Biome Awareness Disparity is BAD for tropical ecosystem conservation and restoration

Abstract

We introduce the concept of Biome Awareness Disparity (BAD)—defined as a failure to appreciate the significance of all biomes in conservation and restoration policy—and quantify disparities in (a) attention and interest, (b) action and (c) knowledge among biomes in tropical restoration science, practice and policy. By analysing 50,000 tweets from all Partner Institutions of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, and 45,000 tweets from the main science and environmental news media world‐wide, we found strong disparities in attention and interest relative to biome extent and diversity. Tweets largely focused on forests, whereas open biomes (such as grasslands, savannas and shrublands) received less attention in relation to their area. In contrast to these differences in attention, there were equivalent likes and retweets between forest versus open biomes, suggesting the disparities may not reflect the views of the general public. Through a literature review, we found that restoration experiments are disproportionately concentrated in rainforests, dry forests and mangroves. More than half of the studies conducted in open biomes reported tree planting as the main restoration action, suggesting inappropriate application of forest‐oriented techniques. Policy implications. We urge scientists, policymakers and land managers to recognise the value of open biomes for protecting biodiversity, securing ecosystem services, mitigating climate change and enhancing human livelihoods. Fixing Biome Awareness Disparity will increase the likelihood of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration successfully delivering its promises.

Nine actions to successfully restore tropical agroecosystems

“…(6) Increase study of additional biomes and regions Restoration of tropical agroecosystems has, to date, focussed mostly on specific biomes and geographic regions. For instance, with regard to biomes, Buisson et al [20] found that restoration studies in tropical and subtropical forests were more than seven times commoner than similar studies in grasslands and savannahs, and Silveira et al [56] found that leading restoration practitioners tweeted nearly ten times more about forest restoration than grassland and savannah restoration. With regard to geographic regions, global assessments of tropical restoration activity indicate that studies in the Americas and Asia are about 2.5-4.3 times commoner than those in Africa [7,10].…”

“…Further, we must broaden our focus of study, as successful restoration approaches are rarely one size fits all, and therefore, successful restoration practices may not be applicable in other areas. For example, although it is beneficial in a degraded forest context [54], it is now well known that planting trees in open ecosystems can threaten native grass and shrub species [20,56]. It is likely that successful restoration initiatives in tropical Africa (Figure 1 and Box 1) will need to place more emphasis on providing direct economic benefits to farmers and local communities, owing to lower incomes in the Afrotropics relative to other tropical regions [32] and greater regional activity of smallholder, rather than industrial, farming [59].…”

SAD but True: Species Awareness Disparity in Bees Is a Result of Bee-Less Biology Lessons in Germany

“…Furthermore, as species identification is the basis for biodiversity conservation, it is important to counteract plant and species diversity blindness [42]. Following Parsley's arguments [32] as well as Silveira et al [43], we introduce the concept of 'Species Awareness Disparity' (SAD) for bees in order to describe a phenomenon which can be defined as the failure to appreciate the significance of wild bee species and the inability to distinguish between individual species of the Apidae family. Although speaking of 'blindness' is straightforward in typical situations where plants are not perceived in the presence of animals (e.g., the tree whose branch is used as a perch by a feeding bird), we opted against using 'blindness' in this context.…”

Flora and fire in an old-growth Central African forest-savanna mosaic: a checklist of the Parc National des Plateaux Batéké (Gabon)

“…Maps of worldwide forest restoration opportunities have misclassified this area (the entire Plateaux Batéké) as one that should be targeted for tree planting (IUCN 2011), fostering the assumption of savannas as places only for afforestation (Veldman et al 2015b(Veldman et al , 2015cFagan 2020), a result of "Biome Awareness Disparity" which favours forests over open habitats for restoration interventions (Silveira et al 2021). Those interested in the conservation of the old-growth savannas of the Plateaux Batéké should be wary of any intervention that only focuses on trees and avoids any fire management, as suppressing fire would result in the degradation of this old-growth savanna (Veldman et al 2015b(Veldman et al , 2015c and disregard traditional fire and land management practices.…”