Great trip to Colorado. Spent the day at the WILD Foundation office in Boulder, CO. Wonderful discussions with Vance Martin and Harvey Locke. Collaborating with them about the what and how Rock can be involved with current and future projects. They are currently developing several projects for their global mission of "Nature Need Half". ...stay tuned for more to come!
For more information of the WILD Foundation please visit their website - www.wild.org
Nature Needs HalfTM
Protecting and interconnecting at least half of the planet’s land and water is necessary to sustain the health, function, and diversity of all life.
New data demands a new global conservation vision.
The escalating global ecological crisis – characterized by loss of natural habitat and ecosystem services, increasing species extinctions, and rapid warming of the planet – has demonstrated that conservation efforts to date have not been sufficient to sustain life on earth. While this has been happening, our ecological knowledge has also increased dramatically, especially concerning how much land and water we must protect to support life on Earth. Many assessments over the last 20 years have typically determined that nature needs at least half of a given eco-region to be protected, and needs to be interconnected with other such areas, in order to maintain its full range of life-supporting, ecological and evolutionary processes, the long term survival of the species that live there, and to ensure the system’s resilience in the face of environmental change. Some ecosystems will require more than half.i
Until now, the conservation community has been cautious in setting such significant, science-based targets for protecting nature. This cautiousness has been due in part to uncertainty regarding how much of an ecosystem must be protected to ensure its viability (on which there is now much clearer science) and in part to the fact that the conservation community has sought to provide estimates that policy makers would find politically acceptable enough to act upon.
The conservation community and policy makers should now fearlessly embrace a global goal of protecting at least half of the planet’s lands and waters, region by region, in interconnected protected areas. We have a duty to speak frankly about the clear implications of the science. Failure to do so would be the ultimate disservice to people and planet alike. There is a compelling need for a new vision for how much of the planet can and should be protected. Simply put, Nature Needs Half, and it is time to say so.
Why now?
The magnitude of the global ecological crisis we face today – and the availability of better and more accurate ecological information -- demands that conservationists provide a clear and accurate global conservation target that will realistically keep our planet viable.
Advancing the idea that Nature Needs Half is particularly timely as 2010 has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity, and because the global conservation community will gather in Nagoya, Japan this fall to set new global conservation targets under the auspices of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. This idea is already affecting IUCN’s deliberations for that process.
What do we mean by protect and how much is already protected?
We use the term “protected areas” as defined by IUCN WCPA’s 2008 guidelines which means areas formally dedicated to the protection of nature.ii Connectivity between protected areas can be provided by a variety of conservation mechanisms that will vary according to local conditions and the needs of particular species. The idea is to ensure that entire systems function properly.
The UN reports that only about 14% of the planet’s terrestrial area is currently protected (though it is also true that many existing protected areas lack sufficient funding to be adequately managed) . But this statistic does not include Antarctica (10% of the planet’s land) which is very wild, nor does it include large areas under indigenous conservation management, and many privately protected areas. As a result, the current percentage of the earth under formal protection is likely significantly higher than 14% though the amount protected is clearly less than is necessary.
The good news is that the amount of the planet protected is not the same as the amount that is still largely intact, which is substantially greater. A 2003 study by Conservation International indicated that 39-44% of the planet remained mostly wild, with very low human population densities. The challenge is to formally protect these areas and to restore others.
How do we achieve the goal?
Reaching an at least half goal is ambitious but achievable. The short term milestone for the progress of this vision is to move urgently to protect at least half of the planet’s remaining large, mostly intact wilderness areas (for example Boreal Forests, the Amazon Basin, and formally protecting Antarctica), while achieving incremental gains by quickly protecting surviving remnants in fragmented areas of very high biological importance – for example in the Biodiversity Hotspots, Key Biodiversity Areas and Alliance for Zero Extinction sites. This rapid action is essential to respond to the global warming and extinction crises. The goal of achieving the target in every region will be more aspirational, requiring long term strategies with restoration efforts, and with many national/regional milestones along the way.
The goal has already been largely achieved in many parts of the world. Boulder County, Colorado, USA, the home of The WILD Foundation, is 67% protected. The Canadian Boreal Framework (signed onto by many varied interests) calls for the protection of at least half of Canada’s Boreal Forest in an interconnected manner, and both Quebec and Ontario have made public commitments towards at least half of their vast northern regions. Over half of British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands (Canada) have been protected through the combined action of governments and the Haida people. Countries such as Bhutan and Venezuela have set ambitious conservation targets; 51% of Bhutan is currently protected and 46% of Venezuela is currently protected. The Dominican Republic, a very small nation with a dense and growing population and one of the lowest per capita incomes in the western hemisphere has 67 protected areas covering 32% of the county’s land.
Nature Needs Half
Nature Needs Half is a vitally necessary target – and also one that is already proving highly inspirational. Region by region, through collaboration, creativity, and inspiring others we can - and urgently need to -- protect at least half of the planet!
i
Schmiegelow, F.K.A, S.G. Cumming, S. Harrison, S. Leroux, K. Lugo, R. Noss and B. Olson, 2006 “Conservation
Beyond Crisis Management: A Conservation Matrix Model” Beacons Discussion Paper No. 1, University of Alberta,
Edmonton (ed—one example of the numerous, existing papers)
ii
Protected areas are specific areas under any effective governance mechanism (government, tribal, community, corporate or individually owned, etc.) which are dedicated to nature protection as the overriding management objective and are protected for the long-term (see IUCN, 2008, Guidelines for Protected Areas)
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