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Cross-boundary issues |
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Addressing mismatches between biological, economic and political boundaries (Task 1.4)
The consequences of many actions that affect the environment are rarely confined to the location in which they take place. This task aims to assess the full impact of spill-over effects and cross-boundary issues on biodiversity. The underlying mechanisms of spill-over effects may be biophysical (e.g. downstream effects in catchments or impacts on migratory species in different staging areas) or economic (e.g. a policy that reduces the supply of a resource locally may increase pressure to harvest that resource elsewhere). Similarly, there are numerous examples where conservation of biodiversity has failed because the ecosystem is split among political jurisdictions or there has been a significant demand for species harvest from outside the ecosystem.
As conservation has broad regional or global significance, successfully addressing cross-boundary conservation issues is a high priority. Assessing the full impact of spill-over effects and cross-boundary issues on biodiversity will require both economic and ecological analyses.
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Research Objectives
- Review a range of cases to develop a framework to estimate the direct and indirect effects of a particular action and the magnitude of these on biodiversity.
- Assess the success of cross-boundary conservation agreements.
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Images
© Dave Raffaelli
Top two images - Spill-over effects present challenges for conservation and for policy makers. For example the European Union’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) incentives have led to excessive application of nitrogen to crops in the Ythan catchment (Scotland, UK), which has major impacts on the estuary downstream, causing blooms of algae. Bottom image- Sandwich terns (Sterna sandvicensis) migrate to Europe from breeding areas in the UK and are, thus, vulnerable to policies across multiple nation states. |
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