Africa has high biodiversity and is rapidly urbanizing. However, there is limited understanding of how urban expansion in Africa is likely to affect its habitats and biodiversity. Little urban ecological research has been done in Africa. This study needs to think ahead as Africa move into the “urban age” it is critical to inform the public on the importance of urban environment...

The Guadiana River basin’s freshwater fish species richness and its threatened status in the circum-mediterranean context highlights the need for a large scale study to identify priority areas for their conservation. One of the most common problems in conservation planning is the quantification of a site’s relative value for the conservation of local biodiversity. Here we used a two-tiered asse...

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is one of the leading forest certification schemes. While many studies concern political aspects and social outcomes of FSC, little is known about the contribution of certification to biodiversity conservation. In Europe, the Russian Federation and Sweden have the largest areas of FSC certified forest. We assessed the potential of FSC certification for boreal bi...

Protected areas in Kenya constitute 7% of the total land area with over 75% of wildlife in the country being found on private or communal land. Rural communities in Kenya, where protected areas generally exist, face a range of development issues with limited resources and livelihood opportunities. In this context, community-based biodiversity conservation has the potential to promote ecotourism...

This paper considers participatory modelling to integrate biodiversity conservation into land use planning and to facilitate the incorporation of ecological knowledge into public decision making for spatial planning. Réunion Island has experienced rapid urban and agricultural expansion, which threaten its unique biodiversity. In this context, we designed three participatory modelling sequences,...

Special sites or areas that have one or more attributes which distinguish them as somehow extraordinary, usually in a religious or spiritual sense, are called sacred places. They tend to evoke a feeling of some awesome, mysterious, and transcendent power that merits special reverence and treatment. Sacred groves are stands of trees or patches of forest that local communities conserve primarily ...