As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Bi... more As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity, attention is focusing on how new goals and targets for ecosystem conservation might serve its vision of ‘living in harmony with nature’1,2. Advancing dual imperatives to conserve biodiversity and sustain ecosystem services requires reliable and resilient generalizations and predictions about ecosystem responses to environmental change and management3. Ecosystems vary in their biota4, service provision5 and relative exposure to risks6, yet there is no globally consistent classification of ecosystems that reflects functional responses to change and management. This hampers progress on developing conservation targets and sustainability goals. Here we present the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Ecosystem Typology, a conceptually robust, scalable, spatially explicit approach for generalizations and predictions about functions, biota, risks and ...
Este listado corresponde a la versión preliminar de la Lista Roja de árboles endémicos de Venezue... more Este listado corresponde a la versión preliminar de la Lista Roja de árboles endémicos de Venezuela, e incluye información sobre 628 especies arbóreas que fueron sometidas a una evaluación de riesgo de extinción siguiendo el protocolo de la Unión International para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN). Las evaluaciones fueron lideradas por Provita y desarrolladas en colaboración con especialistas del Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), el Instituto Experimental Jardín Botánico «Dr. Tobías Lasser» y el Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) en el marco de la «Evaluación Global de Árboles», iniciativa que busca conocer el estado de conservación de todas las especies de árboles del mundo para el 2023. Actualmente la lista agrupa 68 familias, siete de las cuales representan más del 50% del total de especies del listado y del total de especies amenazadas. Las familias Fabaceae y Rubiaceae encabezan ambas listas. El 51% de las familias tienen más del ...
Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been docu... more Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been documented for several mainland species, but to date no studies of geographically structured call variation in parrot species have examined the role of isolation on islands. In a study of the Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), which inhabits five small Caribbean islands as well as the adjacent mainland, we found that the contact calls of island and mainland parakeets show divergence in vocal characters as well as in call variability. We assessed call variation using three approaches: frequency measurements, spectrogram cross-correlation (SPCC) analyses, and call duration measurements. Island parakeets' calls were longer and had lower mean frequencies, and calls from different islands were distinguishable from each other as well as from mainland calls using measures derived from the SPCCs. In addition we measured call variability at two different levels—within-location and wit...
The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the Internation... more The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories and criteria, analogous to those used for species, for assigning levels of threat to ecosystems at local, regional, and global levels. A final system will require definitions of ecosystems; quantification of ecosystem status; identification of the stages of degradation and loss of ecosystems; proxy measures of risk (criteria); classification thresholds for these criteria; and standardized methods for performing assessments. The system will need to reflect the degree and rate of change in an ecosystem's extent, composition, structure, and function, and have its conceptual roots in ecological theory and empirical research. On the basis of these requirements and the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of four criteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecological function, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused on
Forests of the Americas and the Caribbean are undergoing rapid change as human populations increa... more Forests of the Americas and the Caribbean are undergoing rapid change as human populations increase and land use intensifies. We applied the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) criteria and simple cost-efficiency analyses to provide the first regional perspective on patterns of relative risk integrated across multiple threats. Based on six indicators of ecosystem distribution and function, we find that 80% of the forest types and 85% of the current forest area is potentially threatened based on RLE criteria. Twelve forest types are Critically Endangered due to past or projected future deforestation, and Tropical Dry Forests and Woodland have highest threat scores. To efficiently reduce risks to forest ecosystems at national levels, scenario analyses show that countries would need to combine large forest protection measures with focused actions, tailored to their sociopolitical context, to help restore ecological functions in a selection of threatened forest types. K E Y W O R D S conservation actions, conservation goals, cost-efficiency analysis, ecosystem collapse, ecosystem risk assessment, forest management and conservation, IUCN Red List of ecosystems, threat score, temperate forest, tropical forest This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
OF THE DISSERTATION Analyzing the relationship between forest fragmentation and post-hurricane da... more OF THE DISSERTATION Analyzing the relationship between forest fragmentation and post-hurricane damage and recovery: The case of Hurricane Dean in the Calakmul-Sian Ka'an biological corridor, Yucatán, Mexico Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spatial scales, and that are important drivers of land change. Understanding the effect of anthropogenic and natural disturbances, as well as their synergies, on forest change dynamics is essential for informing policy and management programs that seek to achieve sustainability and reduce human and ecological vulnerability. This is particularly true in the face of increasing pressures from growing populations, accelerated rates of deforestation and forest degradation, and global environmental change. The impact of hurricane Dean on the forests of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico, in August 2007 provided a unique opportunity to address some relevant questions on this topic. The Yucatán f...
IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessment for the forest macrogroups of the Americas: tables with ass... more IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessment for the forest macrogroups of the Americas: tables with assessment results This repository contains results from the IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessments for the tropical and temperate forests macrogroups of the Americas. A summary of the assessment is available on the IUCN RLE website.
Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been docu... more Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been documented for several mainland species, but to date no studies of geographically structured call variation in parrot species have examined the role of isolation on islands. In a study of the Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), which inhabits 5 small Caribbean islands as well as the adjacent mainland, we found that the contact calls of island and mainland parakeets show divergence in vocal characters as well as in call variability. We assessed call variation using 3 approaches: frequency measurements, spectrogram cross-correlation (SPCC) analyses, and call duration measurements. Island parakeets’ calls were longer and had lower mean frequencies, and calls from different islands were distinguishable from each other as well as from mainland calls using measures derived from the SPCCs. In addition, we measured call variability at 2 different levels—within-location and within-individu...
This dataset includes the original version of the indicative distribution maps and profiles for &... more This dataset includes the original version of the indicative distribution maps and profiles for <strong>Ecological Functional Groups</strong> - Level 3 of IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (v1.1). Please refer to Keith <em>et al.</em> (submitted). <em>-- THIS VERSION IS ONLY FOR REFERENCE; SOME OF THESE MAPS HAVE BEEN REPLACED; CHECK NEWEST VERSION --</em> The descriptive profiles provide brief summaries of key ecological traits and processes for each functional group of ecosystems to enable any ecosystem type to be assigned to a group. Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (value of 1, coloured red) or minor occurrences (value of 2, coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. Minor occurrences are areas where an ecosystem functional group is scattered in patches within matrices of other ecosystem functional groups or where they occur in substantial areas, but only within a segment of a larger region. Most maps were prepared using a coarse-scale template (e.g. ecoregions), but some were compiled from higher resolution spatial data where available (see details in profiles). Higher resolution mapping is planned in future publications. We emphasise that spatial representation of Ecosystem Functional Groups does not follow higher-order groupings described in respective ecoregion classifications. Consequently, when Ecosystem Functional Groups are aggregated into<strong> functional biomes</strong> (Level 2 of the Global Ecosystem Typology), spatial patterns may differ from those of biogeographic biomes. Differences reflect the distinctions between functional and biogeographic interpretations of the term, "biome".
* RAISG has chosen to maintain the names of the countries written in the original language in all... more * RAISG has chosen to maintain the names of the countries written in the original language in all versions of its publications.
Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems but few studies hav... more Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems but few studies have objectively quantified their status and threats. We examined Venezuelan dry forest at multiple scales and assessed their extinction risk along with their historical and present threats and ...
David A. Keith, Jose R. Ferrer, Emily Nicholson, Melanie J. Bishop, Beth A. Polidoro, Eva Ramirez... more David A. Keith, Jose R. Ferrer, Emily Nicholson, Melanie J. Bishop, Beth A. Polidoro, Eva RamirezLlodra, Mark G. Tozer, Jeanne L. Nel, Ralph Mac Nally, Edward J. Gregr, Kate E. Watermeyer, Franz Essl, Don Faber-Langendoen, Janet Franklin, Caroline E. R. Lehmann, Andres Etter, Dirk J. Roux, Jonathan S. Stark, Jessica A. Rowland, Neil A. Brummitt, Ulla C. Fernandez-Arcaya, Iain M. Suthers, Susan K. Wiser, Ian Donohue, Leland J. Jackson, R. Toby Pennington, Nathalie Pettorelli, Angela Andrade, Tytti Kontula, Arild Lindgaard, Teemu Tahvanainan, Aleks Terauds, Oscar Venter, James E. M. Watson, Michael A Chadwick, Nicholas J. Murray, Justin Moat, Patricio Pliscoff, Irene Zager, Richard T. Kingsford
Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spa... more Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spatial scales, and that are important drivers of land change. Understanding the effect of anthropogenic and natural disturbances, as well as their synergies, on forest change dynamics is essential for informing policy and management programs that seek to achieve sustainability and reduce human and ecological vulnerability. This is particularly true in the face of increasing pressures from growing populations, accelerated rates of deforestation and forest degradation, and global environmental change. The impact of hurricane Dean on the forests of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico, in August 2007 provided a unique opportunity to address some relevant questions on this topic. The Yucatán forests play a critical ecological and social role in Mexico and Mesoamerica, and amount for the largest expanse of mature forest left in the region. I would like to thank my advisor, Laura Schneider, who has guided, encouraged and supported me through the long process of completing the PhD program. Thank you for not giving up on me! To my wonderful committee members: John Rogan, Tom Rudel and Tania Lopez-Marrero, I am very thankful for your encouragement and guidance through this process, and for the time you took to help me improve this research. I would also like to thank David Robinson and Ming Xu, who provided valuable comments during the development of the research proposal. I am also very grateful to Zachary Christman, who provided support, encouragement and suggestions in the field as well as during the development of the proposal and initial analysis of the remotely sensed data. Doing field research is always challenging, but even more so when it is conducted in a country that is not your own. Therefore, I would like to give a heartfelt "¡Gracias!" to El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) for receiving me and being my "home" during fieldwork, and to its students and researchers, who helped and guided me through the innumerable acronyms that characterize Mexico's institutions, the local costumes, and more importantly, who made my life in Mexico so pleasant. Special thanks to my friends:
Maintaining the abundance of carbon stored aboveground in Amazon forests is central to any compre... more Maintaining the abundance of carbon stored aboveground in Amazon forests is central to any comprehensive climate stabilization strategy. Growing evidence points to indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as buffers against large-scale carbon emissions across a nine-nation network of indigenous territories (ITs) and protected natural areas (PNAs). Previous studies have demonstrated a link between indigenous land management and avoided deforestation, yet few have accounted for forest degradation and natural disturbances—processes that occur without forest clearing but are increasingly important drivers of biomass loss. Here we provide a comprehensive accounting of aboveground carbon dynamics inside and outside Amazon protected lands. Using published data on changes in aboveground carbon density and forest cover, we track gains and losses in carbon density from forest conversion and degradation/disturbance. We find that ITs and PNAs stored more than one-half (58%; 41,991 MtC) ...
In 2014, the International Union for Conservation of Nature adopted the Red List of Ecosystems (I... more In 2014, the International Union for Conservation of Nature adopted the Red List of Ecosystems (IUCN RLE) criteria as the global standard for assessing risks to terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. Identifying and quantifying the impacts of biodiversity assessments on the status of nature is key to justifying continued investment in assessments and enabling strategic planning to maximize future impact. In this policy perspective, we use an established impact evaluation framework to identify the impacts of the IUCN RLE since its inception. To date, 1,397 ecosystem units in 100 countries have been assessed following the IUCN RLE protocol. Systematic assessments are complete or underway in more than 25 countries and two continental regions (the Americas and Europe). Countries with established ecosystem red lists have already used them to inform legislation, land-use planning, protected area expansion, monitoring and reporting, and ecosystem management. IUCN RLE indices based...
As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Bi... more As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity, attention is focusing on how new goals and targets for ecosystem conservation might serve its vision of ‘living in harmony with nature’1,2. Advancing dual imperatives to conserve biodiversity and sustain ecosystem services requires reliable and resilient generalizations and predictions about ecosystem responses to environmental change and management3. Ecosystems vary in their biota4, service provision5 and relative exposure to risks6, yet there is no globally consistent classification of ecosystems that reflects functional responses to change and management. This hampers progress on developing conservation targets and sustainability goals. Here we present the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Ecosystem Typology, a conceptually robust, scalable, spatially explicit approach for generalizations and predictions about functions, biota, risks and ...
Este listado corresponde a la versión preliminar de la Lista Roja de árboles endémicos de Venezue... more Este listado corresponde a la versión preliminar de la Lista Roja de árboles endémicos de Venezuela, e incluye información sobre 628 especies arbóreas que fueron sometidas a una evaluación de riesgo de extinción siguiendo el protocolo de la Unión International para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN). Las evaluaciones fueron lideradas por Provita y desarrolladas en colaboración con especialistas del Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), el Instituto Experimental Jardín Botánico «Dr. Tobías Lasser» y el Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) en el marco de la «Evaluación Global de Árboles», iniciativa que busca conocer el estado de conservación de todas las especies de árboles del mundo para el 2023. Actualmente la lista agrupa 68 familias, siete de las cuales representan más del 50% del total de especies del listado y del total de especies amenazadas. Las familias Fabaceae y Rubiaceae encabezan ambas listas. El 51% de las familias tienen más del ...
Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been docu... more Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been documented for several mainland species, but to date no studies of geographically structured call variation in parrot species have examined the role of isolation on islands. In a study of the Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), which inhabits five small Caribbean islands as well as the adjacent mainland, we found that the contact calls of island and mainland parakeets show divergence in vocal characters as well as in call variability. We assessed call variation using three approaches: frequency measurements, spectrogram cross-correlation (SPCC) analyses, and call duration measurements. Island parakeets' calls were longer and had lower mean frequencies, and calls from different islands were distinguishable from each other as well as from mainland calls using measures derived from the SPCCs. In addition we measured call variability at two different levels—within-location and wit...
The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the Internation... more The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories and criteria, analogous to those used for species, for assigning levels of threat to ecosystems at local, regional, and global levels. A final system will require definitions of ecosystems; quantification of ecosystem status; identification of the stages of degradation and loss of ecosystems; proxy measures of risk (criteria); classification thresholds for these criteria; and standardized methods for performing assessments. The system will need to reflect the degree and rate of change in an ecosystem's extent, composition, structure, and function, and have its conceptual roots in ecological theory and empirical research. On the basis of these requirements and the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of four criteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecological function, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused on
Forests of the Americas and the Caribbean are undergoing rapid change as human populations increa... more Forests of the Americas and the Caribbean are undergoing rapid change as human populations increase and land use intensifies. We applied the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) criteria and simple cost-efficiency analyses to provide the first regional perspective on patterns of relative risk integrated across multiple threats. Based on six indicators of ecosystem distribution and function, we find that 80% of the forest types and 85% of the current forest area is potentially threatened based on RLE criteria. Twelve forest types are Critically Endangered due to past or projected future deforestation, and Tropical Dry Forests and Woodland have highest threat scores. To efficiently reduce risks to forest ecosystems at national levels, scenario analyses show that countries would need to combine large forest protection measures with focused actions, tailored to their sociopolitical context, to help restore ecological functions in a selection of threatened forest types. K E Y W O R D S conservation actions, conservation goals, cost-efficiency analysis, ecosystem collapse, ecosystem risk assessment, forest management and conservation, IUCN Red List of ecosystems, threat score, temperate forest, tropical forest This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
OF THE DISSERTATION Analyzing the relationship between forest fragmentation and post-hurricane da... more OF THE DISSERTATION Analyzing the relationship between forest fragmentation and post-hurricane damage and recovery: The case of Hurricane Dean in the Calakmul-Sian Ka'an biological corridor, Yucatán, Mexico Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spatial scales, and that are important drivers of land change. Understanding the effect of anthropogenic and natural disturbances, as well as their synergies, on forest change dynamics is essential for informing policy and management programs that seek to achieve sustainability and reduce human and ecological vulnerability. This is particularly true in the face of increasing pressures from growing populations, accelerated rates of deforestation and forest degradation, and global environmental change. The impact of hurricane Dean on the forests of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico, in August 2007 provided a unique opportunity to address some relevant questions on this topic. The Yucatán f...
IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessment for the forest macrogroups of the Americas: tables with ass... more IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessment for the forest macrogroups of the Americas: tables with assessment results This repository contains results from the IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessments for the tropical and temperate forests macrogroups of the Americas. A summary of the assessment is available on the IUCN RLE website.
Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been docu... more Learned vocalizations play a key role in parrot social dynamics and vocal dialects have been documented for several mainland species, but to date no studies of geographically structured call variation in parrot species have examined the role of isolation on islands. In a study of the Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), which inhabits 5 small Caribbean islands as well as the adjacent mainland, we found that the contact calls of island and mainland parakeets show divergence in vocal characters as well as in call variability. We assessed call variation using 3 approaches: frequency measurements, spectrogram cross-correlation (SPCC) analyses, and call duration measurements. Island parakeets’ calls were longer and had lower mean frequencies, and calls from different islands were distinguishable from each other as well as from mainland calls using measures derived from the SPCCs. In addition, we measured call variability at 2 different levels—within-location and within-individu...
This dataset includes the original version of the indicative distribution maps and profiles for &... more This dataset includes the original version of the indicative distribution maps and profiles for <strong>Ecological Functional Groups</strong> - Level 3 of IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (v1.1). Please refer to Keith <em>et al.</em> (submitted). <em>-- THIS VERSION IS ONLY FOR REFERENCE; SOME OF THESE MAPS HAVE BEEN REPLACED; CHECK NEWEST VERSION --</em> The descriptive profiles provide brief summaries of key ecological traits and processes for each functional group of ecosystems to enable any ecosystem type to be assigned to a group. Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (value of 1, coloured red) or minor occurrences (value of 2, coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. Minor occurrences are areas where an ecosystem functional group is scattered in patches within matrices of other ecosystem functional groups or where they occur in substantial areas, but only within a segment of a larger region. Most maps were prepared using a coarse-scale template (e.g. ecoregions), but some were compiled from higher resolution spatial data where available (see details in profiles). Higher resolution mapping is planned in future publications. We emphasise that spatial representation of Ecosystem Functional Groups does not follow higher-order groupings described in respective ecoregion classifications. Consequently, when Ecosystem Functional Groups are aggregated into<strong> functional biomes</strong> (Level 2 of the Global Ecosystem Typology), spatial patterns may differ from those of biogeographic biomes. Differences reflect the distinctions between functional and biogeographic interpretations of the term, "biome".
* RAISG has chosen to maintain the names of the countries written in the original language in all... more * RAISG has chosen to maintain the names of the countries written in the original language in all versions of its publications.
Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems but few studies hav... more Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems but few studies have objectively quantified their status and threats. We examined Venezuelan dry forest at multiple scales and assessed their extinction risk along with their historical and present threats and ...
David A. Keith, Jose R. Ferrer, Emily Nicholson, Melanie J. Bishop, Beth A. Polidoro, Eva Ramirez... more David A. Keith, Jose R. Ferrer, Emily Nicholson, Melanie J. Bishop, Beth A. Polidoro, Eva RamirezLlodra, Mark G. Tozer, Jeanne L. Nel, Ralph Mac Nally, Edward J. Gregr, Kate E. Watermeyer, Franz Essl, Don Faber-Langendoen, Janet Franklin, Caroline E. R. Lehmann, Andres Etter, Dirk J. Roux, Jonathan S. Stark, Jessica A. Rowland, Neil A. Brummitt, Ulla C. Fernandez-Arcaya, Iain M. Suthers, Susan K. Wiser, Ian Donohue, Leland J. Jackson, R. Toby Pennington, Nathalie Pettorelli, Angela Andrade, Tytti Kontula, Arild Lindgaard, Teemu Tahvanainan, Aleks Terauds, Oscar Venter, James E. M. Watson, Michael A Chadwick, Nicholas J. Murray, Justin Moat, Patricio Pliscoff, Irene Zager, Richard T. Kingsford
Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spa... more Tropical forests are subject to disturbance regimes that occur across a range of temporal and spatial scales, and that are important drivers of land change. Understanding the effect of anthropogenic and natural disturbances, as well as their synergies, on forest change dynamics is essential for informing policy and management programs that seek to achieve sustainability and reduce human and ecological vulnerability. This is particularly true in the face of increasing pressures from growing populations, accelerated rates of deforestation and forest degradation, and global environmental change. The impact of hurricane Dean on the forests of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico, in August 2007 provided a unique opportunity to address some relevant questions on this topic. The Yucatán forests play a critical ecological and social role in Mexico and Mesoamerica, and amount for the largest expanse of mature forest left in the region. I would like to thank my advisor, Laura Schneider, who has guided, encouraged and supported me through the long process of completing the PhD program. Thank you for not giving up on me! To my wonderful committee members: John Rogan, Tom Rudel and Tania Lopez-Marrero, I am very thankful for your encouragement and guidance through this process, and for the time you took to help me improve this research. I would also like to thank David Robinson and Ming Xu, who provided valuable comments during the development of the research proposal. I am also very grateful to Zachary Christman, who provided support, encouragement and suggestions in the field as well as during the development of the proposal and initial analysis of the remotely sensed data. Doing field research is always challenging, but even more so when it is conducted in a country that is not your own. Therefore, I would like to give a heartfelt "¡Gracias!" to El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) for receiving me and being my "home" during fieldwork, and to its students and researchers, who helped and guided me through the innumerable acronyms that characterize Mexico's institutions, the local costumes, and more importantly, who made my life in Mexico so pleasant. Special thanks to my friends:
Maintaining the abundance of carbon stored aboveground in Amazon forests is central to any compre... more Maintaining the abundance of carbon stored aboveground in Amazon forests is central to any comprehensive climate stabilization strategy. Growing evidence points to indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as buffers against large-scale carbon emissions across a nine-nation network of indigenous territories (ITs) and protected natural areas (PNAs). Previous studies have demonstrated a link between indigenous land management and avoided deforestation, yet few have accounted for forest degradation and natural disturbances—processes that occur without forest clearing but are increasingly important drivers of biomass loss. Here we provide a comprehensive accounting of aboveground carbon dynamics inside and outside Amazon protected lands. Using published data on changes in aboveground carbon density and forest cover, we track gains and losses in carbon density from forest conversion and degradation/disturbance. We find that ITs and PNAs stored more than one-half (58%; 41,991 MtC) ...
In 2014, the International Union for Conservation of Nature adopted the Red List of Ecosystems (I... more In 2014, the International Union for Conservation of Nature adopted the Red List of Ecosystems (IUCN RLE) criteria as the global standard for assessing risks to terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. Identifying and quantifying the impacts of biodiversity assessments on the status of nature is key to justifying continued investment in assessments and enabling strategic planning to maximize future impact. In this policy perspective, we use an established impact evaluation framework to identify the impacts of the IUCN RLE since its inception. To date, 1,397 ecosystem units in 100 countries have been assessed following the IUCN RLE protocol. Systematic assessments are complete or underway in more than 25 countries and two continental regions (the Americas and Europe). Countries with established ecosystem red lists have already used them to inform legislation, land-use planning, protected area expansion, monitoring and reporting, and ecosystem management. IUCN RLE indices based...
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