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dc.contributor.authorAllan, James R
dc.contributor.authorKormos, Cyril
dc.contributor.authorJaeger, Tilman
dc.contributor.authorVenter, Oscar
dc.contributor.authorBertzky, Bastian
dc.contributor.authorShi, Yichuan
dc.contributor.authorMackey, Brendan
dc.contributor.authorvan Merm, Remco
dc.contributor.authorOsipova, Elena
dc.contributor.authorWatson, James EM
dc.date.accessioned2019-05-29T13:01:53Z
dc.date.available2019-05-29T13:01:53Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.identifier.issn0888-8892
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/cobi.12976
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/376070
dc.description.abstractWilderness areas are ecologically intact landscapes predominantly free of human uses, especially industrial‐scale activities that result in substantial biophysical disturbance. This definition does not exclude land and resource use by local communities who depend on such areas for subsistence and bio‐cultural connections. Wilderness areas are important for biodiversity conservation and sustain key ecological processes and ecosystem services that underpin planetary life‐support systems. Despite these widely recognized benefits and values of wilderness, they are insufficiently protected and are consequently being rapidly eroded. There are increasing calls for multilateral environmental agreements to make a greater and more systematic contribution to wilderness conservation before it is too late. We created a global map of remaining terrestrial wilderness following the established last‐of‐the‐wild method, which identifies the 10% of areas with the lowest human pressure within each of Earth's 62 biogeographic realms and identifies the 10 largest contiguous areas and all contiguous areas >10,000 km2. We used our map to assess wilderness coverage by the World Heritage Convention and to identify gaps in coverage. We then identified large nationally designated protected areas with good wilderness coverage within these gaps. One‐quarter of natural and mixed (i.e., sites of both natural and cultural value) World Heritage Sites (WHS) contained wilderness (total of 545,307 km2), which is approximately 1.8% of the world's wilderness extent. Many WHS had excellent wilderness coverage, for example, the Okavango Delta in Botswana (11,914 km2) and the Central Suriname Nature Reserve (16,029 km2). However, 22 (35%) of the world's terrestrial biorealms had no wilderness representation within WHS. We identified 840 protected areas of >500 km2 that were predominantly wilderness (>50% of their area) and represented 18 of the 22 missing biorealms. These areas offer a starting point for assessing the potential for the designation of new WHSs that could help increase wilderness representation on the World Heritage list. We urge the World Heritage Convention to ensure that the ecological integrity and outstanding universal value of existing WHS with wilderness values are preserved.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherWiley-Blackwell Publishing
dc.publisher.placeUnited States
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom116
dc.relation.ispartofpageto126
dc.relation.ispartofissue1
dc.relation.ispartofjournalConservation Biology
dc.relation.ispartofvolume32
dc.subject.fieldofresearchEnvironmental sciences
dc.subject.fieldofresearchOther environmental sciences not elsewhere classified
dc.subject.fieldofresearchBiological sciences
dc.subject.fieldofresearchAgricultural, veterinary and food sciences
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode41
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode419999
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode31
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode30
dc.titleGaps and opportunities for the World Heritage Convention to contribute to global wilderness conservation
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
gro.hasfulltextNo Full Text
gro.griffith.authorMackey, Brendan


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