The maintenance of biological diversity is a precondition for sustainable development.
Conversely,
sustainable development is, in many respects, the key to the maintenance of biological diversity.
Hungry people may have no alternative but to convert ecologically unique habitats into arable land.
Thus, the effective implementation of conventions to conserve wetlands, for example, is dependent
on helping people to raise the productivity of existing arable land, thereby taking the pressure off
these unique habitats.
A strategy in this area could be built around two primary objectives:
(a) Conserving sufficient inter- and intra-specific
diversity to ensure that mankind has the genetic
resources to respond to new pests and diseases and to potential problems such as deterioration in
growing conditions as a result of climate and other environmental changes;
(b) Promoting the utilization of appropriate genetic
resources and biodiversity, and raising the
economic and social importance of natural resources in specific ecosystems for agro- forestry,
livestock, fish, and game cropping in natural savannah areas.
Compared with the magnitude of the problem, the action being taken so far by Governments
and
the international community to promote conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity is
inadequate in the extreme. There is a pressing need for a comprehensive biodiversity strategy.
Crucial issues include the provision of adequate compensation for the conservation of genetic
resources, use of part of the compensation for more active conservation, and wider access to these
and other genetic resources in the field and in gene banks, including those produced through
biotechnology.
Conservation management requires linked planning between the top level of strategy
and the
ground level of site operations.
The key connections between the central strategy group and local site operations are
made by a
strategic manager, who carries out an action plan which instructs individuals or agencies to
undertake work to meet the group's strategic objectives, and demands progress reports for
measuring compliance to its targets.
The action plan, therefore, has to :-
- set out the strategy
group's objectives and its measureable targets (so-called 'smart
objectives') which are to be used by operational managers;
- provide summary instructions for particular
actions to be carried out to meet these
objectives (i.e. allocates strategic prescriptions);
- describe the actions
which will address the limiting factors of management at an
operational level;
- establishes data
links with individuals and organisations (perhaps through lead agencies)
that will produce one or more operational management plans on the ground aimed at the
objectives;
- defines an audit
procedure for getting appropriate reports from operational managers
(perhaps through a lead agency) which may be used to measure compliance with the
objectives.
The key to linking strategic planning with operational planning is the gathering of feedback
from
operational projects within each strategic prescription.
Prior information is required that answers the following questions about the species
regarding its
population and its limiting factors, which together define the system that has to be manipulated by
the jobs on site (projects)
Population trends?
Why is the species
so rare today? What is known of the species historically, and what
trends have there been in the species abundance during the last 200 or 300 years?
Factors of Survival?
What are the environmental
conditions most suited to large populations of the species?
Are these conditions available at the present time, or how can management establish
optimal or sub optimal conditions? In particular, are there any major mortality factors, such
as predation or human.
Factors of Growth?
What are the environmental
conditions required for the optimal growth of the species? Are
these conditions available at the present time, or how can management establish optimal
or sub- optimal conditions?
Factors of Dispersal?
What are the means
of dispersal of the species, and does it use them?
For plants: Does
the species spread vegetatively, or does it set fertile seed? What are
the characteristics of pollination - is it self sterile or can it be self-pollinated readily?
What conditions are required for the germination of the seed?
For animals: What
are the breeding characteristics of the species and what is the
intrinsic rate of natural increase? What factors limit the increase in the population
size? Is it confined to one ecosystem, or does it utilize several adjacent ecosystems
for food, shelter, etc.? Is there any migration?
It is obvious that, to some extent, these questions overlap, but in them is the information
that is
needed in planning a conservation management strategy for the plant species.
