ConservationBytes.com

I bang on a bit about human over-population and how it drives biodiversity extinctions. Yet, it isn’t always hordes of hungry humans descending on the hapless species of this planet  – Australia is a big place, but has few people (just over 20 million), yet it has one of the higher extinction rates in the world. Yes, most of the country is covered in some fairly hard-core desert and most people live in or near the areas containing the most species, but we have an appalling extinction record all the same.

A paper that came out recently in Conservation Biology and was covered a little in the media last week gives some telling figures for the Oceania region, and more importantly, explains that we have more than enough information now to implement sound, evidence-based policy to right the wrongs of the past and the present. Using IUCN Red List data, Michael Kingsford and colleagues (paper entitled Major conservation policy issues for biodiversity in Oceania), showed that of the 370 assessed species in Australia, 80 % of the threatened ones are listed because of habitat loss, 40 % from invasive species and 30 % from pollution. As we know well, it’s mainly habitat loss we have to control if we want to change things around for the better (see previous relevant posts here, here & here).

Kingsford and colleagues proceed to give a good set of policy recommendations for each of the drivers identified:

Habitat loss and degradation

• Implement legislation, education, and community outreach to stop or reduce land clearing, mining, and unsustainable logging through education, incentives, and compensation for landowners that will encourage private conservation
• Establish new protected areas for habitats that are absent or poorly represented
• In threatened ecosystems (e.g., wetlands), establish large-scale restoration projects with local communities that incorporate conservation and connectivity
• Establish transparent and evidence-based state of environment reporting on biodiversity and manage threats within and outside protected areas.
• Protect free-flowing river systems (largely unregulated by dams, levees, and diversions) within the framework of the entire river basin and increase environmental flows on regulated rivers

Invasive species

• Avoid deliberate introduction of exotic species, unless suitable analyses of benefits outweigh risk-weighted costs
• Implement control of invasive species by assessing effectiveness of control programs and determining invasion potential
• Establish regulations and enforcement for exchange or treatment of ocean ballast and regularly implement antifouling procedures

Climate change

• Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions
• Identify, assess, and protect important climate refugia
• Ameliorate the impacts of climate change through strategic management of other threatening processes
• Develop strategic plans for priority translocations and implement when needed

Overexploitation

• Implement restrictions on harvest of overexploited species to maintain sustainability
• Implement an ecosystem-based approach for fisheries, based on scientific data, that includes zoning the ocean; banning destructive fishing; adopting precautionary fishing principles that include size limits, quotas, and regulation with sufficient resources based on scientific assessments of stocks and; reducing bycatch through regulation and education
• Implement international mechanisms to increase sustainability of fisheries by supporting international treaties for fisheries protection in the high seas; avoiding perverse subsidies and improve labelling of sustainable fisheries; and licensing exports of aquarium fish
• Control unsustainable illegal logging and wildlife harvesting through local incentives and cessation of international trade

Pollution

• Decrease pollution through incentives and education; reduce and improve treatment of domestic, industrial, and agriculture waste; and rehabilitate polluted areas
• Strengthen government regulations to stop generation of toxic material from mining efforts that affects freshwater and marine environments
• Establish legislation and regulations and financial bonds (international) to reinforce polluter-pays principles
• Establish regulations, education programs, clean ups, labelling, and use of biodegradable packaging to reduce discarded fishing gear and plastics

Disease

• Establish early-detection programs for pathological diseases and biosecurity controls to reduce translocation
• Identify causes, risk-assessment methods, and preventative methods for diseases
• Establish remote communities of organisms (captive) not exposed to disease in severe outbreaks

Implementation

• Establish regional population policies based on ecologically sustainable human population levels and consumption
• Ensure that all developments affecting the environment are adequately analysed for impacts over the long term
• Promote economic and societal benefits from conservation through education
• Determine biodiversity status and trends with indicators that diagnose and manage declines
• Invest in taxonomic understanding and provision of resources (scientific and conservation) to increase capacity for conservation
• Increase the capacity of government conservation agencies
• Focus efforts of nongovernmental organisations on small island states on building indigenous capacity for conservation
• Base conservation on risk assessment and decision support
• Establish the effectiveness of conservation instruments (national and international) and their implementation

A very good set of recommendations that I hope we can continue to develop within our governments.

CJA Bradshaw