University of Tasmania
Browse

Conserving critical sites for biodiversity provides disproportionate benefits to people

Download (251.87 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 16:40 authored by Larsen, FW, Turner, WR, Thomas BrooksThomas Brooks
Protecting natural habitats in priority areas is essential to halt the loss of biodiversity. Yet whether these benefits for biodiversity also yield benefits for human well-being remains controversial. Here we assess the potential human well-being benefits of safeguarding a global network of sites identified as top priorities for the conservation of threatened species. Conserving these sites would yield benefits - in terms of a) climate change mitigation through avoidance of CO2 emissions from deforestation; b) freshwater services to downstream human populations; c) retention of option value; and d) benefits to maintenance of human cultural diversity - significantly exceeding those anticipated from randomly selected sites within the same countries and ecoregions. Results suggest that safeguarding sites important for biodiversity conservation provides substantial benefits to human well-being. © 2012 Larsen et al.

History

Publication title

PLoS ONE

Volume

7

Issue

5

Article number

e36971

Number

e36971

Pagination

1-9

ISSN

1932-6203

Department/School

School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Place of publication

1160 Battery St, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA

Rights statement

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Other environmental management not elsewhere classified

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC