SYSTANAL: a checklist for analysing ecosystems for the conservation of biological diversity

Conservation of biological diversity ideally means conservation of entire e cosystems. To conserve ecosystems on a sustainable basis, you need to under stand how they work. SYSTANAL is a checklist for analysing ecosystems, deve loped during years of fieldwork and lecturing on tropical land use, to help ensure that all the most important aspects of ecosystems are considered. T his includes of course the role of people in ecosystems (and agro-ecosystem s), and the various benefits an ecosystem may provide to people. SYSTANAL t ouches upon: (1) participative integrated natural resource management; (2) the need to know where you start from and where you want to go; (3) the nee d to first take the broad view to define problems in ecosystems, then a nar row view to find potential solutions, and then again the broad view to see whether these solutions fit into the ecosystem as a whole (hourglass approa ch); (4) delimitation of system boundaries; (5) already existing knowledge; (6) the need to analyse historical, and likely future, developments; (7) t he involvement of stakeholders, and what they know and are able and willing to do; (8) production being dependent on (the interaction between) both ge netic and environmental factors; (9) socio-economic benefits; (10) a system atic classification of all the environmental factors that can affect how pl ants or animals use the production factors; (11) the production factors ess ential for plant functioning, and animal functioning, whether these plants and animals are wild or domesticated; (12) the pros and cons of spatial and temporal variability in production factors and environmental factors; (13) off-site effects; (14) the need to be quantitative whenever possible; and (15) the five key aspects of sustainability.