Dissertation committee:
Τριάντης Κωνσταντίνος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Βιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Στουμπούδη Μαρία, Διευθύντρια, Ινστιτούτο Θαλάσσιων Βιολογικών Πόρων και Εσωτερικών Υδάτων, Ελληνικό Κέντρο Θαλάσσιων Ερευνών
Δημητρακόπουλος Παναγιώτης, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Περιβάλλοντος, Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου
Παρμακέλης Αριστείδης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Βιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Παφίλης Παναγιώτης, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Βιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Βασιλική Κατή, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Βιολογικών Εφαρμογών και Τεχνολογιών, Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Κόκκορης Γιώργος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ωκεανογραφίας και Θαλασσίων Βιοεπιστημών, Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου
Summary:
This decade holds a particularly crucial role for the future of biodiversity, with aspirational conservation commitments now having to deal with global health and geo-political disruption. The biodiversity crisis is widely acknowledged: according to the IUCN Red List 38,500 species (28% of those assessed) are threatened with extinction, with predictions of up to 1 million species at risk in total. Protected areas are the most important tool to safeguard the diversity of life on the planet. They now cover 16.6% of land and inland waters and 7.7% of coastal and marine areas globally. However, it has been shown that sites designated in the last decade are often poorly located and do not capture the most important aspects of biodiversity, e.g. endemic and threatened species. This because they mainly focus on achieving the percentage coverage targets set by global environmental goals, rather than on protecting the areas of particular importance for biodiversity.
The Convention on Biological Diversity Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, together with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 is calling for an expansion of protection to at least 30% of the land and sea. Yet it is critically important that additions to protected areas or other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) are placed where they maximise the ability to conserve biodiversity and prevent extinctions. The European Commission’s suggests the use of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) as one of the best scientific basis available for identifying areas of global importance for biodiversity. KBAs represent the largest global network of systematically identified sites important for biodiversity, and when they are largely or entirely covered by protected areas, species extinction risk has been shown to grow at significantly lower rates compared to KBAs that are only partially covered or unprotected.
Trends over time in the degree to which KBAs are covered by protected areas is one measure of how well KBAs are conserved and one measure of how well protected area networks are targeted towards important locations for biodiversity. This trend is used as an indicator for reporting on the progress towards global environmental targets and goals and on the state of the environment in reports. It was an official indicator for the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11, and the Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15. The indicator is calculated as the mean percentage of the extent of each KBA covered by protected areas.
In this doctoral thesis we a) evaluate the Natura 2000 network of protected areas in Greece (chapter 1) and the European Union (chapter 2) based on the coverage they offer to the threatened species’ ranges; b) we identify for the first time KBAs in Greece using multiple terrestrial taxonomic groups (chapter 3) and c) we explore the global patterns of KBAs and protected areas (chapter 4) and the formulations to calculate the indicator of KBA coverage by protected areas (chapter 5).
In Chapter 1, we overlap Greece’s Natura 2000 network with the ranges of the 424 species assessed as threatened on the IUCN Red List. Natura 2000 overlaps on average 47.6% of the mapped range of threatened species; this overlap far exceeds that expected by random networks (21.4%). Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation (non-exclusive subsets of Natura 2000 sites) overlap 33.4% and 38.1% respectively. Crete and Peloponnese are the two regions with the highest percentage of threatened species, with Natura 2000 sites overlapping on average 62.3% with the threatened species’ ranges for the former, but only 30.6% for the latter. The Greek ranges of all 62 threatened species listed in Annexes 1 and II to the Birds and Habitats Directives are at least partially overlapped by the network (52.0%), and 18.0% of these are fully overlapped. However, the ranges of 27 threatened species, all of which are endemic to Greece, are not overlapped at all. These results can inform national policies for the protection of biodiversity beyond current Natura 2000 sites.
In Chapter 2, we overlapped the ranges of 1,624 threatened species and 25,740 Natura 2000 sites in the EU and in each of the 27-member states separately, and we found an average 43.5% of each threatened species’ range is overlapped with the Natura 2000 network. Ninety threatened species are identified as gap species (<0.1% overlap with the Natura 2000), all of which are invertebrates or plants except for one mammal, with the majority of them found in southern EU countries and specifically in islands. All threatened species listed on the Annexes of the Birds and Habitats Directives are at least partially overlapped by the network, except for the plant Lotus kunkelii which occurs in the Canary Islands. Targeting the expansion of the Natura 2000 towards gap species would strengthen the network towards the 2030 strategy.
In Chapter 3, we use 2080 terrestrial species representing 54 vertebrate, invertebrate and plant taxonomic groups to identify potential KBAs in Greece. We develop a tool in R language that performs KBA scoping analysis applying criteria A1, B1, B2, B3a and B3b to assist the identification process. We identify 432 potential KBA sites that incorporate 868 species that trigger KBA criteria. Invertebrate and plant species represent the majority of trigger species. Potential KBAs cover 15.5% of the land area of Greece and overlap at 41.7% with existing KBA sites and 44.0% with the Natura 2000 network. The indicator of KBA coverage by protected areas decreases from 87.1% to 67.6%. Countries should update their KBA sites by incorporating multiple taxonomic groups to increase the representation of important places for biodiversity and thus guide the expansion of the protected area network to maximise biodiversity benefits.
In Chapter 4, we use 14,102 and 234,813 terrestrial and coastal KBAs and protected areas respectively and nine geographic, climatic and socio-economic parameters in 191 countries to investigate the global patterns of KBAs and protected areas. We found that KBAs – the biggest coordinated network of important sites for biodiversity - is not an important driver for protected area designation. On the contrary, we found that country area the main and very strong single driver of the total area of protected areas (R2=0.89) and KBAs (R2=0.89), while socio-economic parameters (GDP, population density and GDP per capita) are the most important ones in explaining area and number of all site types when exploring the cumulative effect of all parameters in our analysis using generalized linear mixed-effects models. Zoogeographic realms (used as a random factor) offer no further explanation of the KBA and protected area patterns. Our results might be pointing out the reason behind the not successful tackling of biodiversity loss regardless the great conservation effords of the past decates. However, there is still time to act, but countries need to update their KBAs and focus their conservation efforts on them, in order to increase the chances of safeguarding biodiversity.
In Chapter 5, we use 15,836 KBAs and 221,724 protected areas to investigate potential improvements and limitations of the formulation of the KBA coverage by protected area indicator. We found that the mean percentage coverage of KBAs by protected areas (the formulation in use) - although mean is not the proper metric to calculate the central tendency - is the best formulation to use as it captures the tendency to protect KBA sites. The total area of KBAs covered by protected areas is the simplest formulation, however if it ever gets used countries will have the opportunity to manipulate the indicator results by targeting protected areas to the bigger in area size KBAs. Therefore, it should be avoided. Last but not least, we found that the best threshold to identify a site as completely covered is 97% and the threshold to identify a site a not covered is 2%. Further research is needed to identify the best formulation to calculate the KBA coverage by protected areas, a key indicator in ensuring that important areas for biodiversity are safeguarded.
Overall, the present thesis sheds light on conservation priorities and area-based conservation by evaluating the Natura 2000 network on protected areas, identifying KBAs in Greece and exploring the indicator of KBA coverage by protected areas. Hopefully, the results of this thesis will provide a useful baseline for future research in the attempt to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
Keywords:
Key Biodiversity Areas, protected areas, policy, threatened species, global environmental goals
