Contours of conservation - a national agenda for mapping biodiversity

Abstract

Despite the world-wide concern over the rapid rate of loss of biodiversity, there seems to be little clarity on what, where and how to conserve biodiversity. In this paper, we call for a national approach to prioritize the conservation needs through an hierarchical integration of the biological and spatial elements of conservation. The proposed approach seeks to independently map the biological and spatial elements of conservation and then to integrate them to arrive at country-wide maps for conservation-what we refer to as contours of conservation. These atlases shall provide a composite map of the spatial structuring of the biological and spatial (habitat) elements for conservation, suggest priorities and guide appropriate allocation of national conservation efforts. In essence, they can assist in evolving a holistic national conservation plan. We present here the salient steps involved in mapping these elements and propose that a national agenda be drawn-up for the development of the country-wide biodiversity atlases and contours of conservation.