Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Bridging the Gap Between Global Commitment and Local Action Conservation Science and Practice Series

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as to how biodiversity may respond to global environmental change. Knowledge gaps make it very difficult to develop effective policies and legislation to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss.

This book explores the gap between global commitments to biodiversity conservation, and local action to track biodiversity change and implement conservation action. High profile international political commitments to improve biodiversity conservation, such as the targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, require innovative and rapid responses from both science and policy. This multi-disciplinary perspective highlights barriers to conservation and offers novel solutions to evaluating trends in biodiversity at multiple scales.

Contributors xi

Acknowledgements xv

1. Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation: Bridging the Gaps Between Global Commitment and Local Action 1
Ben Collen, Nathalie Pettorelli, Jonathan E.M. Baillie and SarahM. Durant

Part I Species-Based Indicators of Biodiversity Change 17

2. Tracking Change in National-Level Conservation Status: National Red Lists 19
Ben Collen, Janine Griffiths, Yolan Friedmann, Jon Paul Rodriguez, Franklin Rojas-Suarez and Jonathan E.M. Baillie

3. TheWildlife Picture Index: A Biodiversity Indicator for Top Trophic Levels 45
Timothy G. O'Brien and Margaret F. Kinnaird

4. Tracking Change in Abundance: The Living Planet Index 71
Ben Collen, Louise McRae, Jonathan Loh, Stefanie Deinet, Adriana De Palma, Robyn Manley and Jonathan E.M. Baillie

Part II Indicators of the Pressures on Biodiversity 95

5. Satellite Data-Based Indices to Monitor Land Use and Habitat Changes 97
Nathalie Pettorelli

6. Indicators of Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity 120
Wendy B. Foden, Georgina M. Mace and Stuart H.M. Butchart

7. Monitoring Trends in Biological Invasion, its Impact andPolicyResponses 138
Piero Genovesi, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Melodie A. McGeoch and David B. Roy

8. Exploitation Indices: Developing Global and National Metrics of Wildlife Use and Trade 159
Rosamunde E.A. Almond, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Thomasina E.E. Oldfield, Louise McRae and Steven de Bie

9. Personalized Measures of Consumption and Development in the Context of Biodiversity Conservation: Connecting the Ecological Footprint Calculation with the Human Footprint Map 189
Eric W. Sanderson

Part III The Next Generation of Biodiversity Indicators 211

10. Indicator Bats Program: A System for the Global Acoustic Monitoring of Bats 213
Kate E. Jones, Jon A. Russ, Andriy-Taras Bashta, Zoltan Bilhari, Colin Catto, Istvan Csosz, Alexander Gorbachev, Peter Gyorfi, Alice Hughes, Igor Ivashkiv, Natalia Koryagina, Aniko Kurali, Steve Langton, Alanna Collen, Georgiana Margiean, Ivan Pandourski, Stuart Parsons, Igor Prokofev, Abigel Szodoray-Paradi, Farkas Szodoray-Paradi, Elena Tilova, Charlotte L. Walters, Aidan Weatherill and Oleg Zavarzin

11. Occupancy Methods for Conservation Management 248
Darryl I. MacKenzie and James T. Reardon

12. Monitoring and Evaluating the Socioeconomic Impacts of Conservation Projects on Local Communities 265
Katherine Homewood

13. Science to Policy Linkages for the Post-2010 Biodiversity Targets 291
Georgina M. Mace, Charles Perrings, Philippe Le Prestre, Wolfgang Cramer, Sandra Diaz, Anne Larigauderie, Robert J. Scholes and Harold A. Mooney

Part IV Biodiversity Monitoring in Practice 311

14. Building Sustainable National Monitoring Networks 313
Sarah M. Durant

15. Monitoring in the Real World 335
Julia P.G. Jones

16. Monitoring in UNDP-GEF Biodiversity Projects: Balancing Conservation Priorities, Financial Realities, and Scientific Rigour 348
Sultana Bashir

17. Scaling Up or Down? LinkingGlobal and National Biodiversity Indicators and Reporting 402
Philip Bubb

18. Conserving Biodiversity in a Target-Driven World 421
Simon N. Stuart and Ben Collen

Index 439

Nathalie Pettorelli is a population ecologist, whose research is centred on predicting the impacts of global environmental change on biodiversity. Her work was among the first to explore the usefulness of satellite data (in particular, the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) in the context of population ecology and dynamics.

Jonathan Baillie is Director of Conservation at the Zoological Society of London.  He is responsible for conservation projects focusing on threatened species and habitats in over 50 countries around the world. His research focus lies in defining the status and trends of the world's species and ecosystems.

Sarah Durant is head of the Tanzania Carnivore Centre in Arusha, and the Range Wide Conservation Initiative for Cheetah and Wild Dog. She has been working for over 20 years in carnivore conservation in Africa, focussing on developing effective and sustainable approaches to conserve threatened species.