Strategies to Address the Biodiversity Crisis

Abstract

Global concern on the serious impacts of humans on the natural environment has crystallised in a number of international conventions and agreements. Such agreements contain several commitments and recommendations aimed at different stakeholders, chiefly national governments, at different spatial scales. Those commitments and recommendations can be broadly divided in two complementary strategies for biodiversity conservation: (1) Ex-situ conservation; and (2) In-situ conservation. Ex-situ conservation entails the conservation of selected plant and animal species in facilities outside their natural habitats, such as botanic gardens, zoos, aquariums or gene banks. Insitu conservation is defined as ‘the conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats and the maintenance and recovery of viable populations of species in their natural surroundings’. The most widely used on site conservation tool is protected areas (PAs), although other tools such as Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs) or ecological restoration also play an important role in maintaining biodiversity in the Planet.