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      Antarctica and the strategic plan for biodiversity

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          Abstract

          The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, adopted under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, provides the basis for taking effective action to curb biodiversity loss across the planet by 2020—an urgent imperative. Yet, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, which encompass 10% of the planet’s surface, are excluded from assessments of progress against the Strategic Plan. The situation is a lost opportunity for biodiversity conservation globally. We provide such an assessment. Our evidence suggests, surprisingly, that for a region so remote and apparently pristine as the Antarctic, the biodiversity outlook is similar to that for the rest of the planet. Promisingly, however, much scope for remedial action exists.

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          Most cited references44

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          Global biodiversity: indicators of recent declines.

          In 2002, world leaders committed, through the Convention on Biological Diversity, to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. We compiled 31 indicators to report on progress toward this target. Most indicators of the state of biodiversity (covering species' population trends, extinction risk, habitat extent and condition, and community composition) showed declines, with no significant recent reductions in rate, whereas indicators of pressures on biodiversity (including resource consumption, invasive alien species, nitrogen pollution, overexploitation, and climate change impacts) showed increases. Despite some local successes and increasing responses (including extent and biodiversity coverage of protected areas, sustainable forest management, policy responses to invasive alien species, and biodiversity-related aid), the rate of biodiversity loss does not appear to be slowing.
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            Systematic conservation planning.

            The realization of conservation goals requires strategies for managing whole landscapes including areas allocated to both production and protection. Reserves alone are not adequate for nature conservation but they are the cornerstone on which regional strategies are built. Reserves have two main roles. They should sample or represent the biodiversity of each region and they should separate this biodiversity from processes that threaten its persistence. Existing reserve systems throughout the world contain a biased sample of biodiversity, usually that of remote places and other areas that are unsuitable for commercial activities. A more systematic approach to locating and designing reserves has been evolving and this approach will need to be implemented if a large proportion of today's biodiversity is to exist in a future of increasing numbers of people and their demands on natural resources.
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              Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise.

              Polar temperatures over the last several million years have, at times, been slightly warmer than today, yet global mean sea level has been 6-9 metres higher as recently as the Last Interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) and possibly higher during the Pliocene epoch (about three million years ago). In both cases the Antarctic ice sheet has been implicated as the primary contributor, hinting at its future vulnerability. Here we use a model coupling ice sheet and climate dynamics-including previously underappreciated processes linking atmospheric warming with hydrofracturing of buttressing ice shelves and structural collapse of marine-terminating ice cliffs-that is calibrated against Pliocene and Last Interglacial sea-level estimates and applied to future greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500, if emissions continue unabated. In this case atmospheric warming will soon become the dominant driver of ice loss, but prolonged ocean warming will delay its recovery for thousands of years.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                PLoS Biol
                PLoS Biol
                plos
                plosbiol
                PLoS Biology
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1544-9173
                1545-7885
                28 March 2017
                March 2017
                28 March 2017
                : 15
                : 3
                : e2001656
                Affiliations
                [1 ]School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
                [2 ]School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America
                [3 ]Australian Antarctic Division, Department of the Environment and Energy, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia
                [4 ]Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM), Département de Biologie Polaire, Monaco, Principality of Monaco
                [5 ]Université de Strasbourg (UdS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC) UMR 7178, Strasbourg, France
                [6 ]Laboratoire International Associé LIA 647 BioSensib, (CSM-CNRS-UdS), Monaco, Principality of Monaco
                [7 ]Direction des Affaires Internationales, Département des Relations Extérieures et de la Coopération, Ministère d’État, Gouvernement Princier, Monaco, Principality of Monaco
                [8 ]Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
                [9 ]BirdLife International, Cambridge, United Kingdom
                [10 ]Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
                [11 ]Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, United Kingdom
                [12 ]British Antarctic Survey, NERC, Cambridge, United Kingdom
                [13 ]Environment & Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, United Kingdom
                [14 ]Antarctica New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand
                [15 ]Polar Knowledge Canada, Government of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
                [16 ]Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Québec, Canada
                [17 ]Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
                [18 ]Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America
                [19 ]Department of Ecology & Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America
                [20 ]Sea Around Us, Global Fisheries Cluster, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
                [21 ]Faculty of Law, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
                [22 ]Loyola Sustainability Research Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, Québec, Canada
                Author notes

                The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Article
                pbio.2001656
                10.1371/journal.pbio.2001656
                5369689
                28350825
                30c2317a-f24e-4407-a6ca-3b4e7b75d3b6
                © 2017 Chown et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                Page count
                Figures: 2, Tables: 0, Pages: 10
                Funding
                Centre Scientifique de Monaco http://www.centrescientifique.mc/en/. Provided local support for the meeting. Received by all authors. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Monash University www.monash.edu.au. Supported travel of SLC, MAM, and BWTC. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research www.scar.org. Supported travel to the assessment meeting. Received by all authors except SLC, MAM, BWTC. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Government of the Principality of Monaco http://en.gouv.mc/. Hosted the assessment meeting. Received by all authors. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Perspective
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Ecology
                Biodiversity
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Ecology
                Biodiversity
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Conservation Science
                People and Places
                Geographical Locations
                Antarctica
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Marine Conservation
                Earth Sciences
                Marine and Aquatic Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Marine Conservation
                Earth sciences
                Marine and aquatic sciences
                Bodies of water
                Oceans
                Antarctic Ocean
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Ecology
                Ecosystems
                Marine Ecosystems
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Ecology
                Ecosystems
                Marine Ecosystems
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Species Colonization
                Invasive Species
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Ecology
                Marine Ecology
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Ecology
                Marine Ecology
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Marine Ecology
                Earth Sciences
                Marine and Aquatic Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Marine Ecology
                Custom metadata
                All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

                Life sciences
                Life sciences

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