• Energy Research
• biological sciences close
• 11. Sustainability close
• University of Cambridge close

Africa has experienced unprecedented growth across a range of development indices for decades. However, this growth is often at the expense of Africa’s biodiversity and ecosystems, jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of people depending on the goods and services provided by nature, with broader consequences for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Encouragingly, Africa can still take a more sustainable path. Here, we synthesize the key learnings from the African Ecological Futures project. We report results from a participatory scenario planning process around four collectively-owned scenarios and narratives for the evolution of Africa’s ecological resource base over the next 50 years. These scenarios provided a lens to review pressures on the natural environment, through the drivers, pressures, state, impacts, and responses (DPSIR) framework. Based on the outcomes from each of these steps, we discuss opportunities to reorient Africa’s development trajectories towards a sustainable path. These opportunities fall under the broad categories of “effective natural resource governance”, “strategic planning capabilities”, “investment safeguards and frameworks”, and “new partnership models”. Underpinning all these opportunities are “data, management information, and decision support frameworks”. This work can help inform collaborative action by a broad set of actors with an interest in ensuring a sustainable ecological future for Africa.

AbstractGovernments have committed to conserving ≥17% of terrestrial and ≥10% of marine environments globally, especially “areas of particular importance for biodiversity” through “ecologically representative” Protected Area (PA) systems or other “area‐based conservation measures”, while individual countries have committed to conserve 3–50% of their land area. We estimate that PAs currently cover 14.6% of terrestrial and 2.8% of marine extent, but 59–68% of ecoregions, 77–78% of important sites for biodiversity, and 57% of 25,380 species have inadequate coverage. The existing 19.7 million km2 terrestrial PA network needs only 3.3 million km2 to be added to achieve 17% terrestrial coverage. However, it would require nearly doubling to achieve, cost‐efficiently, coverage targets for all countries, ecoregions, important sites, and species. Poorer countries have the largest relative shortfalls. Such extensive and rapid expansion of formal PAs is unlikely to be achievable. Greater focus is therefore needed on alternative approaches, including community‐ and privately managed sites and other effective area‐based conservation measures.

AbstractRural areas particularly suffer from economic crises where they overlap with long‐term negative effects of climate change. Here, we introduce the concept of mycotourism by means of mushroom‐related industries in central‐northeastern Spain. We describe how this novel branch of eco‐tourism can help stabilize social and political structures. Likewise, we illuminate the potential of mycotourism to compensate for some losses related to widespread unemployment and summer drought, as well as to generate unexpectedly fruitful research opportunities. Focussing on Spain's emerging black truffle industry, we recommend a stronger involvement of natural sciences, conservation services, and management strategies in commercial endeavors. We emphasize the relevance of direct and indirect climatic impacts on ecological and societal systems as well as on economic markets. Moreover, we stress the importance of a vital science–policy interface at various scales, with immediate opportunities for sustainable landscape protection and the preservation of biological diversity.

Abstract:  The growing demand for biofuels is promoting the expansion of a number of agricultural commodities, including oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Oil‐palm plantations cover over 13 million ha, primarily in Southeast Asia, where they have directly or indirectly replaced tropical rainforest. We explored the impact of the spread of oil‐palm plantations on greenhouse gas emission and biodiversity. We assessed changes in carbon stocks with changing land use and compared this with the amount of fossil‐fuel carbon emission avoided through its replacement by biofuel carbon. We estimated it would take between 75 and 93 years for the carbon emissions saved through use of biofuel to compensate for the carbon lost through forest conversion, depending on how the forest was cleared. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years. Conversely, planting oil palms on degraded grassland would lead to a net removal of carbon within 10 years. These estimates have associated uncertainty, but their magnitude and relative proportions seem credible. We carried out a meta‐analysis of published faunal studies that compared forest with oil palm. We found that plantations supported species‐poor communities containing few forest species. Because no published data on flora were available, we present results from our sampling of plants in oil palm and forest plots in Indonesia. Although the species richness of pteridophytes was higher in plantations, they held few forest species. Trees, lianas, epiphytic orchids, and indigenous palms were wholly absent from oil‐palm plantations. The majority of individual plants and animals in oil‐palm plantations belonged to a small number of generalist species of low conservation concern. As countries strive to meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions under one international agreement (Kyoto Protocol), they may not only fail to meet their obligations under another (Convention on Biological Diversity) but may actually hasten global climate change. Reducing deforestation is likely to represent a more effective climate‐change mitigation strategy than converting forest for biofuel production, and it may help nations meet their international commitments to reduce biodiversity loss.

Declines in marine harvests, wildlife, and habitats have prompted calls at both the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the 2003 World Parks Congress for the establishment of a global system of marine protected areas (MPAs). MPAs that restrict fishing and other human activities conserve habitats and populations and, by exporting biomass, may sustain or increase yields of nearby fisheries. Here we provide an estimate of the costs of a global MPA network, based on a survey of the running costs of 83 MPAs worldwide. Annual running costs per unit area spanned six orders of magnitude, and were higher in MPAs that were smaller, closer to coasts, and in high-cost, developed countries. Models extrapolating these findings suggest that a global MPA network meeting the World Parks Congress target of conserving 20–30% of the world's seas might cost between $5 billion and $19 billion annually to run and would probably create around one million jobs. Although substantial, gross network costs are less than current government expenditures on harmful subsidies to industrial fisheries. They also ignore potential private gains from improved fisheries and tourism and are dwarfed by likely social gains from increasing the sustainability of fisheries and securing vital ecosystem services.

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are amongst the most significant drivers of species extinction and ecosystem degradation, causing negative impacts on ecosystem services and human well-being. InvasiBES, a project funded by BiodivERsA-Belmont Forum for 2019–2021, will use data and models across scales, habitats and species to understand and anticipate the multi-faceted impacts of IAS and to provide tools for their management. Using Alien Species Narratives as reference, we will design future intervention scenarios focused on prevention, control and eradication of IAS in Europe and the United States, through a participatory process bringing together the expertise of scientists and stakeholders. We will also adapt current impact assessment protocols to assess both the detrimental and beneficial impacts of IAS on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This information will then be combined with maps of the potential distribution of Invasive Species of Interest in Europe under current and future climate-change scenarios. Likewise, we will anticipate areas under risk of invasion by range-shifting plants of concern in the US. Finally, focusing on three local-scale studies that cover a range of habitats (freshwater, terrestrial and marine), invasive species (plants and animals) and ecosystem services (supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural), we will use empirical field data to quantify the real-world impacts of IAS on biodiversity and ecosystem services and calculate indicators of ecosystem recovery after the invader is removed. Spatial planning tools (InVEST) will be used to evaluate the costs and benefits of species-specific intervention scenarios at the regional scale. Data, models and maps, developed throughout the project, will serve to build scenarios and models of biodiversity and ecosystem services that are relevant to underpin management of IAS at multiple scales.