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Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources is limited.
This is an index of conservation topics. It is an alphabetical index of articles relating to conservation biology and conservation of the natural environment.
Ex situ conservation is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety, or breed of plant or animal outside its natural habitat. For example, by removing part of the population from a threatened habitat and placing it in a new location, an artificial environment which is similar to the natural habitat of the respective animal and within the care of humans, such as a zoological park or wildlife sanctuary. The degree to which humans control or modify the natural dynamics of the managed population varies widely, and this may include alteration of living environments, reproductive patterns, access to resources, and protection from predation and mortality.
Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.
A threatened species is any species which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of critical depensation, a mathematical measure of biomass related to population growth rate. This quantitative metric is one method of evaluating the degree of endangerment without direct reference to human activity.
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.
Agricultural biodiversity or agrobiodiversity is a subset of general biodiversity pertaining to agriculture. It can be defined as "the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels that sustain the ecosystem structures, functions and processes in and around production systems, and that provide food and non-food agricultural products.” It is managed by farmers, pastoralists, fishers and forest dwellers, agrobiodiversity provides stability, adaptability and resilience and constitutes a key element of the livelihood strategies of rural communities throughout the world. Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable food systems and sustainable diets. The use of agricultural biodiversity can contribute to food security, nutrition security, and livelihood security, and it is critical for climate adaptation and climate mitigation.
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation status: not simply the number of individuals remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, and known threats. Various systems of conservation status are in use at international, multi-country, national and local levels, as well as for consumer use such as sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification. The two international systems are by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Natural heritage refers to the sum total of the elements of biodiversity, includes flora and fauna, ecosystems and geological structures. It forms part of our natural resources.
Breckland in Norfolk and Suffolk is a 39,433 hectare Special Protection Area (SPA) under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. The SPA partly overlaps the 7,544 hectare Breckland Special Area of Conservation. As a landscape region it is an unusual natural habitat of England. It comprises the gorse-covered sandy heath that lies mostly in the south of the county of Norfolk but also in the north of Suffolk. An area of considerable interest for its unusual flora and fauna, it lies to the east of another unusual habitat, the Fens, and to the south west of the Broads. The typical tree of this area is the Scots pine. Breckland is one of the driest areas in England.
Plantlife is a wild plant conservation charity. As of 2023, it manages 24 nature reserves around the United Kingdom. HM King Charles III is patron of the charity.
The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) is a program of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity founded in 1999. The GSPC seeks to slow the pace of plant extinction around the world through a strategy of 5 objectives.
Since declaring independence in 1981, Belize has enacted many environmental protection laws aimed at the preservation of the country's natural and cultural heritage, as well as its wealth of natural resources. These acts have established a number of different types of protected areas, with each category having its own set of regulations dictating public access, resource extraction, land use and ownership.
An intact forest landscape (IFL) is an unbroken natural landscape of a forest ecosystem and its habitat–plant community components, in an extant forest zone. An IFL is a natural environment with no signs of significant human activity or habitat fragmentation, and of sufficient size to contain, support, and maintain the complex of indigenous biodiversity of viable populations of a wide range of genera and species, and their ecological effects.
Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) are geographical regions that have been determined to be of international importance in terms of biodiversity conservation, using globally standardized criteria published by the IUCN as part of a collaboration between scientists, conservation groups, and government bodies across the world. The purpose of Key Biodiversity Areas is to identify regions that are in need of protection by governments or other agencies. KBAs extend the Important Bird Area (IBA) concept to other taxonomic groups and are now being identified in many parts of the world. Examples of types of KBAs include Important Plant Areas (IPAs), Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in the High Seas, Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites, Prime Butterfly Areas, Important Mammal Areas and Important Sites for Freshwater Biodiversity, with prototype criteria developed for freshwater molluscs and fish and for marine systems. The determination of KBAs often brings sites onto the conservation agenda that hadn't previously been identified as needing protection due to the nature of the two non-exclusive criteria used to determine them; vulnerability; and irreplaceability.
Waxcap grassland is short-sward, nutrient-poor grassland that supports a rich assemblage of larger fungi, particularly waxcaps, characteristic of such habitats. Waxcap grasslands occur principally in Europe, where they are declining as a result of agricultural practices. The fungal species are consequently of conservation concern and efforts have been made in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to protect both the grasslands and their characteristic fungi. Over 20 species of European waxcap grassland fungi are assessed as globally "vulnerable" or "endangered" on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.
The biodiversity of Wales is the wide variety of ecosystems, living organisms, and the genetic makeups found in Wales.
Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent. It is temporary if the damage that led to the loss is reversible in time, for example through ecological restoration. If this is not possible, then the decrease is permanent. The cause of most of the biodiversity loss is, generally speaking, human activities that push the planetary boundaries too far. These activities include habitat destruction and land use intensification. Further problem areas are air and water pollution, over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change.
Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) is a programme established by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2015 in collaboration with Plantlife International, to provide a framework to identify sites important for preserving plant diversity in tropical countries. The programme is based on the Important Plant Areas (IPAs) framework set up by Plantlife International. The IPA criteria were modified to take into account the high plant richness, the limited availability of data and the higher dependence on socio-economically important yet native plants for livelihoods in the tropics. The framework acknowledges the practical problems of gathering plant and habitat data in many regions of the world, and it recognises the important role of peer reviewed expert opinion in the selection process. TIPAs can be identified based on a range of organism groups within the plant and fungal kingdoms, including algae, fungi, lichens, liverworts, mosses, and wild vascular plants. The TIPAs programme focuses on critical sites for wild plant populations. It aims to identify areas important for the conservation of threatened plants and/or habitats and areas with exceptional plant richness, and to raise awareness of the importance of plant life in tropical countries, encouraging long term conservation of these areas. TIPA sites are selected based on three criteria:
References
- ↑ "Plantlife.org: Important Plant Areas". Archived from the original on 2017-01-12. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
- ↑ "Planta Europa: Important Plant Areas". Archived from the original on 2012-02-16. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
- ↑ "Important Plant Areas Around the World". Plantlife. May 2010. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
- ↑ "Where to See | Meirionnydd Oakwoods Habitat Management Project". Archived from the original on 2022-07-29. Retrieved 2022-07-29.