16 Feb 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Geography 1500F
Biodiversity Loss and the 6th Extinction Spasm, 3
Drivers
● habitat loss = climate change
● invasive species
● “extinction as bottom line”
Entwined with focus on protected areas
● “the foundation of conservation strategies” for the greater half of the century (Adams)
Prevailing view
● conservation starts with expanding protection of key spaces
● primary ‘containers’ of global biodiversity
● over time, recognizing problem of ‘islands’ (amidst habitat loss and fragmentation
● ‘island biogeography’
● conservation biology = ‘crisis management science’
SLOSS debates: In essence, given the same amount of total area protection is it better to
have…
Amazonia
● cattle ranching and deforestation in the Amazon
Continued
● ‘paper parks’
● “Yellowstone model”: keeping people out
● ‘fortress conservation’
● ‘fences and fines’
● recall: 12% some form of protection, but people can come as tourists
● habitat loss: dominant root pushing threatened species to brink
● once there, poaching, black markets, and international trade can become most
immediate threat
● estimated values of illegal wild trade is US$10 billion per year
● China main site of trade
● “The criminals who are now poaching elephants and smuggling tiger parts are the sae
who are funding terrorism and funding militias. This is mainstream.” - Sabri Zain,
TRAFFIC
● also: ‘lungs of the world’
● in addition to large share of biodiversity, disproportionate share of terrestrial biomass
(and plant-based C) + photosynthetic activity
● outsized role in carbon cycle
● cycling CO2 to O2 (e.g. Amazonia: 3% land: 15% terrestrial biomass)
● massive ‘carbon storehouse’ - ‘lungs of the world’
● Leaf Area Index