By Emma Muench, 5th May 2021
Our May 2021 issue features a special section on reptile and amphibian conservation, with articles on snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs and salamanders. Our lead article and cover photo by Edvárd Mizsei et al. features the Endangered Greek meadow viper, a species increasingly at risk as a result of climate change. The accompanying Briefly section includes a spotlight on reptile and amphibian conservation news. In the Editorial, E.J. Milner-Gulland reflects on how the global conservation movement is divided but not diverse. The issue also contains a host of Conservation News items and book reviews!
Find out more about this issue’s content, including our Editor’s picks, below:
Reptile and amphibian conservation
- Determining priority areas for an Endangered cold-adapted snake on warming mountaintops – Mizsei et al. (see blog post)
- Reintroducing species when threats still exist: assessing the suitability of contemporary landscapes for island endemics – Angeli & Fitzgerald
- E-commerce promotes trade in invasive turtles in China – Liu et al.
- A flagship for Austral temperate forest conservation: an action plan for Darwin’s frogs brings key stakeholders together – Azat et al. (see blog post)
- Unsustainable harvest of water frogs in southern Turkey for the European market – Çiçek et al.
- Range-wide decline of Chinese giant salamanders Andrias spp. from suitable habitat – Tapley et al. (see blog post)
- Lessons from practitioners for designing and implementing effective amphibian captive breeding programmes – Karlsdóttir et al. (see blog post)
Behind the cover
The Endangered Greek meadow viper is a cold-adapted snake endemic to the high-elevation meadow grasslands in the Pindos Mountains of Albania and Greece. Mapping of threats to this species, combined with an application of a systematic conservation planning tool, shows that much of the snake’s current habitat will become unsuitable by the 2080s as a result of climate change and habitat degradation. Conservation of this species needs to focus on sites of high importance by improving habitat quality—in particular by making changes to grazing practices—reducing disturbance and degradation, educating local stakeholders and continuing to monitor the populations. For further details, click here. (Photograph © Edvárd Mizsei)
Editorial
The global conservation movement is divided but not diverse: reflections on 2020 by E.J. Milner-Gulland
‘It is a challenge to balance pushing for the ambitious and radical action the planet needs with working within the current system to shift it (e.g. working with financial institutions to redirect their investments while also promoting Indigenous and local voices in the face of land conversion). We need to argue passionately for biodiversity for its own sake, as well as recognizing its fundamental role in sustaining human existence. Not everyone can, or even should, cover the whole range of philosophical positions or conservation approaches in their own work. But if we respect each other’s perspectives and intentions more, and recognize that conservation is, and should be, a broad church, maybe we will make more progress in 2021. Conservation needs, more than ever, to be both united and diverse.’
An hourglass tree frog in Costa Rica. Photo: Berglind Karlsdóttir – Read the full blog post.
Other contents
- Improving averted loss estimates for better biodiversity outcomes from offset exchanges – Maseyk et al. (see blog post)
- Revealing research preferences in conservation science – Montana et al. (see blog post)
- Which is worse for the red-billed curassow: habitat loss or hunting pressure? – Rios et al.
- Bushmeat hunting around Lomami National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo – Batumike et al.
- Thirty-six years of legal and illegal wildlife trade entering the USA – Bager Olsen et al.
- Power line routing and configuration as major drivers of collision risk in two bustard species – Marques et al.
- Big cats in borderlands: challenges and implications for transboundary conservation of Asian leopards – Farhadinia et al.
- Is reintroduction a tool for the conservation of the jaguar Panthera onca? A case study in the Brazilian Pantanal – Gasparini-Morato et al.
- Keeping predators out: testing fences to reduce livestock depredation at night-time corrals – Samelius et al. (see blog post)
- Social structure and demography of a remnant Asian elephant Elephas maximus population and the implications for survival – Hale et al.
Editor’s picks
- Determining priority areas for an Endangered cold-adapted snake on warming mountaintops – Mizsei et al.
- A flagship for Austral temperate forest conservation: an action plan for Darwin’s frogs brings key stakeholders together – Azat et al.
- Big cats in borderlands: challenges and implications for transboundary conservation of Asian leopards – Farhadinia et al.
- Is reintroduction a tool for the conservation of the jaguar Panthera onca? A case study in the Brazilian Pantanal – Gasparini-Morato et al.
One of the just 24 Chinese giant salamanders encountered during the surveys. Photo: Benjamin Tapley/ZSL – Read the full blog post.
Conservation news
- Potential increase in illegal trade in European eels following Brexit – Stein & Nijman
- Rediscovery of Brachystelma parviflorum after 186 years – Srivastava & Chauhan
- Important Marine Mammal Areas: a spatial tool for marine mammal conservation – Hoyt & Notarbartolo di Sciara
- Artificial nest cavities can sustain populations of hornbills in the degraded forests of Kinabatangan, Borneo – Vercoe et al.
- New records of the Andean cat in central Chile—a challenge for conservation – Silva et al.
- Conservation of the Yangtze River Basin, China – Liu et al.
- Rediscovery of rare shovelnose sturgeons in the Amu Darya River, Uzbekistan – Sheraliev et al.
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on conservation of the Javan gibbon – Setiawan
- Assessing protected area effectiveness – Hockings et al.
Book Reviews
- Drawing the Sea Near: Satoumi and Coral Reef Conservation in Okinawa
- Leaving Space for Nature: The Critical Role of Area-Based Conservation
- Power in Conservation: Environmental Anthropology Beyond Political Ecology
The Endangered Greek meadow viper Vipera graeca – Read Edvárd Mizsei & Stephen Roussos full blog post.
