In
a warming, overdeveloped world, our patchwork collection of parks and
conservation easements isn't up to the job of preserving the biodiversity we
know and love today.
What's
needed, says a prominent group of agency scientists and conservation leaders,
is a cohesive, coordinated—and, in the United States at least,
unprecedented—national approach to habitat preservation
.
The
group of 14 authors argues, in a paper published
in this month's edition of the journal BioScience, that major
challenges such as climate change are imperiling the United States’ natural
heritage.
Absent a "cohesive and strong" plan, they say, we risk our
ability to conserve that heritage for the future.
"An enormous amount of conservation work, much of which benefits biodiversity, occurs every year in the United States," they write. "However, the lack of a comprehensive vision and strategy to integrate these efforts for achieving national as well as local conservation goals is a major impediment to ensuring that our individual efforts add up in the most effective manner to conserving our nation’s natural heritage."
The
paper is notable, in part, for who the authors are: D.A. Boyce, Jr., national
wildlife ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service. Raymond M. Sauvajot, associate
director for natural resource stewardship and science in the National Park
Service. Kit Muller, coordinator for the National Landscape Initiatives at the
Bureau of Land Management.
Their
participation signals that leaders within agencies "see this would benefit
their work and the country," said Jodi Hilty, a co-author and president of
the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative,
an effort to connect wildlife corridors from Yellowstone National Park in
Wyoming to Canada's Yukon Territory.
The
paper appears as conservation leaders from across the world gathered in Hawaii
for Thursday's opening of the International Union of Conservation
of Nature Congress, a 10-day gathering that aims to set the global
conservation agenda for the next four years.
It
also comes a month after scientists reported, in the journal Nature,
that three-quarters of the world's threatened species are imperiled from
agriculture, land conversion and overharvesting.
And
it's worth noting that the United States, as one of two countries that hasn’t
ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, is one of the few countries
without a country-level conservation plan.
"The
loss of biodiversity and ecosystem processes is accelerating," the authors
of the conservation paper wrote. "Our conservation area portfolio is not
representative of or adequate to protect the environmental, ecological or
species diversity ... of the United States."
To
change this, the authors offered three examples of successful conservation
systems and partnerships.
Australia's
national conservation system covers 16 percent of the country (in contrast, 13
percent of the land in the United States is considered conserved, according to
the paper). But while conservation in the U.S. is rarely coordinated,
Australian land stewards have specific guidelines for inclusion, management and
monitoring of protected areas.
The
European Union, meanwhile, has what the authors describe as the "most
developed and formalized habitat conservation system in the world" in its
Natura 2000 initiative, aimed at conserving habitats throughout the continent.
More than 27,000 sites across 28 countries are included, representing 18
percent of the European Union.
Natura
2000 has its weaknesses—notably a top-down approach "that has failed to
adequately engage local stakeholders"—but the successes offer important
lessons for the United States, the authors say.
Of
course hurdles exist to any effort to develop a national conservation plan. The
United States would need to develop new conservation tools, such as incentives
for private landowners and mechanisms to foster wildlife corridors and
connectivity across multiple jurisdictions.
But
the first key ingredient, the authors note, is vision.
"The
future of habitat and biodiversity conservation will rely on an unprecedented
level of cooperation across private, local, state, tribal and federal agency
boundaries," they conclude. "
"Completing
a national habitat conservation system will be the key to proactively meeting
the challenges of conserving the habitats and biodiversity of the United States
as well as North America."
Douglas
Fischer is director of Environmental Health Sciences, nonprofit publisher of EHN.org and DailyClimate.org. For questions or
feedback about this piece, contact Brian Bienkowski at bbienkowski@ehn.org.
