Integrating Habitat Status, Human Population Pressure, and Protection Status into Biodiversity Conservation Priority Setting

Abstract

Priority setting is an essential component of biodiversity conservation. Existing methods to identify priority areas for conservation have focused almost entirely on biological factors. We suggest a new relative ranking method for identifying priority conservation areas that integrates both biological and social aspects. It is based on the following criteria: the habitat's status, human population pressure, human efforts to protect habitat, and number of endemic plant and vertebrate species. We used this method to rank 25 hotspots, 17 megadiverse countries, and the hotspots within each megadiverse country. We used consistent, comprehensive, georeferenced, and multiband data sets and analytical remote sensing and geographic information system tools to quantify habitat status, human population pressure, and protection status. The ranking suggests that the Philippines, Atlantic Forest, Mediterranean Basin, Caribbean Islands, Caucasus, and Indo-Burma are the hottest hotspots and that China, the Philippines, and India are the hottest megadiverse countries. The great variation in terms of habitat, protected areas, and population pressure among the hotspots, the megadiverse countries, and the hotspots within the same country suggests the need for hotspot-and country-specific conservation policies.

An overview of recent remote sensing and GIS based research in ecological informatics

“…Remote sensing and GIS have the potential to make important contributions to biodiversity conservation. They may, for example, aid the prioritization of candidate locations for new reserves (Mang et al, 2007;Schulman et al, 2007;Vagiatzakis et al, 2006;Cayuela et al, 2006b;Tchouto et al, 2006;Friedlander et al, 2007;Wood and Dragicevic, 2007l;Beech et al, 2008), especially as sometimes only relatively coarse biological information may be required (Shi et al, 2005;Harris et al, 2005;Knudby et al, 2007). Moreover, remote sensing and GIS may be used to help monitor the effectiveness of reserves, allowing, for example, evaluation of changes inside and outside of reserve boundaries (Southworth et al, 2006;Wright et al, 2007;Joseph et al, 2009).…”

Agricultural Biodiversity in Southern Brazil: Integrating Efforts for Conservation and Use of Neglected and Underutilized Species

“…The ecological, social, economic, cultural, ethical and aesthetic values of biodiversity have been capturing the attention of different segments of society in the context of debates regarding the deployment of agricultural biodiversity in sustainable development [6,7]. Most recent market strategies for the valorisation of agricultural biodiversity leverage territorial identity, embodiment of traditional food preparation -know-how‖, local culture and food history.…”

Identifying Habitat Connectivity for Isolated Populations of Lion-Tailed Macaque (Macaca silenus) in Valparai Plateau, Western Ghats, India

“…Menon and Bawa (1997) estimated that forest cover in the Western Ghats declined by 40% from 1920 to 1990, resulting in a four-fold increase in the number of fragments and an 83% reduction in the size of the remaining forest patches. This is unsurprising given that this region has the highest human population density of any of the biodiversity hotspots (Cincotta et al 2000;Shi et al 2005). The Valparai plateau in the southern region of the Western Ghats has undergone extensive fragmentation from the early 1900's because of forest clearance for tea, coffee, cardamom and eucalyptus plantations, and the associated infrastructural development (Joseph et al 2009).…”