Open AccessGlobal priorities for conservation of threatened species, carbon storage, and freshwater services: scope for synergy?
Author(s) -
Larsen Frank W.,
LondoñoMurcia Maria C.,
Turner Will R.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
conservation letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.153
H-Index - 79
ISSN - 1755-263X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-263x.2011.00183.x
Subject(s) - ecosystem services , threatened species , scope (computer science) , biodiversity , environmental resource management , business , ecosystem , convention on biological diversity , service (business) , environmental planning , environmental science , ecology , habitat , computer science , biology , programming language , marketing
The potential of global biodiversity conservation efforts to also deliver critical benefits, such as carbon storage and freshwater services, is still unclear. Using spatially explicit data on 3,500 range‐restricted threatened species, carbon storage, and freshwater provision to people, we conducted tradeoff analyses, explicitly addressing both biodiversity and ecosystem services in selection of priority areas, to explore the potential for aligning these objectives. These analyses revealed a promising scope for aligning objectives, in particular for biodiversity and freshwater, which is not evident from previous studies that merely analyzed overlap of biodiversity and ecosystem services derived for each objective independently. However, this alignment is not complete. By revealing important synergies and tradeoffs among services, these analyzes suggest particular regions and service combinations for which spatial planning and appropriate conservation mechanisms (e.g., payments for ecosystem services) can be used to realize synergies and mitigate tradeoffs.