🎒 Base knowledge and understanding

✅ Tasks

🌿 Content

🔑 Key terms

Phase 1: Starter

Two simple changes, two cascading effects

Imagine two different rivers in two different parts of Europe.

River A: Around 400 years ago, a single rodent species was hunted to extinction along this river for its fur, meat and scent glands. The river was then engineered to be straight and deep so that water would flow off the land quickly.

River B: A small population of that same rodent species has just been released into a stretch of stream that runs through a beef farm.

1. Predict three changes you would expect to see along River A over the centuries after the rodent disappeared. Think about water, vegetation and other species.

2. Predict three changes you would expect to see along River B in the years after the rodent is reintroduced.

3. The species in question is the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber). Briefly explain why a single species can have such a large effect on an entire river system.

Phase 2: Conservation and regeneration measures

Reversing the decline

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3.3.8 Conservation and regeneration measures can be used to reverse the decline in biodiversity to ensure a safe operating space for humanity within the biodiversity planetary boundary.

Measures can be taken to conserve and regenerate biodiversity at individual, collective, national and international levels.

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In the previous two lessons you studied conservation strategies (in situ, ex situ and the international agreements that support them) and habitat conservation through reserve design. These approaches all aim to protect what already exists.

Regeneration is different. Regeneration measures aim to rebuild biodiversity that has already been lost, by restoring habitats, returning species that have been locally wiped out, and allowing damaged ecosystems to recover.

Both conservation and regeneration matter because biodiversity is one of the nine planetary boundaries identified by Earth system scientists. The biodiversity boundary (technically the boundary for biosphere integrity) has already been crossed: current rates of species extinction are estimated to be tens to hundreds of times the natural background rate. Conservation and regeneration measures are how we attempt to return biodiversity to a safe operating space for humanity.

Crucially, these measures operate at four levels:

• Individual: choices made by single people, such as planting native species in a garden, reducing meat consumption, or supporting conservation charities
• Collective: actions by communities, NGOs, schools and businesses, such as volunteer wildlife monitoring, local rewilding groups or corporate biodiversity targets
• National: government policy, legislation and protected area networks, such as the Swiss federal law on hunting and protection of mammals, or the UK beaver release licensing system
• International: treaties and agreements between countries, such as CITES, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 30 by 30 target

1. Distinguish between conservation and regeneration.

2. State the four levels at which conservation and regeneration measures can operate, and give one example of each.

3. Explain how conservation and regeneration measures relate to the biodiversity planetary boundary.

What makes these measures succeed?