Biodiversity ‘arks’ in danger
Reserves that were suffering most were those that were poorly protected and suffered encroachment from illegal colonists, hunters and loggers. Image: leungchopan/iStockphoto Many of the world’s tropical protected areas are struggling to sustain their biodiversity, according to a study by more than 200 scientists from around the world published in Nature.Professor William Laurance, from James Cook University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, said that “these reserves are like arks for biodiversity.”“But some of the arks are in danger of sinking,” he said, “even though they are our best hope to sustain tropical forests and their amazing biodiversity in perpetuity.”Professor Laurance and his team studied more than 30 different categories of species—from trees and butterflies to primates and large predators—within protected areas across the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia-Pacific.They estimated how these groups had changed in numbers over the past two to three decades, while identifying environmental changes that might...