This book is intended to provide an overview for the identification and establishment of biodiversity islands. It presents examples and case studies where the biodiversity islands approach is being used in a variety of locations and contexts worldwide. It will contribute to design parameters on appropriate sizing and spatial distribution of biodiversity islands in order to be effective in conservation and regeneration across the landscape, using integrated landscape management approaches. This book is essential given the current worldwide trend of habitat destruction and the need to preserve biodiversity and its values.
The chapters are organized in five sections. The first section provides the introduction. Section 2, 3 and 4 discuss the challenges and alternatives of establishment and management, case studies across the globe, safeguarding of the environmental, economic, and social benefits, and the final section offers a conclusion.
The contributing authors present views from the academic, the practitioner and the policymaker perspectives, offering alternatives and suggestions for promoting strategies that support biodiversity conservation through intentionally designed frameworks for sustainable forest landscapes.
Readers will discover suggestions and concrete examples that can be used by a variety of stakeholders in various settings throughout the world.
This book is useful to researchers, farmers, foresters, landowners, land managers, city planners, and policy makers alike.
Table of Content
Part I: Introduction.- Chapter 1. Introduction. Biodiversity Islands: Strategies for Conservation in Human Dominated Environments.- Part II: Biodiversity islands establishment and management: challenges and alternatives.- Chapter 2. The Importance of Small Rainforest Patches for Biodiversity Conservation: A Multi-Taxonomic Assessment.- Chapter 3. Regenerative Agriculture as Biodiversity Islands.- Chapter 4. Functions of Agroforestry Systems as Biodiversity Islands in Productive Landscapes.- Chapter 5. Biodiversity Islands: The Role of Native Tree Islands within Silvopastoral Systems in a Neotropical Region.- Chapter 6. Riparian Forests: Longitudinal Biodiversity Islands in Agricultural Landscapes.- Chapter 7. Conservation and Registration of Seed Sources in Reserve Remnants in the Province of Misiones, Argentina.- Section III: Biodiversity islands across the globe: case studies.- Chapter 8. Island of Forests Among Savannahs: Key Elements for Conservation and Production in the Paraguayan Humid Chaco.- Chapter 9. Biodiversity Islands and Dominant Species in Agricultural Landscapes of the South Western Amazon, Perú.- Chapter 10. The Monteverde Cloud Forest: Evolution of a Biodiversity Island in Costa Rica.- Chapter 11. A Highly Productive Biodiversity Island within a Monoculture Landscape: El Hatico Nature Reserve (Valle Del Cauca, Colombia).- Chapter 12. Hacienda Pinzacuá: An Example of Regenerative Agriculture Amidst a Transformed Landscape in the Colombian Andes.- Chapter 13. Islands of Trees in Long-Fragmented Landscapes in Great Britain.- Chapter 14. Natural Landscape of the Pampa Region in Santa Fe Province, Argentina: Environmental Resilience and Opportunity for Changing the Agri-Food Paradigm.- Chapter 15. Residential Garden Design for Urban Biodiversity Conservation: Experience from Panamá City, Panama.- Chapter 16. Biodiversity Islands at the World’s Southernmost City: Plant, Bird and Insect Conservation in Urban Forests and Peatlands of Ushuaia, Argentina.- Chapter 17. Paradise Lot: A Temperate-Climate Urban Agroforestry Biodiversity Island.- Chapter 18. Contribution to the Domestication and Conservation of the Genetic Diversity of Two Native Multipurpose Species in the Yabotí Biosphere Reserve, Misiones, Argentina.- Part IV: Safeguarding the environmental, economic, and social benefits of biodiversity islands.- Chapter 19. How Community-Led Action Can Advance the Development of Biodiversity Islands.- Chapter 20. Priorities, Perspectives and Use of a Community Forest by Surrounding Residents in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico: Protecting the Forest for its Services.- Chapter 21. Sacred Church Forests in Northern Ethiopia: Biodiversity and Cultural Islands.- Chapter 22. Beyond the Island: Integrated Approaches to Conserving Biodiversity Islands with Local Communities.- Chapter 23. Agroecology and Forest Conservation in Three Types of Land Reform Communities in the Cacao Region of Bahia, Brazil.- Chapter 24. Preserving Biodiversity in Appalachian Mixed Mesophytic Forest through the Permit-Based Harvest of Ginseng and Other Forest Botanicals.- Chapter 25. Farmer Perceptions of Tropical Dry Forest Restoration Practices on the Azuero Peninsula of Panama – Implications for Increasing Biodiversity in a Human-Dominated Landscape.- Chapter 26. Safeguarding Biodiversity Islands in Northern Ethiopia Amidst Political Change.- Part V: Chapter 27. Conclusions: Lessons Learned and Pending Challenges.
About the author
Dr. Florencia Montagnini has over 30 years of experience researching and teaching in topics on sustainability of managed ecosystems in the tropics, such as forest, tree plantations and agroforestry systems, with a special emphasis on Latin America. Her work as a scientific advisor and consultant has also taken her to Africa and South East Asia. Her research encompasses sustainable land-use systems that integrate ecological principles with economic, social and political factors; the principles and applications of forest landscape restoration; the reforestation of degraded lands with native species; identification and quantification of ecological services (biodiversity, carbon sequestration and watershed protection); organic farming using indigenous resources; biodiversity conservation in human-dominated landscapes; biodiversity islands. She received her BS in Agronomy from the National University of Rosario, Argentina, her Masters in Ecology from the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC), Caracas, Venezuela, and her Ph. D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia. Since 1989, has worked as a professor and researcher at the Yale School of the Environment, as well as the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE). She has written 11 books and over 250 scientific articles about the ecology of tropical forests, agroforestry systems, native species reforestation and forest landscape restoration.