Keep raising money for pandas

• Autores: Adam Vaughan
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3271, 2020, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Conservationist have long known that using pandas, tigers and other charismatic species to front their campaigns is a good way to raise money. But some have argued that focusing on these "flagship" animals can neglect equally threatened but less cuddly ones, such as pangolins. Now Jennifer McGowan at Macquarie University in Sydney and her colleagues suggest that we can have it both ways, after finding that funding for flagship species also helps other threatened species in the surrounding areas. McGowan was contacted by a US charity called WildArk, which wanted its fundraising to be backed by robust science on the ecological impact of helping certain species. To find the best approach, McGowan's team first drew up a list of 534 flagship species in wildlife-rich hotspots around the world, from golden-snub nosed monkeys to giant armadillos. The biodiversity hotspots were each split into grids of 100 by 100 kilometre squares. The researchers then compared two conservation approaches across eight simulated scenarios which assumed different levels of human activity and protected areas.