This new analysis by NatureServe addresses five essential questions about biodiversity–the variety of life on Earth–that need to be answered if we are going to effectively conserve nature: 1) How many species and ecosystems are at risk? 2) Are species and ecosystems adequately protected? 3) What are the major threats to biodiversity? 4) Where is imperiled biodiversity concentrated? 5) Where do we go from here?
With tremendous biodiversity but increasing threats, Southeast Asia faces challenges in meeting its commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2020 Aichi Targets. The use of indicators to monitor, evaluate and guide conservation progress is increasingly urgent. We found indicator use variable among nations but increasing.
Invasive annual grasses are a severe risk to native vegetation of the intermountain West. We developed a regional spatial model encompassing eight ecoregions to indicate the relative abundance of invasive annual grass at five levels of canopy cover.
NatureServe and its Network partners from Natural Heritage Programs, in collaboration with a variety of agency partners, have developed a rapid assessment of ecosystem condition, structured around the concept of ecological integrity, called the Ecological Integrity Assessment (EIA).
We found that nationally generated biodiversity indicators were used 11 times more frequently than global indicators, and that only one-fifth of indicators matched those recommended by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
| Climate Change Vulnerability of Terrestrial Areas of the National Capital Region
To understand how climate change will impact the National Capital Region, the National Park Service partnered with experts at NatureServe to conduct climate change vulnerability assessments.
| Habitat Climate Change Vulnerability Index Applied to Major Vegetation Types of the Western Interior United States
We applied a framework to assess climate change vulnerability of 52 major vegetation types in the Western United States to provide a spatially explicit input to adaptive management decisions. The framework addressed climate exposure and ecosystem resilience; the latter derived from analyses of ecosystem sensitivity and adaptive capacity.
| Using citizen science data to support conservation in environmental regulatory contexts
Outside of protected areas, environmental regulation is a vital policy tool for conserving at-risk species. An underappreciated potential for citizen science is to augment locality databases used in regulatory review to provide greater certainty to regulatory decisions.
Preserving the evolutionary history and ecological functions that different species embody, in addition to species themselves, is a growing concern for conservation. Recent studies warn that conservation priority regions identified using species diversity differ from those based on phylogenetic or functional diversity.
| Integrating Stakeholders in Mangrove Assessment and Management Planning, A Model Based on Collaborative Planning in Veracruz Mexico
The purpose of this document is to present a replicable model for mangrove ecosystem management based on collaborative planning efforts in the mangrove forests of the Ramsar designated Alvarado Lagoon System (ALS), Veracruz, Mexico.
