ACROSS COUNTRY ANALYSES OF BIODIVERSITY CONGRUENCE AND CURRENT CONSERVATION EFFORT IN THE TROPICS

In identifying priorities for conservation action, it is critically im portant to assess how much current conservation initiatives are target ed toward key sites for biodiversity. Such analyses are greatly hamper ed however by lack of information about biological richness and existi ng conservation effort. We tried to address this problem by using data on one well-known indicator group and by focusing solely on an intern ational scale, which is the only level at which global information on certain aspects of conservation effort is so far available. Building o n the results of a project that mapped the distribution of all bird sp ecies with breeding ranges of less than 50,000 km(2), we found that th e number of these restricted-range birds in tropical countries was a u seful predictor of national levels of endemism and to a lesser extent species richness and threat in other animal and plant groups. The rela tionships usually persisted after removing the effects of country area , confirming the utility of restricted-range birds as biodiversity ind icators. When we then compared national scores for restricted-range bi rd species with measures of current conservation effort, we found that the extent of both protected areas and foreign funding for biodiversi ty conservation and research increased with this index of a country's biological value. Thus, conservation efforts are generally, greater in tropical countries with large numbers of restricted-range birds These results should be interpreted cautiously. When we controlled for area effects, although mean biodiversity spending per unit area of a count ry increased with area-adjusted importance for restricted-range birds, the percentage of a country covered by protected areas did not increa se. Moreover, our indices of effort and biological richness are clearl y limited in scope, quality, and resolution. Most important, the relat ionships between overall current effort and biological value are weak, and there are many oi ornithologically rich countries that receive re latively little conservation attention. These nations are in many case s important priorities for additional conservation action.