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This study describes efforts to define and protect traditional knowledge and the associated issues of access to genetic resources, from the negotiation of the Convention on Biological Diveristy through to the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Nagoya Protocol.

The aim of this paper is to identify the habitat types listed in the Habitats Directive Annex I that require low-intensity agricultural management for their existence. We assessed the link between the Annex I habitat types and agricultural practices in order to identify habitat types that depend on the continuation of agricultural practices or whose existence is prolonged or spatially enlarged via blocking or reducing the secondary succession by agricultural activities. 63 habitat types that depend on or which can profit from agricultural activities—mainly grazing and mowing—were identified. They are classified into 2 groups: (1) habitats fully dependent on the continuation of agricultural management; (2) habitats partly dependent on the continuation of agricultural management. This paper also briefly discusses habitat types for which either doubts remain on their dependence on agricultural management, or the relation to extensive farming practices exists only in part of their area of distribution in Europe or under certain site conditions, respectively. Assessments of the conservation status of habitats of European Importance by 25 EU Member States in 2007 showed that habitats identified by us as depending on agricultural practices had a worse status than non-agricultural habitats.

\"Green Wars challenges international conservation efforts, revealing through in-depth case studies how \"saving\" the Maya Forest facilitates racialized dispossession. Megan Ybarra brings Guatemala's 36-year civil war into the perspective of a longer history of 200 years of settler colonialism to show how conservation works to make Q'eqchi's into immigrants on their own territory. Even as the post-war state calls on them to claim rights as individual citizens, Q'eqchi's seek survival as a people. Her analysis reveals that Q'eqchi's both appeal to the nation-state and engage in relationships of mutual recognition with other Indigenous peoples -- and the land itself -- in their calls for a material decolonization.\"--Provided by publisher.

The EU Habitats Directive is a key biodiversity conservation instrument. It contains legal obligations for the 28 EU member states in order to safeguard a ‘favourable conservation status’ (FCS) for selected species and habitat types. The crucial FCS concept itself, however, remains subject to considerable confusion regarding its proper interpretation and operationalization, impairing the Directive’s effective implementation. Diminishing this confusion is the purpose of this review. It focuses specifically on large carnivores—wolf (Canis lupus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolverine (Gulo gulo). These pose particular challenges, given their low densities, transboundary populations, and human-wildlife conflict potential. Large carnivores are also the only species for which specific guidance has been adopted by the European Commission— and subsequently contested. Our methodology combines legal analysis with an understanding of the species’ ecology and associated social, economic and cultural dimensions. We analyze the methods and processes through which EU law is interpreted, implemented, and enforced, by member states, European Commission, and EU Court of Justice—which is the ultimate authority regarding EU law interpretation. On that basis, we engage three particularly complex interpretation questions which are also of great practical significance: (1) the appropriate scale to achieve FCS (national or transboundary population level); (2) the respective roles of demographic, genetic and ecological factors in determining FCS; and (3) the use of extinction versus carrying capacity as benchmark. Regarding these questions, we identify approaches that are workable and effective, as well as likely to be endorsed by the EU Court.

The export of ornamental fishes from Malawi has received limited attention regarding its sustainability or the conservation status of any threatened species involved in this trade. To identify any species that require specific management actions, we used a negative binomial regression model to examine the relationship between the number of exported fish and year of export, adjusted for fish prices and the number of fish exporters. We also examined the correlation between export volume trends and the conservation status of fish species. We identified three groups of fish species based on their export volume trends: species with no trends, with decreasing trends and with increasing trends. There was no significant correlation between export volume trends and the conservation status of fish species. The export volume trends of individual species appear to be related to the number of exporters, price and, potentially, anthropogenic factors affecting fish populations. Based on our findings we recommend the inclusion of ornamental fishery management issues in a revised Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy. This should include strategies to control overexploitation of species with declining export volume trends, and conservation of threatened species and a ban on their export. We recommend further research to establish the population status of the exploited fish species and to identify any other factors linked to the volume trends of ornamental fish exports.

Legislation for the preservation of biodiversity has been instrumental to the recovery of multiple species and habitats. The European Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC is one of the strongest legal tools in nature conservation. This Directive seeks to achieve its biodiversity goals by requiring EU Member States to take measures to reach or maintain favorable conservation status (FCS) of natural habitats and species in Europe. FCS is a legal concept, but must be understood and applied by scientists, managers, and policy makers, and therefore a proper interpretation of this concept is crucial for biodiversity conservation and wildlife management. However, its definition contains several aspects that can lead to misinterpretation, forming the core of controversies in determining whether or not populations have reached FCS. In this review, we provide legal and ecological clarifications of the most contested aspects of FCS that have not yet been conclusively settled by analyzing and weighing a variety of sources.

Biodiversity conservation requires an objective and consistent method for evaluating the conservation status of species. Conservation status assessments can identify conservation priorities and can highlight data gaps, effective conservation strategies, and groups of taxa that are underrepresented in conservation efforts relative to charismatic flagship and umbrella species. Groundwater invertebrates have a suite of traits that make them inherently vulnerable. But they go largely unnoticed by the general public and conservation practitioners, and comprehensive conservation status assessments are lacking for most species. In this article, the conservation status of all sixty-nine described groundwater-obligate invertebrates recorded from Texas, U.S.A. was assessed using NatureServe methodology. Some of the smallest taxa (e.g. copepods, ostracods, and mites) are too poorly known to evaluate their conservation status. Species restricted to springs were generally more at risk than species in other groundwater habitats, and beetles and snails were the most imperiled taxonomic groups. Most species faced low or medium severity threats, and only seven percent faced high or very high magnitude threats. Threat level varied among aquifers and among sites within aquifers and was primarily dependent on human population density and the adequacy of regulatory mechanisms protecting groundwater quality and quantity. Regardless of threat severity, fifty-five percent of evaluated species were ranked as imperiled or critically imperiled, largely due to extreme small-range endemism. Relative to other regions, Texas’ groundwater fauna is not unique in terms of rarity and threat, suggesting that as an ecological group, groundwater-obligate species are probably among the world’s most imperiled taxa.

In previous centuries, wolves were extirpated across much of their range worldwide, but they started to recover in Europe since the end of last century. A general pattern of this recovery is the expansion of the range occupied by local populations. The Iberian wolf population, shared by Portugal and Spain, reached its lowest extent and abundance around the middle of the twentieth century. Unlike other populations in Europe, its range recovery and pack counts seem to have stalled since the first Spanish country-wide census of 1986–1988. The population shows low effective population size and remains isolated from other European wolves. This is unexpected given the protection offered by European legislation, i.e., the Habitats Directive, and the apparent availability of habitat outside its present range. We compiled records of wolves killed legally in Spain, reviewed the legislative and management framework for the Iberian wolf population, and discussed potential implications of a policy of lethal management for the ecology, genetics and conservation status of wolves in the Iberian Peninsula. Wolves are strictly protected in Portugal. Meanwhile, they are subject to culling and hunting in Spain. No wolf was legally removed by culling or hunting during the study period in Portugal, whereas 623 wolves were legally killed in Spain between 2008 and 2013. Twenty-nine of those wolves were killed in areas under strict protection according to European legislation. Despite the transboundary nature of this wolf population, we are not aware of coordinated conservation plans. Management is further fragmented at the sub-national level in Spain, both due to the authority of Spanish autonomous regions over their wildlife, and because wolves were listed in multiple annexes of the Habitats Directive. Fragmentation of management was apparent in the uneven adherence to the obligations of the Habitats Directive among Spanish regions. A similar situation is found for other large predator populations in Europe. We suggest that lethal management as carried out in Spain is a hindrance to transit and settlement of wolves, both within and beyond the Iberian wolf population. Reducing the pressure of lethal management appears a feasible policy change to improve the conservation status of the population and foster transboundary connectivity.

Beech forests previously covered substantial areas of the continental region of Europe, however, their current distribution is limited to a small percentage of their former yet still potential range. Many beech forests are now protected under the European Union-wide conservation approach of Natura 2000. We analyse the impact of Natura 2000 on the management of beech forests via social science data on management practices gathered from 73 interviews with local stakeholders within nine case study sites in Austria, France, and Germany, and via an ecological analysis of Natura 2000 management plans (MPs). Our data reveals that the Natura 2000 implementation has had little impact on forest management practices. We found that the Natura 2000 network is well known amongst stakeholders, yet the objectives and measures for beech forest protection are usually vaguely defined in the MPs. According to our interviewees, in many cases this vagueness results in a disregard for the MPs, which hence fail to guide the management of the forests protected under Natura 2000. In addition, when ecological thresholds are included in the MPs, they are often below recommendations based on conservation research. In the case of the structural bio-indicator deadwood, the thresholds given by MPs for a favourable site conservation status were significantly lower than those considered within conservation science to be necessary in order to conserve typical beech forest biodiversity. We conclude that while Natura 2000 has raised awareness of the importance of European beech forests for biodiversity conservation, it needs significant additional efforts to make it an effective policy for forest biodiversity conservation.

Lack of demographic data for most of the world's threatened species is a widespread problem that precludes viability-based status assessments for species conservation. A commonly suggested solution is to use data from species that are closely related or biologically similar to the focal species. This approach assumes similar species and populations of the same species have similar demographic rates, an assumption that has yet to be thoroughly tested. We constructed a Bayesian hierarchical model with data on 425 plant species to predict demographic rates (intrinsic rate of population growth, recruit survival, juvenile survival, adult survival, and fecundity) based on biological traits and phylogenetic relatedness. Generally, we found small effects of species-level traits (except woody polycarpic species tended to have high adult survival rates that increased with plant height) and a weak phylogenetic signal for 4 of the 5 demographic parameters examined. Patterns were stronger in adult survival and fecundity than other demographic rates; however, the unexplained variances at both the species and population levels were high for all demographic rates. For species lacking demographic data, our model produced large, often inaccurate, prediction intervals that may not be useful in a management context. Ourfindings do not support the assumption that biologically similar or closely related species have similar demographic rates and provide further evidence that direct monitoring of focal species and populations is necessary for informing conservation status assessments. La falta de datos demográficos para la mayoría de las especies amenazadas del mundo es un problema ampliamente distribuido que descarta las evaluaciones de estado basadas en la viabilidad para la conservación de las especies. Una sugerencia común es el uso de datos de otras especies que están relacionadas de manera cercana o que son similares biológicamente a la especiefocal. Esta estrategia asume que las especies similares y poblaciones de la misma especie tienen tasas demográficas similares, una suposición que aún no ha sido probada minuciosamente. Construimos un modelo bayesiano de jerarquías con datos de 425 especies de plantas para predecir las tasas demográficas (tasa intrínseca de crecimiento poblacional, supervivencia de reclutas, supervivencia de juveniles, supervivencia de adultos, y fecundidad) con base en los rasgos biológicos y las relacionesfilogenéticas. En general, encontramos efectos menores de las características a nivel de especie (excepto en las especies leñosas policárpicas, que tuvieron la tendencia de una tasa alta de supervivencia en adultos que incrementaba con la altura de la planta) y una señal filogenética débil para cuatro de los cinco parámetros demográficos que se examinaron. Los patrones fueron más fuertes en la supervivencia de adultos y en la fecundidad que en otras tasas demográficas; sin embargo, las varianzas sin explicación a nivel de especie y de población fueron altas para todas las tasas demográficas. Nuestro modelo produjo intervalos de predicción grandes, con frecuencia erróneos, para las especies que carecen de datos demográficos, lo cual puede que no sea útil en un contexto de manejo. Nuestros resultados no apoyan la suposición de que las especies relacionadas de manera cercana o similares biológicamente tienen tasas demográficas similares y proporcionan mayor evidencia de que el monitoreo directo de las especies y poblaciones focales es necesario para informar a las evaluaciones de estado de conservación. 世界上的受胁迫物种大多缺少种群动态数据，这个普遍存在的问题妨碍了基于种群生存力的物种保护瀕 危状态评估。为解决这个问题, 一般会建议使用系统发育上相近或是生物学特性相似的其它物种的数据。这种 方法假定相似物种或同一物种的种群之间有相似的种群动态特征，然而这个假设目前尚未得到彻底的检验。本 研究中，我们基于生物字性状和糸统发胥夭糸，用425柙植物的奴据构建f ー个災旰斯层次:模型来预测柙群功恐 参数辦群内禀增长率、补充率、幼苗存活率、成树存活率和繁殖力）。总体上，我们发现物种水平的性状影响 不大( 除了木本多心皮植物随植株高度増加，成树存活率倾向于増加)，我们检验的五个种群动态参数中有四个 存在较弱的系统发育信号。种群动态参数中成树存活率和繁殖力的规律最为明显,•然面，物种水平和种群水平的 种群动态参数的无法解释的变异都很大。对于缺乏种群动态数据的物种，我们的模型得到了较大且往往不够准 确的而预测区间，而这对管理来说可能没有用处。我们的研究结果并不支持生物学上相似或系统发育关系近的 物种的种群动态也相似的假设，却提供了进ー步证据证明对目标物种和种群的直接监测是物种保护状况评估的 身霜条件。