Opportunities and costs for preventing vertebrate extinctions

23rd March 2015

To halt major causes of biodiversity loss in part by establishing protected areas (Aichi Target 11) and prevent species extinctions (Aichi Target 12) required significant and urgent, increased intervention for a large number of sites and species.

The Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), a consortium of conservation-oriented organisations that aims to protect Critically Endangered and Endangered species restricted to single sites, has identified 920 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, conifers and reef-building corals in 588 ‘trigger’ sites.

Effective conservation of these sites is essential to achieve Target 12, as the loss of any of these sites would certainly result in the global extinction of at least these species concerned.

They call for innovative strategies, such as the One Plan approach, which combines conservation actions inside and outside a species’ natural habitat, be rapidly implemented.

With the clock is ticking to the 2020 deadline, AZE has assessed the potential for ensuring the long-term conservation of AZE vertebrate species (157 mammals, 165 birds, 17 reptiles and 502 amphibians) by calculating a conservation opportunity index for each species - US$1.3 million per species to achieve downlisting within 10 years, therefore reaching the Achi Target.

The full paper, published by Dalia A. Conde etal, is in the latest issue of Current Biology (Vol 25 No 6