Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

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  The tragedy of the science-policy gap – Revised legislation fails to protect an endangered species in a managed boreal landscape 

  Wistbacka, Ralf; Orell, Markku; Santangeli, Andrea (2018)

  Unsustainable use of forest resources poses a serious threat to biodiversity worldwide. This threat is particularly important in boreal biomes, where intensive production-oriented forestry is widely applied. Legislation is one of the key tools for preserving nature from anthropogenic damage. Designation of environmental legislation should be grounded on sound scientific evidence in order to be effective. We assess the impact of guidelines enforcing the Finnish ad-hoc legislation aimed at preserving breeding sites and resting places of the Siberian flying squirrel (Pteromys volans), a protected species in Finland and in the European Union under the Habitats Directive. Its habitat is under pressure from widespread forest clear-cutting practices. We collected data on site occupancy by breeding female flying squirrels from 81 sites spanning 12 years (2005-2016) and on relevant habitat variables around the site. Using generalized linear mixed models we quantified the predicted occupancy of breeding female flying squirrels in relation to the cover of breeding habitat around a site. We then compared the resulting habitat requirements of breeding females with the habitat that would be retained according to the initial national legislation guidelines and their proposed first revision. We show that both the initial and the proposed revision of the habitat protection guidelines allow the retention of breeding habitat patches of minimal size, which would yield a very low (less than 5%) predicted occupancy by a breeding flying squirrel female. The current revised guidelines are not science-driven and remain ineffective in safeguarding the species habitat from expanding forestry. These results expose the wide gap between science and policy for the implementation of environmental legislation, in this case the Habitats Directive, to protect species of conservation concern. There is an urgent need to fill the science-policy gap in order to achieve the preservation of biodiversity in a world under rapid transformation.
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  The emergence of private land conservation in scientific literature: a review 

  Cortes Capano, Gonzalo; Toivonen, Tuuli; Soutullo, Alvaro; Di Minin, Enrico (2019)

  Private land conservation (PLC) is an important means for achieving global conservation targets. We reviewed peer-reviewed literature focussing on PLC to summarize past scientific evidence and to identify research trends and gaps to direct future research. We carried out an in-depth review of 284 scientific articles and analysed where, when and in what context PLC has been studied. Specifically, we (i) assessed where and when PLC studies took place and which topics they covered; (ii) identified the most addressed conservation actions and policy instruments, and (iii) investigated whether stakeholders' engagement during research processes was reported or not. We found that (i) there has been an increase in the number of scientific PLC publications over time; (ii) 78%of the articles in scientific journals focussed on four countries only (United States of America, Australia, South Africa and Canada); (iii) literature content focussed mostly on easements, programs and landowners and showed both geographical and temporal differences; (iv) land/water protection, law and policy and livelihood, economic and other incentives were the most addressed conservation actions; (v) property rights, particularly conservation easements, were the most addressed policy instrument; and (vi) half of the articles did not report the engagement of any stakeholder sector and cross-sector stakeholders' engagement was often missing. Overall, our results highlight the need for future studies on PLC to cover currently underrepresented regions; to assess the effec-tiveness of more conservation actions and policy instruments; and to test how engaging different stakeholders can potentially promote legitimate and equitable PLC policies across contexts.
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  The importance of Indigenous Peoples’ lands for the conservation of terrestrial mammals 

  O'Bryan, Christopher J.; Garnett, Stephen T.; Fa, Julia E.; Leiper, Ian; Rehbein, Jose; Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro; Jackson, Micha V.; Jonas, Harry D.; Brondizio, Eduardo S.; Burgess, Neil D.; Robinson, Catherine J.; Zander, Kerstin K.; Molnar, Zsolt; Venter, Oscar; Watson, James E.M. (2021)

  Indigenous Peoples’ lands cover over one-quarter of Earth's surface, a significant proportion of which is still free from industrial-level human impacts. As a result, Indigenous Peoples and their lands are crucial for the long-term persistence of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, information on species composition on these lands globally remains largely unknown. We conducted the first comprehensive analysis of terrestrial mammal composition across mapped Indigenous lands based on data on area of habitat (AOH) for 4460 mammal species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. We overlaid each species’ AOH on a current map of Indigenous lands and found that 2695 species (60% of assessed mammals) had ≥10% of their ranges on Indigenous Peoples’ lands and 1009 species (23%) had >50% of their ranges on these lands. For threatened species, 473 (47%) occurred on Indigenous lands with 26% having >50% of their habitat on these lands. We also found that 935 mammal species (131 categorized as threatened) had ≥ 10% of their range on Indigenous Peoples’ lands that had low human pressure. Our results show how important Indigenous Peoples’ lands are to the successful implementation of conservation and sustainable development agendas worldwide.