Habitat conservation assessment and conservation strategy for the Townsend's big-eared bat.

Many countries allow lawsuits to hold responsible parties liable for the environmental harm they cause. Such litigation remains largely untested in most biodiversity hotspots and in response to leading drivers of biodiversity loss, including illegal wildlife trade. Yet, liability litigation is a potentially ground-breaking conservation strategy to remedy biodiversity harm by seeking legal remedies such as species rehabilitation, public apologies, habitat conservation and education, with the goal to make the injured parties “whole”. However, most countries face a lack of precedent cases, limited expert guidance and the gap between legal practitioners and scientists. We propose a simplified framework for developing conservation lawsuits across countries and conservation contexts. We explain liability litigation in terms of three dimensions: 1) defining the harm that occurred, 2) identifying appropriate remedies to that harm, and 3) understanding what remedies the law and courts will allow. We illustrate the framework via a hypothetical lawsuit against an illegal orangutan trader in Indonesia. We highlight that conservationists’ expertise is essential to characterizing harm and identifying remedies, and could more actively contribute to strategic, science-based litigation. This would identify priority contexts, target defendants responsible for egregious harm, propose novel and meaningful remedies, and build new transdisciplinary collaborations.

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Multi-scale waterfowl habitat conservation planning in Wisconsin, USA

Landscape Ecology ◽

10.1007/s10980-021-01279-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew D. Palumbo ◽

Jacob N. Straub ◽

Mohammed A. Al-Saffar ◽

Gregory J. Soulliere ◽

Jason L. Fleener ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Joint Venture ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Habitat Conservation ◽

Weighted Sums ◽

Watershed Scale ◽

Landscape Characteristics ◽

Waterfowl Habitat ◽

State And Local

Abstract Context The North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the Upper Mississippi River/Great Lakes Joint Venture waterfowl habitat conservation strategy provide continental and regional guidance, respectively, for waterfowl habitat conservation planning. They were not designed to guide watershed- scale waterfowl habitat delivery. Objective Our goal was to develop a waterfowl habitat decision support framework for the state of Wisconsin using biological and social criteria to guide state and local-scale practitioners with an explicit link to larger scale objectives. Methods We engaged a core group of wetland and waterfowl experts to decide upon decision support layers relevant to biological and social objectives, evaluate variables, establish weights, and review model outputs for reasonableness and accuracy. We used spatial analyst tools, kernel density estimators, and weighted sums to create spatially explicit models to identify landscapes and watersheds important for waterfowl. We identified habitat resources that exist currently (Conservation Capital) and considered potential resources (Conservation Opportunities) which could enhance wetland restoration efforts. Results We developed a transparent framework to identify and prioritize landscapes for conserving waterfowl habitat at the Hydrologic Unit Code 12 watershed scale in Wisconsin, by maintaining continental and regional priorities, and including local landscape characteristics, biological criteria, and researcher, manager, and biologist expertise. Conclusions Local detail is critical for implementing waterfowl habitat delivery and making efficient use of limited funds for conservation but can be more abstract in larger regional or continental conservation planning. Our models are science-based, transparent, defensible, and can be modified as social, political, biological, and environmental forces change.

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STUDY OF POND STATUS IN INDIA : A REVIEW

FLORA AND FAUNA ◽

10.33451/florafauna.v23i1pp99-104 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

Author(s):

V.K. YADAV ◽

SONAM SHARMA ◽

A.K. SRIVASTAVA ◽

P.K. KHARE

Keyword(s):

Fresh Water ◽

Land Surface ◽

Human Population ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Hydrological Cycle ◽

Habitat Destruction ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Human Use ◽

Over Exploitation

Ponds are an important fresh water critical ecosystem for plants and animals providing goods and services including food, fodder, fish, irrigation, hydrological cycle, shelter, medicine, culture, aesthetic and recreation. Ponds cover less than 2 percent of worlds land surface. Ponds are important source of fresh water for human use. These are threatened by urbanization, industrialization, over exploitation, fragmentation, habitat destruction, pollution, illegal capturing of land and climate changes. These above factors have been destroying ponds very rapidly putting them in danger of extinction of a great number of local biodiversity. It is necessary to formulate a correct conservation strategy for pond restoration in order to meet the growing needs of fresh water by increasing the human population. Some measures have been compiled and proposed in the present review.

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Cascades frog conservation assessment

10.2737/psw-gtr-244 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Karen Pope ◽

Catherine Brown ◽

Marc Hayes ◽

Gregory Green ◽

Diane Macfarlane

Keyword(s):

Conservation Assessment

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Assisted colonization is not a viable conservation strategy.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.1160249.620551 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Richard Hobbs

Keyword(s):

Conservation Strategy ◽

Assisted Colonization

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Breeding biology and conservation strategy of the Himalayan swiftlet (Aerodramus brevirostris innominata) in southern China

Biodiversity Science ◽

10.3724/sp.j.1003.2013.08115 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 54-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Wang Bin ◽

Shen Youhui ◽

Liao Qingyi ◽

Ma Jianzhang

Keyword(s):

Southern China ◽

Breeding Biology ◽

Conservation Strategy

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Elicitation of expert knowledge to develop decision support tools for use in water demand management planning

Water Science & Technology Water Supply ◽

10.2166/ws.2007.110 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 7 (5-6) ◽

pp. 53-60

Author(s):

D. Inman ◽

D. Simidchiev ◽

P. Jeffrey

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Water Demand ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Demand Management ◽

Decision Processes ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Influence Diagrams ◽

Decision Support Tools ◽

Water Demand Management ◽

Support Tools

This paper examines the use of influence diagrams (IDs) in water demand management (WDM) strategy planning with the specific objective of exploring how IDs can be used in developing computer-based decision support tools (DSTs) to complement and support existing WDM decision processes. We report the results of an expert consultation carried out in collaboration with water industry specialists in Sofia, Bulgaria. The elicited information is presented as influence diagrams and the discussion looks at their usefulness in WDM strategy design and the specification of suitable modelling techniques. The paper concludes that IDs themselves are useful in developing model structures for use in evidence-based reasoning models such as Bayesian Networks, and this is in keeping with the objectives set out in the introduction of integrating DSTs into existing decision processes. The paper will be of interest to modellers, decision-makers and scientists involved in designing tools to support resource conservation strategy implementation.

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The value of ecosystem services

10.1093/oso/9780198808978.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Linus Blomqvist ◽

R. David Simpson

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Random Sample ◽

International Institutions ◽

Evidence Base ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Critical Examination ◽

Opportunity Costs ◽

Monetary Value ◽

Pollution Treatment ◽

Diminishing Returns

This chapter investigates whether the growing enthusiasm for ecosystem services recently expressed by conservation NGOs and international institutions is supported by evidence. Ecosystem services—the benefits humans receive from nature—have become the darlings of conservation on the assumption that the valuation of selected services may justify protecting land. A critical examination of a random sample of monetary valuations for regulating ecosystem services such as pollution treatment, finds that only onethird can be considered reliable, and that only ten percent of monetary value estimates can be transferred to other contexts. This suggests that the overall evidence base for assigning monetary value to nature is limited. Furthermore, diminishing returns, high opportunity costs, and technological substitutes might limit the amount of conservation that can be justified on the basis financial assessments of ecosystem services. As such, this chapter concludes that ecosystem services as a conservation strategy should not be embraced uncritically.

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Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization

Biology ◽

10.3390/biology10010063 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 63

Author(s):

Mohammed A. Dakhil ◽

Marwa Waseem A. Halmy ◽

Walaa A. Hassan ◽

Ali El-Keblawy ◽

Kaiwen Pan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Potential Distribution ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

In Situ Conservation ◽

Integrative Approach ◽

Conservation Assessment ◽

Distribution Models ◽

Area Of Occupancy ◽

Annual Range ◽

The Impact

Climate change is an important driver of biodiversity loss and extinction of endemic montane species. In China, three endemic Juniperus spp. (Juniperuspingii var. pingii, J.tibetica, and J.komarovii) are threatened and subjected to the risk of extinction. This study aimed to predict the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species under climate change and dispersal scenarios, to identify critical drivers explaining their potential distributions, to assess the extinction risk by estimating the loss percentage in their area of occupancy (AOO), and to identify priority areas for their conservation in China. We used ensemble modeling to evaluate the impact of climate change and project AOO. Our results revealed that the projected AOOs followed a similar trend in the three Juniperus species, which predicted an entire loss of their suitable habitats under both climate and dispersal scenarios. Temperature annual range and isothermality were the most critical key variables explaining the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species; they contribute by 16–56.1% and 20.4–38.3%, respectively. Accounting for the use of different thresholds provides a balanced approach for species distribution models’ applications in conservation assessment when the goal is to assess potential climatic suitability in new geographical areas. Therefore, south Sichuan and north Yunnan could be considered important priority conservation areas for in situ conservation and search for unknown populations of these three Juniperus species.

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