Imperial College London scientists created a list of places where mammals are at risk of future extinction, even when they may be just fine now. All of the regions they highlight are mostly human-free these days but could suffer from human encroachment in times to come. From News@Nature:
The list, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, namechecks places that do not typically feature on lists of the world's most threatened habitats. Greenland, the Siberian tundra, the highlands of eastern India and the Patagonian coast are all places where mammals, from polar bears to musk oxen, face an uncertain future.
The work could help to inform future decisions on where to allocate conservation resources, particularly in helping the Convention on Biological Diversity to meet its target of reducing the rate of world biodiversity loss by 2010. "Biodiversity loss is now recognized as a global-scale phenomenon," (Marcel) Cardillo and his colleagues write.
At present, the homes of currently threatened or rare animals are considered to need conservation funds. "This approach is necessarily a remedial one," Cardillo and his team write. "We present a more proactive extension to this approach."
