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Groundbreaking approach to protect world biodiversity

16^th March 2010

Scientists in Durrell are fronting a groundbreaking approach to protect the world's biodiversity.

Dr. Stephan Funk and Prof. John Fa from the organisation's conservation programme have published a study that will enable conservation organisations to join forces and work together on protecting crucial natural areas of the world. This innovative high-level investigation, complements our hands-on work to save species from extinction, and demonstrates the breadth and depth of Durrell's conservation activities.

Biodiversity is vital for all humans. Despite a multitude of international agreements, local and global activism, and academic debate, we are still far from achieving much needed protection on the ground. One of the problems has to do with identifying which areas of the world are most important to conserve first. A variety of approaches have been developed to set such conservation priorities at global and regional scales. Conservationists have looked for "the silver bullet" as a single way of maximising impact with the limited resources available.

In the search for the elusive magic formula, the tendency has been for most conservation organisations to develop their own individualistic way of looking at how to conserve global biodiversity.

For the first time ever, Durrell has undertaken a study which shows that it is possible to protect endangered species worldwide by integrating the different approaches available. The study, published in the prestigious journal PLoS ONE (Public of Library of Science from the USA), available free to anyone interested at www.plosone.org, culminates with the production a global map of priority areas.

These localities harbour not just areas holding the largest numbers of species, but also those that are centres for unique fauna (endemics), and also others that contain high numbers of threatened species. By doing this, as the title of the paper suggests, we have an “armoury” of weapons to combat extinction.

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