The World Nature Reserve is too scattered and fragmented to benefit wildlife?｜ Green Club International Partial Enjoyment

Translator Press: On March 1, 1872, the first national nature reserve in history, Yellowstone National Park, was officially named as a national park that protects wild animals and natural resources. This is the world's first national park. By 2021, there are 28 world nature reserves in China. As of September 2021, there were a total of 3,398 nature reserves in the country, including 424 national -level nature protection, 994 provincial -level nature reserve, and 1922 county -level nature reserve. There are many nature reserves in the world, but the protection effect is not perfect. As a member unit of the World Nature Protection Alliance (IUCN), the Green Council continues to pay attention to the dynamics of the World Nature Reserve and participate in and promote the protection of global endangered species and habitats. Recently, the International Department of China's Biological Diversity Protection and Green Development Foundation (referred to as the China Green Fair and Green Club) learned from the world -renowned journal: New research found that the world's nature reserve is too small, too isolated, and cannot benefit wildlife. The International Department of the Green Club now compiles the research papers as follows, for interested readers for reference.

(Credit: Simonthesorcer / Shutterstock)

This year, governments from all over the world will negotiate a series of goals to deal with the global biodiversity crisis. This crisis has led to a large -scale loss of global wildlife. Although the first round of targets agreed in 2010 were not achieved, the most concerned goal was target 11, which can also be said to be the closest goal of our realization. the purpose is:

By 2020, at least 17%of land and inland waters, as well as 10%of the coastal and marine areas ... It is protected by effective and fair management, ecological representative and good -connected protected areas.

These "protected areas" are widely used, from large strict protected areas like US National Park, to a large number of use landscapes to British National Park, and then to tiny urban nature reserves. The protected area can prevent or slow down many forces that threaten biological diversity, such as loss of habitats, hunting and pollution, and have been a pillar of global protection for decades.

By August 2020, about 15%of the world's land was protected. This is lower than the goal, but there are enough specific commitments to drag the world to a later time. In many aspects, this is an incredible achievement, perhaps the largest and fastest land management coordination change in history.

(Source: Fitawoman/Shutterstock. Musk: One of the few mammals living in the world's largest national park in Greenland.)

But the key is the details. To play a role in the protected area, it must be in the right position, and it must be large enough to maintain the survival of wild species. Hundreds of barren zones separated by barren farmland may help us achieve 17%of the goals, but they will not prevent species from extinction. So, how is our current network superimposed? Is this enough to prevent species from extinction?

Most animals are insufficient protection

Recently, a study published by my colleagues in the "PNAS" magazine solved the problem.

We studied 3834 terrestrial mammals (all species available data) and estimated the number that each protected area in the world can theoretically support (technically, we will also group adjacent protected areas because animals can Move between them). It is important to understand how many individuals in each region can survive, because small populations will not last long: below a certain scale, they are more likely to be breed by disease, close relatives, fires, hugging, and even become natural fluctuations in quantity fluctuations. victim.

In order to do this, we combine the global database of animal species and the world's location, as well as population density estimates at certain locations and locations (how many rhinos or crickets per square kilometer).

What is worrying is that we find that thousands of species seem to be fully protected. According to the exact standards used, we estimate that at least 1,536 species (accounting for 40%of our observation species) may be as many as 2156 species (56%) have 10 or less protected types. These groups may survive for a long time.

These protected species are distributed in all continents. All of the groups we observe include some of the smallest mammals in the world, as well as some of the largest mammals. Perhaps the most worrying thing is that 91%of the world is threatened by mammals -many of them have become the focus of protection -they have been protected, and hundreds of these species seem to have no feasible protection group at all. Due to increasing pressure from habitats outside the protected area, these species are facing serious risks of decreased or extinction of species.

More importantly, these numbers represent the best situation. In fact, the protected area is effective only under proper management, and most areas have no resources at all.

What is effective?

Our work shows that it is important not the total proportion of protection in the world, but whether to protect whether it is in the right place, whether the protected area is large enough, or whether the connection with other regions is good enough to support the population that will survive for a long time. If not, then they are just delaying inevitable things. The species will continue to disappear from it, regardless of whether the goals are achieved.

Expanding or reorganizing the world reserve brings very realistic risks to human well -being. The foundation of these areas is to prevent people from doing things: cutting trees, hunting certain species, mining or farming. That's why they are so important to biological diversity, but they bring huge costs to the local population. Many protected areas have the history of colonialism, forced migration, and the poverty or deprived rights of local people, especially the local people, especially the indigenous people. Any expansion in the future must be fair to these people.

Only by reducing human demand for land can we achieve expansion. With the increase of human consumption, the unprotected land is facing increasing pressure, and the protected area will become more and more important.

But they are like the symptoms of diseases, and we must treat the root cause. If you do not quickly turn to healthier, plant -rich diets, reduce food waste and sustainable yield growth, there will be no enough idle land to protect.

World biological diversity is facing serious problems, and our current reserve system seems unlikely to save it. In order to prevent the outbreaks of the next decades, we need to greatly reduce human global footprints and combine it with good management, good location, and large enough protected areas.

(This article is only for research reference, which only represents the original author's point of view.)

For the original text: https://theconversation.com/worlds-ubrotected-natural-sreas-small -and-ISOLOTED-BENEFIT-New-Study-184120

Organize: daisy

Review: lucy

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