SUBJECT: Biodiversity conservation and eco-regions.
AUTHOR: Kajetan Perzanowski
DATE: 4th April 2003

KEYWORDS: Biodiversity maintenance, biological organisation, biological resources, eco-regions.

SUMMARY: Since the maintenance of biodiversity through protection of selected components of the biosphere is not effective, I suggest an introduction of eco-regions as basic units for biodiversity conservation.


It has been already said in earlier contributions (Jari Niemela, Martin Sharman) "biodiversity encompasses all level of biological organisation, biodiversity equals ‘nature’, aspects important for evolution and maintaining life sustaining systems..." which implies that maintenance of biodiversity requires protection of all aspects of life within the planet.

In practical terms, this means that protection of selected "bits to conserve" (again Martin Sharman), though not harmful, does not make much sense, since our criteria on what is important and what is not are changing in time, and are obviously different for various countries, economic systems, cultures etc.

Therefore, if it is impossible to maintain the entire biological diversity, and to prioritise among organisational elements of the biosphere (again Jari Niemela), the only reasonable solution seems to conserve biodiversity within functional units that encompass all levels of biological organisation from genes to the landscape, and include all biological resources at regional level.

Here comes the concept of an eco-region, as a unit being functionally homogenous in ecological sense, where all levels of biological organisation are represented. Considering inevitable changes resulting form the evolution of the living world, protection of an ecoregion as a whole, would allow maintaining not only its structural components but also processes essential for sustainable functioning of this system.

The task for science would be then to identify and delineate the network of eco-regions in the scale of the planet and determine what is indispensable for securing their further existence.

A contribution by:

Kajetan Perzanowski
The Carpathian Branch ICE
Polish Academy of Sciences
Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland