Scientists’ warning to humanity on the freshwater biodiversity crisis

Freshwater ecosystems provide irreplaceable services for both nature and society. The quality and quantity of freshwater affect biogeochemical processes and ecological dynamics that determine biodiversity, ecosystem productivity, and human health and welfare at local, regional and global scales. Freshwater ecosystems and their associated riparian habitats are amongst the most biologically diverse on Earth, and have inestimable economic, health, cultural, scientific and educational values. Yet human impacts to lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands and groundwater are dramatically reducing biodiversity and robbing critical natural resources and services from current and future generations. Freshwater biodiversity is declining rapidly on every continent and in every major river basin on Earth, and this degradation is occurring more rapidly than in terrestrial ecosystems. Currently, about one third of all global freshwater discharges pass through human agricultural, industrial or urban infrastructure. About one fifth of the Earth’s arable land is now already equipped for irrigation, including all the most productive lands, and this proportion is projected to surpass one third by midcentury to feed the rapidly expanding populations of humans and commensal species, especially poultry and ruminant livestock. Less than one fifth of the world’s preindustrial freshwater wetlands remain, and this proportion is projected to decline to under one tenth by midcentury, with imminent threats from water transfer megaprojects in Brazil and India, and coastal wetland drainage megaprojects in China. The Living Planet Index for freshwater vertebrate populations has declined to just one third that of 1970, and is projected to sink below one fifth by midcentury. A linear model of global economic expansion yields the chilling prediction that human utilization of critical freshwater resources will approach one half of the Earth’s total capacity by midcentury. Although the magnitude and growth of the human freshwater footprint are greater than is generally understood by policy makers, the news media, or the general public, slowing and reversing dramatic losses of freshwater species and ecosystems is still possible. We recommend a set of urgent policy actions that promote clean water, conserve watershed services, and restore freshwater ecosystems and their vital services. Effective management of freshwater resources and ecosystems must be ranked amongst humanity’s highest priorities.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01318-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

A global community-sourced assessment of the state of conservation technology

Conservation technology holds the potential to vastly increase conservationists’ ability to understand and address critical environmental challenges, but systemic constraints appear to hamper its development and adoption. Understanding of these constraints and opportunities for advancement remains limited. We conducted a global online survey of 248 conservation technology users and developers to identify perceptions of existing tools’ current performance and potential impact, user and developer constraints, and key opportunities for growth. We also conducted focus groups with 45 leading experts to triangulate findings. The technologies with the highest perceived potential were machine learning and computer vision, eDNA and genomics, and networked sensors. A total of 95%, 94%, and 92% respondents, respectively, rated them as very helpful or game changers. The most pressing challenges affecting the field as a whole were competition for limited funding, duplication of efforts, and inadequate capacity building. A total of 76%, 67%, and 55% respondents, respectively, identified these as primary concerns. The key opportunities for growth identified in focus groups were increasing collaboration and information sharing, improving the interoperability of tools, and enhancing capacity for data analyses at scale. Some constraints appeared to disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Respondents in countries with developing economies were more likely to report being constrained by upfront costs, maintenance costs, and development funding (p = 0.048, odds ratio [OR] = 2.78; p = 0.005, OR = 4.23; p = 0.024, OR = 4.26), and female respondents were more likely to report being constrained by development funding and perceived technical skills (p = 0.027, OR = 3.98; p = 0.048, OR = 2.33). To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to formally capture the perspectives and needs of the global conservation technology community, providing foundational data that can serve as a benchmark to measure progress. We see tremendous potential for this community to further the vision they define, in which collaboration trumps competition; solutions are open, accessible, and interoperable; and user-friendly processing tools empower the rapid translation of data into conservation action. Article impact statement: Addressing financing, coordination, and capacity-building constraints is critical to the development and adoption of conservation technology.     

Effectiveness of Environmental Surrogates for the Selection of Conservation Area Networks

Abstract:  Rapid biodiversity assessment and conservation planning require the use of easily quantified and estimated surrogates for biodiversity. Using data sets from Québec and Queensland, we applied four methods to assess the extent to which environmental surrogates can represent biodiversity components: (1) surrogacy graphs; (2) marginal representation plots; (3) Hamming distance function; and (4) Syrjala statistical test for spatial congruence. For Québec we used 719 faunal and floral species as biodiversity components, and for Queensland we used 2348 plant species. We used four climatic parameter types (annual mean temperature, minimum temperature during the coldest quarter, maximum temperature during the hottest quarter, and annual precipitation), along with slope, elevation, aspect, and soil types, as environmental surrogates. To study the effect of scale, we analyzed the data at seven spatial scales ranging from 0.01° to 0.10° longitude and latitude. At targeted representations of 10% for environmental surrogates and biodiversity components, all four methods indicated that using a full set of environmental surrogates systematically provided better results than selecting areas at random, usually ensuring that ≥90% of the biodiversity components achieved the 10% targets at scales coarser than 0.02°. The performance of surrogates improved with coarser spatial resolutions. Thus, environmental surrogate sets are useful tools for biodiversity conservation planning. A recommended protocol for the use of such surrogates consists of randomly selecting a set of areas for which distributional data are available, identifying an optimal surrogate set based on these areas, and subsequently prioritizing places for conservation based on the optimal surrogate set.     

WSSD 2002, Latin America and Brazil: Biodiversity and Indigenous People

Latin America comprehends notable variations in terms of natural environment, availability of natural resources, living standards, and demographic patterns. Latin America is a mosaic of cultures, post- and pre-Columbian. The rich variety of life forms discovered and described by chroniclers and traveling naturalists in the Neotropics contributed to the proposal, in mid-XVIIIth century, of a new system of classification and a scientific code of nomenclature for all organisms. Biodiversity was, for many centuries, a source of resources to be exploited in natura. In scientific circles, its inventory became the domain of taxonomists. But modern technology showed how important the miriad of life forms really are as sources of chemical molecules to be engineered as drugs and reassembled as novel manufactured products. We are on the brink of a new agricultural and medical revolution, thanks to the techniques of genetic engineering, which will lead eventually to the elimination of hunger and malnutrition.In this essay, the Brazilian environmental and social heterogeneity will serve as an example to illustrate some key points, which have influenced sustainability policies. The Amazon deforestation and indigenous knowledge (IK), subjects often associated with areas of high biodiversity, are usually the focus of environmental debates. The importance of IK in integrating development, reducing poverty and sustainability are considered together with the intellectual property rights of native populations.In the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Implementation Plan, a few paragraphs were dedicated to Latin America, because of the pre-existing Action Platform on the Road to Johannesburg 2002, approved in Rio de Janeiro in October 2001. This paper calls attention to the need to draw up specific environmental policies for a region which shows an extremely high cultural and biological diversity, associated with a high availability of forests and water, among other resources.     

Agriculture in the Slovenian Transitional Economy: The Preservation of Genetic Diversity of Plants and Ethical Consequences

Slovene agriculture is going throughdrastic changes. Most of the land is stillowned by small farmers. The production isoriented to the market and is based on modernWestern technology. It is associated withincreasing pollution and is becoming a seriousthreat to biodiversity. Many of the wild plantsare endangered due to genetic erosion withinspecies. The traditional crops and varietiesare being replaced by imported materials andthe use of chemicals has been increasing. Manyof the traditional varieties have beenneglected and/or lost. The existing germplasmcollections are incomplete and frequently donot include traditional varieties. There areonly a few breeding organizations with limitedcapacities and collections. The legislation isnot efficient enough to protect the environmentand biotic diversity. Schools, media,religious, sport, tourist, and otherorganizations should be more active inpromoting the respect for biodiversity.     

A composite measure of habitat loss for entire assemblages of species

Habitat destruction is among the greatest threats facing biodiversity, and it affects common and threatened species alike. However, metrics for communicating its impacts typically overlook the nonthreatened component of assemblages. This risks the loss of habitat going unreported for species that comprise the majority of assemblages. We adapted a widely used measure for summarizing researcher output (the h index) to provide a metric that describes natural habitat loss for entire assemblages, inclusive of threatened and nonthreatened species. For each of 447 Australian native terrestrial bird species, we combined information on their association with broad vegetation groups with distributional range maps to identify the difference between the estimated pre-European and current extents of potential habitat, defined as vegetation groups most closely associated with each species. From this, we calculated the loss index (LI), which revealed that 30% of native birds have each lost at least 30% of their potential natural habitat (LI = 30). At the subcontinental scale, LIs ranged from 15 in arid Australia to 61 in the highly transformed southeastern part of the country. Different subcomponents of the assemblage had different LI values. For example, Australia's parrots (n = 52 species) had an LI of 38, whereas raptors (n = 32 species) had an LI of 25. The LI is simple to calculate and can be determined using readily available spatial information on species distributions, native vegetation associations, and human impacts on natural land cover. This metric, including the curves used to deduce it, could complement other biodiversity indices if it is used for regional and global biodiversity assessments that compare the status of natural habitat extent for assemblages within and among nations, monitor changes through time, and forecast future changes to guide strategic land-use planning. The LI is an intuitive tool that can be used to summarize and communicate how human actions affect whole assemblages, not just threatened species.     

Research methods and reporting practices in zoo and aquarium conservation-education evaluation

Zoos and aquariums are increasingly incorporating conservation education into their mission statements and visitor experiences to address global biodiversity loss. To advance knowledge and practice in the field, research is being conducted to evaluate the effect of zoo conservation-education experiences on visitor psychosocial outcomes (e.g., knowledge, attitude, emotions, motivations, behavior). Following recent discussions among scholars and practitioners concerning logistical and methodological challenges that likely undermine the conclusions of such research, we identified and reviewed the methods and reporting practices in peer-reviewed articles published in English from May 1998 to June 2016 that focused on adult visitor samples (47 articles, 48 studies). We examined elements of internal, external, construct, and statistical conclusion validity. Methodological quality of quantitative methods and reporting practices was determined using the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool. Each study was coded as either strong (no weak ratings), moderate (1 weak rating), or weak (≥2 weak ratings). The quantitative methods of 83.3% of studies were weak. The remaining 16.7% had methods of moderate quality. Using an existing checklist, we also assessed the quality and rigor of qualitative methods and reporting practices and found that some aspects of these methods were reported more comprehensively than others. For example, 69.6% of articles discussed methods for identifying key themes from the data, whereas only 34.8% reported how data verification was performed. We suggest increased application of intensive longitudinal methods (e.g., daily diary) to strengthen self-reported data, experimental and repeated-measures designs, and mixed-methods approaches. Our findings and recommendations could strengthen and guide the research and evaluation agenda for the field and ultimately enhance the contribution zoos make to global biodiversity conservation.     

Reduction in global habitat loss from fossil-fuel-dependent increases in cropland productivity

Terrestrial biodiversity loss and climate change, driven mainly by loss of habitat to agriculture and fossil fuel (FF) use, respectively, are considered among the world's greatest environmental threats. However, FF-dependent technologies are currently essential for manufacturing synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (SNFs) and synthetic pesticides (SPs) critical to increasing agricultural productivity, which reduces habitat loss. Fossil fuel use increases CO₂ levels, further enhancing agricultural productivity. Based on estimates of global increases in yields from SNFs, SPs, and atmospheric CO₂ fertilization, I estimated that FF-dependent technologies are responsible for at least 62.5% of current global food production (GFP) from cropland. Thus, if FF use is eschewed in the future, maintaining current GFP means croplands would have to increase from 12.2% of global land area (GLA) excluding Antarctica to 32.7%. The additional 20.4% of GLA needed exceeds habitat lost currently to cropland (12.2% of GLA) and cumulative conservation areas globally (14.6% of GLA). Thus, although eliminating FF use could reduce climate change, its unintended consequences may be to significantly exacerbate biodiversity loss and indirectly increase food costs, reducing food security which, moreover, disproportionately affects the poor. Although it may be possible to replace SNFs and SPs with FF-free technologies, such substitutes have not yet been demonstrated to be sufficiently economical or efficient. In the interim, meeting global food demand and keeping food prices affordable would increase habitat conversion and food prices. These trade-offs should be considered in analyses of climate change policies.     

Lomborg and the Litany of Biodiversity Crisis: What the Peer-Reviewed Literature Says

Abstract:  Lomborg's (2001) book has generated passionate discussion about the state of the global environment. We performed a bibliometric evaluation of the peer-reviewed primary scientific literature to determine whether there is any consistent evidence that "things are getting better." The global literature primarily reported negative impacts on biodiversity caused by human actions, although Europe appeared to be doing better than the rest of the world. These results cannot be explained by publication bias alone because rejection rates of papers indicating improvements in the environment would have to be unrealistically high to change our results. There were nonrandom distributions of papers showing environmental recovery in developed countries and for ecosystems not strongly subjected to conservation-development conflicts. Although the literature did not paint a picture of universal gloom, the empirical evidence clearly showed growing environmental crises.