Biodiversity has become an issue of global anxiety over the past decades due to its rapid decline worldwide. Bangladesh as one of the most densely populated countries in the world is no more exception. The country, although, was once very rich in biodiversity, during the last few decades as a consequence of the rapid reduction in forest area, urbanisation, habitat modification, unsustainable natural resources use and collection and overall climate change it has decreased alarmingly. Of late, the government, as a signatory of various regional and international conservation treaties, has taken various initiatives to improve country's dwindling biodiversity. This paper reviews the present situation of biodiversity in Bangladesh, management trends and major causes of biodiversity loss. A separate statutory body is fundamental to ensure conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arisen from biodiversity in the country.
The paper combines an economic-geography model of agglomeration and periphery with a model of species diversity and looks at optimal policies of biodiversity conservation. The subject of the paper is 'natural' biodiversity, which is inevitably impaired by anthropogenic impact. Thus, the economic and the ecological system compete for space and the question arises as to how this conflict should be resolved. The decisive parameters of the model are related to biological diversity (endemism vs. redundancy of species) and the patterns of economic geography (centrifugal and centripetal forces). As regards the choice of environmental-policy instruments, it is shown that Pigouvian taxes do not always establish the optimal allocation.
Biodiversity provides essential services to human societies. Many of these services are provided as public goods, so that they will typically be underprovided both by market mechanisms (because of the impossibility of excluding non-payers from using the services) and by government-run systems (because of the free rider problem). I suggest here that in some cases the public goods provided by biodiversity conservation can be bundled with private goods and their value to consumers captured in the price realized by the private goods. This may lead to an efficient level of provision.
There has been major progress over the last two decades in digitising historical knowledge of biodiversity and in making biodiversity data freely and openly accessible. Interlocking efforts bring together international partnerships and networks, national, regional and institutional projects and investments and countless individual contributors, spanning diverse biological and environmental research domains, government agencies and non-governmental organisations, citizen science and commercial enterprise. However, current efforts remain inefficient and inadequate to address the global need for accurate data on the world's species and on changing patterns and trends in biodiversity. Significant challenges include imbalances in regional engagement in biodiversity informatics activity, uneven progress in data mobilisation and sharing, the lack of stable persistent identifiers for data records, redundant and incompatible processes for cleaning and interpreting data and the absence of functional mechanisms for knowledgeable experts to curate and improve data. The first Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC) in 2012 delivered the Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO, Hobern et al. 2012), an architectural vision for the major components of a distributed global infrastructure for biodiiversity information, but realigning the work of existing organisations and projects to achieve this vision remains challenging. Recognising the need for greater alignment between efforts at all scales, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) convened the second Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC2) in July 2018 to propose a coordination mechanism for developing shared roadmaps for biodiversity informatics. GBIC2 attendees reached consensus on the need for a global alliance for biodiversity knowledge, learning from examples such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and the open software communities under the Apache Software Foundation. These initiatives provide models for ...
International audience The 2010 Strategic Plan for Biodiveristy and its Aichi targets, adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, was largely endorsed as a general framework by the main conventions in the field of biodiversity and ecosystems governance. This paper discusses this example of diffusion by analysing the actors who facilitated it and by studying its potential legal effects. One of the main findings of this study is that the diffusion of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity was mainly facilitated by the Secretariats of the different multilateral environmental agreements, illustrating as such the important role of these relatively unknown actors of international environmental governance. Also, this study argues that, while the simple incorporation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and its targets in other conventions has weak legal effects, the cumulative diffusion associated with other decisions taken within the biodiversity regime can have very concrete legal consequences, whether it be on treaty interpretation or access to Global Environment Facility funding.
There has been major progress over the last two decades in digitising historical knowledge of biodiversity and in making biodiversity data freely and openly accessible. Interlocking efforts bring together international partnerships and networks, national, regional and institutional projects and investments and countless individual contributors, spanning diverse biological and environmental research domains, government agencies and non-governmental organisations, citizen science and commercial enterprise. However, current efforts remain inefficient and inadequate to address the global need for accurate data on the world's species and on changing patterns and trends in biodiversity. Significant challenges include imbalances in regional engagement in biodiversity informatics activity, uneven progress in data mobilisation and sharing, the lack of stable persistent identifiers for data records, redundant and incompatible processes for cleaning and interpreting data and the absence of functional mechanisms for knowledgeable experts to curate and improve data. The first Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC) in 2012 delivered the Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO, Hobern et al. 2012), an architectural vision for the major components of a distributed global infrastructure for biodiiversity information, but realigning the work of existing organisations and projects to achieve this vision remains challenging. Recognising the need for greater alignment between efforts at all scales, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) convened the second Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC2) in July 2018 to propose a coordination mechanism for developing shared roadmaps for biodiversity informatics. GBIC2 attendees reached consensus on the need for a global alliance for biodiversity knowledge, learning from examples such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and the open software communities under the Apache Software Foundation. These initiatives provide models for multiple stakeholders with decentralised funding and independent governance to combine resources and develop sustainable solutions that address common needs. GBIF was asked to coordinate next steps following GBIC2, including publication of a paper, Connecting data and expertise: a new alliance for biodiversity knowledge (Hobern et al. 2019). The supplementary materials for the paper include PDF brochures explaining the concept in eleven languages. During 2019, GBIF is coordinating further consultations to establish an optimal model for the governance and operations of the alliance and to advance collaboration around some of the major building blocks of the GBIO. Collaboration at this scale, and across all aspects of biodiversity information, is essential for effective delivery of important information products such as the Essential Biodiversity Variables and the planned pan-European natural history collections infrastructure, DiSSCo. This presentation explains the goals for this alliance and updates on progress during 2019 in operationalising the concept.
The paper combines an economic-geography model of agglomeration and periphery with a model of species diversity and looks at optimal policies of biodiversity conservation. The subject of the paper is natural biodiversity, which is inevitably impaired by anthropogenic impact. Thus, the economic and the ecological system compete for space and the question arises as to how this conflict should be resolved. The decisive parameters of the model are related to biological diversity (endemism vs. redundancy of species) and the patterns of economic geography (centrifugal and centripetal forces). As regards the choice of environmental-policy instruments, it is shown that Pigouvian taxes do not always establish the optimal allocation.
The environmental discussion is increasingly extended to the question of how to preserve biodiversity. As sensible regulation of biodiversity utilization uses politically set incentive schemes, it is required to discus the monetary value of biodiversity. Consequently, the relation between economic incentives and biodiversity is in the focus of our paper. By using bird species as bio indicators we derive first empirical results. In sum, one still may conclude that indeed economic growth is harmful for biodiversity. This is at least in line with the first part of biodiversity Kuznets curve. However, the existence of good institutions (especially a high quality of regulation) can in part prevent this effect, which can be cautiously interpreted as a hint that economic growth is not necessarily related to losses of biodiversity. With good governmental institutions, these losses may be prevented or mitigated.
Moderator: David Anderson. ; Presented at the 8th international congress for wildlife and livelihoods on private and communal lands: livestock, tourism, and spirit, that was held on September 7-12, 2014 in Estes Park, Colorado. ; Recognizing the imperiled status of biodiversity and its benefit to human well-being, the world's governments committed in 2010 to take effective and urgent action to halt biodiversity loss through the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its 'Aichi Targets'. These targets, and many other conservation programs, require monitoring to assess progress toward specific goals. However, comprehensive and easily understood information on biodiversity trends at appropriate spatial scales is often not available to the policy makers, managers, and scientists who require it. We surveyed conservation stakeholders in three geographically diverse regions of critical biodiversity concern (the Tropical Andes, the African Great Lakes, and the Greater Mekong) and found high demand for biodiversity indicator information but uneven availability. To begin to address this need, we envision a biodiversity 'dashboard', a visualization of biodiversity indicators designed to enable tracking of biodiversity and conservation performance data in a clear, user-friendly format. We structured around the Pressure-State-Response-Benefit framework, selecting four indicators to measure pressure on biodiversity (deforestation rate), state of species (Red List Index), conservation response (protection of key biodiversity areas), and benefits to human populations (freshwater provision). Disaggregating global data, we present dashboard maps and graphics for the three regions surveyed and their component countries. These visualizations provide charts showing regional and national trends and lay the foundation for a web-enabled, interactive biodiversity indicators dashboard. This should be able to help track progress toward the Aichi Targets, support national monitoring and reporting, and inform outcome-based ...
In 2010, there was a bold commitment to take action in halting global biodiversity loss by 2020. Now, half way through the Convention on Biological Diversity strategic plan 2011–2020, the success of the mission is under discussion. With the Twelfth Conference of the Parties attesting a lack of action, attention is now focused on the science–policy interface. This article offers a critical examination of the current debate on the science–policy interface and its implications for biodiversity research. The aim is to demonstrate the need for a social–ecological perspective. First, we argue that there is not only a lack of action but also a lack of knowledge. Second, we present social–ecological systems as a common framework for biodiversity research. Third, we explain the potential of transdisciplinarity in biodiversity research. We finish by calling for a decisive turning point to consider the hybrid notions of biodiversity in science, politics and conservation activities.
The concept of human security entered the doctrinal debate since it was first recalled in the 1994 United Nations Development Programme report on Human Development. As 'a shifting and bridging concept', the notion has the merit to emphasize that State security has no longer solely a military dimension, but also economic, environmental and health components. In particular, biodiversity is the foundation of human health, since it implies food security, regulation and control of infectious diseases and also provides relevant and undiscovered resources for medical research. Specific relevance is attached to marine genetic resources (MGRs) of the deep seabed and the adjacent water column due to their ability to survive in extreme conditions, which make them particularly suitable as a source of new drugs and for the role they can play in the so-called carbon cycle. Deep-sea MGRs mostly live in a symbiotic way with mineral resources of the seabed, ocean floors and subsoils beyond national jurisdiction (the Area), of whose growth they are responsible, as it is the case for hydrothermal vents and polymetallic sulfides deposits. The protection of MGRs in both the Area and the High Seas has long been discussed under the existing framework of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS or the Convention) and some legal gaps have been identified. While an Intergovernmental Conference has been convened to conclude a legally binding instrument under the UNCLOS for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, in the light of its uncertain outcomes this paper will focus on how the International Seabed Authority (ISA or the Authority) could ensure the protection of MGRs under the Convention's applicable legal framework. The most relevant provision in this regard is article 145 of the UNCLOS which, aside from requiring the ISA to adopt measures aimed at preventing, reducing and controlling pollution and hazards to the Area, also entrusts the Authority to hinder any damage to the flora and fauna of the marine environment at large which might arise from the exploration and exploitation of the mineral resources. Although it is clear that the Authority is mainly and foremost the organization through which State parties organize and control their activities related to the minerals of the Area, it is debated whether the Authority already has any general competence with regard to the protection of MGRs of the Area and the related water column. In fact, on the one hand, the ISA, sticking to the vertical division of the ocean spaces provided by the UNCLOS, could eventually exercise its environmental mandate on MGRs only in the context of the hazardous activities conducted under Part XI of the Convention and, ratione loci, only with regard to the Area and its mineral resources. On the other hand, the reasonableness of the existing boundaries between the Area and its adjacent water column is questionable as an ecosystem approach would be preferred by reason of the interdependence of the biodiversity services of a given area, whatever the conducted activity. This paper will argue that the ecosystem approach, which is widely recognised as a guiding principle under International Environmental Law, and that is even recalled in the preamble of the UNCLOS, would represent the best option in the interest of the biological integrity and human security. The pivotal role already played by the Authority in the field will be demonstrated by referring to its current contribution to the protection of the marine environment through its prescriptive and enforcement powers and by taking into account its law-making and practice. For instance, through its Regional Environmental Management Plan for the Clarion-Clipperton zone, the ISA has identified some Areas of Particular Environmental Interest, which are de facto marine protected areas aimed at granting the preservation of the living resources of the seabed and the water column of one of the rarest biological communities of the oceans. Since the ISA is the only global institution that is currently ensuring a certain protection to MGRs, the clear recognition of its wider environmental mandate in the field would prove the most immediate and suitable solution for their effective preservation, as the Authority owns comprehensive information on the mainly unknown biological deep-sea communities. This would also prevent that, while contractors for mining operations are required to stick to increasingly stringent environmental provisions, like those contained in the Mining Code, the bioprospection and use of MGRs could be arbitrarily conducted with no guarantee of any preservation of specific ecosystem services.
The fact sheet describes the objectives and activities of Workpackage 2: Biodiversity of the SponGES project. The main aim of this Work Package is to provide a complete assessment of the biodiversity contained within sponge grounds ecosystems of the North Atlantic.
Biodiversity conservation in the area of environment management has become the new buzzword of this decade. Widely used but little understood, it continues to cause confusion and misgivings. It is expected that new legislation and policies will soon be in place requiring biodiversity conservation to be addressed in Environmental Impact Assessments and land use development projects. This paper describes a first attempt to develop an objective method to qualify and quantify biodiversity for the Line Creek coal properties and leases in the Elk Valley of B.C. Corresponding baseline data are provided through Line Creek's comprehensive biophysical inventories, complemented through additional fieldwork in 1994. The overall objective was to facilitate comparison of ecological entities in terms of biodiversity. Based on a vegetation map of 1 : 20 000, the Map Units identified as "macrohabitats" were rated via a Biodiversity Index developed for this purpose. Key elements of the biodiversity index are flora and fauna as living ecosystem components. To do justice to specific habitat requirements of live organisms, six component indices were assessed. The sum of the component indices provides the overall value of the Biodiversity Index with the assumption that attached values are additive. The numerical rating of component indices with an overall numerical value of the Biodiversity Index permits a relatively objective comparison habitat types. This method is far from being perfect. The most serious drawback is the lack of information and unbalanced information in particular with respect to invertebrates and lower plant species. The objective of this presentation is to stimulate a discussion on a topic which cannot any longer be ignored. ; Non UBC ; Unreviewed ; Other
The erosion of the stock of biodiversity on earth developed historically with the so-called voyages of discovery (and their antecedents), colonial conquests and the accompanying movements of natural products and peoples, i.e. movements of populations and genetic materials. These events happened with the development of technology and the so-called conquest, by man, of his environment and the appertaining development of specialization not only in industry but also in agriculture and environmental management. The development of specialization resulted in the homogenization of processes, products, inputs and input industries; this increased homogenization had the corollary of arrested heterogeneity across the board; what they call globalization is part of this process. The efficiency of homogenization, however, engendered new problems of fragility of human environment and of production and social relations and processes. The effects of this complex situation, in general terms and in terms of biodiversity in particular, have been more devastating for the more vulnerable regions, classes of people, and peoples of the world. A continuous rethinking of the epistemology and the social and political bases of existing policies on environment in general, and of biodiversity conservation in particular, has become imperative.