Conflict and War Threatens Sustainability in Earth’s Richest Biological Regions
A woman carries palm kernels in Liberia's Jalays town. In many biodiversity hotspots, local people rely on available natural resources for income, food and other survival needs. (© CI/photo by Michael Matarasso)
In a startling result, a new study published by the scientific journal Conservation Biology found that more than 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth.
Titled “Warfare in Biodiversity Hotspots,” the study by leading international conservation scientists compared major conflict zones with the Earth’s 34 biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International (CI). The hotspots (www.biodiversityhotspots.org) are considered top conservation priorities because they contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened.
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