A Toolbox for Conservation: Legal Mechanisms for Biodiversity Conservation

• Author: Robert B. McKinstry, Jr./Coreen Ripp/Emily Lisy
• Pages: 199-202

Part V

A Toolbox for Conservation: Legal

Mechanisms for Biodiversity

Conservation1

The task of protecting the world’s biological diversity is as complex as

diversity itself. It requires a wide variety of tools, including: (1) tools

for building knowledge about biodiversity; (2) tools for protecting

biodiversity; (3) management tools; (4) tools for financing these activities;

and (5) tools for coordinating activities. Each set of tools, briefly discussed

below, has a variety of objectives and employs a variety of mechanisms.

Tools for gathering knowledge about the identity of natural communities

and species, critical habitat requirements, threats to the natural communities

or to the species and their habitat, and trends are necessary to serve a variety

of purposes. These knowledge-building tools are necessary to identify: (1)

what needs protection; (2) how to effect protection; and (3) how to determine

the efficacy of the protective measures.

A second set of tools is needed to actually protect biodiversity. There are

three basic mechanisms, first evolved during the Conservation Movement at

the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, to conserve biodiversity: (1) direct

protection of species under threat; (2) regulatory or other actions to address

problems that threaten biodiversity; and (3) protection or preservation of

land that provides important species habitat. The first and second mecha-

nisms seek to protect biodiversity directly by regulating or influencing ac-

tivities that threaten biodiversity. These include laws and regulations that

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1. Some of the discussion in the chapters comprising Part V has been adapted

from an analysis of laws prepared by James McElfish, an analysis of methods

for land protection prepared by Robert B. McKinstry Jr. and Michael Jacob-

son, and an analysis of best management practices and best stewardship prac-

tices prepared by McKinstry, Emily B. Schwartz, and Curtis P. Wagner for the

Pennsylvania Biodiversity Partnership (PBP) and the Pennsylvania Depart-

ment of Conservation and Natural Resources (PDCNR), and is used with their

permission. The three analyses are identified on the PBP website at

www.pabiodiversity.org/publications.html, and, in the future, will be posted

on that website. The views expressed in these chapters are solely those of the

authors and should not be deemed to represent the views of either the PBP

or the PDCNR.