The priority biomes highlight on a global basis the ecological systems which WWF regards as being most important to the achievement of its Mission. To provide a geographic focus, WWF has identified the 'Global 200', biologically outstanding ecoregions of the Earth which are most representative of the world's biodiversity and therefore most deserving of conservation attention. By concentrating its efforts in a limited number of these key ecoregions (80% of which fall within the priority biomes), WWF will be able to mount more comprehensive conservation programmes at an ecologically appropriate scale and thereby increase its long-term impact on saving the Earth's biodiversity.
Ecoregion-based conservation arose in part from WWF's recognition of the need to find ways to operate at a scale large enough to achieve conservation results that are ecologically viable, conserving networks of key sites, migration corridors, and the ecological processes that maintain healthy ecosystems. By addressing ecoregion-wide processes, the approach also recognizes the broader social, economic, and political factors that determine long-term success. By committing to conserve the biodiversity of an entire ecoregion, WWF will also search for points of leverage - ways to catalyse governments, corporations, donors and others whose actions are needed to achieve conservation.
Key features of ecoregion-based conservation
Three basic elements define the essence of this approach:
(i) The goal
WWF's goal in each ecoregion is to conserve the biodiversity of the ecoregion as a whole. This entails an assessment of the original extent of biodiversity in the ecoregion and its current status, and to devise a realistic but ambitious vision for the long-term future. The vision would be based on the conservation of existing patterns of biodiversity and, where appropriate, restoration or rehabilitation of former patterns.
(ii) Assessment
A key to ecoregion-based conservation is a broad and searching analysis of priorities and opportunities. In each ecoregion, our assessment will include:
- Biological analysis - to identify key sites (and linkages among them), and the ecological processes that are important to the ecoregion's biodiversity.
- Human dynamics analysis - a broadly gauged assessment of the social, economic, demographic, and political forces and trends that shape the key threats to biodiversity and the opportunities for conservation.
- Institutional assessment - a survey of the activities and potential roles of the actors (communities, governments, international agencies, NGOs, industry, etc.) to identify those who are or could be playing a part in the long-term conservation of the ecoregion.
- Target-setting - defining what success looks like, especially at the ecoregion scale, and defining milestones to chart progress towards achieving success.
(iii) Strategy
Ecoregion-based conservation programmes will employ the six WWF conservation 'methods' (described later on) integrated into a portfolio of activities at many levels, designed to meet the conservation challenges of the ecoregion. In many instances, ecoregional programmes will be built around field projects - supporting protected areas and community-based conservation in key sites, and demonstrating approaches (such as ecologically sound forestry) that have broader application.
The policy reforms which are necessary to tackle many of the root causes of biodiversity loss will also be addressed. Many of these will be within the jurisdiction of the governments within whose boundaries the ecoregions lie, but others may lie with decision-makers outside the ecoregion (e.g. policies relating to development or financial aid, agricultural subsidies or trade incentives).
An ecoregion-based approach will require that WWF finds ways to amplify its impact by developing partnerships with entities that can address issues (such as family planning, agricultural practices, or land reform) that lie outside WWF's core competencies. It also demands that WWF focuses on points of leverage - finding ways to influence government policies and decisions, corporate behaviour, and the priorities of aid agencies, foundations, and NGOs - to catalyse the actions needed to conserve the ecoregion's biodiversity.
By formulating a series of such programmes in selected Global 200 ecoregions, WWF hopes that it will stimulate others to emulate this approach across other ecoregions and thereby catalyse a global movement to conserve the Earth's biodiversity.