14 DAY TRIAL // New investigations conducted on rural populations that base their livelihoods on exploiting forests for generations have revealed that it is possible to still maintain biodiversity at these locations, but only under certain specific conditions.
These results, published in the March 25 issue of the top journal Science, evidence above all that local populations need to be allowed to bring their input in the process that decides how the forests on which they depend will be managed.
Local forest users and communities are well familiarized with the particularities of these locations, and can therefore provide valuable input to authorities. Their advice could allow for the creation of more efficient conservation programs, that could further contribute to supporting biodiversity.
The investigation was conducted on tropical forests, which are severely threatened with biodiversity loss. If too many species are lost, then entire habitats could fall out of balance and be destroyed.
Already, the world is losing species at an alarming rate, and authorities around the world are only now beginning to take this threat seriously. Unfortunately, it's too late for some creatures, that have already passed the number threshold ensuring a genetically-viable population.
This new investigation, which was conducted by expert Lauren Persha at the University of Michigan, was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Its main conclusion is that formalizing local populations' contribution to conservation processes may increase odds of success.
“One thing that is clear is that overcoming forest governance challenges is central to maintaining the diverse benefit flows of tropical forest,” Persha believes.
“The effort involved in funding and collecting data on the scale of this research, across so many sites and countries, is substantial – but also vital for generating a more solid evidence base to help decision-makers construct better policies for forest sustainability to meet multiple social and ecological goals,” the expert adds.
“Interdisciplinary research requires giving up entrenched disciplinary biases,” adds University of Michigan researcher Arun Agrawal, who was also a member of the team that conducted the study.
“We are glad to see the most prestigious research journals in the world recognizing the need for such research and making it possible to pursue such work,” the investigator says.