John Lennon commemorated by naming a new tarantula species from South America after him

A newly described tarantula species from Western Brazilian Amazonia was named Bumba lennoni in honor of John Lennon, a founder member of the legendary band the Beatles. Credit: Doi: 10.3897/zookeys.448.7920, Image courtesy of Pensoft Publishers

A newly described tarantula species from Western Brazilian Amazonia was named Bumba lennoni in honor of John Lennon, a founder member of the legendary band the Beatles. The new species is part of the tarantula family Theraphosidae which comprises the largest spider species in the world. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The name of the new species came across when the authors of the study Fernando Pérez-Miles, from the University of the Republic, Uruguay, and Alexandre Bonaldo and Laura Miglio, both from the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Brazil, found out that they are all great fans of the Beatles music.

The genus, Bumba, which is proposed as replacement of the old one Maraca, already taken and used for Orthoptera, also has a story behind the choice of name. The new name is taken from Brazilian theatrical folk tradition of the popular festival called Boi-bumbá (hit my bull), which takes place annually in North and Northeastern Brazil.

The new species, as other tarantulas, has defensive urticating hairs on the abdomen which produce irritation upon contact with the skin or sensible tissues.

The specimens used in the study were captured manually or in traps during the night in Caxiuaná, Pará, Brasil, which suggest they could be mainly nocturnal animals.

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Ancient wisdom boosts sustainability of biotech cotton

The patchwork of 75 million acres of small farms in northern China includes insecticidal transgenic Bt cotton. Credit: Photo courtesy of Yidong Wu

Advocates of biotech crops and those who favor traditional farming practices such as crop diversity often seem worlds apart, but a new study shows that these two approaches can be compatible. An international team led by Chinese scientists and Bruce Tabashnik at the University of Arizona's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences discovered that the diverse patchwork of crops in northern China slowed adaptation to genetically engineered cotton by a wide-ranging insect pest. The results are published in the advance online edition of Nature Biotechnology.

Genetically engineered cotton, corn and soybean produce proteins from the widespread soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, that kill certain insect pests but are harmless to most other creatures including people. These environmentally friendly toxins have been used by organic growers in sprays for decades and by mainstream farmers in engineered Bt crops since 1996. Planted on a cumulative total of more than half a billion hectares worldwide during the past two decades, Bt crops can reduce use of broadly toxic insecticides and increase farmers' profits. However, rapid evolution of resistance to Bt toxins by some pests has reduced the benefits of this approach.

To delay resistance, farmers plant refuges of insect host plants that do not make Bt toxins, which allows survival of insects that are susceptible to the toxins. When refuges near Bt crops produce many susceptible insects, it reduces the chances that two resistant insects will mate and produce resistant offspring. In the United States, Australia and most other countries, farmers were required to plant refuges of non-Bt cotton near the first type of Bt cotton that was commercialized, which produces one Bt toxin named Cry1Ac. Planting such non-Bt cotton refuges is credited with preventing evolution of resistance to Bt cotton by pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) in Arizona for more than a decade.

Yet in China, the world's number one cotton producer, refuges of non-Bt cotton have not been required. The Chinese approach relies on the previously untested idea that refuges of non-Bt cotton are not needed there because the most damaging pest, the cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera), feeds on many crops other than cotton that do not make Bt toxins, such as corn, soybean and peanuts. The results reported in the new study provide the first strong evidence that these "natural refuges" of non-Bt crops other than cotton delay evolution of pest resistance to Bt cotton.

Tabashnik used computer simulations to project the consequences of different assumptions about the effects of natural refuges in northern China. The simulations mimic the biology of the cotton bollworm and the planting patterns of the 10 million farmers in northern China from 2010 to 2013, where Bt cotton accounts for 98 percent of all cotton, but cotton represents only 10 percent of the area planted with crops eaten by the cotton bollworm.

"Because nearly all of the cotton is Bt cotton, the simulations without natural refuges predicted that resistant insects would increase from one percent of the population in 2010 to more than 98 percent by 2013," said Tabashnik, who heads the UA's Department of Entomology and also is a member of the UA's BIO5 Institute. "Conversely, resistance barely increased under the most optimistic scenario modeled, where each hectare of the 90 percent natural refuge was equivalent to a hectare of non-Bt cotton refuge."

In a third scenario, the researchers used field data on emerging cotton bollworms from different crops to adjust the contribution of each hectare of natural refuge relative to non-Bt cotton. These data were provided by co-author Kongming Wu of the Institute of Plant Protection in Beijing. By this method, the total natural refuge area was equivalent to a 56 percent non-Bt cotton refuge, and 4.9 percent of the insects were predicted to be resistant by 2013.

To distinguish between these possibilities, a team led by co-author Yidong Wu of China's Nanjing Agricultural University tracked resistance from 2010 to 2013 at 17 sites in six provinces of northern China. Insects were collected from the field and more than 70,000 larvae were tested in laboratory feeding experiments to determine if they were resistant. This extensive monitoring showed that the percentage of resistant insects increased from one percent of the population in 2010 to 5.5 percent in 2013.

The field data imply that the natural refuges of non-Bt crops other than cotton delayed resistance with an effect similar to that of a 56 percent non-Bt cotton refuge, just as the model predicted.

"Our results mean we are getting a better understanding of what is going on," Tabashnik said. "We'd like to encourage further documentation work to track these trends. The same kind of analysis could be applied in areas in the U.S. where the natural refuge strategy is used.

"Natural refuges help, but are not a permanent solution," he added. "The paper indicates that if the current trajectory continues, more than half of the cotton bollworm population in northern China will be resistant to Bt cotton in a few years."

To avoid this, the authors recommend switching to cotton that produces two or more Bt toxins and integrating Bt cotton with other control tactics, such as biological control by predators and parasites.

"The most important lesson is that we don't need to choose between biotechnology and traditional agriculture," Tabashnik said. "Instead, we can use the best practices from both approaches to maximize agricultural productivity and sustainability."

Source:University of Arizona

U.S. releases enhanced shuttle land elevation data

Shaded relief images of deeply eroded volcanic terrain in northeast Tanzania demonstrate the improved nature of the highest-resolution SRTM data now being released. The image at left has data samples spaced every 90 meters (295 feet); the image at right has samples spaced every 30 meters (98 feet). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/National Geospatial Intelligence Agency

High-resolution topographic data generated from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in 2000, previously only available for the United States, will be released globally over the next year, the White House announced today. The announcement was made at the United Nations Heads of State Climate Summit in New York.

This initial public release of topographic data for Africa will help empower local authorities to better plan for the impacts of severe environmental changes such as drought, glacial retreat, inland flooding, landslides and coastal storm surges. Datasets covering the remaining continents will be made available within one year, with the next release of data focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lower-resolution SRTM topographic data having 90-meter (295-foot) pixels were released publicly in 2003 for many parts of the world, providing a global standard for many applications. The new data increase the detail to 30-meter (98-foot) pixel spacing, now revealing the full resolution of the world's landforms as originally measured by SRTM.

"The public availability of enhanced global SRTM topographic data will greatly benefit international efforts to better understand natural processes that shape our planet, prepare for and respond to natural hazards, and anticipate and prepare for the impacts of global change," said NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. "NASA is proud to have played a critical role in creating these data that will benefit society through open data sharing."

SRTM was a joint project of NASA, the German and Italian space agencies, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The newly released 30-meter topographic data products will be publicly distributed by the U.S.  

Geological Survey (USGS) along with the 90-meter data. These data are being made available via a user-friendly interface on USGS's Earth Explorer website.
SRTM flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in February 2000, mapping Earth's topography between 56 degrees south and 60 degrees north of the equator. During the 11-day mission, SRTM used an imaging radar to map the surface of Earth numerous times from different perspectives. The combination of these radar data were processed at JPL to produce a global topographic map created by bouncing radar signals off Earth's surface and back to the shuttle.

Topographic data benefit a wide variety of activities, from aviation safety to civil engineering projects. Topography also strongly influences many natural processes, such as the distribution of plant communities and the associated animals that depend upon them, weather and rainfall patterns, and the flow and storage of surface water. The data aid in better understanding, predicting and responding to flooding from severe storms and the threats of coastal inundation associated with storm surge, tsunamis and sea-level rise.

Multiple training workshops on SRTM data are planned for users in Africa. The SERVIR program, a joint venture by NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development, is planning workshops in Eastern and Southern Africa with the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development, and in West Africa with key environmental organizations. 

The Secure World Foundation is partnering with NASA, USGS and other members of the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites to offer online training and regional workshops to further enable users to take advantage of these data resources. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

New insights into origins of agriculture could help shape future of food

Wheat field (stock image). Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research by the University of Sheffield. Credit: © igor / Fotolia

Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research by the University of Sheffield.

Scientists, looking at why the first arable farmers chose to domesticate some cereal crops and not others, studied those that originated in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

They grew wild versions of what are now staple foods like wheat and barley along with other grasses from the region to identify the traits that make some plants suitable for agriculture, including how much edible seed the grasses produced and their architecture.

Dr Catherine Preece, who worked on the study with colleagues from the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences and Department of Archaeology, said: "Our results surprised us because numerous other grasses that our ancestors ate, but we do not, can produce just as much seed as wild wheat and barley. It is only when these plants are grown at high densities, similar to what we would find in fields, that the advantage of wild wheat and barley is revealed."

The study identified two key characteristics shared by the wild relatives of current crop plants. Firstly they have bigger seeds, which means they grow into bigger seedlings and are able to get more than their fair share of light and nutrients, and secondly, as adult plants they are less bushy than other grasses and package their big seeds onto fewer stems. This means crop wild relatives perform better than the other wild grasses that they are competing with and are better at growing close together in fields, making them ideal for using in agriculture.

"The results are important because our expanding human population is putting increasing demands on food production," said Dr Preece.

"Before humans learnt how to farm, our ancestors ate a much wider variety of grasses. If we can understand what traits have made some grasses into good crops then we can look for those characteristics in other plants and perhaps identify good candidates for future domestication."

She added: "To shape the future we must understand the past, so the more we can discover about the origins of agriculture, the more information we will have to help us tackle the challenges that face modern day food production."

So far the researchers have been conducting their experiments in greenhouses and their results indicate that the traits affecting how plants compete with each other are crucial factors to determining the success of a crop.

The team now plan to observe how the plants interact in their natural environment by growing them in experimental fields in Turkey, the heart of the Fertile Crescent. They hope that their experiments will yield another crop of important results.

"Cereal breeders are taking an increasing interest in modern crops' wild relatives as a source of useful traits that may help to increase yields or increase resilience to climate change, and our work should help in this process," said Dr Preece.

Dr Preece presented the results of this study to the joint British Ecological Society and the French Ecological Society 11 December 2014 in the Grand Palais, Lille.

Source: University of Sheffield

Home on the range: Cattle ranching in the Amazon

Rubber tapper children ride their steer home from school in the Brazilian state of Acre.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Santa Barbara

In a paper published in the current issue of the journal Human Organization, UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Jeffrey Hoelle takes a look at the rise of cattle ranching in the Brazilian state of Acre and the processes that brought it to one of the greenest corners of western Amazonia.

According to Hoelle, an assistant professor of anthropology, the Amazonian research on cattle usually falls into one of two camps: documentation of the environmental consequences of cattle raising -- the leading driver of Amazonian deforestation -- or analysis of the ways that policies and markets interact to make cattle and pasture more profitable than the standing forest. His article aims to expand the study of Amazonian cattle raising to include "cattle culture," the positive cultural constructions associated with a cattle-raising lifestyle that contribute to its appeal over other ways of using the land.

In Acre, Hoelle writes, "the rubber tapper movement protested the arrival of cattle ranching in the 1980s, capturing worldwide attention with a message of sustainable forest-based development. Across Amazonia, groups who once opposed or were displaced by cattle are now adopting it, including Acrean rubber tappers and colonists."

Using primary data he collected among rural and urban groups in Acre, Hoelle demonstrates, through a discussion of two processes that result in very different types of cultural expression, how cattle culture emerged in this unlikely place.

On the one hand, he notes, the subsistence uses of cattle led to cultural beliefs that were based on interdependence and resembled cattle complexes from other parts of the world. Yet local economic relationships with cattle could not explain the explosion of a "cauboi" (cowboy) model in which human control of cattle and nature was celebrated by men and women with shiny belt buckles, tight jeans, boots and a love of rodeos and "sertananeja" or "contri" (country) music.

Rubber tapper Jatobá Rocha was hesitant about cattle when Hoelle first met him in 2007. A year later, however, he bought a young bull named Tchoa, who quickly became a member of the family, pulling his own weight -- literally, with an oxcart -- and serving as a means of transportation for the Rochas.

Hoelle explained that people raise cattle all over the world in different ways, from subsistence pastoralism in East Africa to large-scale capitalist ranching in the Americas, with smallholders who fall somewhere in between these economic and ecological systems. In traditional nomadic pastoralism, humans regarded their cattle as individuals -- as the Rochas do Tchoa -- and develop an emotional connection with them. With large-scale ranching, cattle are a nameless commodity.

"For the cowboys and ranchers, the objective is to raise cattle as if they were a crop to be harvested at the right time," Hoelle said. "You don't want to hurt the herd to the extent that you'll jeopardize your investment, but you do need to dominate it." This economic relationship is recreated symbolically in rituals such as rodeos, he noted.
"If, however, you're relying on a cow for its milk, or if you're going to ride it to the store, you have to establish a relationship with the animal," he continued. Deep cultural connections form from that relationship, such as India's "sacred cow" or the cattle complex in East Africa. Hoelle argued the same thing happens deep in the heart of capitalist ranching in the Amazon.

He emphasized that it isn't necessarily ranching/pastoralism or capitalism/subsistence that explains the type of cattle culture that emerges, but rather the type of relationship that humans have with animals to secure products or services from them. "This really became apparent when I stopped looking at the ways that cowboys roughed up the cattle and focused instead on the affection they showed their horses," Hoelle continued. "They'd name their horses, hug them around the neck and nudge them playfully, and probably punch you if you asked about eating their beloved equine."

For the cowboys, horses were essential economic tools for securing the production of cattle; whereas for smallholders, the cattle served a similar function in terms of daily reliance. In both cases, cultural beliefs develop to protect vital resources.

Since the arrival of cattle in Acre, Hoelle said, these animals have been surrounded by violence, deforestation and displacement. "It is surprising that cattle raising and cattle culture have expanded across Amazonia, and especially in Acre," he commented. "It is also troubling for those of us concerned with sustainable alternatives to cattle raising. My point is that you have to put that aside for the moment and attempt to understand why it makes sense for those adopting it."

Understanding the appeal of the cowboy in the Amazon rainforest is critical to understanding the appeal of cattle raising, he noted. "The cowboy persona is something people strive for. It's very strong there, and really important in terms of the way people interact with nature," Hoelle said. "Being the strong manly type who can face the forest and transform it into this nice uniform pasture full of big domesticated animals is very powerful in the way it communicates ideals of masculinity, modernity and development."

From a distance of thousands of miles, it's easy for us here in the U.S. to decry the Acreans' decimation of the rainforest to expand cattle-grazing land. Our instinct is to preserve the rainforest because of its vital contribution to the world. "But those who are living it see themselves in the same way pioneers and settlers have throughout history. There is a drive to tame the frontier -- to control or cultivate nature," Hoelle explained. While this tendency has declined in the U.S., it remains front and center for those attempting to make a living in a place where people really do feel that they are under constant assault from the forest, he noted. In this context, the cowboy is an appealing figure, while here it might be more common to romanticize the Indians.

Hoelle, the author of the forthcoming book, "Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia," emphasized that crafting appropriate policy solutions requires an understanding of the interlinked political, economic and cultural features of Amazonian cattle raising.

Source: University of California - Santa Barbara

Mapping reveals targets for preserving tropical carbon stocks

This is an image from the Peru-wide, high-resolution carbon map showing the effects of deforestation (blue; no more carbon remaining) into a region of ultra-high carbon stocks in the surrounding forest (red). You can see massive losses in the bustling city of Pucallpa (right side) and the thousands of small farmers spreading into the forest to the west of Pucallpa. Image courtesy of Greg Asner. Credit: Greg Asner

A new high-resolution mapping strategy has revealed billions of tons of carbon in Peruvian forests that can be preserved as part of an effort to sequester carbon stocks in the fight against climate change. Tropical forests convert more carbon from the atmosphere into biomass than any other terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. However, when land is used for agriculture, as a wood source, or for mining, carbon is often released into the atmosphere where it contributes to climate change. Tropical deforestation and forest degradation account for about 10 percent of the world's carbon emissions annually.

There remain major challenges to conserving the carbon that's stored in these tropical landscapes on a national and international scale. A team led by Carnegie's Greg Asner developed a new high-resolution approach for prioritizing carbon conservation efforts throughout tropical countries. Their findings are published the week of November 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team of authors emphasized that the low cost of conducting their project means that the same approach can be rapidly implemented in any country, thereby supporting both national and international commitments to reduce and offset carbon emissions.

Many of the geographic details about the carbon that's stored in tropical forest ecosystems remain unknown. In order for people involved in conservation efforts to select new areas in which carbon stocks can be best protected and enhanced, detailed information on which areas would make the best targets for protection are necessary. This means understanding each landscape's climate, topography, geology, and hydrology.

Using advanced three-dimensional forest mapping data provided by the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), integrated with satellite imaging data, the team was able to create a map of carbon density throughout the 128 million hectare (320 million acre) country of Peru, at a resolution of one hectare (2.5 acres).

"We found that nearly a billion metric tons of above-ground carbon stocks in Peru are at imminent risk for emission into the atmosphere due to land uses such as fossil fuel oil exploration, cattle ranching, oil palm plantations and gold mining," Asner said. "The good news is that our high-resolution mapping was able to identify three strategies for offsetting these upcoming emissions."
The team determined that there are opportunities to establish additional protected areas in some lowland Amazonian regions of Peru, where they found very high carbon densities, as well as in the so-called sub-montane region, which exists between the lowland Amazonian and Andean highland regions. Together the lowland Amazonian and sub-montane forests offer about 30 million hectares for potential new protected forest areas, which may be able to store close to 3 billion metric tons of carbon.

"Research is necessary to determine the exact state of our forests," stated Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru's Minister of Environment, "For that, the Carnegie Institution, with the support of the Peruvian Environment Ministry, has developed the first high-resolution map of Peru's carbon stocks. This new map provides the evidence needed to start negotiating in the carbon market at a bigger scale. Our government is also studying carbon stocks in the soil, and is doing a forest inventory, and we have a forest investment program. These initiatives will better prepare us to face changes in land use."
The team also asserted that there are further opportunities for offsetting future emissions by improving enforcement in areas that are already designated for protection of carbon stocks. According to their research, the majority of already protected carbon stocks exist only in 10 parks and reserves, and just four of these are fully enforced.

"Transitioning partially protected preserves to fully protected ones would help to counterbalance a great deal of the carbon that is expected to be lost due to land use in the near future," Asner said.

Source:  Carnegie Institution

New laws threaten Brazil's unique ecosystems

Brazil's globally significant ecosystems could be exposed to mining and dams if proposals currently being debated by the Brazilian Congress go ahead, according to researchers publishing in the journal Science this week. Credit: Alexander C. Lees

Brazil´s globally significant ecosystems could be exposed to mining and dams if proposals currently being debated by the Brazilian Congress go ahead, according to researchers publishing in the journal Science this week.

The new report by a group of Brazilian and British researchers comes in the wake of Brazil´s recent presidential elections. It warns that new legislation could pose a serious threat to protected areas, weakening Brazil's international status as an environmental leader.

One of the proposals of particular concern is the call to open up 10% of the most strictly protected areas to mining. In a new analysis, the research shows that at least 20% of all Brazil´s most strictly protected areas and reserves for indigenous people overlap with areas that have been registered as under consideration for mining. In addition, many of the river systems associated with protected areas will be influenced by the construction of large hydroelectric dams.

The threat that this mining and hydropower poses to Brazil's ecosystems is not trivial. Areas of registered interest for mining include 34,117 km2 that are currently classified as strictly protected areas -- including National Parks, Biological Reserves and Wildlife Refuges. This is equivalent to an area the size of Switzerland. The situation is worse for indigenous lands, 28% of which, or 281,443 km2, overlap with areas of registered mining interest -- an area larger than the whole of the UK or the state of São Paulo.

In recent years Brazil has enjoyed increasing recognition as a world leader in combatting environmental destruction. Brazil´s protected area network is the largest in the world, while improved environmental governance in private lands has contributed to an 80% reduction in the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon over the last decade. Yet these new proposals could threaten these recent successes and undermine Brazil's reputation.

Dr Joice Ferreira, a scientist at Brazil´s agricultural research institute, Embrapa, and lead author of the study, said: "The purpose of this analysis is not to say that Brazil´s development should not benefit from its abundant natural resources, but that we should not squander our hard-won record of success and leadership in favor of fast-tracked and poorly planned development projects that leave a long legacy of environmental damage. It is possible to manage our development in a more sustainable way."

Co-author Dr Jos Barlow, a researcher at Lancaster University and a visiting professor in Brazil, said: "Rather than exploiting protected areas for short-term gains, Brazil should treasure them for the long-term benefits they can provide to society. The recent water shortages in the south east of Brazil emphasize the importance of protecting native vegetation across the country."

The authors of the study also warn that the proposals for minimizing and mitigating the environmental damage of large-scale development projects are so inadequate that even if only a fraction of these mining concessions were approved then the impacts could be enormous, especially in Brazil´s most threatened ecosystems.

Dr. Luiz Aragão a co-author of the study from Brazil´s federal space agency, INPE and the University of Exeter said: "Our concern is that even if the proposed mitigation actions were put in place they are oversimplified because they fail to take account of the indirect effects of mega-projects.
"These projects can involve thousands of workers and lead to rapid local population growth. This, combined with new roads and access routes, is a recipe for the emergence of new deforestation frontiers." explains Luiz.

The study highlights the fact that these worrying changes reflect an important shift in the support shown by Brazil´s federal government to environmental protection. These concerns come on the back of other recent changes, including the partial dismantling of Brazil´s protected area system to make way for development -- with some 44,100 km2 lost since 2008 due to downsizing or abolishment -- and the weakening of the Forest Code that gave an amnesty to landowners who deforested illegally in the past.

"Beyond the conservation and stewardship of its own biodiversity and environmental resources, so vital to the wellbeing of its citizens, Brazil plays a vital role in motivating and supporting the adoption of more sustainable development trajectories around the world," said Toby Gardner, of Stockholm Environment Institute, one of the authors of the study who has worked in the country for more than a decade. "Yet this standing is now in jeopardy."

Dr Joice Ferreira said: "The newly elected government has the chance to set the record straight and point Brazil firmly on a path of sustainable development. The authors of this report call on President Dilma and her government to ensure that individual development initiatives are subject to a comprehensive, socially inclusive, evidence-based and long-term cost-benefit analysis that compares potential environmental and social impacts against alternative development options. And also to ensure that Brazil´s renowned protected area network is given the resources it needs to manage our ecosystems sustainably.

"Above all we ask the Government to guarantee that important decisions regarding the management of Brazil´s natural resources involve the full and democratic participation of Brazilian society."

Source: Lancaster University

A fraction of the global military spending could save the planet's biodiversity, say experts: Only one in four protected areas is well managed

This image shows Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). Credit: Julie Larsen Maher, copyright WCS

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).

The paper, The performance and potential of protected areas, comes ahead of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 -- a once-in-a-decade global forum on protected areas opening next week in Sydney, Australia.

According to the authors, allocating US$45 -- $76 billion to protected areas annually -- just 2.5% of the global annual military expenditure -- could help adequately manage those areas, ensuring their potential contribution to the well-being of the planet is fully met.

Many threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, the tiger, and all rhinoceros species, as well as numerous plants, reptiles and amphibians, survive thanks to protected areas. Well-managed marine protected areas contain more than five times the total large fish biomass and 14 times the shark biomass compared with fished areas.

"Protected areas offer us solutions to some of today's most pressing challenges" says Dr James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and The University of Queensland and lead author of the study. "But by continuing with 'business as usual', we are setting them up for failure. A step-change in the way we value, fund, govern and manage those areas is neither impossible nor unrealistic and would only represent a fraction of what the world spends annually on defense."

According to the latest data, protected areas cover around 15% of land and 3% of oceans. Experts warn, however, that despite the significant increase in their coverage over the past century, this is still short of the global 2020 targets to protect at least 17% of land and 10% of oceans. Many ecosystems remain poorly conserved because protected areas do not always encompass the most important areas for biodiversity.

In addition, the vast majority of existing protected areas that are well placed do not have sufficient resources to be effective, with some studies finding as few as one quarter of them are being effectively managed. Growing threats from climate change and the escalating poaching crisis place additional pressures on protected areas globally.

"Some of the most iconic protected areas, such as Ecuador's Galapagos National Park, are undergoing significant degradation, partly due to an inability to manage them effectively," says Professor Marc Hockings of The University of Queensland,co-author of the study and member of the IUCN WCPA. "But governments cannot be solely responsible for ensuring that protected areas fulfill their potential. We need to find new, innovative ways to fund and manage them, actively involving government, business and community groups."

The paper also highlights an alarming increase in governments -- in both developing and developed countries -- backtracking on their commitments through funding cuts and changes in policy. A recent global analysis has documented 543 instances where protected areas saw their status downgraded or removed altogether.

For example, recent cuts to the Parks Canada budget have reduced conservation spending by 15%¬. In Uganda, active oil exploration and development is occurring inside many protected areas, including Murchison Falls National Park. In Indonesia, in 2010, mining permits were issued inside 481,000 hectares of protected areas and in the Virgin Komi Forests in Russia, significant boundary changes have been made to reserves such as the Yugyd Va National Park to allow mining. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman was removed from the World Heritage List after the government reduced the size of the reserve by 90% to allow for oil and gas extraction.

"There is a fundamental need for an increase in support of global protected areas, including better recognition, funding, planning and enforcement" says Nigel Dudley, co-author of the paper, from Equilibrium Research and The University of Queensland, member of the IUCN WCPA. "It is government's responsibility to step up but there is also the need for the wider community to take collective responsibility for protected areas."

Protected areas conserve biodiversity and sustain a large proportion of the world's poorest people by providing them with food, water, shelter and medicine. They play a key part in climate change mitigation and adaptation and bolster national economies through tourism revenues. In Rwanda, for example, tourism revenue from visits to see mountain gorillas inside Volcanoes National Park is now the country's largest source of foreign exchange, raising US$200 million annually. In Australia, the 2012-2013 budget for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was approximately AUS$50 million, but tourism to the reef was worth more than A$5.2 billion annually to the Australian economy.

"The growth of the modern global protected area movement over the last 100 years is arguably the greatest conservation achievement," says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. "It is also increasingly important for livelihoods and global security. The key now is for countries to recognize the return on investment that protected areas offer and realize that those places are fundamental to the future of life on earth. This is exactly what we hope to achieve at the upcoming IUCN World Parks Congress."

Effective management of protected areas, the threats they face and the solutions they offer to today's global challenges will be discussed at the IUCN World Parks Congress taking place in Sydney from 12 to 19 November 2014.

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society