Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

what steps are being taken to reduce the use of fire as a way of promoting agriculture

Biodiversity & Human Well-being

  • Level one: Summary
  • Level two: Details
  • Level 3: Source

6. What actions can exist taken to conserve biodiversity?

  • 6.ane How practice protected areas benefit biodiversity and humans?
  • 6.2 Tin economical incentives do good biodiversity and local communities?
  • 6.three How can invasive species be addressed?
  • six.4 How exercise protected areas benefit biodiversity and humans?
    • half-dozen.iv.1 Strategies for integrating biodiversity bug in production sectors
    • 6.4.2 Contributions of the private sector to biodiversity objectives
  • half-dozen.five What governance approaches can promote biodiversity conservation?
  • 6.6 What are the key factors of success of conservation actions?
  • 6.7 How could important drivers of biodiversity loss be addressed?

The source certificate for this Digest states:

  • Biodiversity loss is driven by local, regional, and global factors, so responses are also needed at all scales.
  • Responses need to acknowledge multiple stakeholders with unlike needs.
  • Given certain conditions, many constructive responses are available to address the issues identified.
  • Responses designed to accost biodiversity loss will non be sustainable or sufficient unless relevant direct and indirect drivers of alter are addressed.
  • Further progress in reducing biodiversity loss volition come through greater coherence and synergies amongst sectoral responses and through more than systematic consideration of merchandise-offs among ecosystem services or between biodiversity conser­vation and other needs of lodge.

Some drivers of biodiversity loss are localized, such as overexploitation. Others are global, such as climate change, while many operate at a variety of scales, such equally the local impacts of invasive species through global merchandise. About of the responses assessed here were designed to address the direct drivers of biodiversity loss. Nonetheless, these drivers are ameliorate seen as symptoms of the indirect drivers, such as unsustainable patterns of consumption, demographic change, and globalization.

At the local and regional calibration, responses to the drivers may promote both local biodiversity and human well-being past interim on the synergies between maintenance of local biodiversity and provision of key ecosystem services. Responses promoting local management for global biodiversity values depend on local "capture" of the global values in a way that provides both ongoing incentives for direction and support for local well-being (R5).

At the global scale, constructive responses set priorities for conservation and development efforts in unlike regions and create shared goals or programs, such as the biodiversity-related conventions and the Millennium Evolution Goals. Effective trade-offs and synergies will be promoted when different strategies or instruments are used in an integrated, coordinated way (R5).

The MA assessment of biodiversity responses places human well-being as the central focus for assessment, recognizing that people make decisions concerning ecosystems based on a range of values related to well-existence, including the use and non-use values of biodiversity and ecosystems. The assessment therefore has viewed biodiversity responses as addressing values at different scales, with strong links to ecosystem service values and well-being arising at each of these scales. The well-being of local people dominates the assessment of many responses, including those relating to protected areas, governance, wild species management, and diverse responses related to local capture of benefits.

Focusing exclusively on values at only one level often hinders responses that could promote values at all levels or reconcile conflicts between the levels. Effective responses function across scales, addressing global values of biodiversity while identifying opportunity costs or synergies with local values. Local consideration of global biodiversity recognizes the value of what is unique at a place (or what is non yet protected elsewhere). The values of ecosystem services, on the other paw, do non ever depend on these unique elements. Constructive biodiversity responses recognize both kinds of values. These considerations guide the assessment summarized in this section of a range of response strategies that to varying degrees integrate global and local values and that seek effective trade-offs and synergies for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being.

Difficulties in measuring biodiversity accept complicated assessments of the impact of response strategies. Developing ameliorate indicators of biodiversity would heighten integration among strategies and instruments. For example, existing measures often focus on local biodiversity and exercise not estimate the marginal gains in regional or global biodiversity values. Similarly, biodiversity gains from organic farming are typically expressed simply equally localized species richness, with no consideration of the degree of contribution to regional or global biodiversity or the trade-offs with loftier-productivity industrial agriculture.

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter 5, p.69

  • Level 1: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level 3: Source

6.1 How do protected areas benefit biodiversity and humans?

The source document for this Digest states:

Protected areas are an extremely important office of programs to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, especially for sensitive habitats (R5). Contempo assessments have shown that at the global and regional scales, the existence of electric current PAs, while essential, is not sufficient for conservation of the total range of biodiversity. Protected areas need to be better located, designed, and managed to deal with problems similar lack of representativeness, impacts of human settlement within protected areas, illegal harvesting of plants and animals, unsustainable tourism, impacts of invasive alien species, and vulnerability to global modify. Marine and freshwater ecosystems are fifty-fifty less well protected than terrestrial systems, leading to increasing efforts to expand PAs in these biomes. Efforts to expand marine protected areas are besides spurred by stiff evidence of positive synergies between conservation within PAs and sustainable utilize immediately outside their boundaries (C18). However, marine protected area management poses special challenges, as enforcement is difficult and much of the world's oceans lie outside national jurisdictions.

Based on a survey of direction effectiveness of a sample of nigh 200 protected areas in 34 countries, only 12% were constitute to accept implemented an approved management plan. The assessment concluded that PA design, legal establishment, boundary demarcation, resource inventory, and objective setting were relatively well addressed. But direction planning, monitoring and evaluation, and budgets for security and law enforcement were more often than not weak among the surveyed areas. Moreover, the "paper park" problem remains, whereby geographic areas may exist labeled as some category of protected expanse but not reach the promised form of management (R5).

Protected areas may contribute to poverty where rural people are excluded from resource that accept traditionally supported their well-beingness. However, PAs can contribute to improved livelihoods when they are managed to benefit local people (R5). Relations with local people should be addressed more finer through participatory consultation and planning. I possible strategy is to promote the broader use of IUCN protected areas management categories. Success depends on a collaborative direction arroyo between government and stakeholders, an adaptive approach that tests options in the field, comprehensive monitoring that provides information on management success or failure, and empowerment of local communities through an open and transparent system that clarifies admission and ownership of resources.

Success of protected areas as a response to biodiversity loss requires amend site selection and incorporation of regional trade-offs to avoid some ecosystems from existence poorly represented while others are overrepresented. Success of PAs depends on acceptable legislation and management, sufficient resources, better integration with the wider region surrounding protected areas, and expanded stakeholder date (R5). Moreover, representation and management targets and performance indicators piece of work best when they go beyond measuring the total area manifestly protected. Indicators of per centum-area coverage of PAs, every bit associated with the Millennium Development Goals and other targets, for example, just provide a wide indication of the actual extent of protection afforded by PA systems, simply regional and national-level planning requires targets that take into account trade-offs and synergies with other ecosystem services.

Protected surface area design and management will demand to take into business relationship the impacts of climate modify. The impacts of climatic change volition increase the risk of extinctions of certain species and change the nature of ecosystems. Shifts in species distribution as a result of climate change are well documented (C4, C19, C25). Today's species conservation plans may contain adaptation and mitigation aspects for this threat, drawing on existing tools to assist assess species' vulnerability to climatic change. Corridors and other habitat blueprint aspects to give flexibility to protected areas are constructive precautionary strategies. Improved management of habitat corridors and production ecosystems betwixt protected areas will assistance biodiversity suit to changing conditions (R5).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Cess
Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter 5, p.69

  • Level 1: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level three: Source

6.ii Can economical incentives benefit biodiversity and local communities?

The source document for this Digest states:

The touch on of market instruments in encouraging and achieving conservation of biodiversity is unclear (R5). Although tradable development rights offer the potential to achieve a conservation objective at a low cost by offering flexibility in achieving the objectives, they take been the field of study of some criticisms—notably for being complex and involving high transaction costs and the establishment of new supporting institutions. For example, a situation could arise in which the most ecologically sensitive land just besides the least plush to develop would not be protected. To date, the TDR has non been designed to target specific habitat types and properties.

Transferring rights to ain and manage ecosystem services to private individuals gives them a pale in conserving those CHECK IF Engagement IS Non AN Error 23-Jun-2006 levels of institutional support. For instance, in South Africa, changes in wildlife protection legislation allowed a shift in landownership and a conversion from cattle and sheep farming to profitable game farming, enabling conservation of indigenous wildlife. On the other hand, the Campfire program in Zimbabwe, based on sustainable community-managed utilise of wildlife, has now become an example of how success can turn into failure, with the state repossessing the areas given to individuals and breaking the levels of trust and transparency—a form of instrumental freedom—that are critically needed for these economic responses to work efficiently and equitably (R17).

Payments to local landowners for ecosystem services show hope of improving the resource allotment of ecosystem services and are applicable to biodiversity conservation. Notwithstanding, compensating mechanisms addressing the distributive and equitable aspects of these economic instruments may need to be designed in support of such efforts. By 2001, more than 280,000 hectares of forests had been incorporated in Republic of costa rica within reserves, at a cost of about $30 million per year, with typical annual payments ranging from $35 to $45 per hectare for woods conservation (R5 Box v.3). However, the existence of straight payment initiatives does not guarantee success in achieving conservation and evolution objectives or benefits for human well-existence. Empirical analyses about the distributive impacts beyond different social groups are rare.

Direct payments are oft more effective than indirect incentives. For case, integrated conservation-development projects—an indirect incentive—designed to allow local populations to improve their well-beingness by capturing international willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation take in practise rarely been integrated into ongoing incentives for conservation. Overall, long-term success for these response strategies depends on meeting the economical and social needs of communities whose well-existence already depends to varying degrees on biodiversity products and the ecosystem services biodiversity supports (R5).

Still, straight payments have been criticized for requiring ongoing financial commitments to maintain the link between investment and conservation objectives. Furthermore they take led in some instances to inter- and intra-customs disharmonize.

Nonetheless many success stories show the effectiveness of straight payments and the transfer of property rights in providing incentives for local communities to conserve biodiversity. Effectiveness of payments in conserving regional biodiversity may be enhanced by new approaches that target payments based on estimated marginal gains ("complementarity" values) (R5 Box 5.3).

Significant improvements can exist fabricated to mitigate biodiversity loss and ecosystem changes by removing or redirecting economic subsidies that cause more harm than practiced. Agricultural subsidies in industrial countries reduce world prices for many commodities that developing countries produce. Lower prices provide the wrong incentives, encouraging these countries to adopt unsustainable agricultural activities that destroy ecosystems also every bit push many poor farmers into poverty. Therefore the removal or redirection of agricultural subsidies is highly likely by itself to produce major improvements in ecosystem services and to check the rate of biodiversity loss (R5).

The promotion of "win-win" outcomes has been politically right at all-time and naive at worst. Economic incentives that encourage the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity testify considerable promise. However, trade-offs between biodiversity, economic gains, and social needs accept to exist more realistically acknowledged. The benefits of biodiversity conservation are frequently widespread, even global in the case of existence values or carbon sequestration, while the costs of restricting access to biodiversity often are full-bodied on groups living near biodiversity-rich areas (R5).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Human being Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Affiliate v, p.70

  • Level ane: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level 3: Source

half-dozen.iii How tin invasive species be addressed?

The source document for this Digest states:

Direct management of invasive species will become an even more important biodiversity conservation response, typically calling for an ecosystem-level response if the invasive species has get established. Control or eradication of an invasive species once information technology is established is oft extremely difficult and plush, while prevention and early intervention have been shown to be more successful and cost-effective. Common factors in suc­cessful eradication cases include particular biological features of the target species (for example, poor dispersal ability), early detection/response, sufficient economic resources devoted for a sufficient elapsing, and widespread support from the relevant agencies and the public. Successful prevention requires increased efforts in the command and regulation of the transportation of invasive species due to international trade (R5).

Chemical control of invasive plant species, sometimes combined with mechanical removal like cutting or pruning, has been useful for controlling at least some invasive plants, only has not proved particularly successful in eradication. In addition to its low efficiency, chemical control can exist expensive. Biological control of invasive species has likewise been attempted, but results are mixed (R5). For example, the introduction of a non-native predatory snail to control the giant African snail in Hawaii led to extinction of many native snails. Some 160 species of biological agents, mainly insects and fungi, are registered for decision-making invasive species in North America, and many of them appear highly constructive. However, at least some of the biological agents used are themselves potential invaders. Environmental screening and adventure assessment can minimize the likelihood of negative impacts on non-target native species.

Social and economic aspects of the control of invasive species have received less attention, perhaps because of difficulties in estimating these merchandise-offs. The Global Invasive Species Program is an international response to address the problem. The CBD has adopted Guiding Principles on Invasive Alien Species (Decision VI/23) every bit a bones policy response, but it is too early to assess the effectiveness of implementation (R5).

Sustainable use of natural resources is an integral part of whatsoever sustainable development program, yet its contribution to conservation remains a highly controversial bailiwick within the conservation customs. Conserving species when the direction objective is ensuring resource availability to back up human livelihoods is often unsuccessful. This is considering optimal management for natural resource extraction frequently has negative impacts on species targeted for conservation. Therefore, care in establishing positive incentives for conservation and sustainable use is critical to successful biodiversity conservation (R5).

Where the goal is species conservation, and where a specific population has a singled-out identity and can be managed directly, species management approaches can be effective. Notwithstanding, managing for a single species is rarely effective when the goal is ecosystem operation, which is tied to the entire suite of species present in the area. Where homo livelihoods depend on single species resources, species management can be effective (for instance, some fisheries and game species), but where people depend on a range of different wild resources, as is oft the example, multiple species direction is the appropriate approach (R5).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter v, p.71

  • Level 1: Summary
  • Level ii: Details
  • Level iii: Source

6.4 How do protected areas benefit biodiversity and humans?

    • half dozen.4.1 Strategies for integrating biodiversity issues in production sectors
    • half-dozen.four.2 Contributions of the individual sector to biodiversity objectives

6.4.ane Strategies for integrating biodiversity issues in product sectors

The source certificate for this Digest states:

At the national level, integrating biodiversity issues into agriculture, fishery, and forestry management encourages sustainable harvesting and minimizes negative impacts on biodiversity. Biodiversity will only exist conserved and sustainably used when it becomes a mainstream concern of production sectors. Agronomics is directly dependent on biodiversity, only agronomical practices in contempo decades accept focused on maximizing yields. Research and development accept focused on few relatively productive species, thus ignoring the potential importance of biodiversity. Effective response strategies include sustainable intensification, which minimizes the need for expanding total area for production, so allowing more than expanse for biodiversity conservation. Practices such as integrated pest direction, some forms of organic farming, and protection of field margins, riparian zones, and other noncultivated habitats inside farms can promote synergistic relationships between agriculture, domestic biodiversity, and wild biodiversity. However, assessments of biodiversity contributions from such management reveal petty data about contributions to regional biodiversity conservation (C26, R5).

A review of 36 initiatives to conserve wild biodiversity while enhancing agricultural output demonstrated benefits to landscape and ecosystem diversity, while impacts on species diverseness were very state of affairs-specific. Assessing the bear upon of these approaches suffers from a lack of consistent, comprehensively documented research on the systems, particularly regarding interactions between agricultural product and ecosystem wellness (R5).

Tropical deforestation at a local level can exist controlled nigh effectively when the livelihood needs of local inhabitants are addressed within the context of sustainable forestry. The early on proponents of forest certification hoped it would exist an constructive response to tropical deforestation, merely most certified forests are in the Due north, managed past large companies and exporting to Northern retailers (C9, C21). The proliferation of certification programs to see the needs of different stakeholders has meant that no unmarried program has emerged every bit the only apparent or domi­nant arroyo internationally (R8.3.9). Forest direction policies should center on existing land and water buying at the community level. Relevant legal tools include redesigning ownership to pocket-sized individual command of forests, public-individual partnerships, direct direction of forests by indigenous people, and company-community partnerships. New country tenure systems must be context-relevant and accompanied by enforcement if they are to be effective. They need to include elements of education, training, health, and safety to part effectively (R5, R8).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Cess
Ecosystems and Human Well-existence: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter 5, p.71

  • Level i: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level 3: Source

6.four.2 Contributions of the private sector to biodiversity objectives

The source document for this Digest states:

The private sector tin can make significant contributions to biodiversity conservation. Some parts of the private sector are showing greater willingness to contribute to biodiversity conservation and sustainable apply due to the influence of shareholders, customers, and government regulation. Showing greater corporate social responsibility, many companies are now preparing their own biodiversity action plans, managing their own landholdings in ways that are more than compatible with biodiversity conservation, supporting certification schemes that promote more sustainable use, working with multiple stakeholders, and accepting their responsibleness for addressing biodiversity issues in their operations. Influence of shareholders or customers is limited in cases where the company is not publicly listed or is regime-owned.

Further developments are likely to focus on ii master areas. First, in addition to assessing the impact of companies on biodiversity, of import though this is, increasing emphasis will be given to ecosystem services and how companies rely on them. This will require evolution of mechanisms for companies to understand their risk exposure and to manage those risks. Second, greater collaboration is likely to accept identify betwixt NGOs and concern in gild to more fully explore ways to reduce harmful trade-offs and identify positive synergies that could lead to more effective sustainable management practices (R5).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Affiliate v, p.72

  • Level 1: Summary
  • Level ii: Details
  • Level three: Source

6.five What governance approaches can promote biodiversity conservation?

The source document for this Digest states:

Governance approaches to back up biodiversity conservation and sustainable use are required at all levels, with supportive laws and policies adult by central governments providing the security of tenure and authority essential for sustainable direction at lower levels. The principle that biodiversity should be managed at the lowest advisable level has led to decentralization in many parts of the world, with variable results. The cardinal to success is strong institutions at all levels, with security of tenure and say-so at the lower levels essential to providing incentives for sustainable management (R5).

At the same fourth dimension that management of some ecosystem services is being devolved to lower levels, direction approaches are also evolving to deal with large-scale processes with many stakeholders. Bug such as regional water scarcity and conservation of big ecosystems crave big-scale management structures. For example, almost of the major rivers in Southern Africa flow across international borders, and so international h2o co-management organizations are being designed to share the direction of riparian resource and ensure water security for all members. However, political instability in one state may negatively affect others, and power among stakeholders is likely to be uneven.

Neither centralization nor decentralization of potency always results in amend management. For example, the power of Catchment Management Agencies in South Africa is constrained to their catchment, but impacts may be felt from exterior or upstream. The best strategy may be one with multi-subsidiarity—that is, functions that subordinate organizations perform effectively vest more properly to them (because they have the all-time data) than to a dominant central organization, and the central organization functions equally a heart of back up, coordination, and communication (R5).

Legal systems in countries are multilayered and in many countries, local practices or informal institutions may be much stronger than the law on paper. Important customs chronicle to the local norms and traditions of managing property rights and the ecosystems around them. Since these are embedded in the local societies, changing these customs and customary rights through external incentive and disincentive schemes is very hard unless the incentives are very carefully designed. Local knowledge, integrated with other scientific knowledge, becomes absolutely critical for addressing ways of managing local ecosystems.

More than effort is needed in integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable use activities within larger macroeconomic controlling frameworks. New poverty reduction strategies take been developed in recent years covering a broad range of policies and dissimilar scales and actors. Nonetheless, the integration or mainstreaming of ecosystems and ecosystem services is largely ignored. The focus of such strategies is by and large on institutional and macroeconomic stability, the generation of sectoral growth, and the reduction of the number of people living on less than $1 a twenty-four hour period in poor countries. It is well documented that many of the structural aligning programs of the mid- to late 1980s acquired deterioration in ecosystem services and a deepening of poverty in many developing countries (R17).

International cooperation through multilateral ecology agreements requires increased commitment to implementation of activities that finer conserve biodiversity and promote sustainable use of biological resources. Numerous multilateral environmental agreements have now been established that contribute to conserving biodiversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity is the virtually comprehensive, simply numerous others are also relevant, including the World Heritage Conven­tion, the Convention on International Merchandise in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on Migratory Species, the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and numerous regional agreements. Their impacts at policy and practical levels depend on the will of the contracting parties (R5).

Effective responses may build on recent attempts (such as through joint work plans) to create synergies betwixt conventions. The lack of compulsory jurisdiction for dispute resolution is a major weakness in international ecology law. Nonetheless, requirements to report to conventions put pressure on countries to undertake active measures under the framework of those treaties. An effective instrument should include incentives, plus sanctions for violations or noncompliance procedures to help countries come up into compliance. Links between biodiversity conventions and other international legal institutions that have significant impacts on biodiversity (such as the World Trade Organisation) remain weak (R5).

The international agreements with the greatest impact on biodiversity are non in the ecology field only rather deal with economical and political issues. These typically do not take into account their impact on biodiversity. Successful responses volition require that these agreements are closely linked with other agreements and that solutions designed for ane regime do not lead to problems in other regimes. For example, efforts to sequester carbon under the Kyoto Protocol should seek to enhance biodiversity, not harm it (for example, by planting multiple species of native trees rather than monospecific plantations of exotic species) (R5).

Although biodiversity loss is a recognized global problem, near directly actions to halt or reduce loss need to exist taken locally or nationally. Indirect drivers similar globalization and international decisions on merchandise and economic science often have a negative effect on biodiversity and should exist addressed at the international level, but the proximate responsibility to find and act directly on biodiversity loss is at the local and national level. For threatened endemic species or ecosystems limited to an area within a single country or local administrative unit, the relevant agencies should give high priority to these species or ecosystems, with appropriate back up from global, regional, or national support systems (R5).

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Cess
Ecosystems and Man Well-beingness: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter 5, p.72

  • Level 1: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level 3: Source

half dozen.vi What are the key factors of success of conservation actions?

The source document for this Digest states:

Numerous response options exist to improve the benefits from ecosystem services to man societies without undermining biodiversity. The political and social changes now occurring in many parts of the world will have far-reaching consequences for the manner ecosystem services and human well-being are managed in the future; it is thus imperative to develop an increased understanding of the enabling atmospheric condition needed for choosing and implementing responses. (Come across Box 5.1)

Box 5.1. Key Factors of Successful Responses to Biodiversity Loss

Responses practice non piece of work in a vacuum. A diverseness of enabling conditions—a combination of instrumental freedoms and institutional frameworks—play critical roles in determining the success or failure of a response strategy. The success or failure of many responses is largely influenced by the diverse institutional frameworks in place in a country (CF3, R17).

Education and advice programs have both informed and changed preferences for biodiversity conservation and have improved implementation of biodiversity responses (R5). Scientific findings and data demand to be made available to all of society. A major obstruction for knowing (and therefore valuing), preserving, sustainably using, and sharing benefits equitably from the biodiversity of a region is the human being and institutional chapters to research a country'southward biota. The CONABIO initiative in United mexican states and INBio in Price Rica offer examples of successful national models for converting basic taxonomic information into knowledge for biodiversity conservation policies, as well as for other policies relating to ecosystems and biodiversity.

Ecosystem restoration activities are now common in many countries and include actions to restore almost all types of ecosystems, including wetlands, forests, grasslands, estuaries, coral reefs, and mangroves. Restoration will become an increasingly important response equally more than ecosystems become degraded and as demands for their services continue to grow. Ecosystem restoration, yet, is more often than not far more expensive an option than protecting the original ecosystem, and it is rare that all the biodiversity and services of a arrangement can exist restored (R5).

Rather than the "win-win" outcomes promoted (or assumed) by many practitioners of integrated conservation and development projects, disharmonize is more oft the norm, and merchandise-offs between conservation and development need to be acknowledged. Identifying and and then negotiating merchandise-offs is complex, involving different policy options, different priorities for conservation and development, and different stakeholders. In the case of biodiversity conservation, the challenge is in negotiating these trade-offs, determining levels of acceptable biodiversity loss, and encouraging stakeholder participation. Where trade-offs must be fabricated, determination-makers must consider and make explicit the consequences of all options. Meliorate trade-offs from policies that remove perverse incentives or create markets for biodiversity protection can attain a given level of biodiversity protection (regionally) at lower price (R5).

The "ecosystem approaches" as developed by the CBD and others provide principles for integration across scales and beyond unlike responses. Central to the rationale is that the full range of measures is applied in a continuum from strictly protected to human-made ecosystems and that integration tin can be achieved through both spatial and temporal separation across the landscape, equally well as through integration inside a site. The MA sub-global assessments highlight useful synergies and trade-offs where different responses are integrated into a coherent regional framework (SG9). While some constructive approaches will non crave quantification of biodiversity gains, quantifying marginal gains and losses from dissimilar sources can strengthen such integration and enable one strategy to complement some other in a targeted, strategic fashion (R17).

Gild may receive greater net benefits when opportunity costs of conservation in a item location are adjusted to reflect positive gains from ecosystem services provided and when the setting of biodiversity targets takes all land and h2o use contributions into account (C5 Box 5.2, R5, R17). Debates almost the relative value of formal protected areas versus lands that are more intensely used by people just that conserve at least some components of biodiversity are more effective when conservation is seen equally a continuum of possibilities. Weaknesses of both ends of the spectrum can be overcome by linking them in integrated regional strategies (R5).

For example, an expanse converted to agriculture can lead to loss of biodiversity but tin withal contribute to regional biodiversity if it contributes sure complementary elements of biodiversity to overall regional biodiversity conservation. Formal protected areas are criticized for foreclosing other opportunities for society, simply an integrated regional approach can build on the biodiversity protection gains from the surrounding lands, thereby reducing some of the pressure for biodiversity protection in the confront of other anticipated uses over the region. Many contributions to overall biodiversity protection are made from production landscapes or other lands outside of protected areas, and integration allows these contributions to exist credited at the regional planning scale and to increase regional net benefits. However, the ideal of measurable gains from product lands should not reduce the more general efforts to mainstream biodiversity into other sectors; fifty-fifty without formal estimates of complementarity values, mainstreaming poli­cies can be seen as important aspects of integration. (R5)

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Man Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter v, p.74

  • Level ane: Summary
  • Level 2: Details
  • Level 3: Source

6.7 How could important drivers of biodiversity loss be addressed?

The source document for this Assimilate states:

Many of the responses designed with the conservation of biodiversity or ecosystem service as the primary goal will not be sustainable or sufficient unless indirect and direct drivers of change are addressed. Numerous responses that accost direct and indirect drivers would be particularly of import for biodiver­sity and ecosystem services:

  • Elimination of subsidies that promote excessive use of specific ecosystem services. Subsidies paid to the agricultural sectors of OECD countries betwixt 2001 and 2003 averaged over $324 billion annually, or one third the global value of agronomical products in 2000 (S7). These subsidies lead to overproduction, reduce the profitability of agriculture in developing countries, and promote overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. Like problems are created by fishery subsidies, which amounted to approximately $6.2 billion in OECD countries in 2002, or about 20% of the gross value of production (S7). Although removal of perverse subsidies will produce cyberspace benefits, it will not exist without costs. Some of the people benefiting from production subsidies (through either the low prices of products that outcome from the subsidies or every bit straight recipients of subsidies) are poor and would exist harmed by their removal. Compensatory mechanisms may be needed for these groups. Moreover, removal of agricultural subsidies inside the OECD would need to be accompanied by actions designed to minimize adverse impacts on ecosystem services in developing countries. But the basic challenge remains that the current economic system relies fundamentally on economic growth that disregards its impact on natural resource.
  • Promotion of sustainable intensification of agriculture (C4, C26). The expansion of agriculture will continue to exist one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss well into the twenty-starting time century. In regions where agricultural expansion continues to be a large threat to biodiversity, the development, assessment, and improvidence of technologies that could increment the production of nutrient per unit surface area sustainably, without harmful trade-offs related to excessive consumption of h2o or use of nutrients or pesticides, would significantly lessen force per unit area on biodiversity. In many cases, appropriate technologies already be that could exist practical more widely, but countries lack the financial resources and intuitional capabilities to proceeds and use these technologies. Where agronomics already dominates landscapes, the maintenance of biodiversity within these landscapes is an important component of total biodiversity conservation efforts, and, if managed appropriately, can too contribute to agricultural productivity and sustainability through the ecosystem services that biodiversity provides (such as through pest control, pollination, soil fertility, protection of water courses confronting soil erosion, and the removal of excessive nutrients).
  • Slowing and adapting to climate change (R13). Past the end of the century, climatic change and its impacts may be the ascendant direct commuter of biodiversity loss and change of ecosystem services globally. Harm to biodiversity will abound with both increasing rates in change in climate and increasing accented amounts of change. For ecosystem services, some services in some regions may initially do good from increases in temperature or precipitation expected under climate scenarios, but the balance of show indicates that there will exist a significant net harmful bear upon on ecosystem services worldwide if global mean surface temperature increase more than 2° Celsius above preindustrial levels or faster than 0.two° Celsius per decade (medium certainty). Given the inertia in the climate system, actions to facilitate the adaptation of biodiversity and ecosystems to climate change will exist necessary to mitigate negative impacts. These may include the development of ecological corridors or networks.
  • Slowing the global growth in food loading (even while increasing fertilizer application in regions where crop yields are constrained by the lack of fertilizers, such as parts of sub-Saharan Africa). Technologies already exist for reduction of food pollution at reasonable costs, simply new policies are needed for these tools to be applied on a sufficient scale to boring and ultimately opposite the increase in food loading (R9).
  • Correction of market failures and internalization of environmental externalities that lead to the degradation of ecosystem services (R17, R10, R13). Because many ecosystem services are not traded in markets, markets fail to provide appropriate signals that might otherwise contribute to the efficient allotment and sustainable use of the services. In add-on, many of the harmful trade-offs and costs associated with the management of one ecosystem service are borne by others and then also do not weigh into decisions regarding the management of that service. In countries with supportive institutions in place, market-based tools tin exist used to right some market failures and internalize externalities, particularly with respect to provisioning ecosystem services.
  • Increased transparency and accountability of government and private-sector performance in decisions that affect ecosystems, including through greater interest of concerned stakeholders in decision-making (RWG, SG9). Laws, policies, institutions, and markets that have been shaped through public participation in controlling are more likely to exist effective and perceived as just. Stakeholder participation as well contributes to the decision-making process because information technology allows for a better understanding of impacts and vulnerability, the distribution of costs and benefits associated with trade-offs, and the identification of a broader range of response options that are bachelor in a specific context. And stakeholder interest and transparency of decision-making tin increase accountability and reduce corruption.
  • Integration of biodiversity conservation strategies and responses within broader development planning frameworks. For example, protected areas, restoration ecology, and markets for ecosystem services will have higher chances of success if these responses are reflected in the national development strategies or in poverty reduction strategies, in the case of many developing countries. In this manner, the costs and benefits of these conservation strate­gies and their contribution to human being development are explicitly recognized in the Public Expenditure Review and resource for the implementation of the responses can be set bated in national Mid-Term Budgetary Frameworks (R17).
  • Increased coordination amidst multilateral environmental agreements and betwixt ecology agreements and other international economic and social institutions (R17). International agreements are indispensable for addressing ecosystem-related concerns that bridge national boundaries, but numerous obstacles weaken their current effectiveness. The limited, focused nature of the goals and mechanisms included in most bilateral and multilateral ecology treaties does not address the broader event of ecosystem services and homo well-existence. Steps are at present beingness taken to increase coordination amidst these treaties, and this could help broaden the focus of the array of instruments. Withal, coordination is also needed between the multilateral environmental agreements and the more politically powerful international legal institutions, such as economic and trade agreements, to ensure that they are not acting at cantankerous-purposes.
  • Enhancement of human and institutional capacity for assessing the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and interim on such assessments (RWG). Technical chapters for agronomics, forestry, and fisheries direction is withal express in many countries, only information technology is vastly greater than the capacity for effective management for ecosystem services not derived from these sectors.
  • Addressing unsustainable consumption patterns (RWG). Consumption of ecosystem services and nonrenewable resources affects biodiversity and ecosystems directly and indirectly. Total consumption is a cistron of per capita consumption, population, and efficiency of resource apply. Slowing biodiversity loss requires that the combined effect of these factors exist reduced.

Source & ©: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Ecosystems and Human being Well-beingness: Biodiversity Synthesis (2005),
Chapter five, p.75

hookertholsolot.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.greenfacts.org/en/biodiversity/l-3/6-conserve-biodiversity.htm

Post a Comment for "what steps are being taken to reduce the use of fire as a way of promoting agriculture"