Academic Articles June 1

Source: 2020 as ‘Super Year for Nature:’ Transformative change is no longer just an option

The latest academic papers on conservation. If you have a paper that you would like to share, please get in contact with us. Click on the title to follow the link to each article. Please note that some of these articles are behind a paywall.

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• Overcoming the concrete conquest of aquatic ecosystems
  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Steven J. Cooke et al.
  • In reflecting on the human domination of our planet in the Anthropocene, some have argued that concrete is among the most destructive materials created by humans. 

• Conservation implications of COVID19: Effects via tourism and extractive industries
  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Ralf Buckley
  • …reductions in funding from tourism lead to increased poaching; and (ii) extractive industries enterprises seize opportunities to encroach on the conservation estate, via multiple mechanisms.

• Differences among protected area governance types matter for conserving vegetation communities at-risk of loss and fragmentation
  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Carla L. Archibald et al.
  • Private and Indigenous protected areas are a growing component of the global protected area network. Countries can benefit from a diversity of protected area governance types as a means of creating complementarity and robust national reserve networks. 

• Global priorities for conservation of reptilian phylogenetic diversity in the face of human impacts
  • Source: Nature Communications
  • Author(s): Rikki Gumbs et al.
  • Phylogenetic diversity measures are increasingly used in conservation planning to represent aspects of biodiversity beyond that captured by species richness. Here we develop two new metrics that combine phylogenetic diversity and the extent of human pressure across the spatial distribution of species…

• Three Structural Pillars of the Future International Legally Binding Instrument on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction
  • Source: Global Challenges and the Law of the Sea
  • Author(s): Catherine Blanchard, Otto Spijkers, Wen Duan
  • The Intergovernmental Conference on marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction has started its work on the development of an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) on the conservation and sustainable use of such biodiversity.

• UN Food and Agriculture Organization: Exercising Legal Personality to Implement the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
  • Source: Global Challenges and the Law of the Sea
  • Author(s): Anastasia Telesetsky
  • The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been a core institution for improving international fisheries governance. This chapter proposes that based on a combination of delegated and derivative international organization powers that the FAO has responsibilities to implement actively…

• Wilderness and conservation policies needed to avoid a coral reef fisheries crisis
  • Source: Marine Policy
  • Author(s): Timothy Rice McClanahan
  • Caribbean ecoregions lacked significant refuge and therefore vulnerable to fisheries collapses. Estimates of passive plus active conservation deficits provides a path to prioritize actions to increase active conservation and restricting human and market demands.

• To Achieve Big Wins for Terrestrial Conservation, Prioritize Protection of Ecoregions Closest to Meeting Targets
  • Source: One Earth
  • Author(s): Alienor L. M. Chauvenet et al.
  • To save species from extinction, conservation is racing to establish new protected areas (PAs) before natural habitats are lost. We thus need a strategy to efficiently allocate conservation resources toward PAs. 

• Socio-environmental conflicts: An underestimated threat to biodiversity conservation in Chile
  • Source: Environmental Science and Policy
  • Author(s): Daniela M. Carranza et al.
  • In Chile, the dissociation between economic activities and conservation has triggered numerous socio-environmental conflicts in recent decades. This work explores how different projects that give rise to these conflicts can represent an underestimated threat to biodiversity.

• Identifying trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery for land-use decisions
  • Source: Scientific Reports
  • Author(s): Constance Fastré, Hugh P. Possingham, Diederik Strubbe, Erik Matthysen
  • Sustainable land-use management must account for the potential trade-offs between biodiversity conservation, productive land uses and ecosystem services.

• The biogeography of ecoregions: Descriptive power across regions and taxa
  • Sources: Journal of Biogeography
  • Author(s): Jeffrey R. Smith, J. Nicholas Hendershot, Nicole Nova, Gretchen C. Daily
  • Recent data‐intensive analysis has shown that, while ecoregions do delineate biotic communities, how distinct they are from one another varies considerably across regions and taxa.

• Sustaining protected areas through conservation trust funds: a review
  • Source: International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 
  • Author(s): Pikria Doinjashvili, Philippe Méral, Fano Andriamahefazafy
  • This article explores the unknown role of Conservation Trust Funds (CTF) through a review of the literature (scientific and technical) and a database of 89 CTF worldwide. It is based on the observation that there is little interest in…