Conservation's Disenfranchised Urban Poor

Schwartz, Mark W.; Jurjavcic, Nicole L.; O’Brien, Joshua

doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0601:csdup]2.0.co;2

Cited by 63 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…In addition, backyard biodiversity emphasizes the importance of local-scale grassroots conservation efforts and their leadership in ultimately determining the priorities and effectiveness of biodiversity conservation efforts (Schwartz et al 2002;Mascia et al 2003;Berkes 2004). This concept also recognizes the diversity of organisms inhabiting the spatial scales encompassed by people's private properties, neighborhoods, and local municipalities (i.e., villages, cities).…”

Section: Backyard Biodiversity From a Global Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although conservation plans and policies are usually developed at global or national levels (WRI, IUCN, UNEP 1992; Alcorn 1993; Center for Wildlife Law 1996; Schwartz et al 2002;Broberg 2003;Berkes 2004;Ricklefs 2004;CBD 2006aCBD , 2006b, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management must occur at a local scale where factors related to the local human population (e.g., local politics and attitudes) are more effectively understood and addressed. Because of the predominant focus on biodiversity issues at a global or, perhaps more often, country level, local-scale conservation and ecosystem management efforts can be shortchanged, and often lack the required resources and technical guidance.…”

Section: Backyard Biodiversity From a Global Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…(However, this point is not meant to discount the ingenuity and creativity of many successful smaller-scale conservation efforts that have progressed without professional technical assistance, especially in developing or underdeveloped countries.) In most locations around the world, there is practically no information about backyard biodiversity patterns, particularly in human-dominated (i.e., agricultural and urbanized: Schwartz et al 2002;McKinney 2002) ecosystems, as well as in areas that have been the focus of global conservation efforts (i.e., biodiversity hotspots: Myers 1988Myers , 1990Myers et al 2000;Mittermeiyer et al 2000). In general, however, current trends in biodiversity science and conservation efforts suggest that the future prospects for activities aimed at studying and documenting biodiversity at the backyard and grassroots levels, which are needed for the development of sustainable ecosystem management practices, are not very good.…”

Section: Backyard Biodiversity From a Global Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Urban ecology is now a rapidly developing field (UNEP 2002;Redman et al 2004;Heemsbergen et al 2004;Shochat et al 2006) and conservation biologists are increasingly recognizing the importance of urbanized landscapes in biodiversity protection (e.g., Schwartz et al 2002;McKinney 2002;Pellet et al 2004). All these scientific endeavors require information on the structure and composition of backyard biodiversity, for which taxonomy and taxonomists are needed to systematically explore and document taxa in human-dominated ecosystems.…”

Section: Ecology and Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, contemporary taxonomists are not readily available for such research or local conservation projects. Advancing ecosystem management in urbanized environments demands site-specific biodiversity information for conservation and management guidelines in human-managed habitats and those that face immediate destruction due to human landscape transformation (e.g., national parks and suburban forest remnants) (Kim 2001;Schwartz et al 2002;Mahan et al 2004;Turner et al 2004;Kim 2005a). Inventory of backyard biodiversity offers extraordinary opportunities for taxonomic discoveries, as exemplified by two recent species discoveries in urban environments in the United States: a new earthworm species from Maryland (Czuzdi and Szlavecz 2002) and a new centipede species found in Central Park, New York (Foddai et al 2003).…”

Section: Ecology and Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biodiversity loss and the taxonomic bottleneck: emerging biodiversity science

Kim¹,

Byrne²

2006

Ecological Research

178

140

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Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today's biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. ''Backyard biodiversity'', defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of ''backyard biodiversity'' specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomi...

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Section: Backyard Biodiversity From a Global Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%