The Atlantic Forest is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and the Misiones Province of Argentina, where the region is known as Selva Misionera.
Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and many smaller islands. The islands of Wallacea lie between the Sunda Shelf to the west, and the Sahul Shelf including Australia and New Guinea to the south and east. The total land area of Wallacea is 347,000 km2 (134,000 sq mi).
A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in The Environmentalist in 1988 and 1990, after which the concept was revised following thorough analysis by Myers and others into “Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions” and a paper published in the journal Nature, both in 2000.
Russell Alan Mittermeier is a primatologist and herpetologist. He has written several books for both popular and scientist audiences, and has authored more than 300 scientific papers.
The East Melanesian Islands, also known as the Solomons-Vanuatu-Bismarck moist forests, is a biogeographic region in the Melanesia subregion of Oceania. Biogeographically, the East Melanesian Islands are part of the Australasian realm.
Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habitat destruction, degradation, fragmentation, overexploitation, poaching, pollution, climate change, and the illegal wildlife trade. The IUCN estimates that 42,100 species of the ones assessed are at risk for extinction. Expanding to all existing species, a 2019 UN report on biodiversity put this estimate even higher at a million species. It is also being acknowledged that an increasing number of ecosystems on Earth containing endangered species are disappearing. To address these issues, there have been both national and international governmental efforts to preserve Earth's wildlife. Prominent conservation agreements include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). There are also numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) dedicated to conservation such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the Wild Animal Health Fund and Conservation International.
Barbara Brown's titi monkey, also popularly known as the blond titi monkey or northern Bahian blond titi, is a species of titi, a type of New World monkey. This critically endangered species is endemic to the Caatinga in northeastern Brazil, and it is estimated that less than 250 mature individuals remain. It is named after the zoologist Barbara Elaine Russell Brown.
Papua New Guinea together with the West Papua region of Indonesia make up a major tropical wilderness area that still contains 5% of the original and untouched tropical high-biodiversity terrestrial ecosystems. PNG in itself contains over 5% of the world's biodiversity in less than 1% of the world's total land area. The flora of New Guinea is unique because it has two sources of origin; the Gondwana flora from the south and flora with Asian origin from the west. As a result, New Guinea shares major family and genera with Australia and the East Asia, but is rich in local endemic species. The endemicity is a result of mountainous isolation, topographic and soil habitat heterogeneity, high forest disturbance rates and abundant aseasonal rainfall year round. PNG boasts some 15–21,000 higher plants, 3,000 species of orchids, 800 species of coral, 600 species of fish, 250 species of mammals and 760 species of birds and 8 species of tree-kangaroos out of which 84 genera of animals are endemic. Ecosystems range from lowland forests to montane forests, alpine flora down to coastal areas which contains some of the most extensive pristine mangrove areas in the world. Much of this biodiversity has remained intact for thousands of years because the ruggedness of the terrain made the interior lands inaccessible; furthermore low population density and restrictions on the effectiveness of traditional tools, ensured that these biodiversity was never overexploited.
Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier is a Mexican photographer, conservationist, biologist, and author.
Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a joint biodiversity conservation initiative of l'Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, European Union, Global Environment Facility, Government of Japan, and World Bank. CEPF also receives funding from several regional donors, including the MAVA Foundation, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The fund's headquarters are hosted at Conservation International in Arlington, Virginia, United States.
Lee Hannah is a conservation ecologist and a Senior Researcher in Climate Change Biology at Conservation International. Hannah is one of many authors who published an article predicting that between 15% and 37% of species are at risk of extinction due to climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in each ecoregion. The Coral Triangle is located between the Pacific and Indian oceans and encompasses portions of two biogeographic regions: the Indonesian-Philippines Region, and the Far Southwestern Pacific Region. As one of eight major coral reef zones in the world, the Coral Triangle is recognized as a global centre of marine biodiversity and a global priority for conservation. Its biological resources make it a global hotspot of marine biodiversity. Known as the "Amazon of the seas", it covers 5.7 million square kilometres (2,200,000 sq mi) of ocean waters. It contains more than 76% of the world's shallow-water reef-building coral species, 37% of its reef fish species, 50% of its razor clam species, six out of seven of the world's sea turtle species, and the world's largest mangrove forest. In 2014, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that the gross domestic product of the marine ecosystem in the Coral Triangle is roughly $1.2 trillion per year and provides food to over 120 million people. According to the Coral Triangle Knowledge Network, the region annually brings in about $3 billion in foreign exchange income from fisheries exports, and another $3 billion from coastal tourism revenues.
A High-Biodiversity Wilderness Area (HBWA) is an elaboration on the IUCN Protected Area classification of a Wilderness Area, which outlines five vast wilderness areas of particularly dense and important levels of biodiversity. The sub-classification was the initiative of Conservation International (CI) in 2003 to identify regions in which at least 70 percent of their original vegetation has remained intact in order to ensure that this is safeguarded and these regions do not become biodiversity hotspots. Currently the areas listed as HBWAs are
The Kaijende Highlands are a nearly uninhabited expanse of mountains near Porgera in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. The highlands have been characterized as "some of Papua New Guinea's most pristine and scenic montane habitat". The Kaijende Highlands include Lake Tawa, Paiela Road, Omyaka Creek, Waile Creek and the Porgera Reservoir. The mountain range is 70 km north-west of Mount Hagen. According to a survey conducted in 2007, "areas like Kaijende are characterized by pronounced dominance of microtherm families, most notably by Cunoniaceae, Epacridaceae, Ericaceae, Geraniaceae, Myrsinaceae, Podocarpaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rosaceae, Theaceae, Violaceae, and Winteraceae."
Founded in 2007, the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF), is a German non-profit organization that supports the protected areas in the South Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The fund's mission is to provide long-term funding for operating costs, improved management and sustainable development of the region's protected areas. The trust works through public-private partnerships with the three governments by matching, but not exceeding the State budgets. This ensures each side is committing long-term support for the protected areas.
NamParks or the Namibian National Parks Programme is a programme of the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET). It was established in 2006 and is supported by the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW. It works in Bwabwata, Khaudum, Mudumu and Nkasa Rupara national parks in north eastern Namibia. The parks are part of a larger conservation area, the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. They contain biodiversity and habitat that are not found elsewhere in Namibia. They are also important for tourism. Partners believe that investment in the north eastern parks contributes to the ecological and economic development of the KAZA TFCA.
The Amapá Biodiversity Corridor is an ecological corridor in the state of Amapá, Brazil. It provides a degree of integrated management for conservation units and other areas covering over 70% of the state.
Peter A. Seligmann is an American conservationist and nonprofit founder. Seligmann is chairman of Conservation International, an Arlington, Virginia-based environmental nonprofit organization, and from 1987 to 2017 served as its founding chief executive officer. He is also the founding CEO of Nia Tero, a global collaborative whose name translates in Esperanto to "our Earth."
