Up till now certain areas of the earth have been allotted conservation status depending upon where environmentalists felt conservation would be best served. It has now been found that conservation hotspots may ultimately not be able to help save 11% of endangered birds, 24% of endangered mammals and 33% of endangered amphibians.
Now they feel that these protected areas may not be all encompassing for less noticeable and lesser known, but equally endangered species that live outside their purview.
In 1988 British ecologist Norman Myers recognized certain parts of the earth as 'biodiversity hotspots', areas in which there were large numbers of animal species but in which humans had threatened their existence.
Almost a decade later Conservation International allotted 25 areas conservation status as environmentalists felt they were ideal for animal conservation. Three of them were Central Africa's Congo basin, the Mediterranean and the Amazon.
Conservationists then focused on utilizing their limited funds in these places where they hoped to be most effective. But that is possible only on the condition that many endangered species can be found at one particular place.
Now, contrary to what people have believed for some time, there is no certainty that demarcating 'hotspots' for the conservation of endangered species of birds, mammals and amphibians will do just that. This is because it has been found that these endangered species do not necessarily populate any particular region and no other.
To verify this Ian Owens at Imperial College, London collected as much information as possible on every species of every endangered bird, amphibian and mammal on the Red List.
Together with studies in the wild of all the 19,349 species this information has been earmarked as global maps where there is risk of extinction.
Co author, David Orme stated that this was possible only because range maps had been put together for all three classes.
Surprisingly, the maps were not consistent with the 'hotspots', as in Papua, New Guinea, where endangered species such as the bird of paradise and the tree kangaroo are found.
Conversely, the Mediterranean and the Cape region of South Africa, both traditional hotspots, were not identified by the study at all.
Owens put this down to different animal groups being vulnerable to different situations such as the destruction of habitat, poachers and disease.
Owens and Orme worried that certain species would fall through the cracks and become extinct because they were not found in the same places as other species.
Owens went on to say that the situation is far more complex than just having certain areas on the earth marked down as hotspots.
Environmentalists now worry that it will become more difficult to direct funds and other resources proportionately and effectively.
Agreeing that converting the assumption into practical conservation would not be easy, Dr. Orme declared that politics and economics control conservation.
