Policy-driven versus Evidence-based Conservation: A Review of Political Targets and Biological Needs

Svancara, Leona K.; Brannon, J Ree; Scott, Michael J.; Groves, Craig; Noss, Reed F.; Pressey, Robert L.

doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0989:pvecar]2.0.co;2

Cited by 233 publications

(186 citation statements)

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“…Myers [30], Svancara et al [31] and the Convention on Biological Diversity [32] point that at least 10%, and perhaps as much as 20%, of tropical moist forest needs to preserve biodiversity. Svancara et al [31] show that proposed protection percentages in conservation assessments (30.6 percent ± 4.5 percent) and threshold analyses (41.6 percent ± 7.7 percent) are significantly greater than average policy-negotiated values (13.3 percent ± 2.7 percent).…”

Section: Limitations To Land and Green Water Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability, Efficiency and Equitability of Water Consumption and Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

et al. 2015

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This paper assesses the sustainability, efficiency and equity of water use in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by means of a geographic Water Footprint Assessment (WFA). It aims to provide understanding of water use from both a production and consumption point of view. The study identifies priority basins and areas from the perspectives of blue water scarcity, water pollution and deforestation. Wheat, fodder crops and sugarcane are identified as priority products related to blue water scarcity. The domestic sector is the priority sector regarding water pollution from nitrogen. Soybean and pasture are priority products related to deforestation. We estimate that consumptive water use in crop production could be reduced by 37% and nitrogen-related water pollution by 44% if water footprints were reduced to certain specified benchmark levels. The average WF per consumer in the region is 28% larger than the global average and varies greatly, from 912 m 3 /year per capita in Nicaragua to 3468 m 3 /year in Bolivia. Ironically, the LAC region shows significant levels of undernourishment, although there is abundant water and food production in the region and substantial use of land and water for producing export crops like soybean.

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Section: Limitations To Land and Green Water Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability, Efficiency and Equitability of Water Consumption and Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

et al. 2015

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“…Pressey et al (2003) noted that "recent comprehensive conservation plans have delineated around 50% or more of regions for nature conservation". Svancara et al (2005) reviewed 159 articles reporting or proposing 222 conservation targets and assessed www.iucn.org/parks differences between policy-driven and evidence-based approaches. By evidence-based approaches they meant an adequate understanding and mapping of the distribution and viability of the conservation requirements of individual biodiversity features such as species and vegetation types and found that the average percentages of area recommended for evidence-based targets were nearly three times as high as those recommended in policy-driven approaches.…”

Section: What Scientific Analysis Suggests Protected Area Targets Ougmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature needs half: a necessary and hopeful new agenda for protected areas

Locke¹

2013

PARKS

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Conservation targets should be based on what is necessary to protect nature in all its expressions. When in 1988 the Brundtland report called for tripling the world's protected area estate (which was then at 3 to 4 per cent of the land area) there was a strong belief that sustainable development would ensure the proper care for nature on the rest of the unprotected earth. This has proven wrong. We therefore must materially shift our protected areas target to protect at least half of the world, land and water, in an interconnected way to conform with what conservation biologists have learned about the needs of nature. Instead we have set goals that are politically determined, with arbitrary percentages that rest on an unarticulated hope that such non-scientific goals are a good first step towards some undefined better future outcome. This has been a destructive form of self-censorship. It is time for conservationists to reset the debate based on scientific findings and assert nature's needs fearlessly.

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“…Both breakpointbased and classification thresholds are useful tools in evidencebased conservation (Sutherland et al 2004, Svancara et al 2005, Rondinini and Chiozza 2010. Thresholds in response variables may be expected when the ecological gradient reflects the amount of a critical ecological resource, e.g., the amount of live or dead wood for a woodpecker or the area of suitable habitat within a certain landscape context (Jansson andAngelstam 1999, Betts et al 2007), or the negative impacts of anthropogenic changes, e.g., the abundance of Sprague's Pipit (Anthus spragueii) is reduced near roads or crops (Koper et al 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, ecological thresholds may offer critical insight into ecosystem functioning or species-specific requirements. They also offer useful guidelines when developing evidence-based conservation targets (Sutherland et al 2004, Svancara et al 2005, Rondinini and Chiozza 2010, Samhouri et al 2010, for which birds have often been used as a focal group (Villard and Jonsson 2009). Perhaps for these reasons, the number of papers on this topic has increased exponentially since 1980.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threshold detection: matching statistical methodology to ecological questions and conservation planning objectives

Toms¹,

Villard²

2015

ACE

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ABSTRACT. Two types of ecological thresholds are now being widely used to develop conservation targets: breakpoint-based thresholds represent tipping points where system properties change dramatically, whereas classification thresholds identify groups of data points with contrasting properties. Both breakpoint-based and classification thresholds are useful tools in evidence-based conservation. However, it is critical that the type of threshold to be estimated corresponds with the question of interest and that appropriate statistical procedures are used to determine its location. On the basis of their statistical properties, we recommend using piecewise regression methods to identify breakpoint-based thresholds and discriminant analysis or classification and regression trees to identify classification thresholds. Détection des seuils : choix de la méthode statistique en fonction des questions écologiques et des objectifs de planification de la conservationRÉSUMÉ. À l'heure actuelle, deux types de seuils écologiques sont communément utilisés dans l'élaboration d'objectifs de conservation : alors que les seuils correspondant à un point de rupture représentent le point de basculement où les propriétés du système changent radicalement, les seuils de classification, eux, séparent les données en groupes ayant des propriétés divergentes. Tant les seuils fondés sur le point de rupture que ceux fondés sur la classification sont des outils utiles pour la conservation issue d'observations. Toutefois, le type de seuils que nous cherchons à estimer doit impérativement concorder avec la question qui nous préoccupe, tandis que la méthode statistique utilisée pour déterminer la localisation précise du seuil doit être appropriée. En nous fondant sur leurs propriétés statistiques, nous recommandons l'utilisation d'une méthode de régression par segments pour déterminer un seuil correspondant à un point de rupture et d'une analyse discriminante ou d'un arbre de classification ou de régression pour déterminer un seuil de classification.

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Policy-driven versus Evidence-based Conservation: A Review of Political Targets and Biological Needs

Cited by 233 publications

References 31 publications

Sustainability, Efficiency and Equitability of Water Consumption and Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

Sustainability, Efficiency and Equitability of Water Consumption and Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

Nature needs half: a necessary and hopeful new agenda for protected areas

Threshold detection: matching statistical methodology to ecological questions and conservation planning objectives

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