Substantial losses in ecoregion intactness highlight urgency of globally coordinated action. Issue 2 (25th November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Beyer, Hawthorne L.; Venter, Oscar; Grantham, Hedley S.; Watson, James E.M.
• Is Part Of: Conservation letters. Volume 13:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2019-11-25
• Subjects: Aichi targets -- conservation -- degradation -- fragmentation -- habitat configuration -- habitat loss -- habitat quality -- wilderness; Biodiversity conservation -- Periodicals; Biodiversity -- Monitoring -- Periodicals; 333.9516
• DOI: 10.1111/conl.12692
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1755-263X

Abstract

Abstract: Human activities are altering natural areas worldwide. While our ability to map these activities at fine scales is improving, a simplistic binary characterization of habitat and non‐habitat with a focus on change in habitat extent has dominated conservation assessments across different spatial scales. Here, we provide a metric that captures both habitat loss, quality and fragmentation effects which, when combined, we call intactness. We identify nine categories of intactness of the world's terrestrial ecoregions based on changes in intactness across a 16‐year period. We found that highly impacted and degraded categories are predominant (74%) and just 6% of ecoregions are on improving trajectories. It is essential that management of degrading processes be targeted in international agendas in order to ensure that Earth's remaining intact ecosystems are effectively conserved and restored in order to achieve effective conservation outcomes.