Connectivity Conservation Management

In an era of climate change, deforestation and massive habitat loss, we can no longer rely on parks and protected areas as isolated islands of wilderness to conserve and protect vital biodiversity. Increasing connections are being considered and made between protected areas, and connectivity thinking has started to expand to the regional and even the continental scale to match the challenges of conserving biodiversity in the face of global environmental change. This groundbreaking book is the first guide to conservation management at regional and continental scales. Written by leading conservation and protected area management specialists under the auspices of the World Commission on Protected Areas of IUCN, the World Conservation Union, this guide brings together a decade and a half of practice and covers all aspects of connectivity planning and management. The book begins by addressing the need for connectivity conservation as a strategic imperative in the face of climate change, explains what connectivity conservation is and explores the key management challenges and issues including policy change and formation and capacity building. Successive chapters cover technical aspects including the natural setting, landscape, habitat, ecological and evolutionary process connectivity and human-oriented factors including values and aspirations, life support, livelihoods and sustainable resource use. The authors then cover the full swathe of the management context and dynamic including national reserve settings, connectivity management tools and stewardship needs. Further chapters look at practice and case studies from around the world including in-depth examination of the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) project which spans much of the Continental Divide of North America and takes in dozens of protected areas and vast areas of private and public land across national, state and provincial boundaries. Further international examples are drawn form the Udvardy Biogeographical Realms of Africotropical, Australian, Indomalayan, Nearctic, Neotropical Oceanian and Palaearctic. Final chapters synthesize the lessons learned from the past decade and a half of theory and practice for management and the authors look at the key challenges of the future, particularly the threat of climate change and the variable capacity of countries and regions to respond. This handbook is a must have for all professionals in protected area management, conservation, land management and resource management from the field through senior management and policy. It is also an ideal reference for students and academics in geography, protected area management and form across the environmental and natural sciences.