̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Tatsuya Amano

Political instability and weak governance lead to loss of species, study finds

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:00:21 +0000

A vast new study of changes in global wildlife over almost three decades has found that low levels of effective national governance are the strongest predictor of declining species numbers – more so than economic growth, climate change or even surges in human population.

̽��ֱ��findings, published in the journal Nature, also show that protected conservation areas do maintain wildlife diversity, but only when situated in countries that are reasonably stable politically with sturdy legal and social structures.

̽��ֱ��research used the fate of waterbird species since 1990 as a bellwether for broad biodiversity trends, as their wetland habitats are among the most diverse as well as the most endangered on Earth.

An international team of scientists and conservation experts led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge analysed over 2.4 million annual count records of 461 waterbird species across almost 26,000 different survey sites around the world.

̽��ֱ��researchers used this giant dataset to model localised species changes in nations and regions. Results were compared to the Worldwide Governance Indicators, which measure everything from violence rates and rule of law to political corruption, as well as data such as gross domestic product (GDP) and conservation performance.

̽��ֱ��team discovered that waterbird decline was greater in regions of the world where governance is, on average, less effective: such as Western and Central Asia, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

̽��ֱ��healthiest overall species quotas were seen in continental Europe, although even here the levels of key species were found to have nosedived.

This is the first time that effectiveness of national governance and levels of socio-political stability have been identified as the most significant global indicator of biodiversity and species loss.

“Although the global coverage of protected areas continues to increase, our findings suggest that ineffective governance could undermine the benefits of these biodiversity conservation efforts,” says Cambridge’s Dr Tatsuya Amano, who led the study at the ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Zoology and Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

“We now know that governance and political stability is a vital consideration when developing future environmental policies and practices.”

For the latest study, Amano worked with Cambridge colleagues as well as researchers from the universities of Bath, UK, and Santa Clara, US, and conservation organisations Wetlands International and the National Audubon Society.

̽��ֱ��lack of global-level data on changes to the natural world limits our understanding of the “biodiversity crisis”, say the study’s authors. However, they say there are advantages to focusing on waterbirds when trying to gauge these patterns.

Waterbirds are a diverse group of animals, from ducks and heron to flamingos and pelicans. Their wetland habitats cover some 1.3 billion hectares of the planet – from coast to freshwater and even highland – and provide crucial “ecosystem services”. Wetlands have also been degraded more than any other form of ecosystem.

In addition, waterbirds have a long history of population monitoring. ̽��ֱ��annual global census run by Wetlands International has involved more than 15,000 volunteers over the last 50 years, and the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas bird count dates back to 1900.

“Our study shows that waterbird monitoring can provide useful lessons about what we need to do to halt the loss of biodiversity,” said co-author Szabolcs Nagy, Coordinator of the African-Eurasian Waterbird Census at Wetlands International.

Compared to all the “anthropogenic impacts” tested by the researchers, national governance was the most significant. ”Ineffective governance is often associated with lack of environmental enforcement and investment, leading to habitat loss,” says Amano.

̽��ֱ��study also uncovered a relationship between the speed of GDP growth and biodiversity: the faster GDP per capita was growing, the greater the decline in waterbird species.

Diversity on a localised level was worst affected on average in South America, with a 0.95% annual loss equating to a 21% decline across the region over 25 years. Amano was also surprised to find severe species loss across inland areas of western and central Asia.

̽��ֱ��researchers point out that poor water management and dam construction in parts of Asia and South America have caused wetlands to permanently dry out in counties such as Iran and Argentina – even in areas designated as protected.

Impotent hunting regulations can also explain species loss under ineffective governance. “Political instability can weaken legal enforcement, and consequently promote unsuitable, often illegal, killing even in protected areas,” says Amano.

In fact, the researchers found that protected conservation areas simply did not benefit biodiversity if they were located in nations with weak governance.

Recent Cambridge research involving Amano suggests that grassroots initiatives led by local and indigenous groups can be more effective than governments at protecting ecosystems – one possible conservation approach for regions suffering from political instability.

Reference
Amano, T et al. Successful conservation of global waterbird populations depends on effective governance. Nature; 20 December 2017; DOI: 10.1038/nature25139

Big data study of global biodiversity shows ineffective national governance is a better indicator of species decline than any other measure of “anthropogenic impact”. Even protected conservation areas make little difference in countries that struggle with socio-political stability.

We now know that governance and political stability is a vital consideration when developing future environmental policies and practices

Tatsuya Amano

Szabolcs Nagy, Wetlands International

Black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa), a waterbird with habitats ranging from the Russian far-east to Europe, Africa, and Australasia.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Languages still a major barrier to global science, new research finds

fpjl2 — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 19:04:57 +0000

English is now considered the common language, or 'lingua franca', of global science. All major scientific journals seemingly publish in English, despite the fact that their pages contain research from across the globe.

However, a new study suggests that over a third of new scientific reports are published in languages other than English, which can result in these findings being overlooked - contributing to biases in our understanding.

As well as the international community missing important science, language hinders new findings getting through to practitioners in the field say researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

They argue that whenever science is only published in one language, including solely in English, barriers to the transfer of knowledge are created.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge researchers call on scientific journals to publish basic summaries of a study's key findings in multiple languages, and universities and funding bodies to encourage translations as part of their 'outreach' evaluation criteria.

"While we recognise the importance of a lingua franca, and the contribution of English to science, the scientific community should not assume that all important information is published in English," says Dr Tatsuya Amano from Cambridge's Department of Zoology.

"Language barriers continue to impede the global compilation and application of scientific knowledge."

̽��ֱ��researchers point out an imbalance in knowledge transfer in countries where English is not the mother tongue: "much scientific knowledge that has originated there and elsewhere is available only in English and not in their local languages."

This is a particular problem in subjects where both local expertise and implementation is vital - such as environmental sciences.

As part of the study, published today in the journal PLOS Biology, those in charge of Spain's protected natural areas were surveyed. Over half the respondents identified language as an obstacle to using the latest science for habitat management.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge team also conducted a litmus test of language use in science. They surveyed the web platform Google Scholar - one of the largest public repositories of scientific documents - in a total of 16 languages for studies relating to biodiversity conservation published during a single year, 2014.

Of the over 75,000 documents, including journal articles, books and theses, some 35.6% were not in English. Of these, the majority was in Spanish (12.6%) or Portuguese (10.3%). Simplified Chinese made up 6%, and 3% were in French.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found thousands of newly published conservation science documents in other languages, including several hundred each in Italian, German, Japanese, Korean and Swedish.

Random sampling showed that, on average, only around half of non-English documents also included titles or abstracts in English. This means that around 13,000 documents on conservation science published in 2014 are unsearchable using English keywords.

This can result in sweeps of current scientific knowledge - known as 'systematic reviews' - being biased towards evidence published in English, say the researchers. This, in turn, may lead to over-representation of results considered positive or 'statistically significant', and these are more likely to appear in English language journals deemed 'high-impact'.

In addition, information on areas specific to countries where English is not the mother tongue can be overlooked when searching only in English.

For environmental science, this means important knowledge relating to local species, habitats and ecosystems - but also applies to diseases and medical sciences. For example, documents reporting the infection of pigs with avian flu in China initially went unnoticed by international communities, including the WHO and the UN, due to publication in Chinese-language journals.

"Scientific knowledge generated in the field by non-native English speakers is inevitably under-represented, particularly in the dominant English-language academic journals. This potentially renders local and indigenous knowledge unavailable in English," says lead author Amano.

" ̽��ֱ��real problem of language barriers in science is that few people have tried to solve it. Native English speakers tend to assume that all the important information is available in English. But this is not true, as we show in our study.

"On the other hand, non-native English speakers, like myself, tend to think carrying out research in English is the first priority, often ending up ignoring non-English science and its communication.

"I believe the scientific community needs to start seriously tackling this issue."

Amano and colleagues say that, when conducting systematic reviews or developing databases at a global scale, speakers of a wide range of languages should be included in the discussion: "at least Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and French, which, in theory, cover the vast majority of non-English scientific documents."

̽��ֱ��website conservationevidence.com, a repository for conservation science developed at Cambridge by some of the authors, has also established an international panel to extract the best non-English language papers, including Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese.

"Journals, funders, authors and institutions should be encouraged to supply translations of a summary of a scientific publication - regardless of the language it is originally published in," says Amano. ̽��ֱ��authors of the new study have provided a summary in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and French as well as Japanese.

"While outreach activities have recently been advocated in science, it is rare for such activities to involve communication across language barriers."

̽��ֱ��researchers suggest efforts to translate should be evaluated in a similar way to other outreach activities such as public engagement, particularly if the science covers issues at a global scale or regions where English is not the mother tongue.

Adds Amano: "We should see this as an opportunity as well as a challenge. Overcoming language barriers can help us achieve less biased knowledge and enhance the application of science globally."

Over a third of new conservation science documents published annually are in non-English languages, despite assumption of English as scientific ‘lingua franca’. Researchers find examples of important science missed at international level, and practitioners struggling to access new knowledge, as a result of language barriers.

Language barriers continue to impede the global compilation and application of scientific knowledge

Tatsuya Amano

Quinn Dombrowski

Atypical welcome

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-ShareAlike

Economic success drives language extinction

fpjl2 — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 09:26:39 +0000

New research shows economic growth to be main driver of language extinction and reveals global ‘hotspots’ where languages are most under threat.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors urge for “immediate attention” to be paid to hotspots in the most developed countries – such as north Australia and the north-western corners of the US and Canada – where conservation efforts should be focused.

They also point to areas of the tropics and Himalayan regions that are undergoing rapid economic growth as future hotspots for language extinction, such as Brazil and Nepal.

̽��ֱ��study is published today in the journal Proceedings of Royal Society B.

̽��ֱ��researchers used the criteria for defining endangered species to measure rate and prevalence of language loss, as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

̽��ֱ��three main risk components are: small population size (small number of speakers), small geographical habitat range and population change – in this case, the decline in speaker numbers.

By interrogating huge language datasets using these conservation mechanisms, the researchers found that levels of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita correlated with the loss of language diversity: the more successful economically, the more rapidly language diversity was disappearing.

“As economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation’s political and educational spheres. People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold – economically and politically,” said Dr Tatsuya Amano, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology.

“Of course everyone has the right to choose the language they speak, but preserving dying language is important to maintaining human cultural diversity in an increasingly globalised world.”

In the northwest corner of North America, the languages of the indigenous people are disappearing at an alarming rate. Upper Tanana, for example, a language spoken by indigenous Athabaskan people in eastern Alaska, had only 24 active speakers as of 2009, and was no longer being acquired by children. ̽��ֱ��Wichita language of the Plains Indians, now based in Oklahoma, had just one fluent speaker as of 2008.

In Australia, aboriginal languages such as the recently extinct Margu and almost extinct Rembarunga are increasingly disappearing from the peninsulas of the Northern Territories.

As the researchers point out, “languages are now rapidly being lost at a rate of extinction exceeding the well-known catastrophic loss of biodiversity”. Major international organisations such as the United Nations and Worldwide Fund for Nature are now actively engaged in the conservation of linguistic diversity.

Amano says the global meta-analysis produced by the team using the species criteria is designed to complement the more specific, localised examples featured in many linguistic and anthropological research.

Unlike species extinction, however, language diversity has a potentially saving grace – bilingualism. Previous research from Cambridge’s Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics has shown that children who speak more than one language have multiple advantages in education, cognition and social interaction.

“As economies develop, there is increasing advantage in learning international languages such as English, but people can still speak their historically traditional languages. Encouraging those bilingualisms will be critical to preserving linguistic diversity,” added Amano.

Thriving economies are the biggest factor in the disappearance of minority languages and conservation should focus on the most developed countries where languages are vanishing the fastest, finds a new study.

People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold

Tatsuya Amano

Vanishing Voices film, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Himalayan Shaman

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

Yes