In several instances we need numbers on the biodiversity of Europe's overseas entities (ORs and OCTs). Normally we want to contrast the biodiversity richness in these regions with the comparatively little attention it gets from the EU, be it in the form of money or of political commitement. It is also often stressed that Europe cannot achive the goals it set out for itself on the European Biodiversity Strategy for 2020 without a significant investment in its overseas entities.
However, evidence-based numbers are hard to come by. The 2010 report from Jérôme Petit & Guillaume Prudent for IUCN contains a good overview, but little systematic data.
Can we come up with this information? Once a methodology is agreed, we could build on our distributed expertise to get the necessary numbers.
However, biodiversity is a nice concept but a hard one to pin down in numbers. The easiest approach, in my view, is using species: they are easier to count and assess distributions than, say. genes or ecosystems. But how can we compile information on species diversity in a way that is both scientifically solid and at the same time usefull for policy makers?
One possibility would be to focus on endemic species and build a table for each OR or OCT and also for Member States. This could allow us to compare species richness in the overseas with that of the mainland. But there are species which are endemic to an island, then those endemic to a region. How would that be put on the table?
I look forward to your ideas on the feasibility of this project and on how it could be implemented.
Another possibility would be to demonstrate the important contribution of the values of the ecosystem services to the local economy and well being of the citizens of the OR or OCT. That not only shows how rich the biodiversity is, but also how crucial it is to protect and conserve this. I know there is a lot of discussion on putting numbers on nature. However, it can raise an enormous amount of awareness by those people in the EU you want to reach and influence. And it creates a profound insight in the beneficiaries (also EU) and those who lose if insufficient funds are allocated to conserve this biodiversity richeness.
However, this doesn't answer your question on the feasibility of the project you had in mind. It is just another idea on raising political attention and trying to allocate financial resources for the conservation of the biodiversity richeness of the OTs and OCTs.
Best regards, Esther
Well, if getting the number of species right is already a challenge, imagine quantifying ecosystem services! As far as I know the Maping and Assessment of Ecosystem Services initiative is struggling to go ahead on the European mainland itself, let alone the ORs and OCTs. From my experience talking with decision makers in the Azores they are not so much interested in monetary evaluations but need ecological knowledge. They told me of their awareness of the fragility of economic assessments, and they do not trust them. But pointing out, for instance, that the vegetation around the water sources is a key determinant of water quality was all it took to produce and inforce legislation protecting and reinforcing riparian zones.
Dear José, I agree that it can be a challenge and that economic assessments are not a goal in itself, but just an instrument. Which can be used for certain goals, such as sustainable financing, but it can also be an instrument that can be useless and overestimated. However, for example the total economic value that has been established for the biodiversity richness of the Caribbean Netherlands, being Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius, secured 7.5 million euro for three years nature conservation in the Caribbean Netherlands in 2014. For more information on these studies you can visit www.wolfscompany.com. I think there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Despite EU member states owning a huge variety of islands and archipelagos of equivalent biological interest (e.g. Macaronesian Islands, Réunion, French Polynesia), there is no ongoing coordinated research to investigate this huge resource. At national scales, excellent research is being perforned (e.g. Canaries, Azores, Réunion) but the outstanding potential for coordinated European research is not efficiently addressed by now. I think that what is needed is to demonstrated that if no coordinate reserach is built there is a danger that we do not understanding the processes related with species loss .....
'ia ora na tatou,
the role of Net-Biome is (or might be) also to raise some critical issues related to biodiversity which are not been taken into account (ie funded) by local decision-makers and politicians. For instance in French Polynesia, most of the research efforts are given to reef and marine ecosystems (with "excellent research at national (and international scale"), but almost nothing is done on terrestrial ecosystems despite their rich and unique flora & fauna (high level of endemism of plants, molluscs and arthropods, but as you can imagine with very few considerations !) and also the high level of threat (65% of the endemic flora is threatened using IUCN red List criteria) and high extinction rates. Therefore, external collaborations with other /managements institutions with similar issues (and with some external fundings, ie EU funds) is paramount for small overseas territories with limited capacities such as French Polynesia. The "ecosystem services approach" is a good one, but only if it allows to better conserve or manage the native and endemic species (e.g. plantations of non-native trees also provide some ecosystem services, such as soil erosion control of carbon sequestration, but often at the expense of native island biota)
JYM
I agree with the need to coordinate biodiversity research in Europe's overseas to increase its visibility and efectiveness. I am also acutely aware of the need to support the basic taxonomic research that forms the basis of everything else (including valuation studies).
But allow me to go back to my original point: if we wanted to compare the biodiversity in the overseas with that of the mainland, how should we proceed? Here are a couple of suggestions:
'ia ora na tatou,
we may provide these data (at least for the terrestrial vascular flora) for overseas islands :
- total number of native -including endemic- species (= non-introduced by man)
- density of natives (number of species per unit area)
- number of endemic species
- % endemism (number of endemics/total number of natives)
- density of endemics (per unit area)
The last indicator will demonstrate that (anthropogenic) disturbances in overseas islands, even on a small area/scale, may have have huge impacts on their unique biota.
parahi
JYM
Bonjour de Calédonie,
To be statistically comparable from one site to another, we should used rarefaction methods based on probability to encountera new species in inventories (native or/and endemic) either with respect to a standardized area (e.g. ha, km², minutes,...) or to a number of organisms (100, 1000 trees, lianas, and so on). These methods are relatively non-sensitive to the efforts of prospection which, in other cases, stongly explain alpha and beta diversities
Cheers,
Philippe
Thank you, Philippe. What would we need for that: lists of species for each island, and the area of the island? Could this then be compared to the European continent?