A. Balmford et A. Long, ACROSS COUNTRY ANALYSES OF BIODIVERSITY CONGRUENCE AND CURRENT CONSERVATION EFFORT IN THE TROPICS, Conservation biology, 9(6), 1995, pp. 1539-1547
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.