Campaigning for species, and ecosystems
Good luck to the Alliance for Zero Extinction with the new campaign.
But judging by a first quick look, the report from this formidable alliance scarcely touches on marine species and ecosystems. It looks as if tropical coral reefs - which could be the first ecosystem to be virtually eliminated by human action - don't get a mention.
Isn't it time to educate and campaign for ecoystems as a whole, as well as the species which are part of them (not to speak of the indigenous peoples who sometimes know the environments best)?
But judging by a first quick look, the report from this formidable alliance scarcely touches on marine species and ecosystems. It looks as if tropical coral reefs - which could be the first ecosystem to be virtually eliminated by human action - don't get a mention.
Isn't it time to educate and campaign for ecoystems as a whole, as well as the species which are part of them (not to speak of the indigenous peoples who sometimes know the environments best)?
posted by Caspar Henderson at
1:47 pm
2 Comments:
The Alliance's criteria are posted here http://www.zeroextinction.org/selection.htm
"AZE recognizes that not all Endangered and Critically Endangered species are so site-restricted. Although such wider-ranging species are important conservation targets that are deserving of conservation resources, they are not the targets of this particular conservation initiative".
Dr Stuart Butchart, who is Global Species Programme Coordinator at
BirdLife International, writes:
You will be pleased to hear that a Global Marine Species Assessment is underway as part of the IUCN Red LIst programme. A number of groups have been identified to prioritise for assessment of all species globally on the IUCN Red List by 2010. This is the essential precursor before AZE sites can be identified for them (see the explanation of criteria for identifying sites on the AZE website). AZE will be rolled out to cover non-vertebrate and non-terrestrial groups just as fast as the data becomes available through the Red List.
AZE unashamedly focuses on species and sites as a set of urgent conservation priorities. Again, in the material on the AZE website, you'll see that we argue that such conservation has to be carried out in the context of broader intiatives to conserve whole habitats and ecosystems such as the coral reefs you mention. Other conservation programmes in the organisations involved in AZE address such broader conservation approaches.
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