Nature´s Technicians: The amazing ways in wich wild animals maintain our world.
Posted on octubre, 21 2024
Recovering wild animal species should no longer be considered a ‘nice to have’ but an essential part of securing the future resilience of our planet, and ourselves
Executive summary
Wild animals of all shapes and sizes play crucial roles in ecosystems and ecosystem services, and therefore in our own survival. Conserving and recovering wild animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and myriad invertebrates) is essential for securing the future resilience of our planet, and ourselves. This report assesses the evidence by examining guilds, groups of species that exploit the same kinds of resources in comparable ways. Each guild plays a different role.
As well as focusing on guilds, we include shorter sections looking at:
Services Focusing on roles that animals play in climate regulation, along nutrient arteries like rivers, for water quality, regulation and erosion control, in disaster risk reduction
and in disease prevention.
Amazing animals Describing specific animals (Hornbills, Oysters, Lynx, Bees and Salmon) and their roles in providing ecosystem services.
Biomes Drawing together the benefits of wild animals, and implications of their loss, across five examples from around the globe: The Coral Triangle, Mekong river basin, Arctic Ocean, Amazon and Kavango-Zambezi landscape.
Wild animals play irreplaceable roles in providing ecosystem services for humanity. Abundance is almost as important as existence: populations need to be large enough to function properly. Conservation is the priority, usually cheaper and always more effective than recovering wild populations. But species recovery can have fast, positive impacts. All conservation actions need to be planned and managed carefully; even if the impacts are positive, there will often be a minority of people who lose out and trade-offs need to be acknowledged. Stakeholders need to be part of the planning and implementation and compromises worked out.
Wild animals of all shapes and sizes play crucial roles in ecosystems and ecosystem services, and therefore in our own survival. Conserving and recovering wild animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and myriad invertebrates) is essential for securing the future resilience of our planet, and ourselves. This report assesses the evidence by examining guilds, groups of species that exploit the same kinds of resources in comparable ways. Each guild plays a different role.
As well as focusing on guilds, we include shorter sections looking at:
Services Focusing on roles that animals play in climate regulation, along nutrient arteries like rivers, for water quality, regulation and erosion control, in disaster risk reduction
and in disease prevention.
Amazing animals Describing specific animals (Hornbills, Oysters, Lynx, Bees and Salmon) and their roles in providing ecosystem services.
Biomes Drawing together the benefits of wild animals, and implications of their loss, across five examples from around the globe: The Coral Triangle, Mekong river basin, Arctic Ocean, Amazon and Kavango-Zambezi landscape.
Wild animals play irreplaceable roles in providing ecosystem services for humanity. Abundance is almost as important as existence: populations need to be large enough to function properly. Conservation is the priority, usually cheaper and always more effective than recovering wild populations. But species recovery can have fast, positive impacts. All conservation actions need to be planned and managed carefully; even if the impacts are positive, there will often be a minority of people who lose out and trade-offs need to be acknowledged. Stakeholders need to be part of the planning and implementation and compromises worked out.