Success in conserving the bird diversity in tropical forests through private protected areas in Western Ecuador

Private protected areas have recently attained more importance at a worldwide level as regards nature conservation. Particularly, the specific region of Western Ecuador receives hardly any protection from the State, and private reserves could, therefore, be a suitable tool to ensure the preservation of its forests and their associated wildlife biodiversity. In this work, we compare the bird species richness between private reserves and public protected areas (managed by the State) located in this region. We also show a checklist of bird species found in the Buenaventura Reserve, a private reserve located in south-western Ecuador. Our comparison shows that smaller private reserves may harbour a similar number of bird species than larger protected areas managed by the state, and they have a higher number of bird species per area. In particular, a total of 233 different bird species were registered in Buenaventura, which were distributed in 16 orders and 42 families. Three species were classified as endangered at an international level: El Oro Parakeet (Pyrrhura orcesi), El Oro Tapaculo (Scytalopus robbinsi), and the Grey-backed Hawk (Pseudastur occidentalis), and another three at a national level: the Long-wattled Umbrellabird (Cephalopterus penduliger), the Slaty-winged Foliage-gleaner (Philydor fuscipenne), and the White-vented Plumeleteer (Chalybura buffonii). Therefore, private reserves can be appreciated as a suitable conservation tool for bird conservation, and they should not be undervalued because of their smaller size. Buenaventura Reserve is a good example of how private reserves are extremely important in fragmented landscapes, as is the case with tropical forests in Western Ecuador.

Possible models of implementing private protected area concept in Lithuania

Nowadays people are more aware of the importance of the surrounding nature: landscape, biodiversity, and natural resources. However, society is facing many ecological challenges, so individuals and communities are becoming more involved in conservation. While government is not always capable of providing the best care of nature and all its components, ordinary people, or non-government organizations “step up” and help them. One way of doing that is creating private protected areas. Many countries in the world have examples of this kind of protected areas’ governance type: some are more regulated in legal systems, some are less, but they all provide crucial benefits to conservation if managed properly. In Lithuania protected areas are governed only by the government but usually the lack of funds affects the quality of conservation. Because of that, it is necessary to analyse different mechanisms of creation of private protected areas, take examples from best practices in the world and consider implementing it in the national protected area system.

Canadian private protected areas are located in regions of higher vertebrate species richness than government protected areas

Nongovernmental organizations contribute to the securement and management of protected areas, but it is not well known how their lands compare to government protected areas or the effectiveness of different land acquisition strategies. Using data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and BirdLife International, we estimated total and at-risk terrestrial native vertebrate species richness in southern Canada among ( i) private protected areas secured by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), government protected areas, and randomly sampled land; ( ii) conservation agreements and fee simple (directly acquired) NCC properties; and ( iii) purchased or donated fee simple properties. Controlling for property size and ecoregion, NCC protected areas were predicted to be in areas with 6% and 13% more total and at-risk species than randomly sampled land and 4% and 6% more total and at-risk species than government protected areas. Within NCC protected areas, conservation agreements were predicted to be in areas with 2% and 4% more total and at-risk species than fee simple properties, but purchased properties had similar numbers of total and at-risk species as donated properties. Although we caution that diversity estimates were based on course-grained range maps, our findings suggest that private protected areas are important in conserving biodiversity.

Synopsis of Schizanthus Ruiz & Pav. (Solanaceae), a genus endemic to the southern Andes

We present a taxonomic synopsis of the South American genus Schizanthus Ruiz & Pav. (Solanaceae), within which we recognise seventeen taxa (14 species with three infraspecific taxa). The genus is mainly distributed in Chile between the coast of the Atacama Desert and the southern temperate forests, while two species occur in the Argentinian Provinces of Mendoza and Neuquén. This taxonomic treatment is based on the analysis of herbarium specimens from 30 different herbaria. For each accepted species we provide details of type specimens and synonymy, key characters, habitat, distribution information and presence in public or private protected areas. We also incorporate a list of representative localities from examined material. We here described three new taxa: Schizanthus porrigens Graham ex Hook. subsp. borealis V.Morales & Muñoz-Schick, subsp. nov., Schizanthus carlomunozii V.Morales & Muñoz-Schick, sp. nov. and its variety Schizanthus carlomunozii var. dilutimaculatus V.Morales & Muñoz-Schick, var. nov., all of them from the coast of Coquimbo Region. We also recognise Schizanthus litoralis Phil. var. humilis (Lindl.) V.Morales & Muñoz-Schick, comb. nov., as a new combination.

Improving the management of Australia’s biodiversity through better synergy between private and public protected areas – a response to Australia’s biodiversity loss

Australia has one of the highest rates of biodiversity loss globally. Both a lack of long-term monitoring and inefficient management have been identified as major contributing factors. Reviewing national and international reports, perspectives and scientific studies on Australia’s biodiversity management, I propose five steps to promote more effective management and monitoring of protected biodiversity assets by utilising available resources more efficiently. These steps involve: (1) better promotion of existing legislative instruments to protect biodiversity on private land; (2) creating strategic buffer zones around Australia’s World Heritage Areas (WHAs) – such buffer zones would provide opportunities to reduce threats to the biological assets of WHAs that emanate from adjacent areas; (3) better engagement with stakeholders of the buffer zones in managing WHAs through their participation in evidence-based monitoring and early-threat detection (e.g. as ‘Buffer-based Heritage Watch’); (4) targeted and coordinated restoration of native habitats adjacent to WHAs that are supported by effective carbon sequestration schemes; and (5) periodic integration of private protected areas within buffer zones into adjacent WHAs in accordance with the guidelines for extensions of WHAs by the World Heritage Committee. I demonstrate and justify the proposed steps using a spatial analysis of protected areas in Far North Queensland, but the proposed steps have relevance to protected areas in other Australian jurisdictions. The proposed steps would make current efforts of biodiversity protection and monitoring more efficient and would thus contribute to Australia’s response to its current loss of biodiversity.