterns. Protecting half of Earth might not be necessary, but would it be sufficient given the current trends of protection? The predilection of national governments is to protect areas that are "wild," that is, typically remote, cold, or arid. Unfortunately, those areas often hold relatively few species. Wild places likely afford the easier opportunities for the future expansion of protected areas, with the expansion into human-dominated landscapes the greater challenge. We identify regions that are not currently protected, but that are wild, and consider which of them hold substantial numbers of especially small-ranged vertebrate species. We assess how successful the strategy of protecting the wilder half of Earth might be in conserving biodiversity. It is far from sufficient. (Protecting large wild places for reasons other than biodiversity protection, such as carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services, might still have importance.) Unexpectedly, we also show that, despite the bias in establishing large protected areas in wild places to date, numerous small protected areas are in biodiverse places. They at least partially protect significant fractions of especially small-ranged species. So, while a preoccupation with protecting large areas for the sake of getting half of Earth might achieve little for biodiversity, there is more progress in protecting high-biodiversity areas than currently appreciated. Continuing to prioritize the right parts of Earth, not just the total area protected, is what matters for biodiversity.
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Pimm, Stuart L, Clinton N Jenkins and Binbin V Li (2018). How to protect half of Earth to ensure it protects sufficient biodiversity. Science advances, 4(8). p. eaat2616. 10.1126/sciadv.aat2616 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/23526.
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Stuart L. Pimm
Stuart Pimm is a world leader in the study of present-day extinctions and what can be done to prevent them. His research covers the reasons why species become extinct, how fast they do so, the global patterns of habitat loss and species extinction and, importantly, the management consequences of this research. Pimm received his BSc degree from Oxford University in 1971 and his Ph.D. from New Mexico State University in 1974. Pimm is the author of over 350 scientific papers and five books. He is one of the most highly cited environmental scientists. Pimm wrote the highly acclaimed assessment of the human impact to the planet: The World According to Pimm: a Scientist Audits the Earth in 2001. His commitment to the interface between science and policy has led to his testimony to both House and Senate Committees on the re-authorization of the Endangered Species Act. He was worked and taught in Africa for nearly 30 years on elephants, most recently lions — through National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative — but always on topics that relate to the conservation of wildlife and the ecosystems on which they depend. Other research areas include the Everglades of Florida and tropical forests in South America, especially the Atlantic Coast forest of Brazil and the northern Andes — two of the world's "hotspots" for threatened species. His international honours include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2010), the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), the Society for Conservation Biology’s Edward T. LaRoe III Memorial Award (2006), and the Marsh Award for Conservation Biology, from the Marsh Christian Trust (awarded by the Zoological Society of London in 2004). Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, awarded him the William Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement in 2007. In 2019, he won the International Cosmos Prize, which recognised his founding and directing Saving Nature, www.savingnature.org, a non-profit that uses donations for carbon emissions offsets to fund local conservation groups in areas of exceptional tropical biodiversity to restore their degraded lands.
Binbin Li
Dr. Binbin Li is the Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. She holds a secondary appointment with the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She focuses on the synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development under climate change. She has produced more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in the last six years and published in top journals, including Science, Science Advances, PNAS, Current Biology, Lancet and Conservation Biology. Her work has been widely reported by major media including BBC, CNN, China Daily and others. She has served as PI for more than 10 projects in recent years and secured more than 8.5 million RMB in funding. Dr. Li has been awarded EC50 by Explorers Club, one of the world’s most inspiring explorers. She has received the Outstanding Young Talent by National Natural Science Foundation of China, one of the top talent awards in China to recognize her leading role in scholarship. She serves as the co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) WCPA-protected planet specialist group, and serves on the IUCN Species Survival Commission, World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Prevention of Viral Spillover convened by Lancet and PPATS. Dr. Li also serves on the advisory board of State Forestry and Grassland Administration and Giant Panda National Park. She is the editor-in-chief of Integrative Conservation and associate editor of Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution. She also serves on the editorial board of Conservation Biology, Global Ecology and Conservation, Biodiversity Science and National Parks. Dr. Li is engaged in science communication and nature education. She has been awarded nature photographer of the Year in the Chinese National Geography China Wildlife Image and Video Competition in 2022. She is the founder of the China Anti-bird Collision Action Alliance, the largest citizen science project in China. She is also the board director of SilverLining Conservation Center, which aims to increase the capacity of storytelling for conservation practitioners and to change public behaviors using media instruments.
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