Scientists Unearth New View of Wilderness Biodiversity

WASHINGTON, DC, August 19, 2003 (ENS) – Wilderness still covers a large portion of the Earth's land surface, but only five wilderness areas hold globally significant levels of biodiversity, according to analysis by more than 200 international scientists.

The scientists say these five areas have high levels of biodiversity because they contain at least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species - the same standards used for defining "biodiversity hotspots."

"The good news is that we still have these large tracts of land largely intact and uninhabited, but they are increasingly under threat," according to lead author Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI).

The five areas are Amazonia, the Congo Forests of Central Africa, New Guinea, the Miombo-Mopane Woodlands and Savannas of Southern Africa, and the North American Deserts complex of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.

Combined, these areas hold more than 17 percent of all plants and eight percent of vertebrates - all within in just more than six percent of the Earth's land surface.

There is plenty of wilderness left in the world, but protection of these areas is very limited. (Photo courtesy Rainforest Action Network)

Biological hotspots represent only 1.4 percent of the Earth's land area yet contain 44 percent of all vascular plants and 35 percent of all mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians as endemics, meaning they are found nowhere else, Mittermeier explained.

"By targeting the 25 biodiversity hotspots plus the five high biodiversity wilderness areas, we could save a vastly disproportionate number of the world's species," added Thomas Brooks, senior director for CI's Conservation Synthesis Program. "The conservation community would be wise to allocate their scarce resources accordingly."

The analysis is featured in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study will appear in the September 2nd print edition.

Areas qualifying as "wilderness" have 70 percent or more of their original vegetation intact, cover at least 10,000 square kilometers (3,861 square miles) and contain fewer than five people per square kilometer.

The 24 wilderness areas identified by the analysis represent 44 percent of the Earth's land surface, but are occupied by just three percent of the world's population.

Only seven percent of the wilderness areas have any form of protection, the scientists report.

The world's wilderness areas face a range of threats, including destructive agricultural practices, unsustainable hunting, invasive species, and resource extraction activities such as industrial scale logging and mining.

Scientists say the desert ecosystem of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico is a wilderness area with high biodiversity. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

The scientists say that protection of these areas is also critical for survival of the world's remaining indigenous groups, many of which are on the brink of cultural extinction.

The 24 wilderness areas analyzed in the PNAS paper, along with several others, were profiled in a book published earlier this year, "Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places."

The analyses of the 24 wilderness areas were primarily conducted by CI's Center for the Applied Biodiversity Science with support from the Global Conservation Fund and the Mexican company CEMEX, in collaboration with the Mexican non governmental organization Agrupación Sierra Madre.