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| New study shows that when it comes to the environment, crime still pays |
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Illegal logs being transported down Sekonyer River in Kalimantan province, Indonesia. © Conservation International, photo by Haroldo Castro. |
Research on the quality of enforcement in four biodiversity hotspots has demonstrated that nearly 99 percent of environmental crimes in these areas – including illegal logging, illegal wildlife trading and hunting, and illegal fishing – go unpunished. The study, conducted in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and the Philippines by economists from Conservation International’s Center for Conservation and Government, presents the first quantitative evidence of exactly how poor enforcement in biodiversity rich countries is.
Using a behavioral economics framework called the “enforcement economics model”, this study quantifies disincentives generated by enforcement regimes and compares them to the profits that motivate large-scale commercial illegal activity in the hotspots. The enforcement disincentive is determined not only by the value of penalties; but also by how likely lawbreakers are to be detected, arrested, prosecuted and convicted so that penalty is incurred, and by how long the system takes to work. The results of this analysis of risks vs. rewards clearly demonstrate that weak enforcement regimes are generating a shockingly insufficient deterrent to illegal activity. For instance, study data indicate that illegal loggers in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest can make $75 from each average tree they harvest, but face an enforcement disincentive of only $6.44. Likewise, in Mexico’s Selva Maya, illegal wildlife traders net an average of $191.57, compared to an enforcement disincentive of only $5.66. The profits to illegal timber shipping for the region studied in Indonesia total $91,967, which is barely offset by the paltry $6.47 enforcement disincentive. And in the Philippines’ Calamianes Islands, fishermen practicing illegal dynamite and cyanide fishing risk only nine cents, but stand to earn an average of $70.57 per trip.
In part, these weak enforcement regimes reflect the inadequacies of conventional wisdom about fixing enforcement. The traditional conservation response to poor enforcement in the hotspots has been to hire and equip more park guards, and to raise fines. While acknowledging these activities as critical, the study’s findings demonstrate that in isolation, this strategy is ineffective because it focuses on only two elements of the “enforcement chain” – which consists of detection, arrest, prosecution, conviction and penalty – rather than addressing these many elements of enforcement in an integrated way.
The study finds that effective enforcement in hotspots will require much broader action on multiple fronts, including augmenting interagency cooperation; increasing enforcement agency budgets; building technical capacity of detection agents, prosecutors and judges; implementing enforcement performance monitoring systems; and strengthening natural resource laws and internal policies of enforcement agencies.
For a copy of the report email Ingrid Neubauer (i.neubauer@conservation.org).
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| A third of the world's amphibians threatened with extinction |
The Harlequin frog (Atelopus varius) is one of 427 species listed as Critically Endangered by the Global Amphibian Assessment. © Robert Puschendorf | |
The first Global Amphibian Assessment analyzed the distribution and conservation status of all 5,743 known amphibian species, providing new context to the well-publicized phenomenon of amphibian declines. It revealed that at least one third of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction, demonstrating that amphibians are more threatened, and declining more rapidly, than either birds or mammals.
The greatest concentration of threatened amphibians (including well over half of the currently known threatened species) is in a relatively limited area running from southern Mexico south to Ecuador and Venezuela, and in the Greater Antilles. Most declines are due to the usual culprits of habitat loss and over-exploitation. However, there are other, poorly understood processes driving many species to extinction, which may be associated with disease and/or environmental change. These enigmatic declines are particularly worrisome, as not only they are associated with extremely rapid population collapses, but they affect even well-protected species in pristine habitats, and therefore are not easily counteracted by the usual conservation measures. Examples include the Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes) of Costa Rica, and the Australian gastric-breeding frogs (genus Rheobatrachus), which are now extinct.
The Global Amphibian Assessment is a product of a partnership between IUCN/SSC, CI-CABS and NatureServe. The effort involved more than 500 scientists from over 60 nations, and the main results have just been published in the international journal Science. The complete dataset, with information on each species as well as country and regional breakdowns, is available in a searchable database on the GAA website.
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| Learn more about the Global Amphibian Assessment |
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| Hotspots Revisited: CI takes another look at the biodiversity hotspots |
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Coastal Forests of East Africa Hotspot as defined in the new analysis. © Conservation International, by Mark Denil. |
First conceived of by British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988, and subsequently comprehensively updated by Conservation International, in collaboration with Myers and others, the biodiversity hotspots concept has been among the most important and influential biodiversity priority-setting approaches in conservation over the past 15 years.
Now, some five years since the last update, the concept has been revisited to take advantage of a wealth of new information that has become available. In February 2005, Conservation International will launch the results of the latest analysis, conducted over a four-year period and involving more than 400 specialists, some 200 of whom are authors of various chapters presented in a new book, Hotspots Revisited, to be published by CEMEX. The updated study reaffirms the importance of the biodiversity hotspots concept, and provides updated information on the existing individual hotspots, refines and reconfigures their boundaries, and adds nine new hotspots to the list of 25 presented in the first hotspots book in 1999. The new analysis also presents some significant advances, among them the inclusion of data on freshwater fishes for all hotspots, as well as the number of vertebrate genera and families occurring in and endemic to the hotspots -- an initial attempt to better understand the enormous importance of the hotspots in maintaining global evolutionary history.
As before, much emphasis in the new analysis is placed on threats to the hotspots. The new analysis will unveil some startling facts, in particular, the fact that nearly one-third of the world's human population occurs within the borders of the hotspots (and many live very close to existing protected areas), that many hotspots coincide with areas of violent conflict, and that some three-quarters of the most threatened terrestrial vertebrates are endemic to the hotspots. The Biodiversity Hotspots website will be updated with all of the new information.
Hotspots Revisited will provide stronger evidence than ever before of the fundamental role that these regions play in global biodiversity conservation, and of the need for conservationists to continue to focus a significant portion of our attention and resources on these critically important areas in the first decade of this new millennium.
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| Visit CI's website in February 2005 to order the book Hotspots Revisited. |
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| Cape Floristic Region declared a World Heritage Site |
Baviaanskloof, Cape Floristic Province. © Conservation International, photo by Tessa Mildenhall. | |
The Cape Floristic Region Hotspot is home to 9,000 plant species, over 6,200 of which (67%) are found no where else in the world. Characterized by evergreen, fire-dependent shrublands called fynbos, the Cape Floristic Region is one of only two hotspots in the world that encompass an entire floral kingdom. The remarkable level of endemism is found in an area of only 78,555 square kilometers, only about half of which remains in a natural state and only 20 percent in pristine condition.
At a recent meeting in Suzhou, China, UNESCO recognized the importance of this region by declaring it a World Heritage Site for its "outstanding universal significance to humanity." Eight protected areas together comprise the Cape Floristic Region World Heritage Site, one of which includes Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the first time that a botanical garden has been recognized as a world heritage site for its biodiversity. The areas included in the world heritage site are Table Mountain, Baviaanskloof, De Hoop Nature Reserve, Boland Mountain Complex, Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area, Swartberg Complex, Boosmansbos Wilderness Area, and Cederberg Wilderness Area. These eight separate protected areas total more than 553,000 hectares, making this World Heritage Site the richest for plants in the world on a per area basis. This recognition by UNESCO of the Cape Floristic Region’s remarkable biodiversity brings the total number of world heritage sites in South Africa to six.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, sees this world heritage designation as an excellent opportunity for the region: "the world's heritage is our heritage, and the recognition of the Cape Floristic Region as world class not only underlines our responsibility for ensuring its wise use into the future, but puts us in an excellent position to expand responsible tourism and generate much needed employment throughout the region." According to the Cape Action for People and the Environment (C.A.P.E.), which will focus conservation activities on the Site, the UNESCO listing will help to encourage the 'biodiversity economy' in the region. It will promote eco-tourism and better planning and management of the region’s incredibly rich natural resources, protected areas, and scenic landscapes for the benefit of all South Africans.
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| Learn more about the Cape Floristic Region Hotspot |
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| New park protects new hawk-owl in the Togean Islands |
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The Togian hawk-owl (Ninox burhani) has just been described as a new species endemic to the Togean (or Togian) Islands, north-east of Sulawesi, in the Autumn edition of the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club by two Indonesian scientists. Much prior work, such as a Marine RAP survey in 1998, has highlighted the marine wealth of the area, but there has been little previous evidence of vertebrate endemism on the islands themselves. The discovery of a new species of cryptic nocturnal bird in a little-studied part of the tropics is hardly remarkable in itself. However, this newly described species shares the Togeans with the closely-related ochre-bellied hawk-owl (Ninox ochracea), which is endemic to the greater Sulawesi region. Moreover, the Togeans are only around 25 kilometers from Sulawesi, with numerous stepping-stone islands inbetween. The unexpected discovery of this new owl raises the intriguing possibility that a number of other endemic species remain to be found in these islands.
Almost as unexpected was the concurrent sweeping declaration of a 3,600-square-kilometer Togean Islands National Park by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry on 19th October. Conservation International-Indonesia, with support from the Global Conservation Fund, has been working for eight years to try to establish community-based marine protected areas in the Togeans. However, the extent of the newly declared park and inclusion of over 250 square kilometers of terrestrial habitat – including areas in which the new owl is known to occur – exceeded all expectations. After this success, the challenge ahead will be to break new ground through successful co-management of the national park’s marine resources between the government and local communities.
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| Learn more about the Wallacea Hotspot |
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| Conservation of the Critically Endangered Philippine crocodile |
Sierra Madre mountains, the Philippines. © Conservation International, photo by Haroldo Castro. | |
The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) is a Critically Endangered species, with a total population size estimated at under 100 individuals. Hunted for their valuable skins, deprived of food through over-fishing, and forced into smaller and smaller areas of marsh through habitat loss, these freshwater crocodiles face a bleak future. A negative image as a man-eater and a livestock-raider has only served as an excuse for hunters and farmers to ignore protective legislation that has been in place since 2001. This crocodile is now restricted to a few remote wetlands on Luzon, Negros, and Mindanao in the Philippines.
In 2003, the Crocodile Rehabilitation, Observance, and Conservation (CROC) Project of the Mabuwaya Foundation launched a multi-pronged effort aimed at protecting the Philippine crocodile. Their approach involves community education, outreach, and field research. They promote habitat protection in the form of multi-use sanctuaries. One such sanctuary has been set up in San Mariano in the Sierra Madre mountains of Luzon.
A key component of the CROC Project is fostering community pride in the crocodile, especially through emphasizing that it is found no where else on earth. This November, the CROC Project plans to hold a workshop with local officials, with the aim of strengthening local initiatives to protect the wetlands of San Mariano. Other education efforts include the publication of a quarterly newsletter and gaining publicity for the crocodile through media programs.
Field research is another important aspect of the CROC Project. In the past few months, project officers assisted a team from the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in surveying species within the San Mariano Sanctuary; the survey was part of a monitoring program. The CROC Project also assisted local students in conducting fieldwork as part of a summer class. These students collected data on the species, water quality, and the surrounding communities in developing a management plan for the sanctuary. Project officers hone their research and management skills by attending international workshops and conferences, such as meetings of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, and a training workshop organized by the BP Conservation Programme, in association with Conservation International and other partners.
The Philippine crocodile is the most endangered crocodilian in the world. Without the efforts of groups like the Mabuwaya Foundation, and the cooperation of local communities, its chances of long-term survival are small.
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| Learn more about the Philippines Hotspot |
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