Conservation and management applications of the REEF volunteer fish monitoring program

The REEF Fish Survey Project is a volunteer fish monitoring program developed by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF). REEF volunteers collect fish distribution and abundance data using a standardized visual method during regular diving and snorkeling activities. Survey data are recorded on preprinted data sheets that are returned to REEF and optically digitized. Data are housed in a publicly accessible database on REEF's Web site (http: //www.reef.org). Since the project's inception in 1993, over 40,000 surveys have been conducted in the coastal waters of North America, tropical western Atlantic, Gulf of California and Hawaii. The Fish Survey Project has been incorporated into existing monitoring programs through partnerships with government agencies, scientists, conservation organizations, and private institutions. REEF's partners benefit from the educational value and increased stewardship resulting from volunteer data collection. Applications of the data include an evaluation of fish/habitat interactions in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the development of a multi-species trend analysis method to identify sites of management concern, assessment of the current distribution of species, status reports on fish assemblages of marine parks, and the evaluation of no-take zones in the Florida Keys. REEF's collaboration with a variety of partners, combined with the Fish Survey Project's standardized census method and database management system, has resulted in a successful citizen science monitoring program.     

Selecting Socio-Economic Metrics for Watershed Management

The selection of social and economic metrics to document baseline conditions and analyze the dynamic relationships between ecosystems and human communities are important decisions for scientists, managers, and watershed citizens. A large variety of social and economic data is available but these have limited use without theoretical frameworks. In this paper, several frameworks for reviewing social-ecosystem relations are offered, namely social sanctions, sense of place, civic structure, and cultural differences. Underlying all of these frameworks are attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that affect which questions are asked and which indicators are chosen. Much work and significant challenges remain in developing a standard set of spatially based socio-economic metrics for watershed management.     

Economic and Spatial Impacts of an Existing Reserve Network on Future Augmentation

An optimization model for land reservation was developed that explicitly selects parcels in the most compact or contiguous manner possible while meeting habitat requirements and a budget limitation. The model was used to compare the effects of an existing reserve network on future parcel spatial locations and total cost. Using habitat and land value data from Josephine County, Oregon, it was found that a system of existing reserves created by various policies and overseen by different agencies can decrease future reserve compactness and contiguity, and increase total cost. This work suggests that coordinated planning can result in more efficient conservation efforts for less cost.     

Mega-Development Trends in the Amazon: Implications for Global Change

This paper describes four global-change phenomena that are having major impacts on Amazonian forests. The first is accelerating deforestation and logging. Despite recent government initiatives to slow forest loss, deforestation rates in Brazilian Amazonia have increased from 1.1 million ha yr^–1 in the early 1990s, to nearly 1.5 million ha yr^–1 from 1992–1994, and to more than 1.9 million ha yr^–1 from 1995–1998. Deforestation is also occurring rapidly in some other parts of the Amazon Basin, such as in Bolivia and Ecuador, while industrialized logging is increasing dramatically in the Guianas and central Amazonia.The second phenomenon is that patterns of forest loss and fragmentation are rapidly changing. In recent decades, large-scale deforestation has mainly occurred in the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon — in the Brazilian states of Pará, Maranho, Rondônia, Acre, and Mato Grosso, and in northern Bolivia. While rates of forest loss remain very high in these areas, the development of major new highways is providing direct conduits into the heart of the Amazon. If future trends follow past patterns, land-hungry settlers and loggers may largely bisect the forests of the Amazon Basin.The third phenomenon is that climatic variability is interacting with human land uses, creating additional impacts on forest ecosystems. The 1997/98 El Niño drought, for example, led to a major increase in forest burning, with wildfires raging out of control in the northern Amazonian state of Roraima and other locations. Logging operations, which create labyrinths of roads and tracks in forsts, are increasing fuel loads, desiccation and ignition sources in forest interiors. Forest fragmentation also increases fire susceptibility by creating dry, fire-prone forest edges.Finally, recent evidence suggests that intact Amazonian forests are a globally significant carbon sink, quite possibly caused by higher forest growth rates in response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ fertilization. Evidence for a carbon sink comes from long-term forest mensuration plots, from whole-forest studies of carbon flux and from investigations of atmospheric CO₂ and oxygen isotopes. Unfortunately, intact Amazonian forests are rapidly diminishing. Hence, not only is the destruction of these forests a major source of greenhouse gases, but it is reducing their intrinsic capacity to help buffer the rapid anthropogenic rise in CO₂.     

The Impact of Landsat Satellite Monitoring on Conservation Biology

Landsat 7s recent malfunctioning will result in significant gaps in long-term satellite monitoring of Earth, affecting not only the research of the Earth science community but also conservation users of these data. To determine whether or how important Landsat monitoring is for conservation and natural resource management, we reviewed the Landsat programs history with special emphasis on the development of user groups. We also conducted a bibliographic search to determine the extent to which conservation research has been based on Landsat data. Conservation biologists were not an early user group of Landsat data because a) biologists lacked technical capacity – computers and software – to analyze these data; b) Landsats 1980s commercialization rendered images too costly for biologists budgets; and c) the broad-scale disciplines of conservation biology and landscape ecology did not develop until the mid-to-late 1980s. All these conditions had changed by the 1990s and Landsat imagery became an important tool for conservation biology. Satellite monitoring and Landsat continuity are mandated by the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. This legislation leaves open commercial options. However, past experiments with commercial operations were neither viable nor economical, and severely reduced the quality of monitoring, archiving and data access for academia and the public. Future satellite monitoring programs are essential for conservation and natural resource management, must provide continuity with Landsat, and should be government operated.     

植物遗传资源保护与利用的市场化机制和国际制度

随着植物物种资源的不断减少和因生物技术迅猛发展对植物遗传资源需求的不断增加 ,植物遗传资源正逐步由公共物品转变为稀缺物品。坚持《生物多样性公约》所确立的遗传资源效益公平分享原则 ,完善现有国际多边体系 ,促进以“遗传编码功能”价值概念和遗传资源保护效应“内部化”与“补偿”方案为基础的植物遗传资源市场化保护与利用机制的形成 ,建立“植物遗传资源交易所”和“生物多样性合作社” ,将有助于提高世界各国尤其是发展中国家保护植物遗传资源的积极性 ,实现全球植物遗传资源的可持续利用     

野生灵长类资源的旅游开发与保护关系探讨

以安徽黄山旅游开发利用野生短尾猴资源实践为基础，探讨了旅游开发与保护的辩证关系，提出了灵长类动物旅游开发中应注意的问题和采取的措施。     

论DNA分子标记在家畜遗传多样性保护中的应用

本文就ＤＮＡ分子遗传标记在家畜遗传多样性保护中应用的可行性及途径进行了探讨，提出了家畜遗传多样性标记辅助保护新策略。     

环境及环境科学的哲学概观

从哲学层次上考察环境和环境科学有关问题，对环境问题的根本解决与环境科学的发展具有世界观与方法论上的指导意义。环境是一个哲学范畴，是主体活动赖于进行的自然、社会、人文条件的总和。环境哲学承认环境的价值因素，引入环境价值系统，实行自然资源的有偿使用。环境哲学将伦理观引入自然环境之中，倡导人类须规范其行为、尊重自然环境有其存在与发展的权利。环境哲学寻求从根本上解决人类自身发展的道路。     

用科学发展观统领环保工作的哲学思考

从用科学发展观统领环境保护工作的哲学内涵、辩证认识、实践把握3方面论述了用科学发展观统领环保工作的哲学思考.