The IUCN Species Survival Commission and IUCN Asia Regional Office commissioned this independent report to assess the state and condition of intertidal habitats along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), in response to growing concerns expressed by IUCN members over observed declines in biodiversity, the loss of ecological services, and an increase in ecological disasters. This report is a situation analysis, and it seeks to gather in one place the relevant data and analyses, and to present as clear a picture of the status of the intertidal zone in the EAAF as the data allow. By intention, this report makes no recommendations, but it should serve as a resource for those stakeholders empowered to make or influence decisions and policies in the region.

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IUCN situation analysis on East and Southeast Asian intertidal habitats, with particular reference to the Yellow Sea (including the Bohai Sea).

The occurrence of areas or centers of endemism is commonly attributed to the existence of suitable refugia in which plant lineages survived while others evolved during the late Neogene and Quaternary global cooling. In China, several studies performed since the 1980s have identified the mountains of central and southern China as the main centers of endemism in the country. A recent work studied the patterns of endemism separately for palaeoendemics and neoendemics and found that these tend to be located in different mountain ranges. Whereas, young endemics are preferably located in the mountain ranges of the eastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau (“plant cradles”), old endemics tend to occur in the mountains of central, south central, and southeastern China (“plant museums”), although there are some exceptions. This pattern seems to be related to the different geological history of the mountain ranges. The eastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau clearly constitutes the “evolutionary front” of China,...

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John Ramsay MacKinnon

Papers

Regional action plan for the protected areas of East Asia 2006-2010 (Japenese version)