More land set aside, but species still left at risk, study finds

By Laurie Goering
Chicago Tribune

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

But some conservationists fear that the millions of acres protected are not the right ones. Despite the vast expansion of reserves, 20 percent of threatened animal species worldwide and about 12 percent of all animals have no part of their territory protected, according to a new analysis.

"These species are completely falling through the cracks of the global network," said Ana Rodrigues, a scientist in the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Washington-based Conservation International and the lead author of a report in today's issue of the journal Nature.

According to the conservationists, vast stretches of land have been set aside in places from Saudi Arabia to Greenland. But often the land was chosen because it was either economically unviable or simply scenic. That has driven up percentages of preserved land without actually preserving much except for open space, the authors charge.

Meanwhile, nations or regions with large numbers of rare or unusual species — South America's Andean tropics, Cameroon's highlands, India's Western Ghats, the Pacific Islands — still have little territory preserved in comparison with their biological richness.

That doesn't necessarily mean that tropical nations such as Brazil have not done well in preserving land, the report's authors caution. It's just that comparatively they need to be preserving much more than countries such as the United States or Canada if species protection is a worldwide goal.

The study results "clearly demonstrate that the percentage of area already protected in a given country or biome is a very poor indicator of additional conservation needs," the report notes, and that "the regions with greatest need for expansion of the global protected-area network are not necessarily those with a lower percentage of their area protected."

The new "global gap analysis" suggests that more than 1,400 animal species — particularly amphibians, birds and other small species — still have no part of their range placed under formal protection.

In South Africa, where nearly 7 percent of the land is in protected reserves, three species of threatened golden moles are among the animals cited as falling through the gaps. The moles, ancient and highly specialized mammals that evolved in Africa, live in desert and farmland near South Africa's northwest coast.

Two species, the Van Zyl's and De Winton's golden moles, are found only in sandy coastal areas used for large-scale diamond mining. A third species, Visagie's golden mole, has not been seen since 1950, when it was spotted in agricultural flood plains. None has any portion of its known range protected.

"These guys are very understudied and very, very difficult to track," said Gary Bronner, a zoologist at the University of Cape Town and the leading expert on the moles. During a recent expedition "it took us a week to catch one," he said. It was nabbed when it popped up among sand dunes.
 
Saving moles might not seem as important as protecting South Africa's more popular elephants or cheetahs. But the little-studied moles are unrelated to rodents and instead appear to be close cousins of elephant shrews, hedgehoglike tenrecs and other members of a newly and controversially defined group of unusual, Africa-evolved mammals that includes the aardvark, elephant and manatee.

Losing such species "makes the world a poorer place," said Rodrigues, both from a scientific research standpoint and because rare species often eventually provide clues on everything from human behavior to medical advances.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with preserving scenery," she said. "But the bottom line is this wealth of biodiversity, this richness, which belongs to everyone, should be protected."

Other conservationists, however, argue the goal of setting aside 10 percent of Earth's land is in fact a good starting point, because not only rare animals but the ecosystems they live in need to be preserved. Preserving each rare species in at least one small area, they say, does little to ensure that it actually is well-protected, particularly when the quality and policing of each reserve is not taken into account and the ranges of many rare animals — such as the golden moles — are poorly known.

"The study assumes that if (a species) is found in a single protected area they're accounted for," said Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist of the World Wildlife Fund and a critic of the paper. "But that assumes protecting a population once is going to be enough."

Instead, he believes that continuing to focus on preserving ecosystems, particularly the most unusual with the largest number of rare species, is the answer. Preservation efforts, he said, also must be expanded beyond land areas to sea and freshwater ecosystems.

"The bottom line is we have to be much more ambitious if we're intent on preserving life on Earth," he said.

Some of the world's most biologically rich nations already are stepping up their conservation efforts. Madagascar, under a new president, is in the process of tripling its protected areas, and several states in the Brazilian Amazon have announced huge new reserves. Many other highly diverse nations, including Colombia, Mexico and Indonesia, need to do more, the report's authors say.

Most of those nations will need international help, however, to protect what Rodrigues calls their "global patrimony."

"We can't expect them to take the burden of the protection on their own, especially countries dealing with poverty and fewer resources," she said. The study "is a call to the global community that these countries need help."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company