Biodiversité

Protected areas (PAs) represent a cornerstone of efforts to safeguard biodiversity, and if effective should reduce threats to biodiversity. We present the most comprehensive assessment of threats to terrestrial PAs, based on in situ data from 1,961 PAs across 149 countries, assessed by PA managers and local stakeholders. Unsustainable hunting was the most commonly reported threat and occurred in 61% of all PAs, followed by disturbance from recreational activities occurring in 55%, and natural system modifications from fire or its suppression in 49%.

At its inaugural meeting in 1948, IUCN declared the rescue of endangered species to be a key objective and began to set up instruments to monitor the status of animals and plants worldwide.

Large-mammal populations are ecological linchpins, and their worldwide decline and extinction disrupts many ecosystem functions and services. Reversal of this trend will require an understanding of the determinants of population decline, to enable more accurate predictions of when and where collapses will occur and to guide the development of effective conservation and restoration policies. Many correlates of large-mammal declines are known, including low reproductive rates, overhunting, and habitat destruction. However, persistent uncertainty about the effects of one widespread factor—armed conflict—complicates conservation-planning and priority-setting efforts.

Il a hérité du titre peu envié de mammifère le plus braconné au monde. Le pangolin, menacé d’extinction en raison de ses écailles qui en font un animal unique au monde mais également la source de tous les trafics, vient de voir son horizon se dégager. Mercredi 28 septembre, les 183 Etats membres de la Convention internationale sur le commerce d’espèces sauvages menacées d’extinction (Cites), réunis pour douze jours à Johannesbourg (Afrique du Sud), ont décidé de lui accorder le plus haut degré de protection : le fourmilier d’Afrique et d’Asie du Sud-Est a été inscrit à l’annexe I de la Cites, qui interdit le commerce international des espèces menacées d’extinction. Il figurait jusqu’à présent à l’annexe II, qui autorise, en le réglementant, le commerce des espèces vulnérables.

Less than a month away from the kick-off of the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii, a team of scientists report in the journal Nature that three quarters of the world’s threatened species are imperiled because people are converting their habitat into agricultural lands and overharvesting their populations.