International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

About: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is a nonprofit organization based out in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Biodiversity & Population. The organization has 1317 authors who have published 1870 publications receiving 97588 citations.

Ex Situ Plant Conservation and Beyond

Abstract: In recent years, the mission of many botanic gardens and arboreta has expanded from a traditional focus on developing a horticultural collection to one that includes taking a proactive role in plant conservation. To use their limited resources more effectively, many gardens are seeking ways to quantify their contributions to conservation efforts, both as a self-assessment tool to improve their effectiveness and as a way to give an explicit accounting of activities to donors and funding agencies. We suggest many ways gardens can measure the success of their conservation programs, and present results from a survey conducted to assess current conservation activities at botanic gardens.

Deep-Sea Mining With No Net Loss of Biodiversity—An Impossible Aim

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Spatially explicit valuation of the Brazilian Amazon Forest’s Ecosystem Services

Abstract: The Brazilian Amazon forest is tremendously important for its ecosystem services but attribution of economically measurable values remains scarce. Mapping these values is essential for designing conservation strategies that suitably combine regional forest protection with sustainable forest use. We estimate spatially explicit economic values for a range of ecosystem services provided by the Brazilian Amazon forest, including food production (Brazil nut), raw material provision (rubber and timber), greenhouse gas mitigation (CO2 emissions) and climate regulation (rent losses to soybean, beef and hydroelectricity production due to reduced rainfall). Our work also includes the mapping of biodiversity resources and of rent losses to timber production by fire-induced degradation. Highest values range from US$56.72 ± 10 ha−1 yr−1 to US$737 ± 134 ha−1 yr−1 but are restricted to only 12% of the remaining forest. Our results, presented on a web platform, identify regions where high ecosystem services values cluster together as potential information to support decision-making. This study spatially maps the economic value of some major ecosystem services provided by the Brazilian Amazon. It also estimates changes in these values under scenarios of degradation and low-impact logging.

The environmental impacts of palm oil in context

Abstract: Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing demands on land between agriculture (SDG 2) and biodiversity (SDG 15). The production of vegetable oils and, in particular, palm oil, illustrates these competing demands and trade-offs. Palm oil accounts for ~40% of the current global annual demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel (210 Mt), but planted oil palm covers less than 5–5.5% of the total global oil crop area (approximately 425 Mha) due to oil palm’s relatively high yields. Recent oil palm expansion in forested regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, where >90% of global palm oil is produced, has led to substantial concern around oil palm’s role in deforestation. Oil palm expansion’s direct contribution to regional tropical deforestation varies widely, ranging from an estimated 3% in West Africa to 50% in Malaysian Borneo. Oil palm is also implicated in peatland draining and burning in Southeast Asia. Documented negative environmental impacts from such expansion include biodiversity declines, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. However, oil palm generally produces more oil per area than other oil crops, is often economically viable in sites unsuitable for most other crops and generates considerable wealth for at least some actors. Global demand for vegetable oils is projected to increase by 46% by 2050. Meeting this demand through additional expansion of oil palm versus other vegetable oil crops will lead to substantial differential effects on biodiversity, food security, climate change, land degradation and livelihoods. Our Review highlights that although substantial gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts of oil palm, and the scope, stringency and effectiveness of initiatives to address these, there has been little research into the impacts and trade-offs of other vegetable oil crops. Greater research attention needs to be given to investigating the impacts of palm oil production compared to alternatives for the trade-offs to be assessed at a global scale.

Land Use Intensity-Specific Global Characterization Factors to Assess Product Biodiversity Footprints

Abstract: The UNEP-SETAC life cycle initiative recently recommended use of the countryside species–area relationship (SAR) model to calculate the characterization factors (CFs; potential species loss per m2) for projecting the biodiversity impact of land use associated with a products’ life cycle. However, CFs based on this approach are to date available for only six broad land use types without differentiating between their management intensities and have large uncertainties that limit their practical applicability. Here we derive updated CFs for projecting potential species losses of five taxa resulting from five broad land use types (managed forests, plantations, pasture, cropland, urban) under three intensity levels (minimal, light, and intense use) in each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregions. We utilize recent global land use intensity maps and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) habitat classification scheme to parametrize the SAR model. As a case study, we compare the biodiversity impacts of ...