New research has identified 13 per cent of Earth’s land area as hotspots for biodiversity conservation, highlighting where conservation efforts are most urgently needed.
The findings come against the backdrop of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP17), which is taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, from October 19 to 30. An international team of researchers introduced a transparent and reproducible framework for mapping conservation hotspots of vertebrates — animals with a backbone or spinal column — across Earth’s terrestrial surface.
The team, including researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria, analysed data for 33,604 species of terrestrial vertebrates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
They combined information on where threatened and range-restricted species concentrate, with key human-driven threats such as logging, agriculture, urbanisation, and invasive species.
“We identify around 13 per cent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface as vertebrate hotspots, with one-third falling outside the original biodiversity hotspots,” the authors wrote in the study published in the journal One Earth.
The “original” hotspots refer to those found using the Biodiversity Hotspots approach, introduced by British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988. It is a conservation strategy for identifying and prioritising regions with a high concentration of endemic species facing severe habitat destruction.
The researchers’ approach found many of the critical areas to be concentrated in tropical regions and broadleaf forests. (PTI)