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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #1 - Biodiversity
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:45:19
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Hello and welcome to this episode of the CORDIScovery podcast with me, Abigail Acton. Humanity is running an ecological Ponzi scheme in which society robs nature and future generations to pay for boosting incomes in the short term. One of many stark warnings about our impact on the environment around us. This one issued by a group of leading scientists in their paper, Understanding the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, published in Frontiers in Conservation Science.
00:00:45:21 - 00:01:15:12
Abigail Acton
They go on to add the three quarters of new infectious diseases result from human animal interactions. Much of the environmental degradation is occurring in biodiverse hotspots, where pathogen diversity is also highest, but where institutional capacity is weakest. Further increasing the risk of pathogen release and spread. So how does biodiversity depend on geography? What impact is the illegal trade in wildlife having on the communities that are involved and on targeted species?
00:01:15:14 - 00:01:44:02
Abigail Acton
What can be done to preserve areas? Do protected areas protect these diseases? We're here to talk to these and other issues their research has examined. Are our three guests whose work was funded under the EU's horizon 2020 program. Pedro Cardoso, curator at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, whose focus includes biogeography, conservation and functional ecology, often using islands and caves as model systems.
00:01:44:04 - 00:01:53:10
Abigail Acton
Doctor Cardoso is supervising Nuria macias, a Marie Curie Fellow working on the biodiversity Island Conte project. Pedro, welcome.
00:01:53:10 - 00:01:55:18
Pedro Cardoso
Hello, Abigail, and thanks for the invitation.
00:01:55:22 - 00:02:10:06
Abigail Acton
Rosaleen Duffy, professor of international politics at Sheffield University, whose focus includes global governance, environmental politics and eco tourism in developing states. Professor Duffy was the coordinator of the BIOSEC project. Welcome, Rosaleen.
00:02:10:07 - 00:02:13:04
Rosaleen Duffy
Thanks very much for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
00:02:13:08 - 00:02:36:07
Abigail Acton
Our great pleasure. And Jonas GeldmanN, based at the center for Macro Ecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, who is interested in seeing how pressure as measured by remote sensing data, combined with how managers of protected areas perceive threats, can shine a light on human impact on biodiversity. Doctor Goldman was involved in the pressure project. Welcome.
00:02:36:09 - 00:02:37:21
Jonas Geldmann
Thank you very much. And hello, everyone.
00:02:37:24 - 00:03:09:21
Abigail Acton
Let's get to it. Professor Cardoso, I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask to you. And then perhaps we could talk in an open discussion where the other guests can maybe ask questions also. So my first question for you, concerning the nature of, of biodiversity on islands as opposed to continental landmasses. I'm curious to know what functional traits such as those relating to dispersal capacity, reproduction, trophic ecology, are associated with high diversification rates within and across island systems.
00:03:10:00 - 00:03:13:05
Abigail Acton
If you could break those ideas down for us, that would be wonderful.
00:03:13:07 - 00:03:39:09
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah, probably the main trait that we immediately think about is dispersal ability. Bad dispersal just don't reach the islands. They don't have the capacity to reach a place that's oceanic islands, which are can be hundreds or thousands of kilometers from the nearest landmass. Good. Disperses, often hard to good dispersal. So they, they reach the islands.
00:03:39:09 - 00:04:03:24
Pedro Cardoso
But then there are still some genetic flux between populations in the island so that there won't be speciation, in, in significant numbers on the island. So there is this ideal dispersal capacity that an organism must have to give rise to numerous species. But what's clear is that many species often, lose their ability, to, to disperse.
00:04:03:24 - 00:04:34:08
Pedro Cardoso
Because once you are on an island, if you basically try to fly too far or to to navigate too far, then you'll be lost at sea. So many times, in insular species, they just lose the ability to, to disperse, to disperse far. Or maybe just they just don't need to to, to disperse anymore. If they don't find predators for example, like, like the, like the dodo is a very famous example.
00:04:34:08 - 00:05:05:11
Pedro Cardoso
They were just. Yeah, they were not able to move that, that fast. And of course, there are also other traits that might, might have a role, a role in this. You can can think, for example, about the hunting mode. The species wants to reach an island if if they find, let's say, emptiness, they might find ways to, to occupy those niches so they might find prey that they did not find when, on the mainland.
00:05:05:13 - 00:05:06:09
Pedro Cardoso
So they will.
00:05:06:09 - 00:05:13:17
Abigail Acton
I'm just curious. Excuse me. I'm curious to know some examples of actual animals that you could think of. Hunting. Good idea. Is interesting.
00:05:13:19 - 00:05:36:08
Pedro Cardoso
Yes. About the hunting mode. In fact, we were, we are studying spiders in the Micronesian islands, in Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores. And like, for example, just we are just we have just published a number of, described the number of new species from a single small island with ten square kilometers.
00:05:36:10 - 00:05:59:11
Pedro Cardoso
In these small islands, we have found five new species for signs of just one genus of of spider. This would allow spiders, and each one differs a bit in their body size and their color in their most part. So adapting to different conditions to different to different prey. And this is only in in ten square kilometers you will find these, these many species adapted to.
00:05:59:13 - 00:06:04:08
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah, small just small variations. What they do in the, in their.
00:06:04:10 - 00:06:16:00
Abigail Acton
In these islands and that concentration of the number of species in such a small area. Is that a function of the fact that it is a small area. I mean, I would have thought that they'd squeeze each other out. But you're saying they're adapted to different prey?
00:06:16:02 - 00:06:38:16
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Exactly. What's happens that they're they they they they probably we we we do not study these specifically, but they probably are adapted to different prey to different, micro rabbits. They, they some sometimes they occupy different, different places in these small islands. So yeah, these, these allows them to, to occupy the same space.
00:06:38:16 - 00:07:01:13
Abigail Acton
It sounds as if they are, relatively vulnerable. Which leads me to my next question. Really, I'm wondering if at all, do island biota differ from continental biota in their response to global change and the impact of human activity, such as territory encroachment or illegal trade? Are they more vulnerable? Can you think maybe of an example of an island species that maybe is hit hard by human activity?
00:07:01:15 - 00:07:27:11
Pedro Cardoso
Intrinsically they are not more vulnerable. They respond basically the same way as my mainland species. But, of course, being on islands, they are in very specific conditions. They are isolated, right. So this is what really puts them in higher danger on average than, than mainland species. So they have limited space to move. So if, for example, as a consequence of global warming they must move northwards.
00:07:27:14 - 00:07:58:18
Pedro Cardoso
The they won't be able to do it many times. So they might move upwards in altitude, but not, not northwards. Also the in if there is habitat destruction, they won't be able to, to, to escape, to escape it as easily as a species on the mainland. There are a few threats which are more precise pervasive on islands like an invasive, invasive, invasive species.
00:07:58:20 - 00:08:22:20
Pedro Cardoso
These are a serious concern mainly mainly on, on the islands. It's very common that that some species, are introduced by men and they, they outcompete or or or predate on, on the native species. And this is, is, particularly important for, for, for islands. So for example, I was talking about these woodland spiders.
00:08:22:20 - 00:08:53:07
Pedro Cardoso
In fact, all of these species that we have found are endangered. They are very limited. And many of them, not only in, in these small islets, but also other islands surrounding Madeira and the Azores and the Canary Islands are threatened by an invasive, species of the same genus that came from, from the mainland. And, this is a big, a big problem for, for almost all of these species.
00:08:53:07 - 00:09:14:19
Pedro Cardoso
And some of them are only surviving in a few actors. And many cases we think it's because of these invasive from the mainland. And I can also give you the example of the, of the, deserters, wolf spider, which is one of the largest spiders in Europe. We've seemed less than one square kilometer, although it's a pretty big spider.
00:09:14:21 - 00:09:31:13
Pedro Cardoso
But it is threatened by an invasive plant, which has really, let's say, aggressive routes which fill all the empty spaces on the soil. Where this place where just that the spider needs to, to take refuge from predators and from staycation.
00:09:31:15 - 00:09:50:06
Abigail Acton
That's a fantastic example, because often when we think of invasive species, we sometimes think, well, I personally think of species coming in that are basically going to predate upon the the animal concerned or for example, attack the animal at a certain point of its life cycle. Like that hideous thing about the rats on one of the, the islands.
00:09:50:08 - 00:10:08:16
Abigail Acton
That that feed on the albatross eggs and, and the young albatross, things like that. The idea of encroachment of habitat through something like roots is, is is interesting. It just shows you how tightly it is all connected. Very interesting. Rosaleen. Jonas. do you have any questions that you would like to put to Pedro? Because he's raised some interesting points, I think.
00:10:08:16 - 00:10:42:24
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah. One thing that that came to mind, sort of coming from a conservation angle, looking at protected areas, we're often focusing a lot on the threatened and, rare species. And I wondered with sort of some of the traits that you were describing in terms of what make good dispersal, to what extent sort of, the how the abundance or the commonness or the rareness of the species in this, in the source population from whatever continent they're coming in plays a role in, in, in how likely they are to actually make it out to, to islands.
00:10:43:01 - 00:10:56:09
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Well, just just by chance, of course, if a species is quite common, there are many more chances that it will reach the, to an island. Right. And, and I think that that's, that's the main, the main, the main point.
00:10:56:12 - 00:11:10:18
Abigail Acton
How frequently is it the case that actually the species are brought in by, by human activity? I mean, might it be that certain species, like rats and cats, get around more easily because they are so closely allied to human activity?
00:11:10:20 - 00:11:32:10
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. If you think about invasive species, yeah. Of course, species that are associated with men, they have much higher probabilities of, of waiting, which in the islands we can think of. Yeah. About. Yeah, yeah. Mice and cats and and of course those that are, that are introduced by man on, on purpose like like rabbits and goats, which was very common.
00:11:32:10 - 00:11:46:17
Pedro Cardoso
The common thing to do to release rabbits and goats on, on some of the islands so that when you returned to the island, this was in the 15th and 16th century, when the return to the animal Redcat already had food there. Right? So these were on purpose. Others are accidental.
00:11:46:19 - 00:12:00:04
Abigail Acton
Pedro, can you think of some examples of species that are really almost only found in a certain isle on a certain island, or maybe an archipelago that have been particularly threatened by human activity at the moment?
00:12:00:06 - 00:12:36:04
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Thinking about, about spiders again. It's my my expertise, the group that I, that I know more about, there are a few cases of, of of, some species that are restricted to violence, wind, which are a favorite of, of traffic and poachers. So one, one example or the particular area, the tarantulas from Sri Lanka, which are really famous in, in the trade and in fact the, the award include did insight is just, just recently because of, of the, the the perils caused by and by by trade.
00:12:36:06 - 00:12:53:11
Pedro Cardoso
So this is one of the, examples and probably there are more it's not a question of being island species, just that it happens that these large and nice species to have as a pet are on an island. In this case, they're going to.
00:12:53:13 - 00:13:15:06
Abigail Acton
Rosaleen, I know your interest is in the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife crimes. The example that Pedro gives about the the tarantulas, is just one, I'm sure. Can you think of any other examples where human activity of this nature is having an impact on population numbers of of animals on islands.
00:13:15:08 - 00:13:40:00
Rosaleen Duffy
And certainly, I mean, I can think of, the radiated tortoise from Madagascar is a really good example, because that's one that's desired by collectors and radiated tortoises in Madagascar have really suffered substantially from, the illegal wildlife trade. So that's one that's certainly one really good example of and an island species that's impacted negatively by illegal wildlife trade in.
00:13:40:02 - 00:13:55:09
Abigail Acton
Right. And Rosaleen, the term illegal trade in animals. It that's the term. So by definition, of course it's a crime. But in practice, what are the problems with viewing it as a crime and a security threat. And how does that change conservation practice.
00:13:55:11 - 00:14:15:12
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah, again, that's a really good question. And it does seem to make intuitive sense that, you know, if something's illegal, then of course it's a crime. And we should have a a response that's anchored in law enforcement crime and policing. But that's really blunt. So we need to again look at look at the ideas behind, calling it a crime or referring to it as a crime.
00:14:15:12 - 00:14:50:13
Rosaleen Duffy
Some of the legal arrangements that were first put in place by, British colonizers in Africa is a really good example of that. So it's no wonder that these, communities may find wildlife laws as unjust. But I think, certainly in the last ten years, the interest from global policymaking is, is because there's a growing agreement that wildlife losses, some of which are produced by illegal wildlife trade, produce a convergence of threats to ecosystems, geopolitical stability, national security, human health and wellbeing, and for future generations.
00:14:50:15 - 00:15:18:13
Rosaleen Duffy
And so, in our research projects, you know, we we we have kind of, picked, you know, what are the problems with thinking of it as a wildlife crime? There was a point in time, not too long ago when one referred to a wildlife crime. It meant things like hare coursing or badger baiting. It didn't refer to the illegal wildlife trade, but that's changed since the spikes in poaching of elephants and rhinos, particularly from around about 2008.
00:15:18:15 - 00:15:43:09
Rosaleen Duffy
And I think part of the explanation is, is that conservation NGOs need to compete for funds. It's a highly competitive environment, and they found that they can amplify their messages, drive attention and funding. That way by linking together conservation and security concerns. And so there's been this real expansion in the amount of funding available for projects that tackle illegal wildlife trade.
00:15:43:14 - 00:15:46:09
Rosaleen Duffy
So that's one set of explanations.
00:15:46:11 - 00:16:08:11
Abigail Acton
If I could just ask you talking about security, and I know you I mean, security, of course, is a wide word and covers many different types of threats. But, given the situation we all find ourselves in, in this pandemic, of course, the one immediate idea is a notion of, of of security with regards to, to pathogens.
00:16:08:13 - 00:16:17:16
Abigail Acton
How how does the, the notion of environmental crime overlap with human health and, and, the, the, the transference of pathogens here.
00:16:17:18 - 00:16:50:12
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So there have been since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, there have been calls in the NGO community, from states for a very forceful action to call a halt to the illegal wildlife trade as a potential place where new pathogens can arise, where, where the virus can jump species because of the kind of close proximity of species to humans in wildlife markets, and those involved in tackling the illegal wildlife trade have for a very long time pointed to the risks of zoonosis.
00:16:50:17 - 00:17:15:13
Rosaleen Duffy
That's the transmission of disease from non-human animals to humans. And the biosecurity risks are very clear, deadly viruses that we've seen in the past like Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and Covid 19 are all zoonotic diseases that originated in wildlife. And it may be the wildlife trade that has provided a an opportunity for the for the virus to jump.
00:17:15:15 - 00:17:51:20
Rosaleen Duffy
But the problem with that is a bit like, you know, the problems with calling wildlife trade a security issue is, is that making the link with the wildlife trade? That's one link and that's important. And that's led to calls for permanent bans on wildlife markets. But other experts involved in the, in looking at illegal wildlife trade and sustainable livelihoods, of cautioned against these kinds of calls for blanket bans because they could be really inimical to the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest people and could have counterproductive to conservation outcomes for some species that are set that are kind of sustainably traded.
00:17:51:22 - 00:18:14:13
Rosaleen Duffy
So if you think of wild meat consumption and trade, you know, if you instantly ban that, we're putting an international ban, then unless you put in place resources, an alternative to people who rely on that trade to meet their everyday needs, then that ban won't work. Or if it does work, then it will have really devastating consequences for some of the world's poorest people.
00:18:14:15 - 00:18:29:13
Abigail Acton
Right? When we consider the risks of zoonosis, and transference of pathogens, often there are calls to close down wildlife meat markets. Could you explain why that isn't necessarily a good idea? What are the concomitant risks there?
00:18:29:15 - 00:19:04:00
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. Well, one of the problems is, is that some of the world's most marginalized, and poorest people, reliant on the wildlife trade to make ends meet either to their own consumption or that they sell into wildlife markets. And so if you immediately ban wildlife markets, then and you don't put in place something to replace that source of income or to replace that source of protein for those communities, then then the impact of those bans is that it has a really devastating impact on some of the world's most vulnerable and marginalized people.
00:19:04:02 - 00:19:13:00
Rosaleen Duffy
And we do see that if, new laws are enacted to, make wildlife trade illegal, then it can drive trades underground.
00:19:13:02 - 00:19:22:22
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you. That that's very clear. And also very interesting. Can I ask if you have questions for the other guests, for Pedro or for Jonas or Jonas? Pedro, would you have any questions for Rosaleen?
00:19:22:24 - 00:19:45:07
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah, I have a question for Pedro, which is about, you know, the the sort of, identification of human, humanity or impacts on humanity on island species and I wondered if you could just unpick a little bit what you mean, as the main drivers of sort of human impacts on these species, what are the main human impacts?
00:19:45:09 - 00:20:17:03
Pedro Cardoso
Well, there is no, no real, ranking of, of the impacts, but there is more or less of an agreement that that, habitat, habitat loss, is the main, the main cause for, for the loss of species in the mainland or on the islands. And then, as I mentioned already, invasive species are particularly, important, on, on the islands besides, all the usual suspects, like, so, like climate change.
00:20:17:08 - 00:20:21:03
Abigail Acton
Jonas. Yeah. So do you have a question for for Pedro or for Rosalind?
00:20:21:03 - 00:20:32:20
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah, I had one for Rosaleen. Are there any particular sort of markers or indicators of what makes a successful, sustainable, harvested to hunted population?
00:20:32:22 - 00:21:02:09
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So there is, there are indicators. So, for each species that's listed under this Ices convention, states have to have a list of indicators that show that the trade in the species doesn't have a detrimental impact on that species long term survival. And so each country has to provide these indicators. And of course, the indicators are subject to discussion and controversy amongst different interest groups.
00:21:02:14 - 00:21:16:18
Rosaleen Duffy
Some groups don't want trade in particular species at all, regardless of whether it's sustainable or not. And some, some believe that it's really important to allow sustainable trade to continue.
00:21:16:20 - 00:21:21:03
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That that's interesting. Jonas, does that answer what you were thinking? Would you? Oh, yeah.
00:21:21:08 - 00:21:21:17
Jonas Geldmann
Brilliant.
00:21:21:17 - 00:21:43:08
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Yeah. Well, that's that's great, because I'd like to actually turn to you now, Jonas, because we're talking here now, obviously, about the the threats to to to wildlife, to wildlife crimes. And I know that you're very interested in, protected areas and, and conservation areas and whether they work or not, in order to know if protected areas can be an effective response to human encroachment, we do need to know if they work.
00:21:43:08 - 00:21:51:13
Abigail Acton
So how can we tell? How do you assess the impact of labeling an area, a wildlife sanctuary or a protected area on conservation itself?
00:21:51:16 - 00:22:19:03
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah, so I think there's three or maybe even four key challenges when we try to understand if protected areas are effective. And the first one is probably that that protected areas, while sort of a broad tide, usually are designated for quite specific objectives. So it's understanding why are we actually designating a particular area. What is the what is the species, what are the ecosystems and what are the features that we're actually interested in.
00:22:19:05 - 00:23:02:00
Jonas Geldmann
The the other aspect is that, protected areas are not located, randomly in the landscape. And what we've seen, increasingly or not, just what we see generally is that protected areas are often located in areas that are remote. So they're far from people and far from the pressures that actually would affect them. So if you just look at whether they are are doing better than non protected areas without accounting for these, you might find that they actually are, but that that the areas would have been doing that would have been effective regardless of whether they were protected or not, simply because they are out of harm's way.
00:23:02:02 - 00:23:27:11
Jonas Geldmann
So understanding quite explicitly, what are the what are the biases in location and integrating that in what we generally call the counterfactual analysis, trying to find a similar, location to the protected areas, but one that is not protected is, is is key. And and then I guess a third one is, a lot of what we do analysis wise with protected areas is retrospective.
00:23:27:11 - 00:23:50:01
Jonas Geldmann
We we're looking at an established network of protected areas. Currently, we have more than 230,000 protected areas across the world. And, we can only really understand them. We can't sort of set up these ideal experimental setups or how we would want to do it, because we can't just designate protected areas for the for the testing or whether they work.
00:23:50:03 - 00:24:17:05
Jonas Geldmann
So that introduces quite a bit of challenge as well. And then I guess a fourth sort of associated aspect is that we are actually not only interested in understanding whether they are effective, but also why. So understanding what are the management interventions, what are the dialogs with local stakeholders? What are the features that sort of sets the protected areas apart, that actually makes an impact on on the the protected status?
00:24:17:05 - 00:24:36:14
Abigail Acton
I find interesting the idea, as you said, it seems so logical that some places work as protected areas just because they are so inaccessible, and it's their own geographical location that's making them protected. Anyway, I'm thinking of Saint Kilda, for example, of Scotland in the Hebrides, which I visited, which was an amazing site. Yeah. In the middle of it.
00:24:36:14 - 00:24:40:06
Abigail Acton
Absolutely. The Atlantic Ocean, so very protected.
00:24:40:08 - 00:25:01:17
Jonas Geldmann
Interesting. Yeah. And one of the classic examples of these is Mount Egmond in New Zealand, which is sort of a it's a mountain that is, protected. And when you just look at it from, from sort of a satellite image, you will see that, that following almost perfectly the boundaries of the protected areas, you have forest and outside the protected areas, all of the forest is lost.
00:25:01:17 - 00:25:28:22
Jonas Geldmann
And it's very easy to think, well, that's clearly an effective protected area, when in reality it's just a very steep mountain where or sort of no, no, none of the conventional used forestry tools are cost effective to be able to actually cut down the forest. There. So what you have is, is, is in effect just the remains of, of the of, of unproductive land or what couldn't be utilized by the forest.
00:25:28:24 - 00:25:47:00
Abigail Acton
Now that is a very neat example, as almost looked like a, like a haircut where it's just like suddenly becomes no longer financially viable to bother. So they just go away and leave it alone. And yes, absolutely. Looking at that, one would think it was working as a protected area. Very interesting. And Pedro, thinking about what we were talking about, island species visiting.
00:25:47:00 - 00:26:10:04
Abigail Acton
And going back to my point about visiting some Kilda, we had to land in Zodiacs, so we had to land in rubber zodiacs because they were worried about rats being introduced. So that's interesting. As a, as a as a little aside, the Jonah's with regards to what you were just saying. And so what are you actually finding? Are you finding that protected areas to a great extent are effective?
00:26:10:06 - 00:26:20:08
Abigail Acton
What causes some not to be? What causes some to be? And is there anything we can do to make those that perhaps aren't working so well work better? What are you finding?
00:26:20:12 - 00:26:47:02
Jonas Geldmann
I think it's important to to start out by saying that if there's a place or of in international policy where we have been quite successful, it's in establishing protected areas. As I said, we now have about 230,000, if not already more. Those numbers are a few days old. And and, they cover almost 17% of the global terrestrial area and almost 8% of the oceans.
00:26:47:04 - 00:27:09:15
Jonas Geldmann
So we've we've created is an enormous amount of protected areas. And that obviously also leads to huge variability in what we see in the protected areas. We see that generally some of the most iconic and most important protected areas, some of those established, for the longest and some of those established in really some of the hotspots of biodiversity, they are effective.
00:27:09:17 - 00:27:33:16
Jonas Geldmann
But what we also see is that this sort of race to establish more and more protected areas have actually led to, on average, protected areas are not effective. And this is even against the counterfactual. So this is this is not just that they are, not, that they that they are doing they're doing worse in areas that are similar to these and not protected.
00:27:33:18 - 00:27:36:17
Jonas Geldmann
And, and that is a bit surprising and a bit.
00:27:36:20 - 00:27:41:12
Abigail Acton
And do we have any reasons for why. Can you give us some examples of why that might be.
00:27:41:14 - 00:28:07:10
Jonas Geldmann
So, so also there there's a high diversity of of, of reasons, what we generally see in some of these cases are that governments just establish protected areas because they have to, because of international conventions, but they don't really put in place any management structures. They don't fund them very well. So that's why we generally tend to call people parks.
00:28:07:12 - 00:28:28:00
Jonas Geldmann
What we are also seeing is so because they're just they're just as there's a signature on a piece of paper somewhere in the ministry, but you don't really have anything going on on ground, on the ground. But we also seem to see and this is, I have to say, something. We speculate because we don't have the data to actually investigate this.
00:28:28:02 - 00:28:51:16
Jonas Geldmann
Is that, in some cases you have very good local management of the resources by local communities who have lived in the areas and used the areas for very long. But as soon as a government comes in and actually establishes now says it's a this is a protected area, it takes away the ownership and it takes away the rights of the local people.
00:28:51:18 - 00:29:15:04
Jonas Geldmann
It, which makes them potentially care less about the area. It also for, sort of more illegal activities such as deforestation or agricultural expansion. It suddenly provides the bigger companies with an easier route to find out who who do you need to talk to to actually start activities? Suddenly you have to go to the ministry instead of talking to local stakeholders.
00:29:15:06 - 00:29:35:11
Jonas Geldmann
And I think that some of the cases where we see that actually the establishment of the protected area leads to a negative impact because prior to protection, they were actually working relatively well. And this just de facto establishment of protection leads to some of them, suddenly being corrupted and working worse than before. Protection.
00:29:35:13 - 00:29:57:23
Abigail Acton
Thank you, thank you. Well, I'd like to see, if I could just ask you each to give me a relatively brief, tight response to a question that that I'll put to you in turn this time. So, Pedro, coming back to you, what do you feel would be the one thing that you would like to see change in the next decade when it comes to biodiversity?
00:29:57:23 - 00:30:01:06
Abigail Acton
And, that what happens on islands.
00:30:01:08 - 00:30:33:15
Pedro Cardoso
Not only on islands, but this is a, something for ethical for every kind of setting, but to take biodiversity seriously, basically, we, I think we, we, we have already realized how important it is to mitigate climate change. But, biodiversity protection somehow lagging, lagging behind. And it is, it affects us as humans, arguably even more than climate change.
00:30:33:18 - 00:30:44:03
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Pedro. Rosalyn, going back then to the question, with regards to your area of interest in research, what would you like to see in the next ten years happen?
00:30:44:05 - 00:31:14:11
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So one thing I'd really like to see change is approaching. The illegal wildlife trade is an issue of global inequality. That demand itself is driven by the wealthy world, and that supply is often provided by marginalized and vulnerable communities. And I think there's sometimes an almost, you know, it's sort of a neglect of understanding and tackling capitalist logics in the global economy that's based around growth, in the conservation community, as a driver of a, of wider forms of environmental problems as well.
00:31:14:13 - 00:31:37:18
Rosaleen Duffy
So I think such an approach would produce very different solutions from the conservation community. So there would be more focus on demand reduction in wealthy communities, more focus on supporting and meeting the aspirations and desires of, people living with wildlife. And that really does need to go beyond offering people a few jobs as rangers or in the tourism industry in the local eco lodge.
00:31:37:23 - 00:31:56:02
Rosaleen Duffy
If you declare a protected area and then exclude them from gaining any kind of access to the resources within that area. So instead we need to ask those communities, what do you want? What do you need to live a good life and I think that would have a much better chance of preventing people from entering the poaching economy, right?
00:31:56:04 - 00:32:08:13
Abigail Acton
Basically more and more feeling more invested on the ground because, yeah, John is coming to you now. And, and with regards to your area of interest and research, may I ask you what you would like to see over the next decade?
00:32:08:16 - 00:32:29:23
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah. So I think for protected areas, the last decade or even the last two decades have been very much focused on increasing coverage and establishing more protected areas. And I think for the next decade, what we really need is focus on quality, focus on how do we ensure that the existing protected areas are actually benefiting biodiversity and the people living in and around them.
00:32:30:00 - 00:32:48:15
Jonas Geldmann
And I think that involves much closer, collaboration and cooperation with the local communities in and around them, but also to a large extent, and increased funding. We are seeing a large funding deficit in what countries are committing to their protected area networks.
00:32:48:17 - 00:33:05:14
Abigail Acton
Right. Going back to what you were saying about paper parks, yes, it's all very well talking about it, but you actually have to make it happen on the ground. Well, thank you very much, all of you, for such an interesting discussion. I think it's revealed concepts and ideas that people may not have considered before. Certainly it's revealed some concepts that I haven't thought of before.
00:33:05:16 - 00:33:23:10
Abigail Acton
I'm still fascinated by the notion of the plant roots taking up the space that's needed by the spiders. I'd never thought of that. And it's very interesting for all of you who have been listening. Thank you very much for having downloaded this episode of CORDIScovery podcast. I do hope you enjoyed it. Find out what are the projects funded by the EU are working on in this area?
00:33:23:15 - 00:33:54:17
Abigail Acton
By taking a look at issue 92 of the research EU magazine Biodiversity A New Deal for nature available on the Cordis website. Cordis.europa.eu news articles. Daily features setting out the results of groundbreaking research. A magazine that explores the hottest new discoveries and results. Packs that bring together findings by subject. All these are available at the CORDIS website and if you are a researcher interested in applying for EU support, the site can show you what's being done in your domain.
00:33:54:19 - 00:34:15:21
Abigail Acton
So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you, so drop us a line using editorial at Cordis dot Europa.EU I'm looking forward to sharing the interesting findings of our next guestS with you next month, when the subject will be the Future of Aviation. The sector has taken a huge hit over the last year.
00:34:15:23 - 00:34:19:18
Abigail Acton
Where to now? Until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:45:19
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Hello and welcome to this episode of the CORDIScovery podcast with me, Abigail Acton. Humanity is running an ecological Ponzi scheme in which society robs nature and future generations to pay for boosting incomes in the short term. One of many stark warnings about our impact on the environment around us. This one issued by a group of leading scientists in their paper, Understanding the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, published in Frontiers in Conservation Science.
00:00:45:21 - 00:01:15:12
Abigail Acton
They go on to add the three quarters of new infectious diseases result from human animal interactions. Much of the environmental degradation is occurring in biodiverse hotspots, where pathogen diversity is also highest, but where institutional capacity is weakest. Further increasing the risk of pathogen release and spread. So how does biodiversity depend on geography? What impact is the illegal trade in wildlife having on the communities that are involved and on targeted species?
00:01:15:14 - 00:01:44:02
Abigail Acton
What can be done to preserve areas? Do protected areas protect these diseases? We're here to talk to these and other issues their research has examined. Are our three guests whose work was funded under the EU's horizon 2020 program. Pedro Cardoso, curator at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, whose focus includes biogeography, conservation and functional ecology, often using islands and caves as model systems.
00:01:44:04 - 00:01:53:10
Abigail Acton
Doctor Cardoso is supervising Nuria macias, a Marie Curie Fellow working on the biodiversity Island Conte project. Pedro, welcome.
00:01:53:10 - 00:01:55:18
Pedro Cardoso
Hello, Abigail, and thanks for the invitation.
00:01:55:22 - 00:02:10:06
Abigail Acton
Rosaleen Duffy, professor of international politics at Sheffield University, whose focus includes global governance, environmental politics and eco tourism in developing states. Professor Duffy was the coordinator of the BIOSEC project. Welcome, Rosaleen.
00:02:10:07 - 00:02:13:04
Rosaleen Duffy
Thanks very much for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
00:02:13:08 - 00:02:36:07
Abigail Acton
Our great pleasure. And Jonas GeldmanN, based at the center for Macro Ecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, who is interested in seeing how pressure as measured by remote sensing data, combined with how managers of protected areas perceive threats, can shine a light on human impact on biodiversity. Doctor Goldman was involved in the pressure project. Welcome.
00:02:36:09 - 00:02:37:21
Jonas Geldmann
Thank you very much. And hello, everyone.
00:02:37:24 - 00:03:09:21
Abigail Acton
Let's get to it. Professor Cardoso, I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask to you. And then perhaps we could talk in an open discussion where the other guests can maybe ask questions also. So my first question for you, concerning the nature of, of biodiversity on islands as opposed to continental landmasses. I'm curious to know what functional traits such as those relating to dispersal capacity, reproduction, trophic ecology, are associated with high diversification rates within and across island systems.
00:03:10:00 - 00:03:13:05
Abigail Acton
If you could break those ideas down for us, that would be wonderful.
00:03:13:07 - 00:03:39:09
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah, probably the main trait that we immediately think about is dispersal ability. Bad dispersal just don't reach the islands. They don't have the capacity to reach a place that's oceanic islands, which are can be hundreds or thousands of kilometers from the nearest landmass. Good. Disperses, often hard to good dispersal. So they, they reach the islands.
00:03:39:09 - 00:04:03:24
Pedro Cardoso
But then there are still some genetic flux between populations in the island so that there won't be speciation, in, in significant numbers on the island. So there is this ideal dispersal capacity that an organism must have to give rise to numerous species. But what's clear is that many species often, lose their ability, to, to disperse.
00:04:03:24 - 00:04:34:08
Pedro Cardoso
Because once you are on an island, if you basically try to fly too far or to to navigate too far, then you'll be lost at sea. So many times, in insular species, they just lose the ability to, to disperse, to disperse far. Or maybe just they just don't need to to, to disperse anymore. If they don't find predators for example, like, like the, like the dodo is a very famous example.
00:04:34:08 - 00:05:05:11
Pedro Cardoso
They were just. Yeah, they were not able to move that, that fast. And of course, there are also other traits that might, might have a role, a role in this. You can can think, for example, about the hunting mode. The species wants to reach an island if if they find, let's say, emptiness, they might find ways to, to occupy those niches so they might find prey that they did not find when, on the mainland.
00:05:05:13 - 00:05:06:09
Pedro Cardoso
So they will.
00:05:06:09 - 00:05:13:17
Abigail Acton
I'm just curious. Excuse me. I'm curious to know some examples of actual animals that you could think of. Hunting. Good idea. Is interesting.
00:05:13:19 - 00:05:36:08
Pedro Cardoso
Yes. About the hunting mode. In fact, we were, we are studying spiders in the Micronesian islands, in Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores. And like, for example, just we are just we have just published a number of, described the number of new species from a single small island with ten square kilometers.
00:05:36:10 - 00:05:59:11
Pedro Cardoso
In these small islands, we have found five new species for signs of just one genus of of spider. This would allow spiders, and each one differs a bit in their body size and their color in their most part. So adapting to different conditions to different to different prey. And this is only in in ten square kilometers you will find these, these many species adapted to.
00:05:59:13 - 00:06:04:08
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah, small just small variations. What they do in the, in their.
00:06:04:10 - 00:06:16:00
Abigail Acton
In these islands and that concentration of the number of species in such a small area. Is that a function of the fact that it is a small area. I mean, I would have thought that they'd squeeze each other out. But you're saying they're adapted to different prey?
00:06:16:02 - 00:06:38:16
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Exactly. What's happens that they're they they they they probably we we we do not study these specifically, but they probably are adapted to different prey to different, micro rabbits. They, they some sometimes they occupy different, different places in these small islands. So yeah, these, these allows them to, to occupy the same space.
00:06:38:16 - 00:07:01:13
Abigail Acton
It sounds as if they are, relatively vulnerable. Which leads me to my next question. Really, I'm wondering if at all, do island biota differ from continental biota in their response to global change and the impact of human activity, such as territory encroachment or illegal trade? Are they more vulnerable? Can you think maybe of an example of an island species that maybe is hit hard by human activity?
00:07:01:15 - 00:07:27:11
Pedro Cardoso
Intrinsically they are not more vulnerable. They respond basically the same way as my mainland species. But, of course, being on islands, they are in very specific conditions. They are isolated, right. So this is what really puts them in higher danger on average than, than mainland species. So they have limited space to move. So if, for example, as a consequence of global warming they must move northwards.
00:07:27:14 - 00:07:58:18
Pedro Cardoso
The they won't be able to do it many times. So they might move upwards in altitude, but not, not northwards. Also the in if there is habitat destruction, they won't be able to, to, to escape, to escape it as easily as a species on the mainland. There are a few threats which are more precise pervasive on islands like an invasive, invasive, invasive species.
00:07:58:20 - 00:08:22:20
Pedro Cardoso
These are a serious concern mainly mainly on, on the islands. It's very common that that some species, are introduced by men and they, they outcompete or or or predate on, on the native species. And this is, is, particularly important for, for, for islands. So for example, I was talking about these woodland spiders.
00:08:22:20 - 00:08:53:07
Pedro Cardoso
In fact, all of these species that we have found are endangered. They are very limited. And many of them, not only in, in these small islets, but also other islands surrounding Madeira and the Azores and the Canary Islands are threatened by an invasive, species of the same genus that came from, from the mainland. And, this is a big, a big problem for, for almost all of these species.
00:08:53:07 - 00:09:14:19
Pedro Cardoso
And some of them are only surviving in a few actors. And many cases we think it's because of these invasive from the mainland. And I can also give you the example of the, of the, deserters, wolf spider, which is one of the largest spiders in Europe. We've seemed less than one square kilometer, although it's a pretty big spider.
00:09:14:21 - 00:09:31:13
Pedro Cardoso
But it is threatened by an invasive plant, which has really, let's say, aggressive routes which fill all the empty spaces on the soil. Where this place where just that the spider needs to, to take refuge from predators and from staycation.
00:09:31:15 - 00:09:50:06
Abigail Acton
That's a fantastic example, because often when we think of invasive species, we sometimes think, well, I personally think of species coming in that are basically going to predate upon the the animal concerned or for example, attack the animal at a certain point of its life cycle. Like that hideous thing about the rats on one of the, the islands.
00:09:50:08 - 00:10:08:16
Abigail Acton
That that feed on the albatross eggs and, and the young albatross, things like that. The idea of encroachment of habitat through something like roots is, is is interesting. It just shows you how tightly it is all connected. Very interesting. Rosaleen. Jonas. do you have any questions that you would like to put to Pedro? Because he's raised some interesting points, I think.
00:10:08:16 - 00:10:42:24
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah. One thing that that came to mind, sort of coming from a conservation angle, looking at protected areas, we're often focusing a lot on the threatened and, rare species. And I wondered with sort of some of the traits that you were describing in terms of what make good dispersal, to what extent sort of, the how the abundance or the commonness or the rareness of the species in this, in the source population from whatever continent they're coming in plays a role in, in, in how likely they are to actually make it out to, to islands.
00:10:43:01 - 00:10:56:09
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Well, just just by chance, of course, if a species is quite common, there are many more chances that it will reach the, to an island. Right. And, and I think that that's, that's the main, the main, the main point.
00:10:56:12 - 00:11:10:18
Abigail Acton
How frequently is it the case that actually the species are brought in by, by human activity? I mean, might it be that certain species, like rats and cats, get around more easily because they are so closely allied to human activity?
00:11:10:20 - 00:11:32:10
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. If you think about invasive species, yeah. Of course, species that are associated with men, they have much higher probabilities of, of waiting, which in the islands we can think of. Yeah. About. Yeah, yeah. Mice and cats and and of course those that are, that are introduced by man on, on purpose like like rabbits and goats, which was very common.
00:11:32:10 - 00:11:46:17
Pedro Cardoso
The common thing to do to release rabbits and goats on, on some of the islands so that when you returned to the island, this was in the 15th and 16th century, when the return to the animal Redcat already had food there. Right? So these were on purpose. Others are accidental.
00:11:46:19 - 00:12:00:04
Abigail Acton
Pedro, can you think of some examples of species that are really almost only found in a certain isle on a certain island, or maybe an archipelago that have been particularly threatened by human activity at the moment?
00:12:00:06 - 00:12:36:04
Pedro Cardoso
Yeah. Thinking about, about spiders again. It's my my expertise, the group that I, that I know more about, there are a few cases of, of of, some species that are restricted to violence, wind, which are a favorite of, of traffic and poachers. So one, one example or the particular area, the tarantulas from Sri Lanka, which are really famous in, in the trade and in fact the, the award include did insight is just, just recently because of, of the, the the perils caused by and by by trade.
00:12:36:06 - 00:12:53:11
Pedro Cardoso
So this is one of the, examples and probably there are more it's not a question of being island species, just that it happens that these large and nice species to have as a pet are on an island. In this case, they're going to.
00:12:53:13 - 00:13:15:06
Abigail Acton
Rosaleen, I know your interest is in the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife crimes. The example that Pedro gives about the the tarantulas, is just one, I'm sure. Can you think of any other examples where human activity of this nature is having an impact on population numbers of of animals on islands.
00:13:15:08 - 00:13:40:00
Rosaleen Duffy
And certainly, I mean, I can think of, the radiated tortoise from Madagascar is a really good example, because that's one that's desired by collectors and radiated tortoises in Madagascar have really suffered substantially from, the illegal wildlife trade. So that's one that's certainly one really good example of and an island species that's impacted negatively by illegal wildlife trade in.
00:13:40:02 - 00:13:55:09
Abigail Acton
Right. And Rosaleen, the term illegal trade in animals. It that's the term. So by definition, of course it's a crime. But in practice, what are the problems with viewing it as a crime and a security threat. And how does that change conservation practice.
00:13:55:11 - 00:14:15:12
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah, again, that's a really good question. And it does seem to make intuitive sense that, you know, if something's illegal, then of course it's a crime. And we should have a a response that's anchored in law enforcement crime and policing. But that's really blunt. So we need to again look at look at the ideas behind, calling it a crime or referring to it as a crime.
00:14:15:12 - 00:14:50:13
Rosaleen Duffy
Some of the legal arrangements that were first put in place by, British colonizers in Africa is a really good example of that. So it's no wonder that these, communities may find wildlife laws as unjust. But I think, certainly in the last ten years, the interest from global policymaking is, is because there's a growing agreement that wildlife losses, some of which are produced by illegal wildlife trade, produce a convergence of threats to ecosystems, geopolitical stability, national security, human health and wellbeing, and for future generations.
00:14:50:15 - 00:15:18:13
Rosaleen Duffy
And so, in our research projects, you know, we we we have kind of, picked, you know, what are the problems with thinking of it as a wildlife crime? There was a point in time, not too long ago when one referred to a wildlife crime. It meant things like hare coursing or badger baiting. It didn't refer to the illegal wildlife trade, but that's changed since the spikes in poaching of elephants and rhinos, particularly from around about 2008.
00:15:18:15 - 00:15:43:09
Rosaleen Duffy
And I think part of the explanation is, is that conservation NGOs need to compete for funds. It's a highly competitive environment, and they found that they can amplify their messages, drive attention and funding. That way by linking together conservation and security concerns. And so there's been this real expansion in the amount of funding available for projects that tackle illegal wildlife trade.
00:15:43:14 - 00:15:46:09
Rosaleen Duffy
So that's one set of explanations.
00:15:46:11 - 00:16:08:11
Abigail Acton
If I could just ask you talking about security, and I know you I mean, security, of course, is a wide word and covers many different types of threats. But, given the situation we all find ourselves in, in this pandemic, of course, the one immediate idea is a notion of, of of security with regards to, to pathogens.
00:16:08:13 - 00:16:17:16
Abigail Acton
How how does the, the notion of environmental crime overlap with human health and, and, the, the, the transference of pathogens here.
00:16:17:18 - 00:16:50:12
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So there have been since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, there have been calls in the NGO community, from states for a very forceful action to call a halt to the illegal wildlife trade as a potential place where new pathogens can arise, where, where the virus can jump species because of the kind of close proximity of species to humans in wildlife markets, and those involved in tackling the illegal wildlife trade have for a very long time pointed to the risks of zoonosis.
00:16:50:17 - 00:17:15:13
Rosaleen Duffy
That's the transmission of disease from non-human animals to humans. And the biosecurity risks are very clear, deadly viruses that we've seen in the past like Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and Covid 19 are all zoonotic diseases that originated in wildlife. And it may be the wildlife trade that has provided a an opportunity for the for the virus to jump.
00:17:15:15 - 00:17:51:20
Rosaleen Duffy
But the problem with that is a bit like, you know, the problems with calling wildlife trade a security issue is, is that making the link with the wildlife trade? That's one link and that's important. And that's led to calls for permanent bans on wildlife markets. But other experts involved in the, in looking at illegal wildlife trade and sustainable livelihoods, of cautioned against these kinds of calls for blanket bans because they could be really inimical to the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest people and could have counterproductive to conservation outcomes for some species that are set that are kind of sustainably traded.
00:17:51:22 - 00:18:14:13
Rosaleen Duffy
So if you think of wild meat consumption and trade, you know, if you instantly ban that, we're putting an international ban, then unless you put in place resources, an alternative to people who rely on that trade to meet their everyday needs, then that ban won't work. Or if it does work, then it will have really devastating consequences for some of the world's poorest people.
00:18:14:15 - 00:18:29:13
Abigail Acton
Right? When we consider the risks of zoonosis, and transference of pathogens, often there are calls to close down wildlife meat markets. Could you explain why that isn't necessarily a good idea? What are the concomitant risks there?
00:18:29:15 - 00:19:04:00
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. Well, one of the problems is, is that some of the world's most marginalized, and poorest people, reliant on the wildlife trade to make ends meet either to their own consumption or that they sell into wildlife markets. And so if you immediately ban wildlife markets, then and you don't put in place something to replace that source of income or to replace that source of protein for those communities, then then the impact of those bans is that it has a really devastating impact on some of the world's most vulnerable and marginalized people.
00:19:04:02 - 00:19:13:00
Rosaleen Duffy
And we do see that if, new laws are enacted to, make wildlife trade illegal, then it can drive trades underground.
00:19:13:02 - 00:19:22:22
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you. That that's very clear. And also very interesting. Can I ask if you have questions for the other guests, for Pedro or for Jonas or Jonas? Pedro, would you have any questions for Rosaleen?
00:19:22:24 - 00:19:45:07
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah, I have a question for Pedro, which is about, you know, the the sort of, identification of human, humanity or impacts on humanity on island species and I wondered if you could just unpick a little bit what you mean, as the main drivers of sort of human impacts on these species, what are the main human impacts?
00:19:45:09 - 00:20:17:03
Pedro Cardoso
Well, there is no, no real, ranking of, of the impacts, but there is more or less of an agreement that that, habitat, habitat loss, is the main, the main cause for, for the loss of species in the mainland or on the islands. And then, as I mentioned already, invasive species are particularly, important, on, on the islands besides, all the usual suspects, like, so, like climate change.
00:20:17:08 - 00:20:21:03
Abigail Acton
Jonas. Yeah. So do you have a question for for Pedro or for Rosalind?
00:20:21:03 - 00:20:32:20
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah, I had one for Rosaleen. Are there any particular sort of markers or indicators of what makes a successful, sustainable, harvested to hunted population?
00:20:32:22 - 00:21:02:09
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So there is, there are indicators. So, for each species that's listed under this Ices convention, states have to have a list of indicators that show that the trade in the species doesn't have a detrimental impact on that species long term survival. And so each country has to provide these indicators. And of course, the indicators are subject to discussion and controversy amongst different interest groups.
00:21:02:14 - 00:21:16:18
Rosaleen Duffy
Some groups don't want trade in particular species at all, regardless of whether it's sustainable or not. And some, some believe that it's really important to allow sustainable trade to continue.
00:21:16:20 - 00:21:21:03
Abigail Acton
Thank you. That that's interesting. Jonas, does that answer what you were thinking? Would you? Oh, yeah.
00:21:21:08 - 00:21:21:17
Jonas Geldmann
Brilliant.
00:21:21:17 - 00:21:43:08
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Yeah. Well, that's that's great, because I'd like to actually turn to you now, Jonas, because we're talking here now, obviously, about the the threats to to to wildlife, to wildlife crimes. And I know that you're very interested in, protected areas and, and conservation areas and whether they work or not, in order to know if protected areas can be an effective response to human encroachment, we do need to know if they work.
00:21:43:08 - 00:21:51:13
Abigail Acton
So how can we tell? How do you assess the impact of labeling an area, a wildlife sanctuary or a protected area on conservation itself?
00:21:51:16 - 00:22:19:03
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah, so I think there's three or maybe even four key challenges when we try to understand if protected areas are effective. And the first one is probably that that protected areas, while sort of a broad tide, usually are designated for quite specific objectives. So it's understanding why are we actually designating a particular area. What is the what is the species, what are the ecosystems and what are the features that we're actually interested in.
00:22:19:05 - 00:23:02:00
Jonas Geldmann
The the other aspect is that, protected areas are not located, randomly in the landscape. And what we've seen, increasingly or not, just what we see generally is that protected areas are often located in areas that are remote. So they're far from people and far from the pressures that actually would affect them. So if you just look at whether they are are doing better than non protected areas without accounting for these, you might find that they actually are, but that that the areas would have been doing that would have been effective regardless of whether they were protected or not, simply because they are out of harm's way.
00:23:02:02 - 00:23:27:11
Jonas Geldmann
So understanding quite explicitly, what are the what are the biases in location and integrating that in what we generally call the counterfactual analysis, trying to find a similar, location to the protected areas, but one that is not protected is, is is key. And and then I guess a third one is, a lot of what we do analysis wise with protected areas is retrospective.
00:23:27:11 - 00:23:50:01
Jonas Geldmann
We we're looking at an established network of protected areas. Currently, we have more than 230,000 protected areas across the world. And, we can only really understand them. We can't sort of set up these ideal experimental setups or how we would want to do it, because we can't just designate protected areas for the for the testing or whether they work.
00:23:50:03 - 00:24:17:05
Jonas Geldmann
So that introduces quite a bit of challenge as well. And then I guess a fourth sort of associated aspect is that we are actually not only interested in understanding whether they are effective, but also why. So understanding what are the management interventions, what are the dialogs with local stakeholders? What are the features that sort of sets the protected areas apart, that actually makes an impact on on the the protected status?
00:24:17:05 - 00:24:36:14
Abigail Acton
I find interesting the idea, as you said, it seems so logical that some places work as protected areas just because they are so inaccessible, and it's their own geographical location that's making them protected. Anyway, I'm thinking of Saint Kilda, for example, of Scotland in the Hebrides, which I visited, which was an amazing site. Yeah. In the middle of it.
00:24:36:14 - 00:24:40:06
Abigail Acton
Absolutely. The Atlantic Ocean, so very protected.
00:24:40:08 - 00:25:01:17
Jonas Geldmann
Interesting. Yeah. And one of the classic examples of these is Mount Egmond in New Zealand, which is sort of a it's a mountain that is, protected. And when you just look at it from, from sort of a satellite image, you will see that, that following almost perfectly the boundaries of the protected areas, you have forest and outside the protected areas, all of the forest is lost.
00:25:01:17 - 00:25:28:22
Jonas Geldmann
And it's very easy to think, well, that's clearly an effective protected area, when in reality it's just a very steep mountain where or sort of no, no, none of the conventional used forestry tools are cost effective to be able to actually cut down the forest. There. So what you have is, is, is in effect just the remains of, of the of, of unproductive land or what couldn't be utilized by the forest.
00:25:28:24 - 00:25:47:00
Abigail Acton
Now that is a very neat example, as almost looked like a, like a haircut where it's just like suddenly becomes no longer financially viable to bother. So they just go away and leave it alone. And yes, absolutely. Looking at that, one would think it was working as a protected area. Very interesting. And Pedro, thinking about what we were talking about, island species visiting.
00:25:47:00 - 00:26:10:04
Abigail Acton
And going back to my point about visiting some Kilda, we had to land in Zodiacs, so we had to land in rubber zodiacs because they were worried about rats being introduced. So that's interesting. As a, as a as a little aside, the Jonah's with regards to what you were just saying. And so what are you actually finding? Are you finding that protected areas to a great extent are effective?
00:26:10:06 - 00:26:20:08
Abigail Acton
What causes some not to be? What causes some to be? And is there anything we can do to make those that perhaps aren't working so well work better? What are you finding?
00:26:20:12 - 00:26:47:02
Jonas Geldmann
I think it's important to to start out by saying that if there's a place or of in international policy where we have been quite successful, it's in establishing protected areas. As I said, we now have about 230,000, if not already more. Those numbers are a few days old. And and, they cover almost 17% of the global terrestrial area and almost 8% of the oceans.
00:26:47:04 - 00:27:09:15
Jonas Geldmann
So we've we've created is an enormous amount of protected areas. And that obviously also leads to huge variability in what we see in the protected areas. We see that generally some of the most iconic and most important protected areas, some of those established, for the longest and some of those established in really some of the hotspots of biodiversity, they are effective.
00:27:09:17 - 00:27:33:16
Jonas Geldmann
But what we also see is that this sort of race to establish more and more protected areas have actually led to, on average, protected areas are not effective. And this is even against the counterfactual. So this is this is not just that they are, not, that they that they are doing they're doing worse in areas that are similar to these and not protected.
00:27:33:18 - 00:27:36:17
Jonas Geldmann
And, and that is a bit surprising and a bit.
00:27:36:20 - 00:27:41:12
Abigail Acton
And do we have any reasons for why. Can you give us some examples of why that might be.
00:27:41:14 - 00:28:07:10
Jonas Geldmann
So, so also there there's a high diversity of of, of reasons, what we generally see in some of these cases are that governments just establish protected areas because they have to, because of international conventions, but they don't really put in place any management structures. They don't fund them very well. So that's why we generally tend to call people parks.
00:28:07:12 - 00:28:28:00
Jonas Geldmann
What we are also seeing is so because they're just they're just as there's a signature on a piece of paper somewhere in the ministry, but you don't really have anything going on on ground, on the ground. But we also seem to see and this is, I have to say, something. We speculate because we don't have the data to actually investigate this.
00:28:28:02 - 00:28:51:16
Jonas Geldmann
Is that, in some cases you have very good local management of the resources by local communities who have lived in the areas and used the areas for very long. But as soon as a government comes in and actually establishes now says it's a this is a protected area, it takes away the ownership and it takes away the rights of the local people.
00:28:51:18 - 00:29:15:04
Jonas Geldmann
It, which makes them potentially care less about the area. It also for, sort of more illegal activities such as deforestation or agricultural expansion. It suddenly provides the bigger companies with an easier route to find out who who do you need to talk to to actually start activities? Suddenly you have to go to the ministry instead of talking to local stakeholders.
00:29:15:06 - 00:29:35:11
Jonas Geldmann
And I think that some of the cases where we see that actually the establishment of the protected area leads to a negative impact because prior to protection, they were actually working relatively well. And this just de facto establishment of protection leads to some of them, suddenly being corrupted and working worse than before. Protection.
00:29:35:13 - 00:29:57:23
Abigail Acton
Thank you, thank you. Well, I'd like to see, if I could just ask you each to give me a relatively brief, tight response to a question that that I'll put to you in turn this time. So, Pedro, coming back to you, what do you feel would be the one thing that you would like to see change in the next decade when it comes to biodiversity?
00:29:57:23 - 00:30:01:06
Abigail Acton
And, that what happens on islands.
00:30:01:08 - 00:30:33:15
Pedro Cardoso
Not only on islands, but this is a, something for ethical for every kind of setting, but to take biodiversity seriously, basically, we, I think we, we, we have already realized how important it is to mitigate climate change. But, biodiversity protection somehow lagging, lagging behind. And it is, it affects us as humans, arguably even more than climate change.
00:30:33:18 - 00:30:44:03
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Pedro. Rosalyn, going back then to the question, with regards to your area of interest in research, what would you like to see in the next ten years happen?
00:30:44:05 - 00:31:14:11
Rosaleen Duffy
Yeah. So one thing I'd really like to see change is approaching. The illegal wildlife trade is an issue of global inequality. That demand itself is driven by the wealthy world, and that supply is often provided by marginalized and vulnerable communities. And I think there's sometimes an almost, you know, it's sort of a neglect of understanding and tackling capitalist logics in the global economy that's based around growth, in the conservation community, as a driver of a, of wider forms of environmental problems as well.
00:31:14:13 - 00:31:37:18
Rosaleen Duffy
So I think such an approach would produce very different solutions from the conservation community. So there would be more focus on demand reduction in wealthy communities, more focus on supporting and meeting the aspirations and desires of, people living with wildlife. And that really does need to go beyond offering people a few jobs as rangers or in the tourism industry in the local eco lodge.
00:31:37:23 - 00:31:56:02
Rosaleen Duffy
If you declare a protected area and then exclude them from gaining any kind of access to the resources within that area. So instead we need to ask those communities, what do you want? What do you need to live a good life and I think that would have a much better chance of preventing people from entering the poaching economy, right?
00:31:56:04 - 00:32:08:13
Abigail Acton
Basically more and more feeling more invested on the ground because, yeah, John is coming to you now. And, and with regards to your area of interest and research, may I ask you what you would like to see over the next decade?
00:32:08:16 - 00:32:29:23
Jonas Geldmann
Yeah. So I think for protected areas, the last decade or even the last two decades have been very much focused on increasing coverage and establishing more protected areas. And I think for the next decade, what we really need is focus on quality, focus on how do we ensure that the existing protected areas are actually benefiting biodiversity and the people living in and around them.
00:32:30:00 - 00:32:48:15
Jonas Geldmann
And I think that involves much closer, collaboration and cooperation with the local communities in and around them, but also to a large extent, and increased funding. We are seeing a large funding deficit in what countries are committing to their protected area networks.
00:32:48:17 - 00:33:05:14
Abigail Acton
Right. Going back to what you were saying about paper parks, yes, it's all very well talking about it, but you actually have to make it happen on the ground. Well, thank you very much, all of you, for such an interesting discussion. I think it's revealed concepts and ideas that people may not have considered before. Certainly it's revealed some concepts that I haven't thought of before.
00:33:05:16 - 00:33:23:10
Abigail Acton
I'm still fascinated by the notion of the plant roots taking up the space that's needed by the spiders. I'd never thought of that. And it's very interesting for all of you who have been listening. Thank you very much for having downloaded this episode of CORDIScovery podcast. I do hope you enjoyed it. Find out what are the projects funded by the EU are working on in this area?
00:33:23:15 - 00:33:54:17
Abigail Acton
By taking a look at issue 92 of the research EU magazine Biodiversity A New Deal for nature available on the Cordis website. Cordis.europa.eu news articles. Daily features setting out the results of groundbreaking research. A magazine that explores the hottest new discoveries and results. Packs that bring together findings by subject. All these are available at the CORDIS website and if you are a researcher interested in applying for EU support, the site can show you what's being done in your domain.
00:33:54:19 - 00:34:15:21
Abigail Acton
So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you, so drop us a line using editorial at Cordis dot Europa.EU I'm looking forward to sharing the interesting findings of our next guestS with you next month, when the subject will be the Future of Aviation. The sector has taken a huge hit over the last year.
00:34:15:23 - 00:34:19:18
Abigail Acton
Where to now? Until next time.
Each month, CORDIScovery will bring you an engaging panel discussion with up to three distinguished guests taking a deeper and more intimate look at some of the key burning issues facing our societies that are currently being addressed by innovative EU-funded research. Each discussion is led by our dedicated host, Abigail Acton, whose voice we hope becomes a familiar addition to your podcast schedule over the coming weeks and months! In our first episode, Abigail introduces you to three EU-funded scientists at the forefront of efforts to protect and preserve the world’s vital biodiversity in the face of increasing levels of human intrusion, pollution, habitat destruction and urbanisation. In particular, Pedro Cardoso, of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, Rosaleen Duffy, of the University of Sheffield, and Jonas Geldmann, of the University of Copenhagen, discuss how island biodiversity is affected by geographic isolation, invasive species and human activities, how wildlife losses (including due to the illegal wildlife trade) impact biodiversity, ecosystem degradation and human health, and whether protected areas can truly be an effective response to the human encroachment of natural environments.
Happy to hear from you!
If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to the usual email address, editorial@cordis.europa.eu.
Keywords
CORDIScovery, podcast, biodiversity, habitat, ecosystem, CORDIS