Low ecological representation in the protected area network of China

Protected areas are considered as an essential strategy to halt the decline of biodiversity. Ecological representation in protected areas is crucial for assessment on the progress toward conservation targets. Although China has established a large number of protected areas since the 1950s, ecological representation of protected areas is poorly understood. Here, we performed the complementarity analysis to evaluate ecological representation of protected areas in China. We used a database of the geographical distribution for 10,396 woody plant species, 2,305 fern species, 406 amphibian species, 460 reptile species, 1,364 bird species, and 590 mammal species from 2,376 counties across China. We identified complementary sets of counties for all species or threatened species of plant and vertebrate species using a complementarity algorithm. We evaluated ecological representation of 3,627 protected areas and discerned conservation gaps by comparing the distribution of protected areas with complementary sets. The results show that the spatially representative and complementary sites for biodiversity are poorly covered, and a fairly large proportion of protected areas is not designed to efficiently represent biodiversity at the national scale. Our methodology can serve as a generic framework for assessment on ecological representation of protected areas at the national scale.     

时空变化视角下北京市湿地优先保护格局

气候变化通过改变湿地水文过程等影响湿地的空间分布,城市化进程加剧了湿地破碎化程度并导致湿地生境退化,构建连续的湿地生态保护网络体系有利于应对气候变化和城市发展带来的负面影响、提高生物多样性保护水平。北京市现有湿地空间分布呈现斑块面积小、破碎化程度高等特点,为优化湿地保护区格局并应对气候变化和城市发展对北京市湿地生物多样性的影响,基于系统保护规划方法,以Marxan作为空间优化模型,结合PLUS模型和MaxEnt模型,模拟预测北京市湿地优先保护格局、识别湿地保护空缺并构建湿地分级保护区格局。研究表明:2020年北京市湿地存在80.15km²的保护空缺、2035年和2050年优化后湿地保护区占比分别为87.54%和85.95%,在满足本研究预设的生物多样性保护目标的前提下符合北京市湿地保护规划对湿地保护率的要求。为最优化资源分配,综合时空变化对湿地保护区空间分布的影响,构建了湿地分级保护区格局,将湿地保护区分为湿地永久保护区、湿地一级临时保护区和湿地二级临时保护区三个等级,以期为北京市分期建设湿地保护区、优化湿地生态保护网络体系和保护湿地生物多样性提供依据。     

Biodiversity hotspots are not congruent with conservation areas in the Gulf of California

As marine systems are threatened by increasing human impacts, mechanisms to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services are needed. Protecting areas of conservation importance may serve as a proxy for maintaining these functions, while also facilitating efficient use and management of limited resources. Biodiversity hotspots have been used as surrogates for spatial conservation importance; however, as many protected areas have been established opportunistically and under differing criteria, it is unclear how well they actually protect hotspots. We evaluated how well the current protected area network and priority areas selected through previous systematic conservation planning exercises preserve biodiversity hotspots in the Gulf of California, Mexico. We also determined spatial congruence between biodiversity hotspots based on different criteria, which may determine their ability to be used as surrogates for each other. We focus on the Gulf of California because it is a megadiverse system where limited information regarding species diversity and distribution has constrained development of strategies for conservation and management. We developed a species occurrence database and identified biodiversity hotspots using four different criteria: species richness, rarity, endemism, and threatened species. We interpolated species occurrence, while accounting for heterogeneous sampling efforts. We then assessed overlap of hotspots with existing protected areas and priority areas, and between hotspots derived by distinct criteria. We gathered 286,533 occurrence records belonging to 12,105 unique species, including 6388 species identified as rare, 642 as endemic, and 386 as threatened. We found that biodiversity hotspots showed little spatial overlap with areas currently under protection and previously identified priority areas. Our results highlight the importance of distinct spatial areas of biodiversity and suggest that different ecological mechanisms sustain different aspects of diversity and multiple criteria should be used when defining conservation areas.     

Identification of marine and coastal biodiversity conservation priorities in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is recognized as one of the most diverse countries in species and ecosystems, in their terrestrial realm as well as in the marine. Besides this relevance, the country presents a delay on conservation and management of marine and coastal biodiversity, with respect to terrestrial. For 2006, the marine protected surface was 5,208.8 km2, with 331.5 km of coastline, in 20 protected areas. The country has made progress on the conservation priority sites identification for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity, with few efforts on marine planning. This research presents the analysis and results of the gap identification process, for marine and coastal biodiversity conservation in the protected areas system of Costa Rica. The analysis was built with the spatial information available on the presence and distribution of coastal and marine biodiversity, the establishment of the conservation goals and a threat analysis over the ecological integrity of this biodiversity. The selection of high-priority sites was carried out using spatial optimization techniques and the superposition over the current shape of marine protected areas, in order to identify representation gaps. A total of 19,076 km2 of conservation gaps were indentified, with 1,323 km2 in the Caribbean and 17,753 km2 in the Pacific. Recommendations are aimed at planning and strengthening the marine protected areas system, using the gaps identified as a framework. It is expected that the results of this study would be the scientific base needed for planning and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the country.     

Representation of Ecological Systems within the Protected Areas Network of the Continental United States

If conservation of biodiversity is the goal, then the protected areas network of the continental US may be one of our best conservation tools for safeguarding ecological systems (i.e., vegetation communities). We evaluated representation of ecological systems in the current protected areas network and found insufficient representation at three vegetation community levels within lower elevations and moderate to high productivity soils. We used national-level data for ecological systems and a protected areas database to explore alternative ways we might be able to increase representation of ecological systems within the continental US. By following one or more of these alternatives it may be possible to increase the representation of ecological systems in the protected areas network both quantitatively (from 10% up to 39%) and geographically and come closer to meeting the suggested Convention on Biological Diversity target of 17% for terrestrial areas. We used the Landscape Conservation Cooperative framework for regional analysis and found that increased conservation on some private and public lands may be important to the conservation of ecological systems in Western US, while increased public-private partnerships may be important in the conservation of ecological systems in Eastern US. We have not assessed the pros and cons of following the national or regional alternatives, but rather present them as possibilities that may be considered and evaluated as decisions are made to increase the representation of ecological systems in the protected areas network across their range of ecological, geographical, and geophysical occurrence in the continental US into the future.     

国家尺度自然保护地生态系统联网监测指标体系构建与应用研究

自然保护地是维护国家生态安全, 提升生物多样性保护成效的重要载体, 对保护地生态系统进行实时、高频、多尺度的监测是认知其动态变化的有效手段, 也是实现自然保护地生态系统健康管理的基石。由于目前我国没有形成自然保护地生态系统监测网络, 缺少统一的联网监测指标体系, 导致多数自然保护地生态系统组成家底不清、动态不明, 应对生物多样性保护新问题的能力不足, 并且在国家尺度上的自然保护地生态系统健康状况及保护成效评估缺乏联网监测数据支撑。因此, 亟需构建国家尺度的自然保护地生态系统组成和动态监测网络, 以及一套科学、系统、规范的自然保护地生态系统联网监测指标体系。该文针对自然保护地生物多样性和生态系统监测的目标和内容, 参考国内外现有的生态系统监测网络的指标体系, 确定了自然保护地生态系统联网监测指标体系建立和选取的基本原则, 建立了一套适用于国家尺度的自然保护地生态系统联网监测指标体系, 并在6个国家级自然保护区进行示范。构建的指标体系针对构成生态系统的6类关键要素(生境要素、生物要素、气象要素、土壤要素、大气和水环境要素、景观要素)制定了30个监测指标, 有效应用于森林、草地、荒漠、湿地等生态系统类型的自然保护地, 能够实现对不同类型自然保护地生态系统组分和结构的现状和演变特征进行长期、动态化监测, 并可为自然保护地保护成效评估和健康管理提供规范化、标准化的基础数据。     

Local Scale Comparisons of Biodiversity as a Test for Global Protected Area Ecological Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Terrestrial protected areas (PAs) are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation. Their efficacy in terms of maintaining biodiversity is, however, much debated. Studies to date have been unable to provide a general answer as to PA conservation efficacy because of their typically restricted geographic and/or taxonomic focus, or qualitative approaches focusing on proxies for biodiversity, such as deforestation. Given the rarity of historical data to enable comparisons of biodiversity before/after PA establishment, many smaller scale studies over the past 30 years have directly compared biodiversity inside PAs to that of surrounding areas, which provides one measure of PA ecological performance. Here we use a meta-analysis of such studies (N = 86) to test if PAs contain higher biodiversity values than surrounding areas, and so assess their contribution to determining PA efficacy. We find that PAs generally have higher abundances of individual species, higher assemblage abundances, and higher species richness values compared with alternative land uses. Local scale studies in combination thus show that PAs retain more biodiversity than alternative land use areas. Nonetheless, much variation is present in the effect sizes, which underscores the context-specificity of PA efficacy.     

厦门市重点保护植物空间优先保护格局研究

生物多样性保护对维持城市生态系统功能具有重要意义。以39种厦门市重点保护植物为对象,通过物种分布模型MaxENT获得物种潜在分布栅格图,利用空间保护优先化定量工具Zonation软件识别理论上既适宜重点保护植物生存又能够保证景观连通性的区域,获得本地重点保护植物景观保护等级。根据2020年全球生物多样性目标,将景观保护等级最高的17%区域视为多物种空间优先保护区,结合Zonation模型生成的随景观丧失物种加权灭绝风险曲线,将保护等级最高的8%区域划为一级保护区,保护等级在8%-17%范围内的区域划为二级保护区。利用MaxENT模型中的jackknife刀切法发现海拔是对本地重点保护植物分布影响最大的环境因子,优先保护区集中分布于海拔较低的海岸带区域。将优先保护区与自然保护地建设现状、厦门市生态功能区规划、土地利用规划、城市总体规划对比发现厦门市岛外西部、北部的优先保护区得到了较好保护;岛外的西南部及东南部、岛内的东部及南部海岸带的优先保护区被建设用地大规模占用,已纳入自然保护地范围的区域较少,存在大量的海岸带优先保护区保护空缺;岛外东南部的部分优先保护区虽未被占用,但规划中属发展备用地,缺乏生态保护。为避免优先保护区面积的进一步萎缩,应重点关注海岸带区域优先保护区的生态保护,将目前属于发展备用地的优先保护区转划为生态留白空间,针对一级、二级优先保护区分别实施刚性和弹性的生态保育措施,在保护生物多样性的同时,严控对海岸带区域优先保护区的进一步开发利用,协调优先保护区内保护与开发利用间的关系。     

尤溪县生物多样性保护优先地区分析

选择人类活动频繁的常绿阔叶林林区具有代表性的福建尤溪县进行了生物多样性保护的优先性分析。在多次实地调查基础上,利用野生动物野外实地样带调查数据,已有的珍稀淑危鸟,兽和植物物种的分布资料,同时结合利用地理信息系统软件ARC/INFO数字化1：10万林相图和1：5万地形图,建立了基于GIS的尤溪县生物多样性信息系统,然后根据物种多样性,珍稀濒危物种保护和生态系统保护目标,确立了保护优先性分析原则,即珍稀濒危物种尽可能包含在保护区和保护小区内,同时在优先保护区尽可能包含更多的其它物种,用最新的森林分布图及调查物种分布与生境关系,生态系统在保护物种与生态系统功能等方面的作用等,提出了生态系统的保护优先地区,将提出保护优先地区与已建保护小区和保护点分布图进行叠加分析表明,保护小区和保护点的方法是保护珍稀濒危物种的有效方法,但是需要考虑保护小区之间的联系,在对大型哺乳动物保护时需要建立面积较大的自然保护区,最后,提出了建立自然保护区规划。     

Anticipating potential biodiversity conflicts for future biofuel crops in South Africa: incorporating spatial filters with species distribution models

Liquid biofuel production will likely have its greatest impact through the large‐scale changes in land use that will be required to meet the production of this energy source. In this study, we develop a framework which integrates species distribution models, land cover, land capability and various biodiversity conservation data to identify natural areas with (i) a potentially high risk of transformation for biofuel production and (ii) potential impact to biodiversity conservation areas. The framework was tested in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, a region which has been earmarked for the cultivation of biofuels. We expressly highlight the importance of biodiversity conservation data that enhance the protected area network to limit potential losses by comparing the overlap of areas likely to become cultivated with (i) protected areas; (ii) biodiversity hot spots not currently protected; and (iii) ‘ecological corridors’ (areas deemed important for the migration of species and linkages between important biodiversity areas). Results indicate that the introduction of spatial filters reduced available land from 54% to 45%. Including all biodiversity scenarios reduced available land to 15% of the Eastern Cape should avoiding conflict with biodiversity conservation areas be prioritized. The assumption that agriculturally marginal land offers a unique opportunity to be converted to biofuel crops does not consider the biodiversity value attached to these areas. We highlight that decisions relating to large‐scale transformation and changes in land cover need to take account of broader ecological processes. Determining the spatial extent of threats to biodiversity facilitates the analysis of spatial conflict. This article demonstrates a proactive approach for anticipating likely habitat transformation and provides an objective means of mitigating potential conflict with existing land use and biodiversity.     

Spatial and temporal patterns of changes in protected areas across the Southwestern United States

Protected areas are the core units for preserving habitats and ecological processes. Yet in most regions of the world their geographic, categorical, and institutional evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we report on changes in protected areas in the Southwestern US from 1890 to 2005. Our analysis used the dates of protection of individual parcels in the region to analyze changes by: (a) designating authority (e.g., congressional, administrative), (b) managing agency, (c) protected area types (e.g., wilderness), (d) elevation, (e) ecoregion, and (f) land cover class. In the 1990s, protected area additions tripled compared with the previous decade. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) managed the most protected area after 1990, surpassing that of the US Forest Service. Prior to 1990, most protected areas were found at high elevations, but more recent additions occurred at lower elevations. Land cover types represented in protected areas changed significantly over the last century, with protected areas in forest and woodland systems added prior to 1930 and shrubland, steppe, and savanna systems added after 1980. Additions by BLM occurred mostly by administrative designation. These areas are not permanently protected and so do not provide the level of protection afforded other additions. However these additions are critical for conservation of biodiversity across the region because they occur at elevations and in ecoregions and land cover types that are minimally protected otherwise. Our analysis yielded new insights about permanency, level of protection, and spatial distribution of protected areas, characteristics critical for biodiversity conservation.     

The impact of recreational use and access on biotic and abiotic disturbances on areas protected by local communities and a state conservation agency

Local communities often conserve nearby natural areas to support recreational activities and other benefits these areas provide. Areas protected by local communities could contribute to wider efforts to achieve large-scale conservation goals, such as biodiversity protection, provided the ecological conditions on-site are compatible with achieving these goals. To explore the potential contribution of locally established protected areas, we focus on areas protected by local communities in California, USA, using ballot initiatives, a form of direct democracy. We compare the ecological condition of wooded habitat on protected areas funded by local communities through the ballot box to that of similar habitats on protected areas funded by a state conservation agency. As an indicator of ecological condition, we focus on coverage by exotic plant species. We examine whether protected area characteristics or aspects of human-mediated onsite disturbance related to recreational use explain exotic plant cover found on each type of protected area. Exotic plant cover did not differ between areas protected by local communities and those protected by our larger scale conservation actor. Instead, elevation was the best predictor of exotic plant cover. Our results suggest protected areas established by local communities may be in no worse a condition than those established by a state public agency and warrant inclusion when tracking progress towards large-scale conservation goals for protected areas.     

Conservation-oriented restoration—a two for one method to restore both threatened species and their habitats

There is an urgent need for a new conservation approach as mere designation of protected areas, the primary approach to conserving biodiversity, revealed its low conservation efficiency and inability to cope with numerous challenges faced by nature in the Anthropocene. The paper discusses the new concept, which proposes that ecological restoration becomes an integral part of conservation planning and implementation, and is done using threatened plant species that are introduced not only into locations where they currently grow or grew in the recent past, but also into suitable locations within their potential distribution range. This new concept is called conservation-oriented restoration to distinguish it from the traditional restoration. Although the number of restoration projects focusing on recreation of once existing natural habitats is instantly growing, the majority of ecological restoration projects, in contrast to conservation-oriented restoration, have predominantly utilitarian goals, e.g.improvement or air quality, erosion control or soil replenishment. Conservation-oriented restoration should not be seen as an alternative either to the latter, or to the conservation dealing with particular threatened species(species-targeted conservation). These three conservation approaches, traditional ecological restoration, species-targeted conservation, and conservation-oriented restoration differ not only in broadly defined goals and attributes of their targets, but also in the types of ecosystems they are applicable to, and complement each other in combating global deterioration of the environment and biodiversity loss.     

Conservation-oriented restoration—a two for one method to restore both threatened species and their habitats

There is an urgent need for a new conservation approach as mere designation of protected areas, the primary approach to conserving biodiversity, revealed its low conservation efficiency and inability to cope with numerous challenges faced by nature in the Anthropocene. The paper discusses the new concept, which proposes that ecological restoration becomes an integral part of conservation planning and implementation, and is done using threatened plant species that are introduced not only into locations where they currently grow or grew in the recent past, but also into suitable locations within their potential distribution range. This new concept is called conservation-oriented restoration to distinguish it from the traditional restoration. Although the number of restoration projects focusing on recreation of once existing natural habitats is instantly growing, the majority of ecological restoration projects, in contrast to conservation-oriented restoration, have predominantly utilitarian goals, e.g.improvement or air quality, erosion control or soil replenishment. Conservation-oriented restoration should not be seen as an alternative either to the latter, or to the conservation dealing with particular threatened species(species-targeted conservation). These three conservation approaches, traditional ecological restoration, species-targeted conservation, and conservation-oriented restoration differ not only in broadly defined goals and attributes of their targets, but also in the types of ecosystems they are applicable to, and complement each other in combating global deterioration of the environment and biodiversity loss.     

Conservation-oriented restoration—a two for one method to restore both threatened species and their habitats

There is an urgent need for a new conservation approach as mere designation of protected areas, the primary approach to conserving biodiversity, revealed its low conservation efficiency and inability to cope with numerous challenges faced by nature in the Anthropocene. The paper discusses the new concept, which proposes that ecological restoration becomes an integral part of conservation planning and implementation, and is done using threatened plant species that are introduced not only into locations where they currently grow or grew in the recent past, but also into suitable locations within their potential distribution range. This new concept is called conservation-oriented restoration to distinguish it from the traditional restoration. Although the number of restoration projects focusing on recreation of once existing natural habitats is instantly growing, the majority of ecological restoration projects, in contrast to conservation-oriented restoration, have predominantly utilitarian goals, e.g.improvement or air quality, erosion control or soil replenishment. Conservation-oriented restoration should not be seen as an alternative either to the latter, or to the conservation dealing with particular threatened species(species-targeted conservation). These three conservation approaches, traditional ecological restoration, species-targeted conservation, and conservation-oriented restoration differ not only in broadly defined goals and attributes of their targets, but also in the types of ecosystems they are applicable to, and complement each other in combating global deterioration of the environment and biodiversity loss.     

Developing products for conservation decision-making: lessons from a spatial biodiversity assessment for South Africa

South Africa's first national assessment of spatial priorities for biodiversity conservation, released in 2005, aimed to identify conservation priority areas for mainstreaming into all sectors at national and provincial scales. This National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment (NSBA) was based on a planning for implementation approach in order to deliver defensible products useful to decision-makers. The NSBA aimed to produce a map of broad-scale priority areas for future finer-scale assessment and conservation action. This map summarized information on species, ecosystems, ecological processes, and the pressures they face from human activities. Owing to the complexity of the priority area map, two additional user-friendly products — maps of ecosystem status and protection levels — were developed. These products represented the habitat loss and protected area coverage of South Africa's ecosystems relative to their conservation targets. A year after release, we reflect on the NSBA process, products and uptake by implementing agencies (with a specific focus on the terrestrial biodiversity assessment) in order to contribute to the growing body of documented best practice in conservation planning. The ecosystem status product has been widely used at national and provincial scales due in large to its clear and compelling message. The protection level and overall priority map have also witnessed uptake, the former in guiding the expansion of protected areas and the latter as an integrated map of national biodiversity status. The strong collaboration of local planners and implementers with in-depth experience of biodiversity assessment, using a systematic approach and focusing on communicating a few high level messages, appears to have contributed to the initial, successful uptake of the NSBA. We conclude with a call to address data and monitoring shortcomings before the next NSBA in 2010.     

Future battlegrounds for conservation under global change

Global biodiversity is under significant threat from the combined effects of human-induced climate and land-use change. Covering 12% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, protected areas are crucial for conserving biodiversity and supporting ecological processes beneficial to human well-being, but their selection and design are usually uninformed about future global change. Here, we quantify the exposure of the global reserve network to projected climate and land-use change according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and set these threats in relation to the conservation value and capacity of biogeographic and geopolitical regions. We find that geographical patterns of past human impact on the land cover only poorly predict those of forecasted change, thus revealing the inadequacy of existing global conservation prioritization templates. Projected conservation risk, measured as regional levels of land-cover change in relation to area protected, is the greatest at high latitudes (due to climate change) and tropics/subtropics (due to land-use change). Only some high-latitude nations prone to high conservation risk are also of high conservation value, but their high relative wealth may facilitate additional conservation efforts. In contrast, most low-latitude nations tend to be of high conservation value, but they often have limited capacity for conservation which may exacerbate the global biodiversity extinction crisis. While our approach will clearly benefit from improved land-cover projections and a thorough understanding of how species range will shift under climate change, our results provide a first global quantitative demonstration of the urgent need to consider future environmental change in reserve-based conservation planning. They further highlight the pressing need for new reserves in target regions and support a much extended 'north-south' transfer of conservation resources that maximizes biodiversity conservation while mitigating global climate change.     

Measuring the extent and effectiveness of protected areas as an indicator for meeting global biodiversity targets

There are now over 100000 protected areas worldwide, covering over 12% of the Earth's land surface. These areas represent one of the most significant human resource use allocations on the planet. The importance of protected areas is reflected in their widely accepted role as an indicator for global targets and environmental assessments. However, measuring the number and extent of protected areas only provides a unidimensional indicator of political commitment to biodiversity conservation. Data on the geographic location and spatial extent of protected areas will not provide information on a key determinant for meeting global biodiversity targets: 'effectiveness' in conserving biodiversity. Although tools are being devised to assess management effectiveness, there is no globally accepted metric. Nevertheless, the numerical, spatial and geographic attributes of protected areas can be further enhanced by investigation of the biodiversity coverage of these protected areas, using species, habitats or biogeographic classifications. This paper reviews the current global extent of protected areas in terms of geopolitical and habitat coverage, and considers their value as a global indicator of conservation action or response. The paper discusses the role of the World Database on Protected Areas and collection and quality control issues, and identifies areas for improvement, including how conservation effectiveness indicators may be included in the database to improve the value of protected areas data as an indicator for meeting global biodiversity targets.     

The Effects of Governmental Protected Areas and Social Initiatives for Land Protection on the Conservation of Mexican Amphibians

Traditionally, biodiversity conservation gap analyses have been focused on governmental protected areas (PAs). However, an increasing number of social initiatives in conservation (SICs) are promoting a new perspective for analysis. SICs include all of the efforts that society implements to conserve biodiversity, such as land protection, from private reserves to community zoning plans some of which have generated community-protected areas. This is the first attempt to analyze the status of conservation in Latin America when some of these social initiatives are included. The analyses were focused on amphibians because they are one of the most threatened groups worldwide. Mexico is not an exception, where more than 60% of its amphibians are endemic. We used a niche model approach to map the potential and real geographical distribution (extracting the transformed areas) of the endemic amphibians. Based on remnant distribution, all the species have suffered some degree of loss, but 36 species have lost more than 50% of their potential distribution. For 50 micro-endemic species we could not model their potential distribution range due to the small number of records per species, therefore the analyses were performed using these records directly. We then evaluated the efficiency of the existing set of governmental protected areas and established the contribution of social initiatives (private and community) for land protection for amphibian conservation. We found that most of the species have some proportion of their potential ecological niche distribution protected, but 20% are not protected at all within governmental PAs. 73% of endemic and 26% of micro-endemic amphibians are represented within SICs. However, 30 micro-endemic species are not represented within either governmental PAs or SICs. This study shows how the role of land conservation through social initiatives is therefore becoming a crucial element for an important number of species not protected by governmental PAs.     

Ecological solidarity as a conceptual tool for rethinking ecological and social interdependence in conservation policy for protected areas and their surrounding landscape

Policy for biodiversity conservation must evolve to cope with the increasing human footprint on natural systems. A major issue here is the need for policy for protected areas, which integrates their surrounding landscape and local human populations in the construction of socially grounded measures. To illustrate current conceptual thinking in this direction we present and provide a conceptual basis for a recent initiative in national park policy in France that is based on "ecological solidarity". In the light of other policy ideas and tools that have recently emerged for the co-construction of conservation policy, we argue that this concept provides an imaginative step towards consolidating ecological and social interdependence in biodiversity policy that goes beyond statutory park boundaries.