Studies Show Indonesia Home to Most At-Risk Species

Hayat Indriyatno Jakarta Globe 27 Jun 13;

Two new, separate studies have identified Indonesia as one of the countries where biodiversity is most at threat, both in terms of species’ conservation status and in their vulnerability to climate change.

In the paper “Global Patterns of Terrestrial Vertebrate Diversity and Conservation,” researchers used new data on more than 21,000 vertebrate species to identify “centers of richness for all species, small-ranged species and threatened species listed with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.”

The resulting maps, using a spatial grain 100 times finer than in previous assessments, yielded a picture of the biodiversity hotspots that the paper’s authors argued should be made the priorities for conservation resources.

“What I did was add up the range maps for all the threatened species in the world and Southeast Asia comes out as the peak number of threatened mammals,” lead author Clinton N. Jenkins, from North Carolina State University, says in an email to the Jakarta Globe.

He adds that the islands of Southeast Asia are also home to a high concentration of threatened bird species, second only to southeast Brazil.

The researchers say that their maps, whose finer resolution is more compatible with the needs of local policymakers than the coarser biodiversity maps produced to date, clearly show that most threatened species live outside protected areas.

“Only a third of the diversity centers for total species richness have any protection, and only 11 percent [have] strict protection,” the paper says.

“The situation of diversity for small-ranged [vulnerable] and threatened species is more worrisome. Less than 20 percent [have] protection… with only 10.2 percent of the centers of diversity for small-ranged species and 7.1 percent of the centers for threatened species having strict protection,” it says.

The study, in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, makes the case for local authorities to focus their conservation efforts on the areas highlighted, particularly for small-range species, which are concentrated in limited areas and deemed particularly vulnerable to extinction.

“We consider the level of protection of the priority areas to be inadequate given their high biodiversity value,” it says.

“A stronger focus on the concentrations of small-ranged species would have an inordinate impact in preventing vertebrate extinctions, especially given the large-scale evidence that protected areas benefit habitat protection worldwide.”

Meanwhile, a study in the online journal PLoS One looked at the vulnerability of 16,857 bird, amphibian and coral species to the effects of climate change.

The paper, titled “Identifying the World’s Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species,” found that the Sundaland region encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand was home to “large numbers of highly climate change vulnerable [bird] species,” while “highly climate change vulnerable corals are concentrated in the Coral Triangle, Sumatra and Java.”

“Species that are both highly climate change vulnerable and threatened and the regions in which they are concentrated deserve particular conservation attention to both mitigate current threats and plan for future climate change adaptation interventions,” the paper says.

“Species that are highly climate change vulnerable but are not currently threatened potentially represent new priorities for conservation.”

It adds that these include up to 41 percent of bird species, up to 29 percent of amphibian species and up to 22 percent of coral species.

The researchers contend that a given species’ prospects of survival should not be based on based solely on its IUCN conservation status, but should also take into consideration its vulnerability to climate change and adaptability.

“The species and regions we highlight as having high climate change sensitivity and low adaptive capacity should be considered as more vulnerable than exposure-based assessments alone may suggest,” the study says.