CBSG Strategic Committee Info Packet - Conservation Breeding ...

CBSG Strategic Committee 

Info Packet 

October, November, December 

2012

$25,000 and above 

The CBSG Conservation Council 

These generous contributors make the work of CBSG possible 

Minnesota Zoological Garden 

-Office Sponsor 

Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo 

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment* 


Copenhagen Zoo* 

Saint Louis Zoo 

Toronto Zoo 

World Association of Zoos and 

Aquariums (WAZA) 

Zoological Society of London 


Chester Zoo* 

Chicago Zoological Society* 

Columbus Zoo & Aquarium - The 

WILDS 

Disney’s Animal Kingdom 

George Rabb* 


Dallas World Aquarium* 

Houston Zoo* 

Taronga Conservation Society Australia 

Zoo Leipzig* 


Al Ain Wildlife Park & Resort 

Auckland Zoological Park 

British and Irish Association of Zoos and 

Aquariums (BIAZA) 

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo 

Nordens Ark* 

Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, 

Hong Kong* 

Perth Zoo* 

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium 

Sedgwick County Zoo 

Smithsonian National Zoo 

Toledo Zoo 

Twycross Zoo* 

Zoo Zürich* 


African Safari Wildlife Park & 

International Animal Exchange, Inc. 

Allwetterzoo Münster 

Alice Andrews 

Borås Djurpark* 

Bristol Zoo Gardens 

Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden 

Dickerson Park Zoo 

Dublin Zoo 

Gladys Porter Zoo 

Japanese Association of Zoos & 

Aquariums (JAZA) 

Laurie Bingaman Lackey 

Linda Malek 

Marwell Wildlife 

Milwaukee County Zoo 

North Carolina Zoological Park 

Oregon Zoo 

Paignton Zoo 

Parco Natura Viva – Garda Zoological 

Park 

Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp 

San Francisco Zoo 

Schönbrunner Tiergarten – Zoo Vienna 

Swedish Association of Zoological Parks 

& Aquaria (SAZA) 

Union of German Zoo Directors (VDZ) 

Utah’s Hogle Zoo 

Wassenaar Wildlife Breeding Centre 

Wilhelma Zoo 

Zoo Frankfurt 

Zoologischer Garten Köln 

Zoologischer Garten Rostock 


Aalborg Zoo 

Akron Zoological Park 

Audubon Zoo 

Anne Baker & Robert Lacy 

Central Zoo Authority, India 

Colchester Zoo 

Dallas Zoo 

Detroit Zoological Society 

Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo 

Fota Wildlife Park 

Fundación Parques Reunidos 

Givskud Zoo 

Kansas City Zoo 

Los Angeles Zoo 

Palm Beach Zoo at Dreher Park 

Prudence P. Perry 

Philadelphia Zoo 

Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey 

Rotterdam Zoo 

Royal Zoological Society of Scotland – 

Edinburgh Zoo 

San Antonio Zoo 

Seoul Zoo 

Skansen-Akvariet 

Taipei Zoo 

The Living Desert 

Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens 

Woodland Park Zoo 

Zoo & Aquarium Association 

Zoological Society of Wales – Welsh 

Mountain Zoo 

Zoos South Australia 

$500 and above 

Abilene Zoological Gardens 

Alice Springs Desert Park 

Apenheul Primate Park 

Ed Asper 

Banham Zoo 

Mark Barone 

Brandywine Zoo 

Cotswold Wildlife Park 

Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo 

GaiaPark – Kerkrade Zoo 

Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens 

Knuthenborg Safaripark 

Lisbon Zoo 

Little Rock Zoo 

Odense Zoo 

Ouwehands Dierenpark 

Katey & Mike Pelican 

Edward & Marie Plotka 

Racine Zoological Gardens 

Riverbanks Zoo & Garden 

Topeka Zoo 

Wellington Zoo 

Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium 

Zoo de la Palmyre 


African Safari – France 

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum 

Bramble Park Zoo 

Susie Byers & Family 

David Traylor Zoo of Emporia 

International Centre for Birds of Prey 

Lee Richardson Zoo 

Lincoln Park Zoo 

Mohawk Fine Papers 

Roger Williams Park Zoo 

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure 

Sacramento Zoo 

Safari de Peaugres 

Tautphaus Park Zoo 

Tokyo Zoological Park Society 

Touroparc – France 


Aquarium of the Bay 

Chahinkapa Zoo 

Darmstadt Zoo 

Lincoln Children’s Zoo 

Lion Country Safari 

Miami Metrozoo 

Steven J. Olson 

Jacqueline Vlietstra 

$50 and above 

Alameda Park Zoo 

Oglebay’s Good Zoo 

Parker Byers Schwarzkopf 

Stiftung Foundation for Tropical Nature 

& Species Conservation 

$10 and above 

Travis Livieri 

*Denotes Chair sponsor 

Thank you for your support! 

31 December 2012


Information Packet 


2012 

Table of Contents 

CBSG Schedule 4 

CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting Notes 6 

CBSG Advisory Committee Meeting Notes 22 

CBSG Workshops 27 

Amphibian News 52 

Climate Change 70 

Other Correspondence & Articles of Interest 133 

3

Updated 7 January 2013 

This schedule changes frequently; contact the CBSG office for further details. 

Travel Dates Meeting Description Location CBSG Staff 

8-11 

JANUARY 2013 

Vortex Modelling Course Chicago, IL, USA Holzer, Lacy 

Freshwater biodiversity Conservation Teaching 

Workshop 

CBE, India Daniel, Marimuthu 

FEBRUARY 2013 

MARCH 2013 

1-3 Regional Networks Meeting Apple Valley, MN, USA All Available Staff 

8-10 Prairie Butterfly Conservation Meeting Apple Valley, MN, USA Miller 

17-22 Great Ape Heart Project Atlanta, Georgia, USA Byers 

25-31 26-29 Brown Howler Monkey PVA Iguazu, VENEZUELA Desbiez, Miller 

APRIL 2013 

15 CBSG Strategic Committee Mid Year Meeting Gland, SWITZERLAND Byers 

16 ISIS Board Meeting Gland, SWITZERLAND Byers 

Mid-April WAZA CPM Mid Year Meeting Charleston, SC, USA Holzer 

Mid-April AZA SPMAG Mid Year Meeting Charleston, SC, USA Holzer 

22-26 Sonoran Pronghorn PVA Tucson, AZ, USA Miller 

MAY 2013 

3-5 WAZA Conservation Committee Meeting Houston, TX, USA Byers 

9-11 ISIS Board Retreat San Diego, CA, USA Byers 

Auckland Zoo Strategic Planning Workshop Auckland, NZ Byers 

Kutai National Park Workshop INDONESIA 

JUNE 2013 

24-29 Sonoran Pronghorn PHVA Tucson, AZ, USA Miller 

JULY 2013 

8-12 ZACC Conference Des Moines, IA, USA 

AUGUST 2013 

19-21 Wild Aruba II Workshop ARUBA Byers 

SEPTEMBER 2013 

14-18 PASA Great Ape Reintroduction Workshop ? Byers, Miller 

OCTOBER 2013 

10 CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting Orlando, FL, USA All available staff 

10-13 CBSG Annual Meeting Orlando, FL, USA All available staff 

Conservation Breeding Specialist Group/Species Survival Commission/IUCN-The International Union for Conservation of Nature 

12101 Johnny Cake Ridge Road, Apple Valley, MN 55124-8151 USA 

Phone: 1.952.997.9800 Fax: 1.952.997.9803 email: office@cbsg.org web: www.cbsg.org 

4

CBSG Schedule updated 7 January 2013 Page 2 

13-17 WAZA Annual Conference Orlando, FL, USA Byers 

18-19 ISIS Board Meeting Orlando, FL, USA Byers 

Last half 

Oct/early Nov 

China Wildlife Disease Control Center Strategic 

Planning Workshop 

NOVEMBER 2013 

DECEMBER 2013 

CHINA Holzer 

Dates Meetings in Planning Location CBSG Staff 

2013 Studbook/population mgmt mentoring INDONESIA Holzer 

Early 2013 Javan Rhino PHVA INDONESIA Miller, ? 

2013 Red Panda PHVA - India INDIA (New Delhi or Darjeeling) Molur, Leus 

2013 Jabiru PHVA Heredia, COSTA RICA Matamoros, Rodríguez 

2013 Humpback Whale PHVA 

Osa Peninsula, San José, 

COSTA RICA 

Matamoros, Rodríguez 

7-9 Nov 2014 CBSG Annual Meeting New Delhi, INDIA All available staff 

Main Office 

Chair: Onnie Byers 

Senior Program Officers: 

Phil Miller & 

Kathy Traylor-Holzer 

Program Officer: Caroline Lees 

Finance Officer/Executive 

Assistant: Elizabeth Townsend 

Communications and Technology 

Administrator: Emily Wick 

CBSG Australasia 

Convenors: Caroline Lees & 

Richard Jakob-Hoff 

Jonathan Wilcken 

Craig Pritchard 

Rebecca Spindler 

Kevin Johnson 

Maggie Jakob-Hoff 

CBSG Brasil 

Convenor: Arnaud Desbiez 

Katia Ferraz 

Fabiana Lopes Rocha 

CBSG Europe 

Convenor: Bengt Holst 

Kristin Leus 

Frands Carlsen 

Duncan Bolton 

CBSG Indonesia 

Convenor: Jansen Manansang 

Entang Iskandar 

CBSG Staff 

5 

Noviar Andayani 

Ligaya Tumbelaka 

CBSG Japan 

Advisor: Hiroshi Hori 

Shinichi Hayama 

Etsuo Narushima 

Kazuaki Nippashi 

Kanako Tomisawa 

Kumiko Yoneda 

CBSG Mesoamerica 

Convenor: Yolanda Matamoros 

Randall Arguedas 

Jorge Rodríguez 

Gustavo Gutiérrez 

CBSG México 

Convenor: Luis Carrillo 

Juan Cornejo 

CBSG South Asia 

Convenors: Sally Walker & 

Sanjay Molur 

B.A. Daniel 

R. Marimuthu 

S. Manju 

CBSG Southern Africa 

Convenor: Mike Jordan 

Brenda Daly 

Kerryn Morrison




2012 


Meeting Notes 

6 

CBSG Strategic Committee Mtg Notes

2012 CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting 

Melbourne, Australia 

4 October 2012 

SC Members: Brad Andrews, Paul Boyle, Mark Craig, Gerald Dick, Lesley Dickie, Suzanne Gendron, Jo 

Gipps, Heribert Hofer, Bengt Holst, Bob Lacy, Caroline Lees, Lena Linden, Dave Morgan, Paul Pearce 

Kelly, Ivan Rehak, Sally Walker 

Observers: Amitabh Agnihorti, Kazutoshi Arai, Anne Baker, Rick Barongi, BS Bonal, Onnie Byers, 

Frands Carlsen, John Fa, Jorg Junhold, Kristin Leus, Phil Miller, Chelle Plasse, Kanako Tomisawa, 

Yasumasa Tomita, Elizabeth Townsend, Kathy Traylor Holzer, Doug Verduzco, Emily Wick 

I. Welcome & Introductions 

Onnie opened the meeting with participant introductions and thanks to the CBSG Strategic 

Committee members for their tremendous support for CBSG; to the CBSG Regional Networks 

for everything they do for CBSG; and to the CBSG core donors and Chair sponsors for their 

support. 

II. SSC Activities 

Onnie then spoke about SSC activities, of which there have been many this year. The SSC 

Specialist Group Chairs meeting was held earlier in the year, and more recently the World 

Conservation Congress (WCC) was held in Jeju, Korea. CBSG played an important role at both 

meetings. 

The WCC is held every 4 years and is one of the largest, most important global conservation 

congresses in the world. About 8,000 people were there, and the agenda was packed. There were 

many CBSG members at the WCC, and a group photo was taken, though not all CBSG members 

at the WCC were able to make it for the photo. 

7 


At the SSC Members meeting on the day before the start of the WCC, Jane Smart, Director of 

the Global Species Program, spoke about the Strategic Plan and put it in the context of the Aichi 

Biodiversity Targets. The IUCN, and in turn the SSC, has mapped their work to achieving these 

targets. A copy of the SSC/Global Species Program Strategic Plan was included in the briefing 

materials for this CBSG Strategic Committee meeting, with some of the targets highlighted. A 

portion of the Strategic Committee meeting agenda will be dedicated to discussing CBSG’s role 

in contributing to the achievement of these targets. Onnie clarified that the highlighting did not 

necessarily mean that these targets had been contributed to the Strategic Plan by CBSG, but had 

simply been highlighted to show which targets CBSG could play a part in achieving. 

This was the first time that CBSG has contributed specific targets to the SSC Strategic Plan. 

Among several others, there is a target of a minimum of 10 One Plan Approach workshops 

completed in next 4 years. This is a very positive development and we are pleased that the SSC 

recognizes the One Plan Approach and the importance of bringing communities together across 

the spectrum of management from, captive to wild, to work on conservation issues. 

Onnie led a workshop on the One Plan Approach during the WCC. Christophe Schwitzer from 

Bristol Zoo gave an introduction to the One Plan Approach, and Caroline Lees and Andy 

Sharman had prepared a video about the benefits of applying a One Plan Approach to their 

Tasmanian devil project (a portion of the video was shown during the CBSG Strategic 

Committee meeting). The video was well received at the workshop, and people were very excited 

by the virtual technology used. 

Lesley noted that, when talking to people at the meeting, she felt there was a better sense of zoos 

being seen as conservation groups, and felt that there is an interest from the zoo community for 

the One Plan Approach and making connections. It was noted that there seemed to be a good zoo 

presence at the WCC, but could be increased. 

Gerald Dick spoke about some of the WAZA events at the WCC, summaries of which will be 

published in the next WAZA News. Lena Linden noted that the amphibian motion had been 

passed without any problems. Several people who had been at the WCC talked about how it had 

been a great occasion to make connections and discuss new ideas. 

Bob mentioned that he had spoken to George Rabb, who wanted to pass along his thanks to 

many of the people in the room for their contributions at the WCC and, in particular, their 

support in getting in getting passed the okapi motion which urges the government of the 

Democratic Republic of Congo to apprehend and prosecute the people who attacked and looted 

the okapi reserve there. 

Other motions passed during the WCC include the Aichi Target 12 motion, sponsored by a 

number of zoos, WAZA, and EAZA, which is very relevant to CBSG. Aichi Target 12 reads: 

By 2020, the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their 

conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained. 

8 


Among other things, this motion calls on countries to support preparation of national Red Lists. 

Onnie feels there is a role for CBSG to play in achieving this motion through national Red List 

training and assessments. 

You can find other motions from the WCC here: 

http://www.iucnworldconservationcongress.org/member_s_assembly/agenda_and_documents/ 

There was some concern expressed over the fact that the climate change motion made at the 

WCC did not go through on technical grounds, and that an opportunity to raise awareness about 

climate change had been missed. Several people who had been at the Congress suggested that 

important conversations about climate change had gone on none-the-less. Lesley felt there had 

been a lot of discussion about climate change at the WCC, and contacts made with the Climate 

Change Specialist Group, who seem very enthusiastic to work with zoos on climate change. 

Onnie said that there had been some amazing presentations about climate change and that, in her 

view, we should focus on how we will respond to new climate change information as we get it. 

Also at the WCC, it was formally announced that Bob Lacy was the recipient of the George 

Rabb Award for Innovation in Conservation. George Rabb himself received an award in 

recognition of his work for the IUCN and SSC. 

Since the WCC had such a packed agenda, it was suggested that, for the next Congress in 4 

years, we try to coordinate CBSG members in attendance to hit all talks relevant to CBSG. 

ACTION: Coordinate and strategize with CBSG members for the next World 

Conservation Congress 

There followed a brief discussion asking how zoos could support Specialist Groups. Lesley noted 

that she feels it’s important to clarify that support does not necessarily mean financial support; 

there should also be a partnership. Onnie said that there would be an exercise the following day 

during the Annual Meeting for discussion of this topic. 

III. Updates 

Onnie then moved to brief updates and progress on other CBSG activities since the last Strategic 

Committee meeting. She noted that, part of the reason for these updates is to make sure the 

CBSG Strategic Committee has a good sense of what CBSG has been up to so that everyone can 

better serve as CBSG ambassadors. 

Raising CBSG’s Profile 

Each donor receives a copy of power point slides highlighting the success stories in the most 

recent CBSG annual report. These slides have the CBSG logo and a place for the donor 

institution to insert their logo. These slides can be used by the donor institution in presentations 

to their boards, members, and communities, about their conservation efforts and their work with 

CBSG. We have already gotten a new donor because of the slides, and interest from others. The 

Strategic Committee members are also sent the slides and, as ambassadors for CBSG, we 

encourage you to use them. 

9 


CBSG has had a presence at all of the SSC meetings held this year. Also, we have been working 

to integrate across the SSC, and this has included inviting every SSC member in the region to 

come to this year’s annual meeting. We had a small but enthusiastic response this year, and will 

continue this effort in future years. 

Emily Wick was hired this year as a Communications Officer, and she handles communications 

with CBSG members. We have tried to send out any of our updates in the 3 IUCN languages: 

English, Spanish, and French. Emily has also increased CBSG’s presence on social media. 

Emily gave a brief announcement about CBSG membership communication. We are currently 

using the ISIS portal for a member database and members’ site. With the new quadrennium, we 

plan to move to a different, more intuitive system. A small group of CBSG members served on a 

volunteer task force to test out several on-line tools and they concluded that LinkedIn will best 

meet our needs. Over half of the CBSG network is already on LinkedIn. We plan to roll out our 

new “members site” when we send out member invites for the new quadrennium. 

We will continue to work to increase our profile. Phil and Emily are working on a new CBSG 

website to be completed mid-2013, we plan to have 5 CBSG manuscripts in preparation by the 

end of this year, and Phil will draft a proposal for a CBSG paper or session at the 2013 SCB 

meeting. 

Increasing Productivity 

We have conducted 13 workshops and several training courses so far this year and, and are 

always trying to do more and to do them better. 

We performed an Annual Meeting analysis and found that 89% of working groups have 

catalyzed some sort of positive action. Some of these actions, such as the Amphibian Ark, virtual 

tools, and the One Plan Approach, have become major programs. At this Annual Meeting, we 

will talk about structured decision making, AZE work, conservation welfare, and many other 

important topics that we hope will lead to new initiatives. 

We have been trying to have quarterly CBSG Regional Network meetings. This has been 

challenging as our Regional Networks are spread all over the world, and finding a convenient 

time for the calls can be difficult. We are planning a face-to-face meeting in the CBSG offices in 

Minnesota on 1-3 March 2013. 

Caroline Lees has been hired as a part-time program officer though, in reality, she has given 

CBSG far more of her time than this! 

Enhancing Our Capacity for Innovation 

As part of our efforts to increase CBSG’s capacity for innovation, Bob Lacy was named Senior 

Science Advisor. 

At the last CBSG Strategic Committee meeting, we introduced our Next Big Idea element. The 

goal is to have everyone come to this meeting prepared to share what interesting and innovative 

10 


things we are all doing/have heard about and to generate new and bold ideas. These ideas can 

sound crazy and big; they may or may not be CBSG related; but we would like to have an 

element of this meeting be about brainstorming and imagining. Together we have the capacity to 

make things happen. 

IV. CBSG Advisory Committee 

The role of the CBSG Advisory Committee is to give external input to Onnie on any issues she 

needs help with or needs to discuss. The committee provides advice and is informative and 

helpful but is not a decision making committee. The Advisory Committee, which meets 3-4 

times a year, is made up of Jo Gipps, Bengt Holst, Heribert Hofer, Jon Ballou, Frances Westley, 

Jeffrey Bonner, Jonathan Wilcken, Mark Stanley Price, and Phil McGowan. Jo, as Chair of the 

Committee, gave a quick update on their activities. Among other things this year, the Advisory 

Committee has discussed the structure of the CBSG Annual Meetings and CBSG Task Forces 

(updates on the Task Forces are given below). 

V. Global Conservation Network (GCN) 

Jo Gipps is also the Chair of the Global Conservation Network, the Board responsible for 

financial oversight of CBSG. There are 10 members on the GCN Board, who also meet 3-4 times 

per year to go over budgets for the Amphibian Ark and CBSG. The GCN Board has been 

fundraising for the CBSG Chair position. We currently have good commitments from a number 

of donors for the next 5 years, but are always looking for new support (both Chair and core) and 

for Chair support beyond those 5 years. 

VI. CBSG Task Forces 

Onnie then moved to updates on the activities of the CBSG Task Forces (formed at last year’s 

Annual Meeting in Prague). 

Corporate Partnership Policy Task Force – Onnie Byers 

This Task Force was formed in response to the possibility of Rio Tinto, a large mining company, 

becoming a CBSG donor. The Task Force drafted a corporate partnership policy for CBSG. 

Phil Miller noted that he is currently in talks with a US based mining and power company about 

CBSG being part of an environmental impact assessment required by the US Fish and Wildlife 

Service. The company would like to use CBSG risk assessment tools to assess the environmental 

impact of one of their coal power plants on the reproduction of the federally endangered 

Colorado pike minnow. This could be a great opportunity for CBSG to showcase its neutral 

facilitation skills and to work together with corporations, government agencies and conservation 

organizations. 

A concern was raised as to whether or not the corporate partnership policy encompasses this kind 

of project partnership with a corporation, or whether it is just a policy about donors. The wording 

of the corporate partnership policy (which had been included in the briefing materials for the 

meeting) seems to only give guidance about donors, and not about project money. A concern was 

11 


aised about confidentiality issues that could arise from such a contract. It was decided that the 

Task Force and the GCN Board, potentially with the support of some pro bono legal advice, 

should review the policy. 

ACTION: The Task Force and the GCN Board, potentially with pro bono legal advice, to 

review the corporate partnership policy 

Structured Decision Making Task Force – Phil Miller 

The goal of the Structured Decision Making Task Force (currently comprised of Phil Miller and 

Caroline Lees) is to help others make conservation decisions with different frames of reference. 

The task force is looking at decision making tools and how they can be incorporated into the 

CBSG processes. 

Over the last several months, Phil has attended a structured decision making course at the 

National Conservation Training Center, where courses are held for US Government employees. 

Caroline has attended a similar course and they will use information from this meeting to 

evaluate some of the processes for use in CBSG tools. They are also working with a structured 

decision making program in Australasia, and a working group on the topic will be held at this 

Annual Meeting. There will be a micro-training session, and discussion on the feasibility of 

adding additional structured decisions making processes into a “version 2.0” of the current 

PHVA process. 

Branding Task Force – Brad Andrews 

Over the history of CBSG, there have been many conversations about marketing and branding. 

This task force came up with a draft CBSG Brand Blueprint, which was included in the briefing 

materials. Brad asked everyone to look at the blueprint and to ask themselves, how do I promote 

understanding of the CBSG “brand” and why do I choose to support CBSG? Anyone with 

thoughts or comments on the blueprint should contact a member of the Branding Task Force 

(Brad Andrews, Bengt Holst, James Cretney, Jonathan Wilcken, and Jo Gipps). 

Conservation Welfare Task Force – Sally Walker 

This task force has had good participation both from within and outside of CBSG. Recently there 

have been a lot of articles and reports about conservation welfare and conservation psychology, 

and interest in the subject is growing. A Conservation Welfare working group will meet during 

the Annual Meeting to review definitions of “conservation welfare”. The working group will also 

review a document about welfare and ethics that was written after the last WAZA Council 

Meeting. 

Suzanne Gendron suggested a book, The Value of Species by Edward L. McCord, about 

conservation psychology and how/why humans value animals. Onnie noted that one of SSC 

Strategic Plan items is about conservation psychology. 

VII. CBSG’s Contributions to CBSG’s Mission, the IUCN SSC/Global Species Program 

Strategic Plan and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets 

12 


The following presentations were about various CBSG initiatives and how these are working 

towards addressing CBSG’s mission map, the SSC Strategic Plan, and the Aichi Biodiversity 

Targets. (As noted above, a copy of the SSC Strategic Plan was included in the briefing 

materials, and targets that CBSG can pay a role in achieving had been highlighted.) 

Metamodeling in Action – Bob Lacy 

Bob was recently awarded 5 years of funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to 

support a Metamodel Research Cooperation Network. He and an international network of people 

will use these funds to work on case studies and tools, and to disseminate information about 

concepts and tools. Initially he had only asked for 3 years worth of funding, but NSF is so 

interested in the project that they told him to ask for 5 years. 

Vortex 10 is almost done, and Metamodel Manager should hopefully be out soon. A new 

Outbreak has been developed and launched, which links to other tools like RAMAS. There is 

still a need to link it to climate change projections, however, and Phil and Bob will attend a 

meeting in Adelaide after the Annual Meeting to work on this. They are also looking at ways to 

make development of tools more of an open process. 

Metamodels have been used on a number of projects already, including yellow shouldered 

blackbirds/shiny cowbirds in Puerto Rico as part of the Invasives Causing Extinction program, 

funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. Metamodels were used in this instance 

to examine the impact of the invasive cowbird on the endangered blackbird and to test “what-if” 

scenarios. Information from these models will be used to examine how to manage threats from 

invasive species and to set recovery targets. 

Overall, however, we still need more workshops to test metamodeling and must continue to put 

significant resources into development and testing. We need to continue with software 

development, metamodel manager development and trainings, and work on publications. We 

would also like to create a website to disseminate metamodeling tools. We may also need to 

enhance the current PHVA model with something that better suits the One Plan approach. 

Intensive Management of Populations – Kathy Traylor-Holzer 

CBSG’s contributions to promoting species conservation through Intensively Managed 

Populations: 

• Integrated management—Our challenge is to design/implement a new plan to fulfill the 

conservation role for ex situ management. CBSG (led by Kristin Leus, Phil McGowan 

and Kathy Traylor-Holzer) is contributing to the revision of the IUCN Guidelines on the 

Use of Ex Situ Management for Species Conservation that outline why and when ex situ 

management should be used for conservation of a species. Comments from the SSC, 

NGOs, and stakeholders will be incorporated to create a final document to go to the SSC 

Steering Committee for approval. 

• New management tools with increased capabilities for ex situ planning—Vortex has new 

capability to model management of captive populations and PMX—replacing PM2000— 

allows management of other factors—multiple parents, maintenance strategy—more 

13 


capacity to model for ex situ populations. CBSG’s role is to help oversee the 

development and maintenance of the manual for this software. 

• Studbook Management Training—Completed awareness building/trainings in South East 

Asia and East Asia—talked about vulnerability of wild populations, ex situ management 

so that forestry departments heard about the importance of ex situ conservation efforts (in 

the context of the One Plan Approach), and trained 17 studbook keepers. In Japan, 

conducted advanced training in PMX and passed on expertise to add to studbook training 

that they already do. Completed 2 Vortex training courses in Mexico and Copenhagen. 

• GSMPs—Once we have tools to model populations, we need to lay out a plan. CBSG has 

helped create global species management plans (GSMP) that have strong in situ 

components as well as ex situ. Not just connecting zoos and zoo associations, but looking 

at how zoos can contribute to in situ species conservation, and not just through money but 

with expertise and resources. This process is now serving as a template for future 

development of GSMPs in collaboration with WAZA and the regional zoo associations. 

For this to be truly successful in terms of species conservation, it needs to evolve as an 

integral component of a One Plan Approach to species conservation planning. 

• OPA—Once we have a well-made plan, we must integrate the use of the One Plan 

Approach. One example is with Red Pandas--didn’t take place all at one meeting but is 

constantly being integrated into different steps of the process. CBSG South Asia and 

Europe were both highly involved in Red Panda PHVAs. Future planned in 2013 in India. 

Working to cover the entire range of the species. Other examples of integrated planning: 

Mesoamerican River Turtle PHVA and Eastern Barred Bandicoot PHVA. 

Mission Map: Assistance on GSMP and collaboration with regional networks/other specialist 

groups to development of tools and management strategies and new ways to do species planning. 

Works toward achievement of Target 12 and specific targets highlighted in yellow on the SSC 

Strategic Plan. 

Onnie: So much has already been accomplished in support of the SSC Strategic Plan targets and 

the strategic plan doesn’t start until 2013! 

Bob: Yes, this shows we’re already doing much of what IUCN calls on us to do in the next four 

years. What are the priorities now? 

Kathy: Modeling tools have advanced a lot but for intensive management modeling tools, we 

need to do the work to make them more specific, to model wild populations and create detailed 

management strategies. We can get high biodiversity areas up and running the same as other 

regions and see integration of in situ and ex situ management there. 

Kristin: We’re good at working with zoo association intensive management but if we want OPA 

to work, we need to reach out more to the non-zoo ex situ realm. All of our tools rely on good 

data (ISIS) and how to connect and promote that world better. 

14 


Paul Pearce Kelly: Integrated species conservation planning necessitates all tools coming 

together—metamodeling, PHVAs, external factors. The question is how far off is this ideal 

integration? What is the reality of reaching this ideal integration? Can it be developed to the 

degree that we realistically see this integration realized? 

Kathy: We cleverly work with Vortex to succeed, but the complexity of metamodeling adds a 

challenge. More of a challenge is the whole continuum of integrated management. We’re really 

good at the ends but not so much at the middle stages of management. We need to make all of 

the “ends” meet in the workshop processes to get all people to connect. We’re not so far off in 

any of this. 

PHVA Plus – Phil Miller 

Need to evaluate the PHVA process for strengths/weaknesses. One weakness might be the fact 

that we invite stakeholders to the meetings but they may go away from the meeting without 

understanding what they need to do to minimize their impact on the species/habitat. No real 

strength in follow-up. 

CBSG is proposing a new type of “PHVA Plus process” in collaboration with the organization 

RARE. With RARE, we would merge CBSG’s quantitative risk assessment and RARE’s human 

behavioral change activities. RARE can help fill a current PHVA “weakness”—little long-term 

follow-up after the meetings—since RARE follows a project through to study the behavior 

change result. 

A potential case study for this collaboration is the Yellow-tailed woolly monkey in Peru. This 

would look at how unsustainable agriculture affects this primate and what type of behavioral 

changes need to be done to shift attitudes to stop degrading behavior and, in turn, save the 

species. 

This addresses the incorporation of human activities into Aichi Targets—secondary targets 

aimed at knowledge management and capacity building. Emphasis on the CBSG mission map: 

risk assessment focuses, inclusion of social element in our work, interaction with different types 

of conservation organizations, interdisciplinary integration. 

RARE goes through a process to determine specific threats and targets those people who are 

involved in those types of threatening activities. CBSG can then bring them into the discussion in 

a more effective way and also use their information as input to the models. Together we can 

come to understand upstream communications and attitudinal processes and use models to 

predict whether a change in human activities will impact the species. 

Gerald: RARE is very well known internationally for its work with local communities, like the 

rescue of St Lucia parrot—the species was about to go extinct and by working with local 

communities, RARE succeeded in turning the population around. 

Phil: We want to bring in various types of stakeholder organizations that are key to 

implementing conservation strategies on the ground. The modeling component may be the 

simplest part of this. May not need a more complex model—PVAs already do a really good job. 

15 


By making this linkage between organizations and processes, we can work with people on the 

ground in a more explicit way so that they can understand the consequences of their activities, 

we can identify how much an activity needs to change and how that change is possible given 

limits to shift in attitude and social factors, and how this change in behavior impacts the species. 

VIII. Enhancing CBSG’s contribution to the IUCN SSC/Global Species Program 

Strategic Plan--highlighted in Yellow (obvious CBSG contribution) and Green 

(possible opportunity for increased CBSG contribution) 

• By 2016, 50 certified IUCN Red List Category and Criteria trainers capable of 

assisting with the development of National Red Lists. CBSG’s CAMP process, which 

we have not been using as much in recent years as we did in the past, is broad based 

assessment of a group of species. The process included application of the Red List 

criteria but work that we were doing wasn’t getting into the Red List. IUCN started a 

global assessment process so we stopped conducting CAMP workshops because we 

thought we were duplicating efforts. IUCN is now focused on Regional Red Listing and 

the Aichi targets call on regions to develop conservation assessments. We aren’t assisting 

with this now but we certainly could be. Jon Paul Rodriguez, Chair of the SSC’s 

Regional Red Listing Committee, is interested in having CBSG help in that way. Onnie 

feels that, through our regional networks, we have a valuable role to play. Sanjay and 

Arnaud are Red List assessors and Jorge is in line for training. 

ACTION: one person from each regional network trained as a Red List assessor so 

we can bring our CAMP skills to this Red Listing process. Discuss at regional 

network meeting in Minneapolis. 

Bob: There has been discussion in the past few years about essentially the CAMP 2.0 

Software to assist with National Red Listing, has that gone anywhere? 

Onnie: No it hasn’t. I don’t know why but will look into this. 

Sally: There will be complications with trying to start this because IUCN has their way of 

doing things. We represent CBSG in South Asia and had the government approach us and 

had a terrible time putting it into place because the government wanted to change things 

and the result would be no good. We aren’t the only countries this happens in and I 

wonder if there is a way to confront this process? Maybe meeting with IUCN people 

would be helpful to work it out. 

• Integration of Red List information with relevant data from external sources, e.g. 

Catalogue of Life, Encyclopedia of Life, GBIF, FishBase, World Register of Marine 

Species, citizen science initiatives, etc (ongoing). Not all of CBSG can directly address 

this, but subsets of the CBSG community like ISIS can contribute. Partners can provide 

in-kind rather than financial contributions. The Red List program wants/needs links with 

groups that have relevant information. If we can establish relevance for the data that ISIS 

holds that might work as incentive for integration of ISIS with the Red List. 

16 


Paul PK: The value of that is huge. There is a massive wealth of data in the ISIS system 

and it’s mad if it’s not utilized. 

Onnie: Agreed. The same is true of CAMP data. The bulk of info we collected in the 

CAMP process is not shown in ISIS. Continue pushing for this with ISIS. 

• Conservation success stories written and disseminated. We need to ensure that some 

of these successes come from the ex situ/IMP community. We could create a place where 

we can collect those. Need to figure out how to put that back into motion to make sure we 

contribute to IUCN’s conservation success stories. One way to do this: contribute to 

Amazing Species website—3 CBSG members from different zoos have already 

contributed an Amazing Species to that website. 

Bob: Could we possibly put that together every time we do a workshop? 

Onnie: The species has to be on the Red List, may have to be critically endangered or 

endangered. 

ACTION: Look into criteria for an Amazing Species profile and determine how 

often to submit them. 

ACTION: Communicate about the criteria for “Success Story” so we can determine 

what our contribution is. 

• Red List branding visual identity expanded in zoos, aquaria, and botanic gardens 

(ongoing). CBSG uses Red List scale in our Annual Report and IUCN encourages all 

zoos to use it on signs for any listed species in their institution so the public recognizes 

that scale when they see it. CBSG continues to remind our members of the value of the 

use of the Red List scale as an education and public awareness tool. 

• Green List criteria for species conservation actions developed and ready for 

implementation (2016). Being developed to work parallel to the Red List to show 

conservation success: how things move up the Green List rather than just down the Red 

List. People involved are the first to say that it needs a lot of work. A paper written by 

Redford talks about how those categories on Green List will be defined. Don’t want to go 

without having communicated our thinking. If as a group we don’t support the use of the 

terminology of that paper we should make that known sooner rather than later. 

ACTION: Organize a small group to discuss and collate our contribution to the 

development of the Green List (lead: Caroline Lees) 

• At least three scientific papers published by 2016 demonstrating that without 

conservation measures, the status of species would be much worse than it currently 

is. 

17 


Bob: IUCN’s concern is that we put out word about what needs to be done but messages 

aren’t given to the public when the species is recovered. 3 papers to let people know that 

conservation really works seems very minimal. 

ACTION: At least three scientific papers from the CBSG community published by 

2016 demonstrating that without conservation measures, the status of species would 

be much worse than it currently is. 

*There are many targets in the Aichi Targets and the SSC Strategic Plan related to public 

education and communication that cry out for zoo community to assist with and provide 

guidance on. 

• Amphibians: A major increase in the funding available to support amphibian 

conservation and prevent amphibian extinctions by 2016, through the Amphibian 

Survival Alliance (ASA - including Amphibian Ark and the Amphibian Specialist 

Group); amphibian species no longer declining by 2016 as a result of in situ 

conservation (220 species) and ex situ conservation (150 species); at least 50 

institutions joined ASA by 2016. 

ASA is looking for money to implement amphibian conservation action plan. This is a 

multi-million dollar initiative but in order for ASA to be successful, they have to 

fundraise from major corporations and wealthy people. To do that, their 2 employees 

need to be able to maintain their positions. So there is an urgent need for an increase in 

core funding. 

• World Species Congress held in 2015 to draw together the species conservation 

community and to chart progress in the achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity 

Targets. Anyone who was in Jeju have an update? Lena: Nobody mentioned it in Korea. 

• Sustainability modelling working group active and providing insights and tools for 

understanding and modelling linked social, ecological and economic aspects of 

human-nature interactions (2014). Collaboration with RARE may be able to contribute 

to this target. 

ACTION: Find out if SSC already has a group addressing this goal. 

This is the SSC document that will guide activities for the next 4 years. If you see other areas in 

which CBSG, a subset of our community, or your own institution can contribute, please bring it 

to our attention. This is one avenue toward increasing our contribution to species conservation. 

IX. The Next BIG Idea 

Considering Human Populations in Species Conservation Planning – Bob Lacy 

Humans as direct numerical factor. Population growth is a reality we have to face but have been 

“ducking” in our conservation planning, but knew it needed to be addressed. We created a Portal 

page for ideas, discussions, documents, etc. 

18 


Result: CBSG can’t ignore this, but we’re not human population experts. We need to let human 

population growth change how we plan and model. Not pure numbers but also the economic and 

environmental behaviors of the human populations. This is situation/locality specific: some areas 

have a declining population, others have rapidly increasing pop. We need to have very 

geographically and temporally specific analysis. 

What action can we take now that we know we need to tackle this? 

• When we do conservation plan/risk assessments, we must always ask the question about 

the human population/activity in the area 

• When we build our causal chains, need to build them farther back until all the way back 

to what humans are doing. Need to build our threat assessments all the way back to 

people. To do that, we need to get some other experts in the room. We’re not the experts 

but there are experts out there even within IUCN and we need to find them/help them 

find us to help us build these analyses into our thinking. Also need to make contacts 

outside of the IUCN—other organizations, for example, negative population growth 

organization. 

Possible ways to tackle it: 

• Put it on every agenda 

• Address in a Working Group 

• Hire human demographers 

• Train ourselves in the free tools out there for doing human population modeling 

• Do a few case studies (ex. pheasants in the Himalayan region as Phil McGowan 

suggested because we have a lot of data) 

• Task force to continue with this emerging interest 

Comments: 

Need to be able to model both human abundance and human activity (Jo, Phil, Brad) 

How much should CBSG be involved in socio-economic analysis? (Paul PPK, John Fa) 

Onnie: A task force is a good idea to consider these things. Nobody is suggesting that CBSG 

branch out into the “school building” business but have to incorporate that reality into what we 

do. We’re not going to be the people on the ground doing that activity but do we have people 

willing to take this further and work with Phil and Amielle (RARE) in terms of CBSG’s input 

and model development work? 

ACTION: Establish CBSG Task Force on the Integration of Human Population in the 

PHVA Process - Phil Miller, Paul Pearce Kelly, John Fa, Sally Walker, Anne Baker, 

Suzanne Gendron 

Zero Tolerance Conservation – John Fa 

“Stuck Species” are species restricted to single sites and when climate change strikes they will 

have nowhere to go. AZE has come up with a list of highly threatened species in single sites. 

19 


If we want to achieve Aichi Target 12 of saving species, we need to get our act together. No 

matter how many prioritizations we do, they don’t take us anywhere. No zoo has put money into 

prioritization schemes. We as ex situ institutions can do the best for these AZE species. We have 

the resources to be able to support in situ and ex situ conservation for these species. The AZE list 

is a starting point and is a practical prioritization scheme to guide our conservation efforts. We 

should collaborate to create and implement specific and practical recovery plans for AZE trigger 

species that include cost and amount of time to recovery. If zoos don’t get together to protect 

these species on AZE list, we will get to 2020 and we’ll have another failure on our hands. 

Zoos and Conservation – Sally Walker 

CBSG is set up to link zoos to conservation. Only a small portion of the world’s zoos are 

conservation conscious. They all need to implement conservation. This is an idea so big 

conservation has been hiding from it. 9,000 zoos poorly impact biodiversity conservation and we 

can’t hide from it. People don’t realize the damage sub-standard zoos do to species. We need to 

introduce countries with poor zoos to zoo legislation. India got zoo legislation. CBSG members 

and other conservationists would be ideal for explaining zoo legislation to appropriate people. 

It’s not easy and every country is different. Not everyone can be convinced. 

We want people interested in legislation and who have expertise, and will have to depend on the 

chance that if people are doing ex situ projects they will go to their friends in government and tell 

them what is happening. Show good results and plant a seed. Keep up with the results and 

essentially put pressure on governments. 

Bengt: Should we encourage WAZA to take this on? 

Sally: WAZA has taken it on. I want more people. WAZA resolution = zoos helping zoos. So it 

is hard, expensive, time consuming. Not simple or easy but we can’t just let this go on. Good 

zoos are the same name as bad zoos. 

Rick: If CBSG is going to take on human population, WAZA can take on bad zoos. 

Robust Reality Checking – Paul Pearce-Kelly 

Everything we do needs to stand up to criticism and we cannot drift into false state of reality. We 

need to reality-check everything we do. 

X. Conservation Success Stories 

Suzanne Gendron: Beluga whales—Randy Reeves, Chair of the IUCN Cetacean Specialist 

Group, conducted a 5 year study on how to put together the best program and requirements for 

take from the wild. IUCN convened a working group to assess and validate the project and 

research. Evaluated as viable and non-detrimental take. This is a new way to approach aquatic 

system. Good conservation science is the basis of a good population assessment. 

Anne Baker: Unintentional One Plan Approach with Kihansi Spray toad—it was extinct in the 

wild but now a population has been returned to Tanzania in enclosures. The toads were met with 

a presidential escort when they were brought to the country. We worried the president thought 

20 


the toads would be bigger—but he wasn’t disappointed. There is a breeding population at the 

university in Dar es Salaam and stable populations at Toledo Zoo and Bronx Zoo. 

John Fa: Madagascar Pochard was presumed extinct but rediscovered by the Peregrine Fund. 

The population was down to just 20 in the wild and now there are 80 birds. Working with WFW 

trust, eggs have been secured from the wild and birds are ready to be released back into the wild. 

Sally: Indian Alliance for Zero Extinction successes/projects and the publication of a teachers 

manual about conservation welfare—600 pages long. 

Jo Gipps: 2005 WAZA conservation strategy has been downloaded more than 250,000 times in 

6 years. 

Kathy Traylor-Holzer: Yolanda’s Jaguar PHVA was featured in a newspaper in Costa Rica. The 

article supported PHVA/PVA and biological corridors. Government, Panthera, etc. support this 

based on the PHVA workshop. 

Heribert Hofer: Sperm Collected from African elephants, frozen, and then used to successfully 

impregnate an elephant in Vienna. 

B.S. Bonal: Breeding of vultures at the center for conservation breeding. As of today, 3 species 

have started breeding. For the first time the project has successfully produced 3 clutches, and the 

population is now above 100 in Pinjore. Symposium with IUCN/external funding for ex situ 

programs for the vulture. 

21 





2012 

CBSG Advisory Committee 

Meeting Notes 

22 

CBSG Advisory Committee Mtg Notes

CBSG Advisory Committee conference call 

14 November 2012 

Participants: Bengt Holst, Jeffrey Bonner, Jo Gipps, Jonathan Wilcken, Onnie Byers 

Absent: Frances Westley, Heribert Hofer, Jon Ballou, Mark Stanley Price, Phil McGowan 

I. 2012 CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting Actions 

II. Annual Meeting Survey 

III. CBSG Advisory Committee 

IV. Other Business 

I. 2012 CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting Actions 

A list of actions resulting from the CBSG Strategic Committee Meeting in Melbourne was 

sent to the Advisory Committee members in advance of the call. Onnie briefly went through 

the list of actions. 

1. Coordinate and strategize with CBSG members for the next World Conservation 

Congress 

For the next World Conservation Congress in 4 years, Onnie will coordinate with others 

in the CBSG community who will be in attendance in order to better absorb all the 

information made available at the Congress and better spread CBSG’s message. 

Jo asked if there was any news on the proposed World Species Congress. Onnie said that 

she had not heard anything. 

2. The [Corporate Policy] Task Force and the GCN Board, potentially with pro bono 

legal advice, to review the corporate partnership policy 

Jonathan, who is on this Task Force, gave an update on this action. At the CBSG 

Strategic Committee meeting in Melbourne, a concern was raised over whether or not the 

corporate engagement policy, which guides CBSG’s decision making with regard to 

general corporate giving, also gives direction as to what sorts of groups CBSG should 

agree to work with on discreet projects. Specifically, this issue was raised in response to 

proposed work by CBSG on an environmental impact assessment commissioned by a 

mining and power company in the US. 

Decisions about who CBSG collaborates with on a project are different from those 

regarding who CBSG partners with long term. It was decided that a preamble will be 

added to the policy to clarify this distinction. The remainder of the document remains 

relevant in both cases. 

Onnie noted briefly that she is looking into divesting CBSG’s investments away from 

major carbon producing energy corporations. There was support for the drafting of a 

GCN ethical investment policy. She will be speaking to the GCN Board about this at their 

December meeting. 

23 


3. One person from each Regional Network trained as Red List assessor so we can 

bring our CAMP skills to Red Listing process 

CBSG has a lot to contribute to Red Listing, and CBSG has been invited to send people 

to a Red Listing training course in Colombia. At the upcoming CBSG Regional Networks 

meeting, Onnie wants to talk about how CBSG can help the Red Listing program and 

include CAMP tools that will benefit the CAMP process and the SSC. 

4. Look into criteria for an Amazing Species profile and determine how often to 

submit them 

The SSC has created an Amazing Species webpage which profiles a new species each 

day. They are very keen to promote this site, and have asked for contributions of species 

to highlight. After sending out a request from the CBSG offices, members of the CBSG 

community suggested both the hellbender and the American burying beetle, which were 

added. Onnie will be sending another message to Strategic Committee members, asking 

for their suggestions. 

5. Communicate about the criteria for Conservation “Success Story” so we can 

determine what our contribution is 

There is a target in the SSC strategic plan to highlight success stories. We know that they 

are looking for species that have improved in Red List status but will also consider stories 

in which the status is unchanged but adequate evidence of improvement can be provided. 

We are talking to the SSC to better understand their criteria for success and, once we 

have this clarification, we will communicate it to the CBSG community. 

Jonathan said that it would be useful to discuss not only change in status but where there 

was a change in trajectory, signaling conservation efforts that are helping. This led into 

discussion of action number 7 (below). 

6. Organize a small group to discuss and collate our contribution to the development 

of the Green List 

The Green List, proposed by the SSC, would be on the opposite end of spectrum from the 

Red List. This concept is still in the very early stages of development, so there are still a 

lot of questions about how such a list would be organized and put together. It would be 

valuable for some members of the CBSG community to contribute to these discussions, 

and we are working on that. 

7. At least three scientific papers from the CBSG community published by 2016 

demonstrating that without conservation measures, the status of species would be 

much worse than it currently is 

At the Strategic Committee meeting, a CBSG target was set of 3 papers from the CBSG 

community. It has been discussed that these papers could highlight examples where we 

can compare pre-PHVA baseline projection models with no conservation action to post- 

PHVA workshop models in which the impact of conservation actions is taken into 

account. We’ve identified a few possible cases studies but will need to explicitly allocate 

time to generate the post-PHVA models and do the comparison of results. 

24 


Jonathan wondered if some of the AArk species would be good examples for papers. 

There was some question as to whether or not they would qualify as they have been 

“saved” in ex situ facilities but have not yet been released back into the wild so cannot be 

considered “conserved”. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that their status would be much 

worse if no conservation action had been taken. 

8. Find out if SSC already has a group addressing this SSC target 

Onnie wrote to the SSC after the Strategic Committee meeting to see if group had already 

been set up and if CBSG could engage with them. She has not heard back yet. 

9. Establish CBSG Task Force on the Integration of Human Population in the PHVA 

Process 

CBSG is collaborating with RARE, an organization looking to change human behavior. 

They currently measure behavior changes as a result of their efforts, but not how these 

changes impact species. CBSG is working with them to model the impacts of human 

behavior change on species. As we develop this work, we will inform the SSC working 

group mentioned above. Onnie is currently talking with Frances Westley about getting 

her involved in this Task Force. 

II. Annual Meeting Survey 

Onnie then spoke briefly about the Annual Meeting survey, results of which were also sent to 

the Advisory Committee in preparation for the call. Onnie noted that she had heard many 

positive comments about the meeting during and after the meeting, so was somewhat 

surprised that the results of the survey, while very positive, did not seem quite as enthusiastic 

as the comments she’d received. 

She noted that the survey results suggested a couple areas for improvement, including better 

integration between the zoo/aquarium community and the field conservation community. 

CBSG is looking into creating a more diverse membership which should hopefully be 

reflected in future Annual Meetings. 

Bengt suggested that the questions in the survey were too structural so that the enthusiasm 

and spirit felt during the Annual Meeting could not be accurately reflected. 

Jonathan noted the significant number of 1 st time attendees to the Annual Meeting in 

Melbourne. 

Onnie noted that 95% or participants in the survey agree/strongly agree that the Annual 

Meeting was productive and informative, and that 94% of respondent left the meeting feeling 

energized about CBSG and how it relates to their own work. 

The survey results also seemed to point out that more time is needed for working group 

presentations at the end of the meeting. Jonathan said that these report backs should be seen 

as a way to generate discussion and engagement from all attendees, even those who had not 

attended that specific working group. 

25 


Onnie said that there had been 2 comments of note from the survey: 1) that at least one 

working group topic should be related to the host area, and 2) the zoo & aquarium 

association for the area should be included in the planning of the Annual Meeting. 

There was some involvement from ZAA in the Melbourne meeting, though this had not been 

by direct invitation. For next year’s meeting at Disney, Onnie has spoken to Jackie Ogden 

(Disney & AZA Chair elect) and Tom Schmid (Texas State Aquarium & AZA Chair), and he 

would like to have an aquarium working group. 

It was noted that the survey seemed to indicate only a lukewarm enthusiasm for the CBSG 

Regional Network presentations, and that this has historically been the case. Jo mentioned 

that this had been discussed at the CBSG Strategic Committee mid-year meeting in 

Argentina, and it had been suggested that the Regional Networks could do Ted Talk style 

videos for their presentations. The Ted Talks shown at this year’s Annual Meeting were a 

great success. Bengt said that, while a good idea, he worried that some of the CBSG 

Regional Networks might struggle to be able to create such a video due to the technology and 

expense involved. Onnie said that she would look into what easy and inexpensive and/or free 

options there might be for creating videos. 

Bengt also said that it needs to be made more clear what sort of information is requested in 

the Regional Network updates for the Annual Meeting. Onnie said she would put this item on 

the agenda for the Regional Networks meeting. 

III. CBSG Advisory Committee 

Jo said that he and Onnie have been discussing how to best utilize the Advisory Committee. 

The committee was established to “advise the Chair and Director on matters of tactical 

significance and respond to requests for help, information and advice from the Chair and/or 

Director”. The term of reference state that the calls are meant to take place every 6 weeks 

but experience is showing that this may not be the way to go. There are times when there are 

several things to talk about in a 6 week period and other times when there is no specific 

issue to be brought before the group. Bengt said he has noticed that the agenda is not urgent 

and the meeting is simply a reporting session. While the discussion on the AC calls is 

invariably helpful, we want to maximize the value, time and expertise of the members of the 

Advisory Committee while ensuring that Onnie gets what she needs. The suggestion was 

made that, rather than having regularly scheduled meetings, the group be called upon when 

needed and that individuals on the AC agree to be called upon when their specific expertise, 

experience, and advice is most relevant. We will think more about this and your input is 

welcome. 

IV. Other Business 

Jonathan ended the meeting by noting that he and a small group of people led by Dalia were 

beginning a project designed to transform ISIS data into something that could be used as 

Vortex input data in a PHVA. 

26 





2012 

CBSG Workshops 

27 

CBSG Workshops

SANDSCRIPT Number 12 Fall 2012 Page 2 

Oryx get presidential go ahead 

As SCF’s logo, the scimitarhorned 

oryx represents the 

threats that face desert wildlife 

but also the hope that one 

day this magnificent animal 

will once again roam free on 

African soil. Once abundant 

on the vast, dry, sub-Saharan 

grasslands, the oryx fell prey 

to a lethal combination of 

overhunting, drought and 

habitat loss. Thankfully, significant 

numbers of oryx exist 

in collections across the world 

and efforts to restore the species 

to the wild are underway 

in several countries. 

Up until the late 1970s, the 

oryx prospered in Chad’s 

Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim 

Game Reserve, one of the 

world’s largest protected areas. 

Regrettably, the oryx became 

extinct during the 1980s 

largely as a result of civil war 

in that country. Recent surveys, 

however, carried out by 

SCF and Chad’s National 

Parks and Wildlife Service 

have underlined the reserve’s 

enormous potential to host a 

successful oryx reintroduction 

project. There is abundant 

habitat and space to cater for 

the oryx’s needs and initial 

contacts with the local author- 

ities and the reserve’s inhabitants 

have been very encouraging. 

In May this year, SCF organized 

a major stakeholder 

workshop in the Chadian 

capital of N’Djaména. Facilitated 

by IUCN’s Conservation 

Breeding Specialist 

Group, the workshop and 

fieldtrip that preceded it 

brought together around 50 

people from diverse interest 

groups, including local politicians 

and representatives from 

the reserve’s herders associations. 

The results were extremely 

positive, paving the way for 

detailed project development 

to take place. The project not 

only has the strong backing of 

Chad’s environment ministry 

but also the Head of State 

himself, Mr Idriss Deby Itno 

(right). A keen conservationist, 

Mr Deby has warmly welcomed 

the initiative, promising 

his personal support and 

that of his government. 

Over the coming months, 

SCF and its partners will work 

closely with the Chadian authorities 

to develop a full proposal 

combining oryx reintroduction 

with protected area 

Scimitar-horned oryx could soon be back in their old stamping grounds in Chad (Photo: Olivier Born) 

management. Starting from a 

core protection zone of several 

thousand square kilometres, 

oryx will hopefully be brought 

in, acclimatized, released and 

monitored. Over time, further 

animals will be released and 

secondary sites developed to 

create a network of recovery 

points within the reserve. 

Partnerships will be developed 

with the local communities 

and agencies active in the 

area’s development to ensure 

that win-win solutions can be 

found in developing the reserve’s 

space and resources 

for the mutual benefit of both 

people and wildlife. 

This project is one of the 

most ambitious ever undertaken 

by SCF and we thank 

the following organizations 

for their precious support and 

counsel: Environment Agency 

of Abu Dhabi, Addax & Oryx 

Foundation, Al Ain Zoo, 

Convention on Migratory 

Species, Fossil Rim Wildlife 

Center, IUCN CBSG, Mohammed 

bin Zayed Species 

Conservation Fund, St. Louis 

Zoo, Smithsonian Conservation 

Biology Institute, and the 

Zoological Society of London. 

28 


From: Kirsty Swinnerton [mailto:kirsty.swinnerton@islandconservation.org] 

Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 10:36 AM 

To: Kathy Traylor-Holzer 

Cc: Rafael_Gonzalez@fws.gov; Jose_Cruz-Burgos@fws.gov; alexander.cruz@colorado.edu; 

alexis.dragoni@gmail.com; arosario@drna.gobierno.pr; cwtorressantana@fs.fed.us; 

directivasopi@yahoo.com; ebinet4@yahoo.com; Edwin_Muniz@fws.gov; eerestoration@gmail.com; 

fernando_nunez@fws.gov; fschaffner@suagm.edu; gustavokattan@gmail.com; hdiazsoltero@fs.fed.us; 

Irene Liu; ivelisse.rodriguez11@gmail.com; kramos@drna.gobierno.pr; Marelisa_Rivera@fws.gov; 

ortega_cp@yahoo.com; oscar_diaz@fws.gov; paul_mckenzie@fws.gov; pmiller@cbsg.org; 

rlacy@ix.netcom.com; rlopez@drna.gobierno.pr; rmedina@drna.gobierno.pr; Susan_silander@fws.gov; 

tammie.nakamura@ucdenver.edu; iruizv@drna.gobierno.pr; natouraves@gmail.com; Ildefonso Ruiz 

Valentin 

Subject: RE: YSBL PHVA workshop 

Team ‘Capitan’ 

Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in the YSBL [yellow shouldered black bird] 

workshop. I agree with José in appreciation of the field biologists who are working every day to collect 

the data that was critical to this workshop. I was also impressed that the workshop enabled integration 

of the SHCO biologists and their significant long‐term datasets. 

I learnt a huge amount about the YSBL and I hope we can use that information to assist DNER and FWS 

in plans for Mona restoration, and protection of the Mona YSBL population. As part of the Mona 

restoration work, we intend to establish a monitoring program to document species recovery and 

ecosystem changes as a result of cat, pig, and rat eradication from Mona. As DNER and other biologists 

have worked on Mona for many years, we would anticipate building onto past and existing research and 

studies for the Mona YSBL, and also using information from the mainland population. Mona provides an 

excellent opportunity to compare a SHCO‐nonparasitized YSBL population with the SHCO‐parasitized 

mainland YSBL population, and may highlight the impacts of invasive species that we discussed at the 

workshop. 

We will keep you informed of this project’s progress, but please do feel free to email me should you 

want further details of this work or are interested in research/management collaboration on Mona. 

Best Regards 

Kirsty 

Kirsty J. Swinnerton 

Program Manager 

Island Conservation 

P.O. Box 1908 

Boqueron, PR 

00622‐1908 

FWS Office (landline): 787‐851‐7258 x 310 

Cell: 831‐454‐6640 

skype: kirsty.swinnerton 

website: www.islandconservation.org 

29 


From: José Colón-Lopez [mailto:natouraves@gmail.com] 

Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 9:17 PM 


Cc: Rafael_Gonzalez@fws.gov; Jose_Cruz-Burgos@fws.gov; alexander.cruz@colorado.edu; 

alexis.dragoni@gmail.com; arosario@drna.gobierno.pr; cwtorressantana@fs.fed.us; 

directivasopi@yahoo.com; ebinet4@yahoo.com; Edwin_Muniz@fws.gov; eerestoration@gmail.com; 


Irene Liu; ivelisse.rodriguez11@gmail.com; Kirsty Swinnerton; kramos@drna.gobierno.pr; 

Marelisa_Rivera@fws.gov; natuuraves@gmail.com; ortega_cp@yahoo.com; oscar_diaz@fws.gov; 

paul_mckenzie@fws.gov; pmiller@cbsg.org; rlacy@ix.netcom.com; rlopez@drna.gobierno.pr; 

rmedina@drna.gobierno.pr; Susan_silander@fws.gov; tammie.nakamura@ucdenver.edu; 

iruizv@drna.gobierno.pr 

Subject: Re: YSBL PHVA workshop 

Dear friends, 

It was an enlightening experience to participate in the YSBL [yellow shouldered black bird] 

workshop. My admiration to all the biologists who work every day to make the survival of the 

"Capitan" a real possibility and who, based on their field experience, provided the data and 

information for the modeling. 

To all of you, who came from abroad to help in the recovery of our endangered flagship species, 

my sincere gratitude. It was a real pleasure to see some of my old friends after many years. 

Please correct my e-mail address in the list, which should be natouraves@gmail.com, not 

"natuuraves". 

Warm regards, 

Jose 

30 


From: Jose_Cruz-Burgos@fws.gov [mailto:Jose_Cruz-Burgos@fws.gov] 

Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:15 PM 


Cc: alexander.cruz@colorado.edu; alexis.dragoni@gmail.com; arosario@drna.gobierno.pr; 

cwtorressantana@fs.fed.us; directivasopi@yahoo.com; ebinet4@yahoo.com; eerestoration@gmail.com; 


'Irene Liu'; iruzu@drna.gobierno.pr; ivelisse.rodriguez11@gmail.com; 

kirsty.swinnerton@islandconservation.org; kramos@drna.gobierno.pr; Marelisa_Rivera@fws.gov; 

natuuraves@gmail.com; ortega_cp@yahoo.com; oscar_diaz@fws.gov; paul_mckenzie@fws.gov; 

pmiller@cbsg.org; rafael_gonzale@fws.gov; rlacy@ix.netcom.com; rlopez@drna.gobierno.pr; 

rmedina@drna.gobierno.pr; Susan_silander@fws.gov; tammie.nakamura@ucdenver.edu; 

Rafael_Gonzalez@fws.gov; Edwin_Muniz@fws.gov 

Subject: Re: YSBL PHVA workshop 

Hello team, 

Certainly this was a great exercise, and I'm sure it will be of great help for the YSBL. Again, 

thank you all for your assistance and interest in this project. I look forward to keep working 

together. 

joey 

José A. Cruz-Burgos 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

Endangered Species Program Coordinator 

Caribbean Ecological Services Field Office 

P.O. Box 491 

Boquerón, P.R. 00622 

E-mail: jose_cruz-burgos@fws.gov 

Phone: 787-851-7297, ext. 218 

Fax: 787-851-7440 

Mobile: 787-600-1147 

-------------------------------------------- 

"Kathy Traylor-Holzer" 

Hi everyone, 

I would like to add my thanks to all of you for your hard work and great collaboration last week 

at the PHVA workshop for the yellow‐shouldered blackbird. I know that it was a long and 

exhausting process, and we appreciate your contributions throughout the four days. It was 

great for me to finally meet those people who I only knew previously by name and emails, and 

to see your genuine concern and dedication to saving this endangered Puerto Rican species. 

Attached is a group photo from the last day –unfortunately we are missing a few of you who 

could not be with us on the last day, but you were with us in spirit. Also attached is the 

31 


participant list for any of you who may not have joined Dropbox. You can also see the press 

release issued for the workshop at: (http://www.cbsg.org/cbsg/news/display.asp?id=467). 

I have created three new folders in the Dropbox – one for each working group – and have 

added the few ppt files that I have from the PHVA. Please add any additional notes, 

spreadsheets, and ppts, even if they are only drafts, to the appropriate WG folder for safe 

keeping. No one outside of their own working group should edit, alter or distribute these files 

until each working group has had the opportunity to expand, review and finalize their own 

work. You will have the opportunity to review other groups’ work later in the process. 

Finally, please remember to send any comments that you have about the process to Hilda, Bob, 

Phil and me. We are especially interested in hearing your thoughts about the usefulness of the 

two‐species metamodel in helping you to make management recommendations for the YSBL, 

as well as any suggestions that you have to improve the process. 

It was a pleasure working with you all, and best wishes in your continued efforts to conserve 

the YSBL! 

Best regards, 

Kathy 

Kathy Traylor‐Holzer, Ph.D. 

Senior Program Officer 

IUCN SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group 

12101 Johnny Cake Ridge Road 

Apple Valley, MN 55124 USA 

Tel: +1 952 997 9804 

Fax: +1 952 997 9803 

Email: kathy@cbsg.org 

32 


Conservation Planning Workshop for Eastern Barred 

Bandicoot (Perameles gunnii) 

Hosted by Zoos Victoria 

September 30 – October 2, 2012 

Introduction 

Zoos Victoria has invited the IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group to facilitate a three‐ 

day conservation planning workshop for eastern barred bandicoots (Perameles gunnii). The 

workshop will be held in the Zoos Victoria Board Room from September 30th to October 2nd, 2012. 

Eastern barred bandicoots have been the subject of conservation planning for several decades; 

recovery plans are already in place, as are reviews of previous successes and failures. The 

forthcoming workshop aims to build on and support these efforts. 

Discussions will focus on developing the detail around a long‐term strategy for the genetic and 

demographic management of remaining and proposed populations of the species. Amongst other 

things, we expect the workshop to consider: 

• minimum target population sizes for specific sites and for the broader meta‐population; 

• optimal rates of exchange between sites; 

• strategies for maximising gene diversity retention; 

• roles and optimal parameters for the intensively managed captive population. 

The principal workshop organiser is Marissa Parrott of Zoos Victoria: mparrott@zoo.org.au. CBSG 

workshop facilitators will be Kathy Traylor‐Holzer: kathy@cbsg.org; and Caroline Lees: 

caroline@cbsgaustralasia.org. 

Invitees 

Richard Hill, Chair, Bandicoot Recovery Team, Department of Sustainability and Environment 

(DSE): Richard.Hill@dse.vic.gov.au 

Peter Courtney, Curator, Threatened Species, Melbourne Zoo: pcourtney@zoo.org.au 

Graeme Coulson, Assoc Prof, Department of Zoology, University of 

Melbourne: gcoulson@unimelb.edu.au 

Dan Harley, Threatened Species Biologist, Zoos Victoria: dharley@zoo.org.au 

Michael Kidman, Senior Keeper, Werribee Open Range Zoo: mkidman@zoo.org.au 

Michael Magrath, Senior Scientist, Zoos Victoria: mmagrath@zoo.org.au 

Alan Robley, Senior Scientist, Arthur Rylah Institute, DSE: alan.robley@dse.vic.gov.au 

Charles Todd, Senior Scientist, Ecological Modelling, Arthur Rylah Institute, 

DSE: charles.todd@dse.vic.gov.au 

Andrew Weeks, Director, Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation 

Research, Geneticist: aweeks@cesaraustralia.com; aweeks@unimelb.edu.au 

Madelon Willemsen, Curator, Werribee Open Range Zoo: mwillemsen@zoo.org.au 

Amy Winnard, Specialist in the Reintroduction Biology of EBBs: amy.winnard@unimelb.edu.au 

33 


From: Maarissa 

Parrott [mailto:mparrrott@zoo.orgg.au] 

Sent: Thuursday, 

Octob ber 11, 2012 12:03 AM 

To: Kathyy 

Traylor-Holz zer; Caroline LLees; 

Amy Winnard; 

Graemme 

Maxwell CCoulson; 

Charles.Toodd@dse.vic. 

gov.au; Madeelon 

Willemseen; 

Peter Courtney; 

Michaeel 

Magrath; DDan 

Harley; 

Andrew WWeeks 

Cc: Richard.Hill@dse.v 

vic.gov.au; Michael 

Kidmann 

Subject: EBB PHVA no otes and docuuments 

Hi All, 

Thank youu 

for attendin ng our EBB PHHVA/Conservaation 

Planning 

Workshop. It was a greaat 

3 days and I’m 

sure we are 

going to ge et some fantaastic 

and veryy 

useful information 

out of 

all the modeels! 

Please finnd 

documentts 

attached fr rom the workkshop. 

If you wwould 

like anny 

changes to these documments 

(particuularly 

to the nottes, 

where I was w writing veery 

fast and mmay 

have missed 

somethinng!), 

please leet 

me know. I have 

attached: 

‐ PHVA drraft 

notes (ref fer to yellow highlighted sections 

for finnal 

models/key 

questions) ) 

‐ EBB posssible 

catastro ophes at all sittes 

‐ Paper onn 

how to build d conservatioon 

fences (thaanks 

Graeme!) 

Best wishes, 

Marissa 

Dr Marisssa 

Parrott | Reproductive 

R 

Biologist 

Wildlife Conservation 

and a Science 

Zoos Victooria 

| Elliott Avenue A | Parkvville 

VIC 30522 

P:03 93400 

2729 | F:03 9340 2796 

mparrot@@zoo.org.au 

| www.zoo.orgg.au 

34 


Trip Report: Kathy Traylor-Holzer, Senior Program Officer 

Training and Workshops in Asia, 2-25 November 2012 

Here is an update of my recent various activities and meetings in Taiwan and China during November: 

Taipei, Taiwan – population management training and Asian zoo collaboration conference 

My first stop was Taipei, where Jon Ballou and I conducted a five-day training course for 35 participants in basic ex 

situ population management (studbook development and data validation in SPARKS, data analysis and population 

planning in PMx), and led a discussion around 13 priority species for the next logical steps in their management, be 

it development of a regional studbook and/or improved data collection within Asia for an existing international SB. 

Most of the participants were from Taiwan (Taipei Zoo as well as other facilities), but we also had participants from 

Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. The US elections were happening while we were teaching the 

course, which made it even more interesting! 

The course was followed by a two-day conference on promoting collaboration among Asian zoos in ex situ 

population management. I started off the conference with a presentation on integrated species conservation 

planning and the use of ex situ management for conservation, especially in range countries. Dave Morgan then 

talked about global population management (ISBs, GSMPs, etc.), William van Lint gave a presentation on EAZA’s 

managed programs, Claire Ford did likewise for ZAA, and Jon followed up talking about the steps in population 

planning and data analysis using PMx. The rest of the day was spent in presentations from the Asian 

representatives, including Ami Prastiti from Taman Safari (International Malayan Tapir SB keeper), Kazu Takami 

from JAZA (International Hooded Crane SB keeper) and others. The second day was spent in a roundtable 

discussion expanding upon recommended actions for the priority species from the training course, with additional 

international input. A primary recommendation that came out of the discussion was the need to hire and train an 

ex situ population manager for Asian zoos – a SPMAG/EPMAG type of person within Asia. The group generated a 

general job description, opportunities for training this person, and other aspects of establishing this position, and 

identified the next steps to make this happen. Species-specific recommendations were made as well. 

While at the conference I spoke to the Thai delegates about the proposed population management training for the 

Zoological Parks Organization of Thailand (ZPO) in 2013, requested by ZPO and already funded in part by WAZA. 

I also talked to Ami from TSI about the follow-up training/mentoring for the Indonesian studbook keepers, and 

followed this up with a brief conversation with Jansen. There is definite interest in keeping the momentum going in 

Asia to build expertise and cooperative programs for ex situ management. The Taipei Zoo, ZPO, Indonesia and 

others are very grateful for our help. 

1 

35 


Chengdu, China - giant panda annual conference 

Next Jon and I flew to Chengdu for the 2012 Annual Conference of Chinese Committee of Breeding Techniques for 

Giant Pandas, which we have attended every year that it has been held since it began in 2002. Over 100 

participants attended, including representatives from the North American, European, Asian and Australasian zoos 

that hold giant pandas. I gave a presentation on the Red Panda PHVA and Red Panda GSMP, noting the overlap in 

distribution, threats and conservation action with giant pandas, and urging both in situ and ex situ conservation 

actions for red pandas (many of the Chinese panda breeding facilities hold red pandas as well as giant pandas). 

Sarah Bexell (CBSG member and the head of education at the Chengdu Panda Research Base) followed up with a 

presentation on public awareness program for local people, and also tied in red panda conservation. The panda 

base plans to increase its emphasis and activities on red pandas. Jon gave a presentation about strategies for 

developing a long-term assurance genome resource bank and how to identify those males that should be banked, 

using the giant panda studbook as an example. As sperm cryopreservation and artificial insemination are 

commonly used in China, this topic was of great interest. 

Jon and I also updated and created the analytical GP 

studbook and prepared the various data analysis for the 

masterplanning session. I started off with a presentation 

of the historical and current population status, and then 

Jon, Xie Zhong and I led the discussion to develop 

breeding recommendations for 2013. We are really 

pleased with how well genetic management has been 

completely accepted and integrated into their breeding 

plans for giant pandas. Every institutional update now 

not only includes how many panda cubs were produced, 

but the MSI (Mate Suitability Index) of the pairings with 

strong emphasis on quality (vs quantity) of cubs. The 

genetic quality of the pairings made in 2012 was very good, and the pairings recommended for 2013 are also 

excellent. Since the cooperative management program was established in 2002, the population has more than 

doubled in size, genetic diversity and number of founders has increased, inbreeding (which is low) has decreased, 

and there is now increased emphasis on natural mating (vs AI), leaving cubs with their mothers longer, not 

breeding all females (i.e., those with high MK or MSI scores), and increased efforts in ‘rewilding” training and plans 

for reintroduction. As always, Zhang Zhihe (program coordinator and director of the Chengdu research base), Xie 

Zhong (ISB keeper/co-coordinator and secretary general for CAZG scientific programs) and everyone else were very 

appreciative of our assistance and support. 

Shaoguan, China – South China tiger annual meeting 

Jon returned to the US and I took a train to Shaoguan via 

Guangzhou to attend the annual meeting of the South 

China Tiger Scientific Committee. CBSG has been working 

with the CAZG South China Tiger program since it began in 

1995. About 40 participants from Chinese facilities holding 

South China tigers attended the meeting, which was held in 

Chinese. We toured the new Shaoguan South China Tiger 

Breeding Center and spent the rest of the two-day meeting 

in presentations, discussions and masterplanning for 2013. 

I was asked to give a presentation on other tiger breeding 

programs and strategies and quickly put together a ppt on 

the Tiger SSP and how we make annual breeding plans, including the issues we have regarding lower breeding 

success with age and lack of breeding experience and how we deal with that. There are about 100 South China 

tigers in captivity (primarily in China, with a few in Li Quan’s Save China’s Tigers project in South Africa). The 

population continues to grow well but without the availability of new founders (since this subspecies is extinct in 

the wild) gene diversity is dropping (GD = 66%) and inbreeding continues to build (mean F = 0.3420). Discussions 

are ongoing regarding the likely need for hybridization with Indochinese or other tiger subspecies in the future. 

2 

36 


Dafeng, China – Pere David deer symposium 

I then had another interesting travel day 

across China – from Shaoguan to 

Guangzhou by train followed by a flight to 

Shanghai, completing my tour of all three 

train stations in Guangzhou. Early the next 

morning I met up with Jiang Zhigang 

(CBSG member and professor at the 

Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Mark 

Stanley Price, and we drove out to the 

Dafeng Milu Nature Reserve (milu is the 

Chinese name for the Pere David’s deer). 

After a welcome lunch the workshop began with several presentations, including Mark’s on reintroduction and the 

challenges in the face of climate change and changing conditions and philosophies. The next day consisted of 

additional presentations, from several research projects to updates on the history and status of various zoo, semicaptive 

and free-ranging wild populations (spanning the IMP continuum). I opted to combine my two scheduled 

presentations into one – talking both about integrated conservation planning and the processes and tools to assist 

such planning (i.e., PHVA/SCP process, Vortex, PMx, genetic group management strategies). There was much 

interest especially in Vortex – a few of the participants had already used it and remembered the baiji PHVA. The 

researcher from Nanjing Normal University who did the workshop wrap up at the end emphasized the need for an 

integrated national plan for the milu (there are over 30 populations but there does not seem to be one vision or 

coordinated strategy) and invited Mark and me to assist with this effort once they are ready to initiate it. Mark and 

I will follow up later this year and see where this leads. I also think there may be interest and potential for Vortex 

training either at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing or at Nanjing Normal University – there are 

researchers there who would have the appropriate background and interest in applying modeling to conservation 

issues. 

After the workshop we visited several areas of 

the reserve and saw both semi-captive herds 

(supplemented with food in the winter) and 

wild milu. There is enormous pride in Dafeng 

for this species and the role that international 

cooperation played in saving it from 

extinction (the Chinese population died out 

but was preserved at Woburn Abbey in the 

UK with about 19 genetic founders, and then 

deer were sent back to China to re-establish 

the captive and wild Chinese populations). 

Inbreeding also is a problem here of course, 

but so far population growth is strong. There 

seem to be a lot of small, isolated herds though, and so some form of metapopulation management is probably 

desirable. 

All in all, it was a very busy but productive trip. Traveling by myself in China and hearing mostly Chinese (almost of 

the presentations in Chengdu, Shaoguan and Dafeng were in Chinese, and ours were translated into Chinese), my 

Chinese was finally starting to very slowly improve – although even ordering dinner is still a big challenge! 

3 

37 


From: 蒋志刚 Jiang Zhigang [mailto:zhigangjiang@vip.sina.com] 

Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 8:23 AM 

To: kathy 

Cc: dingyuhuamilu 

Subject: Invitation to attend the workshop on the Conservation of Père David’s 

Deer 

Importance: High 

Dear Dr. Kathy Traylor‐Holzer: 

I hope this email finds you very well. I haven't talked to you since last CBSG 

annual meeting in Prague, Czech. 

We are organizing a workshop on the Conservation of Père David’s deer in the 

Dafeng National Nature Reserve, Jiangsu Province, China in late October or early 

November this year. The goal of the workshop is to review the reintroduction of 

Père David deer into this country from England three decades ago and to draw 

future route map of rewilding of the species in future. The organizing committee 

of the workshop cordially invites you to attend the workshop and to give a talk. 

Your return trip of economic class and all expenses in China will be covered by 

the Dafeng National Nature Reserve. If you could give us the dates you will be 

available for the workshop, we will finalize the date for the workshop with other 

participants. Your earliest reply is expected. If you have any question regarding 

the workshop please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Best wishes 

2012‐07‐13 

Zhigang Jiang, Ph. D. 

Professor 

Institute of Zoology, 

Chinese Academy of Sciences 

Beijing, China 100101 

Tel: +86‐10‐64807268 

Fax: +86‐10‐64807099 

Mobile phone: +86‐13501370683 

Email:jiangzg@ioz.ac.cn 

38 


From: 蒋志刚 Jiang Zhigang [mailto:jiangzg@ioz.ac.cn] 

Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2012 11:39 PM 

To: Kathy Traylor-Holzer; mark.stanleyprice 

Cc: dingyuhuamilu; yijunmilu; houlibingmilu21; 汤宋华; 平晓鸽 

Subject: 回复: Milu workshop 

Dear Kathy and Mark: 

I am glad to hear that you arrived home safely. On behave of my colleagues in 

the Dafeng reserve as well as all participants of 2nd International Academic 

Workshop on Conservation of Milu in China; I thank you both for 

your outstanding contribution to the Workshop. Your presentations certainly 

highlighted the workshop. We wish see you both again in China. 

We will reimburse you both as soon as possible. 

All the best 

蒋志刚 Jiang Zhigang 

发件人: Kathy Traylor-Holzer 

发送时间: 2012-11-28 03:56 

收件人: 蒋志刚 (Jiang Zhigang) 

抄送: 'mark.stanleyprice' 

主题: Milu workshop 

Dear Jiang Zhigang, 

Thank you for inviting Mark and me to participate in the milu international workshop. It was very 

interesting to learn more about this famous species and its return to China and initial recovery efforts. 

We found the presentations and other workshop materials very interesting, especially information on 

the status of the various populations. It was very special to be able to see the milu in the reserve – very 

inspiring. Thanks so much for this opportunity. 

It is unfortunate that you had another commitment and missed the second day of the workshop, as a lot 

of good information was presented and discussed by the participants. I am attaching a PDF of my 

presentation so that you can see the general topics that I discussed. My main points were: 

‐ to highlight the stochastic threats to small populations and explain how intensive population 

management can be a tool to reduce these threats and promote population viability; 

‐ to promote the development of one integrated conservation plan for a species that includes a vision 

for the future, goals and recommended actions to achieve that vision, and incorporates all populations 

(captive, semi‐captive, wild) and their role in the conservation of the species; 

‐ to introduce Vortex modeling software as a valuable tool in population status review, threat analysis, 

and evaluation of potential management strategies and their projected impact on long‐term population 

viability; and 

‐ ro discuss the increasing need of metapopulation management and its role in conservation, and 

highlight how herd genetic management strategies might be used to reduce genetic drift and inbreeding 

in milu populations. 

39 


At the cloose 

of the wor rkshop there was support for a nationaal 

comprehensive 

conservaation 

strategyy 

for 

the milu tthat 

includes all populationns. 

I support tthat 

conclusioon 

and can offfer 

CBSG’s asssistance 

if thhat 

is 

desired, aand 

I believe Mark M is suppoortive 

as well. 

One piecee 

of informati ion that both Mark and I wwould 

find valluable 

is to haave 

a list of all 

of the varioous 

milu popuulations, 

estim mated populaation 

size, andd 

type of mannagement 

(e.gg., 

zoo, food supplementeed, 

wild). Thiss 

would provi ide a good unnderstanding 

of the currennt 

situation annd 

also the vuulnerability 

off 

the 

species too 

small popula ation risks, booth 

demograpphic 

and geneetic. 

Would itt 

be possible ffor 

us to get ssuch 

a list of mmilu 

populations? 

Thanks aggain, 

Professo or Jiang. We mmissed 

havingg 

you at the rest 

of the millu 

workshop bbut 

understand 

your busyy 

schedule. Ho opefully we wwill 

see you aggain 

in the neear 

future, peerhaps 

at the next CBSG annnual 

meeting. Best of luck in n your continnued 

efforts foor 

the conserrvation 

of thee 

milu. 

Best regards, 

Kathy 

Kathy Trayloor‐Holzer, 

Ph.D. 

Senior Program 

Officer 

IUCN/SSC Conservation 

Bre eeding Specialist Group 

12101 Johnny 

Cake Ridge Road 

Apple Valleyy, 

MN 55124 US SA 

Tel: +1 952 997 9804; Fax: +1 + 952 997 98033 

Email: kathyy@cbsg.org 

40 


From: Markus Gusset [mailto:markus.gusset@waza.org] 

Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 3:40 AM 

To: 'Kathy Traylor-Holzer' 

Cc: kristin@cbsgeurope.eu; 'Ballou, Jonathan' 

Subject: AW: WAZA Training Grant 2011 summary report 

Hi Kathy 

Great – thank you! And thank you, Kristin and Jon very much for your efforts to increase studbook 

keeping and population management capacity in these countries. I wish WAZA would support more such 

endeavours. See you soon! 

Cheers 

Markus 

Markus Gusset, PhD 

Conservation Officer & International Studbook Coordinator 

WAZA Executive Office 

IUCN Conservation Centre | Rue Mauverney 28 | CH‐1196 Gland | Switzerland 

Phone: +41 (0)22 999 07 94 | Fax: +41 (0)22 999 07 91 

www.waza.org | markus.gusset@waza.org 

Von: Kathy Traylor-Holzer [mailto:kathy@cbsg.org] 

Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. September 2012 18:11 

An: 'Markus Gusset' 

Cc: kristin@cbsgeurope.eu; 'Ballou, Jonathan' 

Betreff: WAZA Training Grant 2011 summary report 

Hi Markus, 

Attached is the summary report for the various studbook and population management training activities 

over the past year funded in part by the WAZA Training Grant (“Expanding Ex Situ Population 

Management Capacity in Asia: Building Upon Past Training Activities in Indonesia, China and Japan”). 

Also attached are two photos from the training in Indonesia – one of the entire group that participated 

in the first two days of training, and the second of the Indonesian studbook keepers who also attended 

the studbook training course. I will send additional photos for each of the three training activities in four 

separate emails. 

Please let us know if you need any other information or any other types of photos. Thanks so much for 

WAZA’s support! 

Best regards, 

Kathy 

41 


WAZA Training Grant Summary Report: 

Expanding Ex Situ Population Management Capacity in Asia: Building Upon Past Training 

Activities in Indonesia, China and Japan 

Kristin Leus (CBSG Europe), Kathy Traylor‐Holzer (CBSG), and Jonathan Ballou (Smithsonian 

Conservation Biology Institute) 

This multi‐faceted training project built upon previous recent CBSG training activities in Asia to 

promote the development of effective studbook and ex situ population management programs 

within three Asian zoo associations – Indonesian Zoological Parks Association (PKBSI), Chinese 

Association of Zoological Gardens (CAZG), and Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA). 

Based on the final secured funding and in‐kind donations for these three activities, the WAZA 

Training Grant funds were applied as follows: Indonesia (41%), China (27%), and Japan (32%). Below 

is a summary of these training activities. 

Studbook and Population Management Workshop, Cisarua, Indonesia – 24‐27 October 2011 

Kathy Traylor‐Holzer and Kristin Leus conducted a two‐day workshop focusing on integrated species 

conservation planning, the conservation roles of zoos, and the principles of ex situ population 

management for over 40 zoo and forestry staff, organized in cooperation with the IUCN SSC Asian 

Wild Cattle Specialist Group, the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, and PKBSI. This was followed by a 

two‐day studbook training (SPARKS 1.6) for 19 Indonesian PKBSI studbook keepers, concentrating on 

studbooks for threatened Indonesian species such as banteng, anoa, babirusa, komodo, Javan 

gibbon, Bali mynah and orangutan. Two experienced Indonesian studbook keepers (Sharmy Prastiti, 

Ligaya Tumbelaka) assisted with the training and will provide in‐country guidance for the other 

trainees. In some cases mentors have been identified to work with the new studbook keepers to 

encourage their progress. 

PMx Population Planning Workshop, Beijing, China – 3‐6 November 2011 

Building upon the 2009 studbook training course held in Beijing, Kathy Traylor‐Holzer and Jonathan 

Ballou led a four‐day training course in the use of PMx for 24 CAZG studbook keepers (both regional 

and international). After a brief review of new updates to SPARKS 1.6 capabilities, the CAZG 

studbook keepers learned how to analyze their studbook data and use the population planning tools 

available in PMx for developing an ex situ species management program. CAZG provided Chinese 

translation for the Chinese version of the PMx software and also the user manual. Xie Zhong from 

CAZG (ISB keeper) provided assistance with the instruction. Claire Mirande (International Crane 

Foundation) also participated and assisted the several crane studbook keepers in data analysis and 

strategies for population planning for crane species in China. CAZG is conducting its own internal 

studbook training. 

PMx Population Planning Workshop, Tokyo, Japan – 7‐10 February 2012 

In 2008 CBSG and ISIS conducted a series of studbook training courses for JAZA. Since that time JAZA 

has developed and conducted its own ex situ population management training program for studbook 

keeping (SPARKS) and basic population management (PM2000). This training effort took the next 

step – providing advanced population management training to 17 JAZA species coordinators (both 

regional and international studbook keepers). Kathy Traylor‐Holzer and Jonathan Ballou led a four‐ 

day training course in the use of PMx for population planning for ex situ populations in Japan, 

including Japanese species such as the Japanese serow and Oriental white stork, and GSMP species 

such as the red panda and Sumatran tiger. JAZA provided translation for the Japanese version of 

PMx and user manual. Kanako Tomisawa and Kazutoshi Takami assisted with training and translation 

42 


during the course. Additional training and materials were provided to JAZA instructors to enable the 

development of continued advanced training opportunities within Japan. 

Summary 

In combination, these three training activities have increased studbook and ex situ population 

management for 60 studbook keepers managing 64 regional studbooks and 10 international 

studbooks at 44 institutions for over 60 taxa in three Asian countries, with particular emphasis on 

native species of each country. This will not only contribute to the management of these regional 

populations but also has the potential to improve ISB data quality for these species and to contribute 

positively to the future viability of both regional and global populations. 

Trainees: 

Name Institution Species Region 

Noor Fitrianingsih S Yogyakarta Zoo Proboscis monkey PKBSI 

C. Prabahari Cahyo P Yogyakarta Zoo Dusky pademelon PKBSI 

Athanasius Warsito Surabaya Zoo Bawean deer PKBSI 

Yus Anggoro Saputra GSA Zoo, Jakarta Irrawaddy dolphin PKBSI 

Ivan Chandra Taman Safari Indonesia II (Surabaya) Banteng (ISB) PKBSI 

Bambang Triana Ragunan Zoo (Jakarta) Orangutan PKBSI 

Yohana Tri Hastuti Taman Safari Indonesia I (Bogor) Anoa PKBSI 

Sri Pentawati Surabaya Zoo Babirusa PKBSI 

Sunarto GSA Zoo, Jakarta Dolphin PKBSI 

I Nengah Nuyana Bali Bird Park Yellow‐crested cockatoo PKBSI 

Nanang Tejo Leksono Taman Safari Indonesia I (Bogor) Sumatran elephant PKBSI 

Dedi Candra Indonesian Rhino Foundation Sumatran rhinoceros PKBSI 

Effy Sofiyanti Bandung Zoo Javan gibbon (zoos) PKBSI 

Endang Budi Utami Taman Safari Indonesia II (Surabaya) /PKBSI Bali mynah PKBSI 

Rahmat Suharta Surabaya Zoo Komodo PKBSI 

Bongot Huaso Mulia Taman Safari Indonesia I (Bogor) Komodo (ISB) PKBSI 

Erwin Wilianto JPRC Javan gibbon (primate 

rehabilitation centers) 

PKBSI 

Ligaya Tumbelaka IPB/TSI/PKBSI Sumatran tiger PKBSI 

Sharmy (Amy) Prastiti Taman Safari Indonesia I (Bogor) Malayan tapir (ISB) PKBSI 

YU Zeying CAZG Golden monkey (ISB) CAZG 

WANG Song Nanning Zoo White‐headed langur CAZG 

SUN Zhiming Wuxi Zoo White‐naped crane CAZG 

HU Jing Hangzhou Zoo African elephant CAZG 

GUO Jifang Shanxi Rare Wildlife Save & Research Ctr Japanese crested ibis CAZG 

MA Jun Shanghai Zoo White stork 

Demoiselle crane 

CAZG 

HE Weiguang Shanghai Zoo Takin (2) CAZG 

YANG Yuzhao Kumming Zoo Gibbon (5) CAZG 

ZUO Zhili Chengdu Zoo Eurasian (gray) crane CAZG 

LIAO Hui Chongqing Zoo Orangutan 

Gorilla 

Chimpanzee (2) 

CAZG 

YIN Yuzhong Chongqing Zoo South China tiger CAZG 

WU Zhi An Hefei Wild Animal Park Red‐crowned crane CAZG 

XIE Zhong CAZG Giant panda (ISB) 

Black‐necked crane (ISB) 

CAZG 

GAO Xifeng Fuzhou Zoo Tonkin (Francois) langur CAZG 

SHANG Zhifeng Lanzhou Zoo Ibex CAZG 

43 


CHEN Xingyong Guangzhou Zoo Sun bear CAZG 

GUO Aixia Jinan Zoo Black stork CAZG 

CUI Duoying Beijing Zoo Snow leopard 

Clouded leopard 

CAZG 

WANG Junli Tianjin Zoo Red panda CAZG 

XIU Yunfang Fuzhou Giant Panda Center Red panda (w/ Wang Junli) CAZG 

ZHANG Jing Beijing Zoo Chinese monal pheasant 

Black pheasant 

Wattled crane 

CAZG 

WANG Zuolin Harbin North Forest Zoo Hooded crane CAZG 

DU Yang Beijing Zoo White‐earred pheasant CAZG 

ZHOU Junying Beijing Zoo Siberian crane 

African crowned crane (3) 

CAZG 

MURAI Hitoshi Toyama Municipal Family Park Zoo Japanese serow (ISB) JAZA 

TAKAMI Kazutoshi Osaka Municipal Tennoji Zool. Garden Hooded crane (ISB) JAZA 

TAKAKI Yoshihiko Saitama Children’s Zoo White‐naped crane (ISB) JAZA 

OHASHI Naoya Tama Zoological Park Oriental white stork (ISB) JAZA 

KANAZAWA Yuji Shizuoka Municipal Nihondaira Zoo Red panda JAZA 

CHAYA Koichi Higashiyama Zool. & Botanical Gardens Orangutan JAZA 

IDE Takeshi Fuji Safari Park Southern white rhino JAZA 

NONOUE Noriyuki Hiroshima City Asa Zoological Park Black rhino JAZA 

SUZUKI Masakatsu Shinagawa Aquarium Magellanic penguin JAZA 

KAWAKAMI Shigehisa Gunma Safari Park African elephant JAZA 

KATSUMATA Hiroshi Kamogawa Sea World Marine mammals (TAG) JAZA 

YAMAMOTO Tatsuya Tokyo Sea Life Park Humboldt penguin 

Little penguin 

JAZA 

HOSODA Takahisa Tama Zoological Park Giraffe JAZA 

SHIRAISHI Toshio Preservation & Research Ctr, Yokohama Bali mynah JAZA 

YAMADA Akiko Kobe Oji Zoo Amur tiger 

Bengal (generic) tiger 

JAZA 

HASHIMOTO Wataru Yagiyama Zoological Park Sumatran tiger JAZA 

MASAYA Miura Akita Omoriyama Zoo Milve Japanese golden eagle JAZA 

44 


VORTEX Population Modeling Course 

8-11 January 2013 

Duration – 3 ½ days 

Place – Brookfield Zoo, Brookfield, IL 

VORTEX 

Vortex is an individual-based, stochastic computer simulation model for population viability analysis 

(PVA). Vortex was developed by Bob Lacy (Chicago Zoological Society) and has been used to model 100s 

of species in the past 20 years. It is often used as an integral part of the PHVA (Population and Habitat 

Viability Assessment) process developed by the IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group 

(CBSG), but can also be used for more traditional species PVA. Vortex can be used to simulate potential 

futures of populations under current conditions, to evaluate the effects of various alternative 

management strategies, to determine research priorities, to assist in conservation planning, etc. 

Practical examples of the use of Vortex as an integral part of conservation planning can be found in the 

many PHVA reports on the CBSG website: http://www.cbsg.org/cbsg/workshopreports/. Vortex is most 

commonly used to assess threats to wild populations, but newer features in Vortex make it suitable also 

for analyzing the expected trajectories of captive breeding programs and also for integrated 

management of wild and captive populations (e.g., with collection of new founders and releases). 

Vortex is ideally suited to model small populations of vertebrate species, which are particularly 

susceptible to the negative effects of stochastic (random) processes. To accomplish this, Vortex 

simulates the effects of deterministic (e.g. hunting, habitat degradation) as well as stochastic forces (e.g. 

natural and random variation in reproductive and mortality rates, catastrophes, genetic drift, and 

inbreeding) on individuals in a population. Because there are so many random events at play, the 

simulation is run 100s of times for each scenario to be examined, after which the program provides an 

average and range of outcomes for the population, including measures of probability of extinction, 

population size, stochastic growth rate, gene diversity, and inbreeding. More details can be found in the 

manual which, like the program, can be downloaded free of charge at www.vortex9.org/vortex.html. 

Population Modeling Course 

Course topics will include development of baseline population models, sensitivity analysis to determine 

critical parameters, using Vortex to explore alternative management options, and interpretation of 

model results. Also included will be exploration of the genetic management module, which enables the 

import of studbook data and/or genetic management using mean kinship values. Exercises will be 

provided for hands-on practice with Vortex interspersed with lecture material and discussion. 

Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer with a recent version of Vortex installed. 

45 


Target Audience 

This course is aimed at people who are predominantly interested in modeling small wild 

populations (usually populations of a few hundred to a few thousand), or potentially wish to do 

advanced modeling on captive populations, or on captive populations with regular exchanges with 

wild populations. For those of you who are captive population managers, it is not necessary to 

learn Vortex for routine management of captive populations. For most captive populations, 

SPARKS and PMx provide what you need to guide management. Vortex is only needed if you want 

to see projections of where your population may be in the future! 

This is a beginners course, aimed at people who are new to the program, or have not yet used it 

much. No advanced knowledge of Vortex is required, but a good understanding of the basics of 

population demography and genetics will be assumed. We will start from scratch and provide an 

in-depth understanding of the features of Vortex, including proper data input and the use of 

program options to build additional complexity into basic models. 

Vortex is a very powerful tool and like all powerful tools, needs to be understood well in order to 

use it ‘safely’. Learning how to use Vortex well requires regular use of the program. People who 

are interested in participating in the course just to learn what the program can do are of course 

welcome to do so. Just be aware that if you do not regularly use it afterwards, you may need to 

learn it all over again when you do need to use it ‘for real’. 

Both the Vortex program and the manual can be downloaded for free from 

www.vortex9.org/vortex.html. A quick scan of the manual may help you decide if this course is for 

you. 

Feel free to get in touch with Bob Lacy if you have any doubts or questions! 

Instructors: 

Bob Lacy – Senior Conservation Scientist, Chicago Zoological Society (rlacy@ix.netcom.com or 

Bob.Lacy@czs.org ) 

Kathy Traylor-Holzer – Senior Programme Officer, CBSG (Minneapolis) (kathy@cbsg.org) 

Computer: 

Participants need to bring their own laptop. Feel free also to bring information about populations on 

which you wish to conduct viability assessments. 

Costs and logistics: 

A course fee of $250 will cover the facilities, coffee breaks, and instructor time. Participants will be 

responsible for paying for their own accommodations and meals. A block of rooms at a nearby hotel will 

be available at a cost of about $90 / room (single or double). Transportation between the hotel and the 

zoo will be provided each day. 

Please contact both Bob Lacy and Kathy Traylor-Holzer if you are interested in participating in this 

course. 

46 


Vortex Population Modeling for Species Conservation 

8-11 January 2013 

Brookfield Zoo, Brookfield, IL 

COURSE AGENDA (subject to change) 

Tuesday (8 Jan.) – Intro to Small Population Biology and Vortex 

9:00am – 5:00pm Welcome, logistics and participant introductions 

IUCN, SSC, and CBSG – Species Conservation Planning 

Introduction to Population Viability Analysis (PVA) 

Demography in Vortex 

Building a Vortex model: Review of input parameters 

Demographic and environmental variation 

Wednesday (9 Jan.) – Model Development and Sensitivity Testing 

9:00am – 5:00pm Genetic variation and inbreeding in Vortex 

Reproductive parameters 

Measuring viability 

Data sources and model validation 

Sensitivity testing 

Developing management scenarios 

Scenario planning 

Thursday (10 Jan.) – Modeling Management Options 

9:00am – 5:00pm Metapopulations in Vortex 

Harvest, supplementation and translocation 

Using functions in Vortex 

Genetic management options, including management of captive populations 

Hidden features and helpful hints 

Friday (11 Jan.) – Miscellaneous Modeling Information 

9:00am – 12:00pm Integrated species conservation planning – linking in situ and ex situ 

Overview of global, population and individual state variables 

Developments in metamodeling 

1:00pm – 4:00pm Room (and Bob Lacy) available for individuals who wish to continue 

to work on their own projects 

Instructors: 

Robert Lacy, Chicago Zoological Society 

Kathy Traylor-Holzer, IUCN SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group 

47 


COURSE PARTICIPANTS 

Participants from Brookfield Zoo: 

Glenn Granat (glenn.granat@czs.org) 

Jay Petersen (jay.petersen@czs.org) 

Amy Roberts (amy.roberts@czs.org) 

Tim Snyder (tim.snyder@czs.org) 

Rita Stacey (rita.stacey@czs.org) 

Tim Sullivan (tim.sullivan@czs.org) 

Jennifer Watts (jennifer.watts@czs.org) 

Bill Zeigler (bill.zeigler@czs.org) 

Participants from other institutions: 

Ashley Campbell, Florida Atlantic University (onegiraffe@gmail.com) 

Jo Cook, Zoological Society of London (jo.cook@zsl.org) 

Amielle DeWan, RARE (adewan@rareconservation.org) 

Sarah Long, Population Management Center/Lincoln Park Zoo (slong@lpzoo.org) 

Katelyn Marti, Alex. Ctr for Appl. Pop. Bio./Lincoln Park Zoo (kmarti@lpzoo.org) 

Jeff Muntifering, Minnesota Zoo (jmuntif@gmail.com) 

Karin Schwartz, George Mason University (kschwatz74@aol.com) 

Kevin Shoemaker, Stony Brook University (kevintshoemaker@gmail.com) 

Melissa Theis, Alex. Ctr for Appl. Pop. Bio./Lincoln Park Zoo (mtheis@lpzoo.org) 

48 


From: Kathy Traylor-Holzer [mailto:kathy@cbsg.org] 

Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 1:52 PM 

To: 'Karn Lekagul' 

Cc: 'Wisid'; 'Sumate Kamolnoranath'; 'Boripat Siriaroonrat'; 'Visit Arsaithammakul'; 'nuntanit_k'; 'Kai Kan' 

Subject: RE: Ex Situ Pop Mgt Training for Thailand 

Hi Karn and other ZPO colleagues, 

Great to hear from you! Karn, it’s been awhile since I have seen you – I hope all is well with you. 

Thanks very much for your email. Your request comes at a perfect time, and CBSG would be delighted to 

work with ZPO on population management training. 

As you may know, CBSG is committed to assisting in building capacity for ex situ population 

management in zoo regions that do not have their own ongoing training opportunities. Our goal is to 

train new studbook keepers and species managers in these regions and also to promote the 

development of regional expertise so that regions can conduct their own training programs in the 

future. Most of our focus with this initiative has been in Asia. We have been working for several years 

especially with JAZA and CAZG and have conducted both studbook (SPARKS) and population 

management (PMx) training in Japan and China, both of which now conduct their own studbook 

training. 

CBSG and WAZA recognize the critical importance of developing population management capacity in 

Southeast Asia as a key region for high threats to its biodiversity. Last October we initiated efforts in 

Indonesia and conducted basic studbook training for Indonesian studbook keepers. At the recent 

meeting in Melbourne, WAZA approved some funding to help support additional follow‐up mentoring 

for Indonesian studbook keepers and for possible additional training for other SEAZA studbook keepers. 

My first thought was ZPO as a perfect fit for such capacity building. As you say, Thailand is well advanced 

in many areas of ex situ management and wildlife conservation, and I think it is the perfect time and 

opportunity to develop more population management expertise. It would also be a great opportunity to 

include other appropriate SEAZA participants in such training. As part of our training activities, CBSG 

promotes the conservation role of ex situ management and the integration of in situ and ex situ 

conservation planning for a species – which has great opportunities for implementation in Thailand with 

your involvement in reintroduction and other conservation programs. 

With that background, now let me answer your questions: 

I've just found out about the CBSG Ex Situ Population Management Training this 5-8 November. 

1. Is it conducted in English with participants and examples from around the world ? 

Yes, the training in Taipei will be conducted in English. We are still finalizing the participant list and 

agenda. Most of the participants may be from Taiwan, but there will be international participants from 

Singapore and India and perhaps other countries. We strongly encourage additional international 

participation in the course. 

2. Any possibility of a scholarship for ZPO's population manager ? 

49 


CBSG doees 

not have an ny budget forr 

this workshoop, 

which is bbeing 

supportted 

by the Taiipei 

Zoo. My 

understannding 

is that Taipei T Zoo will 

cover the loocal 

costs succh 

as accommmodations 

andd 

meeting vennue, 

but that ZZPO 

would ne eed to providee 

the internattional 

airfare to Taipei. Pleease 

contact EEric 

Tsao 

(dwx07@zoo.gov.tw) 

for f details andd 

RSVP. If it iss 

not possiblee 

for ZPO to mmeet 

the airfaare 

expense, 

please contact 

me and d Eric and we will see if theere 

are any otther 

options ffor 

funding asssistance. 

Whho 

would posssibly 

attend the training ffrom 

ZPO? Is this person a studbook keeeper 

or species 

coordinattor, 

or 

does he oor 

she have a species of intterest 

for whiich 

they can ddevelop 

a studbook 

databaase 

as a resullt 

of 

the traininng? 

3. If ZPO wwants 

to conduct 

this worksshop 

in Thailannd, 

or as a reggional 

for SEAZZA, 

what are tthe 

estimated costs 

? 

In the passt 

few years, ZPO Z has zoomeed 

ahead on mmatters 

of ethiics 

and welfaree, 

research, wwildlife 

conservvation 

and reintrooductions. 

But t basic populattion 

managemment 

is somethhing 

that we sttill 

need improovement, 

as it 

needs the understanding g and cooperaation 

of the whhole 

zoo. We hhope 

to send oour 

staff to traain 

and also 

conduct trrainings 

in Tha ailand to improove 

our populaation 

managemment 

next yeaar. 

And sincereely 

hope that CCBSG 

can suppoort 

us and be a part of our oongoing 

improvvement 

and suuccess. 

CBSG wouuld 

welcome such a traininng 

opportunitty, 

and we haave 

a small buudget 

from WWAZA 

to help 

support thhis 

for 2013. We will need to discuss thhe 

training buudget 

in moree 

detail, but mmy 

estimate iss 

that 

we have eenough 

funds s for internatiional 

travel too 

Bangkok forr 

two instructtors 

plus a smmall 

instructorr 

fee 

to CBSG. OOther 

expens ses that would 

need to be covered incluude 

local expenses 

in Thailand 

(accommoodations, 

meals, 

local trannsport, 

meeting 

venue, etcc.) 

for the twoo 

instructors and the trainees, 

and any trravel 

expense es for traineees 

to get to the 

course venue. 

As part off 

the training, 

CBSG wouldd 

share all oof 

our presentations 

and oother 

trainingg 

materials with 

ZPO and all 

of the course 

participants 

for 

your futurre 

use. 

I think it wwould 

be beneficial 

if ZPO’ ’s population manager couuld 

attend thee 

training (5‐99 

Nov.) and ppost‐ 

training coonference 

(10 0‐11 Nov.) in Taipei if posssible, 

with thee 

plan to conduct 

a basic ppopulation 

managemment 

training course in Thaailand 

in 20133. 

That would give the ZPOO 

population mmanager 

somme 

early expoosure 

to the training t conceepts 

and offeer 

us the oppoortunity 

in Taipei 

to furtheer 

discuss a 

training coourse 

for Tha ailand. 

This is an exciting oppo ortunity, and I hope CBSG can work witth 

ZPO to makke 

this happeen! 

Please let me 

know whaat 

you think about a this andd 

let me knoww 

as soon as ppossible 

abouut 

a possible ZZPO 

representtative 

at the Taipei T trainingg. 

Best regards, 

Kathy 

Kathy Trayloor‐Holzer, 

Ph.D. 

AZA Tiger Reegional 

Studboo ok Keeper / Tiger 

SSP Populationn 

Management AAdvisor 

WAZA Sumaatran 

Tiger GSMP 

& Amur Tiger GSMP Populatioon 

Managementt 

Advisor 

Senior Program 

Officer, IUC CN/SSC Conservaation 

Breeding SSpecialist 

Group 

12101 Johnny 

Cake Ridge Road, 

Apple Valleey, 

MN 55124 UUSA 

Tel: +1 952 997 9804; Fax: +1 + 952 997 98033 

Email: kathyy@cbsg.org 

50 


From: Karn Lekagul [mailto:wildkarn@yahoo.com] 

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 11:30 PM 

To: kathy 

Cc: Wisid; Sumate Kamolnoranath; Boripat Siriaroonrat; Visit Arsaithammakul; nuntanit_k; Kai Kan 

Subject: Ex Situ Pop Mgt Training for Thailand 

Dear Kathy, 

I've just found out about the CBSG Ex Situ Population Management Training this 5-8 November. 

1. Is it conducted in English with participants and examples from around the world ? 

2. Any possibility of a scholarship for ZPO's population manager ? 

3. If ZPO wants to conduct this workshop in Thailand, or as a regional for SEAZA, what are the estimated costs 

? 

In the past few years, ZPO has zoomed ahead on matters of ethics and welfare, research, wildlife conservation 

and reintroductions. But basic population management is something that we still need improvement, as it 

needs the understanding and cooperation of the whole zoo. We hope to send our staff to train and also 

conduct trainings in Thailand to improve our population management next year. And sincerely hope that CBSG 

can support us and be a part of our ongoing improvement and success. 

Cheers, 

Karn 

51 




October, November, December 2012 

Amphibian News 

52 

Amphibian News

From: Asa-team [mailto:asa-team-bounces@amphibiansurvivalalliance.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Johnson 

Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 11:15 PM 

To: AArk-SC@amphibianark.org 

Cc: AArk-Associates@amphibianark.org; asa-team@amphibiansurvivalalliance.org 

Subject: [ASA-team] AArk Monthly Activity Report September/October 2012 

Dear AArk Steering Committee members and associates, 

Please find below a report on the activities of the Amphibian Ark for September/October 2012. If you 

have questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us directly. As always, we welcome 

your feedback on our work and better ways we can help meet the needs in your region. 

Regards, 

AArk staff 

www.AmphibianArk.org 

AArk Activity Report 

September/October 2012 

(new items highlighted yellow; others ongoing) 

Raising awareness: 

• Working on new awareness-raising campaign featuring famous AArk supporters (Sir David 

Attenborough, Jeff Corwin, Jane Goodall etc.) in a series of posters which will be distributed to 

zoos and aquariums, and circulated via our newsletters, web site, Facebook page etc. 

Conservation needs assessment workshops (www.amphibianark.org/about-us/aarkactivities/planning-workshops/): 

• Philippines, TBD (awaiting funding) 

• In discussion: Bolivia, Europe, India (funding pending), Seychelles, Fiji, Honduras 

• AArk and partners have done 26 national/regional assessment workshops covering 3,018 (43%) 

of the world’s amphibian species 

Ex situ conservation training workshops (www.amphibianark.org/about-us/aarkactivities/husbandry-workshops-2/): 

• Ecuador AVOP & student training, 26-28 September 2012 (funding from WAZA) 34 participants 

attended this intensive veterinary course put on by our AVOP team. Heavy focus on disease 

diagnostics, treatment, and nutrition. 

• Peru, 2013 dates TBD (with Denver Zoo) 

• Madagascar, TBD November 2012 (ASG Madagascar & EAZA) 

• “Amphibian Medicine and Nutritional Challenges” workshop at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, 21-23 

February 2013 

• Panama, March-April 2013 with Smithsonian (funding from USAid) 

• Costa Rica/AMACZOOA – possibly May 2013 (funding from WAZA) 

• AArk and partners have done 52 husbandry workshops in 30 countries including 1727 students 

• Ron and Rachel working with Andy Odum and Toledo Zoo on assembling comprehensive 

Amphibian Conservation Academy Training Course and Internship Program with potential 

partners www.amphibianark.org/husbandry-training/ Course dates 20-28 April 2013. 

Ron working with Danny Beckwith, Rachel Rommel, Joe Mendelson and Kevin Zippel on 

development interactive on-line tutorials. 

Funding: 

• ~$130,000 request declined by IMLS for assessment in Bolivia, China, Colombia, Europe, India, 

Madagascar, Philippines (notification ~mid-September) 

• We are looking for institutions to help us buy and/or host coin wishing wells 

(e.g., www.spiralwishingwells.com/). Please let us know if you can help! 

53 

Amphibian News

• We have approval from Executive Committee and GCN board to pursue becoming our own US 

IRS 501(c)(3) organization, which external foundation representatives are strongly encouraging 

us to do if we wish to see more (some) success in our fundraising activities outside the ex situ 

conservation community 

54 

Amphibian News

From: Asa-team [mailto:asa-team-bounces@amphibiansurvivalalliance.org] On Behalf Of 

kevinz@amphibianark.org 

Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2012 4:44 PM 



Subject: [ASA-team] AArk Monthly Activity Report November 2012 


Please find below a report on the activities of the Amphibian Ark for November 2012. If you have 

questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us directly. As always, we welcome your 

feedback on our work and better ways we can help meet the needs in your region. 

Regards, 

AArk staff 



November 2012 



- putting together December AArk newsletter 

- RG to represent AArk at Amphibian Conservation Symposium in Concepcion, Chile in Jan 2013 


- Bolivia TBD 2013 (some funding from Columbus Zoo) 

- In discussion: Europe, India, Seychelles, Fiji, Honduras, Philippines 

- AArk and partners have done 26 national/regional assessment workshops covering 3,018 (43%) of the 

world’s amphibian species 


- Amphibian Conservation and Husbandry workshop in Andasibe, Madagascar Nov 26-Dec 3, with 

Mitsjinjo and DWCT. 

- “Amphibian Medicine and Nutritional Challenges” workshop at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, 21-23 

February 2013 

- Panama, March-April 2013 with Smithsonian (funding from USAid) 

- USA, 20-28 April 2013 Amphibian Academy with Toledo Zoo www.amphibianark.org/husbandry-training/ 

- Costa Rica/AMACZOOA – possibly May 2013 (funding from WAZA) 

- USA, 30 September – 4 October 2013 with AZA and Detroit Zoo 

- Ecuador, TBD 2013, population management class 

- In discussion: Peru (with Denver Zoo) 

- AArk and partners have done 52 husbandry workshops in 30 countries including 1727 students 

- Ron working with Danny Beckwith, Rachel Rommel, Joe Mendelson and Kevin Zippel on 

development interactive on-line tutorials. 

Funding: 

- $9300 requested from SeaWorld for Bolivian CNAW 

- Rachel collaborating on submitting a National Science Foundation grant for Advancing Informal STEM 

Learning with the Burke Museum, University of Washington and UC Berkley and numerous other 

partners. 

- We are looking for institutions to help us buy and/or host coin wishing wells 


55 

Amphibian News

Other: 

- working on proposed updates to AArk constitution, to be submitted to AArk SC for approval soon 

- new page added to our MatchMaker site to promote volunteer opportunities for individuals wanting to 

help with amphibian conservation projects: 

http://aark.portal.isis.org/Amphibian%20Partnerships/Lists/Amphiban%20partnershis/Volunteers%20re 

quired.aspx 

56 

Amphibian News

From: Asa-team [mailto:asa-team-bounces@amphibiansurvivalalliance.org] On Behalf Of 

kevinz@amphibianark.org 

Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2013 3:23 PM 



Subject: [ASA-team] AArk Monthly Activity Report December 2012 


Please find below a report on the activities of the Amphibian Ark for December 2012. If you have 

questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us directly. As always, we welcome your 

feedback on our work and better ways we can help meet the needs in your region. 

Regards, 

AArk staff 



December 2012 



- AArk December newsletter issued: http://www.amphibianark.org/Newsletters/AArk-newsletter-21.pdf 

- RG to represent AArk at Amphibian Conservation Symposium in Concepcion, Chile in Jan 2013 


- Bolivia TBD 2013 (some funding from Columbus Zoo) 

- Philippines TBD 2013 (some funding from Chester Zoo) 

- In discussion: Europe, India, Seychelles, Fiji, Honduras 

- AArk and partners have done 26 national/regional assessment workshops covering 3,018 (43%) of the 

world’s amphibian species www.amphibianark.org/assessmentresults.htm 


- “Amphibian Medicine and Nutritional Challenges” workshop at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, 21-23 

February 2013 

- Panama, March-April 2013 with Smithsonian (funding from USAid) 

- USA, 20-28 April 2013 Amphibian Academy with Toledo Zoo www.amphibianark.org/husbandry-training/ 

- Costa Rica/AMACZOOA – possibly May 2013 (funding from WAZA) 

- USA, 30 September – 4 October 2013 with AZA and Detroit Zoo 

- Ecuador, TBD 2013, population management class 

- In discussion: Peru (with Denver Zoo) 

- AArk and partners have done 52 husbandry workshops in 30 countries including 1727 students 

- Ron working with Danny Beckwith, Rachel Rommel, Joe Mendelson and Kevin Zippel on 

development interactive on-line tutorials. First introductory module completed and will be uploaded to 

AArk site in early January 2013 

Funding: 

- Rachel collaborating on submitting a National Science Foundation grant for Advancing Informal STEM 

Learning with the Burke Museum, University of Washington and UC Berkley and numerous other partners 

– submitted by 4 Jan. 

57 

Amphibian News

- We are looking for institutions to help us buy and/or host coin wishing wells 


Other: 

- working on proposed updates to AArk constitution, to be submitted to AArk SC for approval soon 

- KevinZ drops to half-time on 1 January 2013. Joe Mendelson will start half-time as Research and 

Fundraising Officer in late January. 

58 

Amphibian News

2011 ANNUAL REPORT 

PANAMA AMPHIBIAN RESCUE AND CONSERVATION PROJECT 

A project partnership between: Africam Safari, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Defenders of Wildlife, Houston Zoo, 

Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Summit Municipal Park and 

Zoo New England. 

59 

Amphibian News

MISSION 

Our mission is to rescue and establish assurance colonies of amphibian species that are in extreme 

danger of extinction throughout Panama. We will also focus our efforts and expertise on 

developing methodologies to reduce the impact of the amphibian chytrid fungus (Bd) so that 

one day captive amphibians may be re-introduced to the wild. 

VISION 

The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project will be a sustainably financed, Panamanian-led 

organization that has stemmed the tide of extinctions caused by amphibian chytrid 

fungus and other threats to amphibians. We will lead successful recovery programs for Panama’s 

endangered amphibians and serve as an exemplary model that can be replicated to address 

the threat of chytridiomycosis to the survival of amphibians worldwide. 

Cover image: Wild Atelopus limosus in Central Panamaa 

60 


1

EXPEDITIONS 

In 2011, we conducted one expedition to Cerro Sapo in the Darien and secured an adequate 

founding population of toad mountain harlequin frogs (Atelpous certus). We also received 

news from collaborator Doug Woodhams that Bd was detected in Torti on the border of the 

Darien province in January 2010. We tried several times to get back to Cerro Pirre in the 

Darien region, but setbacks included flooding and reports 

of FARC activities in the area. As a result, we focused 

the bulk of our efforts on central Panama with 

eight expeditions to the Mamoni River Valley, Cerro 

Brewster, Cerro Bruja and Chucunaque River Valley. 

The primary focus was on securing a more adequate 

founding population for species already held at Gamboa 

or the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center 

(EVACC). 

61 


Atelopus certus collected during 

2011 expeditions now form a 

founding colony in an ex‐situ as‐ 

surance population 

2

EL VALLE AMPHIBIAN CONSERVATION CENTER 

In early 2011, the Houston Zoo and Minera Panama signed an agreement 

that would provide financial support to increase the capacity of EVACC by 20 percent as well 

as funding for rescue expeditions into the mining area. The new building, which began preconstruction 

activities in late 2011, will feature another bio-secure amphibian breeding area and 

dormitory facilities for visiting scholars and volunteers. The facility will be operational by mid- 

2012. 

Space at EVACC remains limited, but the reproduction of amphibian species achieved new levels 

of success in 2011, with the breeding and rearing of offspring from ~70 percent of the priority 

species (nine out of 13 species). Three species of harlequin frogs were bred (variable harlequin 

frogs (A. varius), Pirre harlequin frogs (A. glyphus), and Limosa harlequin frogs (A. limosus), 

and reproduction occurred with three species of direct developing anurans rusty robber 

frogs Strabomantis bufoniformis, Pristimantis museosus, and Craugastor tabasarae. Horned 

marsupial frogs (Gastrotheca cornuta), banded horned tree frogs (Hemiphractus fasciatus), and 

crowned tree frogs (Anotheca spinosa) continue to produce well, and we are pleased to report 

the second captive-reared generation of this species (F2) was successfully reared through metamorphosis. 

The remaining Panamanian golden frogs (Atelopus zeteki) did well and produced 

several clutches of eggs that did not develop. Reproducing this species is the highest priority for 

2012. 

William Devenport joined the EVACC team in late July 2011. A graduate of Southern Illinois 

University, William volunteered for the remainder of the year and provided very valuable assistance 

to the project during this time. 

Denise Kueng, a master’s student at Zurich University, developed a study on two Panamanian 

species of amphibians (Centrolene prosoblepon and Colostethus panamensis) and carried them 

out with the assistance of the EVACC team. Kueng’s studied bacterial communities and antimicrobial 

peptides on amphibians’ skin and look at how it changes after several weeks living in 

captivity. 

62 


3

AMPHIBIAN RESCUE AND CONSERVATION CENTER, SUMMIT ZOO 

In 2011, we made the decision to move the amphibian rescue facility from the Summit Zoo to 

Smithsonian property in Gamboa. The move will facilitate provision of maintenance support, 

supervision of infrastructural improvements, volunteer housing and access to the scientific community. 

As a result we commissioned architectural drawings for the new facility which will be 

located in the Santa Cruz area of Gamboa. Phase I will be the installation of seven 400-squarefeet 

modified shipping containers donated by Maersk to house the collection and to rear insects, 

along with a backup-generator, and waste-water treatment facility. Phase II will involve the 

construction of a 1,300-square-feet support building with two offices, a toilet, a lab, a quarantine 

area and storage to support future collections, research and reintroduction work. Securing 

funding for phase II is our top priority for 2012. We have conducted an environmental impact 

assessment and will begin phase I construction in 2012. 

Our primary focus this year was on securing an adequate founding population of the chevron 

patterned Limosa harlequin frogs (Atelopus limosus). While populations have declined dramatically 

throughout central Panama making them very difficult to find, we were able to grow our 

captive population to 28 males, eight females and 10 juveniles. We have still not successfully 

bred this species in captivity, but believe that we will meet this milestone in 2012. Our toad 

mountain harlequin frogs (Atelopus certus) from Cerro Sapo in the Darien region are doing 

well. We have 49 males and 39 females, with 72 captive-bred offspring now approaching adult 

sizes from two clutches. We have a good founding population of 24 male and 29 female Pirre 

harlequin frogs (Atelopus glyphus) and are rearing two clutches of captive-bred tadpoles. La 

loma treefrogs (Hyloscirtus colymba) have been a more challenging species with steady loss of 

our founding animals due to attrition throughout the last year. We have two males and 10 females, 

but apart from a single breeding event in 2010 we have not had any more offspring, despite 

intensive efforts. We have four undescribed robber frogs Craugastor cf punctariolus collected 

during initial Bd-related declines in 2009, but have not found any more in the field since 

then. 

Aracelys De Gracia, our insect keeper, left the project last year to further her education, and we 

welcomed Nancy Fairchild, a former volunteer, to fill her position. In terms of professional development 

and training, we were proud that Angie Estrada was awarded an AZA scholarship to 

attend the AZA amphibian husbandry training course in Toledo, Ohio. It was a rewarding experience 

for Angie to have exposure to a lot of different systems and ideas 

out there and we are grateful to Association of Zoos and Aquariums for providing 

this opportunity. 

63 


Captive‐bred Atelopus tadpoles 

and recent Atelopus glyphus 

metamorph (above) 

4

POPULATION MANAGEMENT AND ASSISTED REPRODUCTION 

Jennifer Mickelberg, an animal 

population management expert 

from the Smithsonian Conserva‐ 

tion Biology Institute, teaching 

principles of animal population 

management 

With the commitment to take on an ex-situ population of a species comes responsibility to manage 

the population in a way that will preserve the genetic integrity of the species. Jennifer 

Mickelberg (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute) and Kristine Schad (Lincoln Park 

Zoo) recently hosted the first of what we hope will be a series of workshops training conservation 

technicians on amphibian population management guidelines. These guidelines aim to preserve 

the maximum number of genes from the original wild-caught founding animals. The conservation 

technicians maintain animal records in a studbook and analyze population data and 

optimal pairings using SPARKS and PopLink management software. In addition, we have Gina 

DellaTogna, a Panamanian PhD student at the University of Maryland, who is working on developing 

assisted reproduction methods for Atelopus. Gina is exploring the possibility of freezing 

sperm from founding animals and coordinating closely with the Amphibian Ark biobanking 

committee. If successful, these tools will allow us to cryobank gametes of valuable founding 

animals and provide further insurance to help maintain the genetic diversity of valuable founding 

animals well into the future. 

64 


5

SEARCH FOR A METHOD TO CONTROL CHYTRIDIOMYCOSIS 

Shawna Cikanek and Matt Becker working 

with the golden frog research colony estab‐ 

lished at the Smithsonian Conservation Biol‐ 

ogy Institute through the generous assis‐ 

tance of Project Golden Frog and the Mary‐ 

land Zoo in Baltimore. 

Matt Becker, a PhD student at Virginia Tech University painstakingly tested more than 600 

bacterial isolates from swabs taken from Panamanian frog species in 2011. He cultured and 

tested all the bacterial extracts against chytrid fungus for anti-fungal properties and found 50 

isolates that inhibited chytrid growth. We prioritized those for trials and are now running experiments 

to test whether those bacteria can live on golden frog skin. Shawna Cikanek, a Kansas 

State Veterinary School student tested endocrine responses of the frogs to different probiotic 

treatments. Perhaps the biggest news of 2011 is that the National Science Foundation awarded 

a $2 million “dimensions of biodiversity” grant to our collaborators Lisa Belden (VA Tech), 

Reid Harris (James Madison University) and Kevin Minbiole (Villanova University) to look at 

the relationships between microbe communities and chytridiomycosis in Panama. This will 

greatly expand our capacity to understand the emerging field of skin-microbe interactions 

throughout the next four years. 

65 


6

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH 

2011 was the first year we officially celebrated August 14 th as Golden Frog Day in Panama. We 

organized a celebration at the Summit Zoo. We also participated in a parade in El Valle followed 

by educational activities, a play and lectures at EVACC. Golden Frog Day legislation 

was only passed in 2010 and this is a major opportunity to do more effective organization and 

outreach involving local communities for next year. Part of the National Science Foundation 

research grant includes four years of funding for an education program for the project so we 

will increase our outreach capacity significantly in 2012. 

Online: Our big achievement this year was to get our website translated and to recruit two volunteer 

translators to help us keep the Spanish site fresh. We received more than 25,000 unique 

visitors to amphibianrescue.org in 2011 (a 25 percent increase), with about 57,000 page views 

from 146 countries around the world. New features included an online store through Cafepress 

and an Amazon wishlist. Our social media strategy focused on recruiting and establishing an 

online relationship with constituents. In 2011, we gained 1,000 new Facebook fans for a total of 

4,500. Of these, 1,800 are from Panama, versus 1,400 from the United States. Content posted to 

Facebook was viewed 460,000 times with 2,700 feedback actions. We doubled our Twitter following 

to 1,300 people and noticed that environmental conversations on Twitter are beginning 

to blossom as more people in environmental fields catch on to this social media tool. 

Traditional media: In October we premiered an award-winning one-hour documentary on the 

project titled Mission Critical: Amphibian Rescue on Smithsonian Networks. It is available for 

download on iTunes and a trailer can be viewed on our website. Twenty independent news articles 

about the project were published in 2011, including features in Defenders of Wildlife 

Magazine, Zooborns, BBC, Reuters and Nature. 

Volunteer program: In 2011, we recruited 11 international volunteers and 23 local Panamanian 

volunteers with a total of 34 “graduates” of the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation 

Project. Highlights of the volunteer program include a draft education and outreach plan developed 

by Meryl Monfort and University of York volunteer Simon Nockold who conducted research 

showing that we could group harlequin frogs, allowing us to increase the effective holding 

capacity for our collection. 

Panama’s National Golden Frog Day celebrations in El 

Valle de Anton, and the Summit Municipal Park. 

66 


7

FINANCIAL REPORT FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2011 

FUNDING SOURCE 2011 Expenses 

EVACC Staff & Supplies Houston Zoo and EVACC donors $ 81,000 

EVACC infrastructure 

Gamboa Facilities & containers 

Houston Zoo and EVACC donors $ 27,000 

Defenders of Wildlife $ 9,861 

Africam Safari $ 5,731 

Gamboa Staff Salaries 

SCBI and donors $ 13,427 

STRI $ 32,000 

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo $ 41,630 

Supplies & Expeditions 

Defenders of Wildlife $ 32,000 

USFWS $ 28,632 

Africam Safari $ 17,449 

Cure research & sperm freezing 

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo $ 604 

USFWS $ 8,593 

SCBI and donors - cure $ 18,510 

USS Endowment (Smithsonian) $ 11,147 

SCBI staff salary and travel SCBI and donors $ 115,333 

$ 442,917 

Note: Income from project partners African Safari, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Defenders of Wildlife, Zoo New England, 

STRI, SCBI, was received under a 3-year MOU. Here we report expenditures in an operating budget format 

rather than income or grant award amounts. Zoo New England’s 2011 contribution of $35,750 was allocated to 

Phase I construction needs in calendar year 2012. 

67 


8

DONORS 

In addition to the contributions from project partners, we are grateful to the following donors who have made additional 

contributions to the project directly or via the Houston Zoo: Anele Kolohe Foundation, Baton Rouge Zoo, 

Bay and Paul Foundation, Buffalo Zoo, Cleveland MetroParks Zoo, Greenville Zoo, Utah’s Hogle Zoo, Anne B. 

Keiser, Oregon Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo, Shared Earth Foundation, Susan and Frank Mars, Maersk, Minera Panama, 

Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, Sedgwick County Zoo, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS 

Our sincere thanks to the following individuals who contributed $25 or more online: 

Terri Barr, Bonnie Bell, Ron Bennett, Jennifer Bose, Emily Coronado, Melvin Davis, Reine DesRosiers, Micaela 

Eschman, Casey Hogle, Tarna Kidder, Pamela Kittler, Jillian Nash, Mario Rups, Louise Shelley, Sylvia Spengler, 

Eric Stubbs, Leonard Swift, Nicole Van Houten, Bravo Verde, Richard Wolfson, and Adelynn Woodward. 

STAFF 

Lead Scientist & International Coordinator - Dr. Brian Gratwicke 

Project Director, Panama - Dr. Roberto Ibáñez 

Technical Staff - Lanki Cheucarama, Aracelys De Gracia*, Angie Estrada, Nancy Fairchild, Jorge Guerrel, Mahudy 

Díaz (* =alumni). 

El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center Director – Heidi Ross, Edgardo Griffith 

Technical Staff – William Devenport, Matilde Peréz 

STEERING COMMITTEE 

Frank Camacho, Managing Director Africam Safari 

Bob Chastain, President and CEO Cheyenne Mountain Zoo 

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Executive Vice President Defenders of Wildlife 

Rick Barongi, Executive Director Houston Zoo 

Steve Monfort, Director Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute 

Eldredge Bermingham, Director Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute 

Nestor Correa, Director, Summit Municipal Park 

John Linehan, President and CEO Zoo New England. 


IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE 

Luis Carrillo Africam Safari; Dr. Della Garelle Cheyenne Mountain Zoo; Cindy Hoffman Defenders of Wildlife; 

Paul Crump; Peter Riger, Edgardo Griffth & Heidi Ross Houston Zoo; Dr. Brian Gratwicke & Matthew Evans 

Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park; Dr. Roberto Ibáñez Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; Nestor 

Correa, Summit Municipal Park; and Dr. Eric Baitchman Zoo New England. 

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE 

Katie Borremans Cheyenne Mountain Zoo; Cindy Hoffman Defenders of Wildlife; Brian Hill Houston Zoo Inc.; 

Lindsay Renick Mayer Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park; Beth King Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; 

and Brooke Wardrop Zoo New England. 

Peter Riger, Alan Pessier, Eric Baitchman, Paul Crump, William Devenport, Heidi Ross, Angie Estrada, Jorge Guerrell, Della Garelle, Roberto Ibáñez 

68

2011 VOLUNTEERS 

Shane Abinnette, Alan Acevedo, Jeisy Acevedo, Richard Anderson, Christine Buelow, Raquel Camano, Shawna 

Cikanek, Julie Charbonnier, Daniel Coco, Carmen Cristina, Rosa de Coco, Shanta Deva, Shalina Deva, Shalini 

Deva, Brian Freiermuth, Pablo Gonzalez, Jack Hruska, Myra Hughey, María Alejandra Isaza, Anaheis Jaramillo, 

Randall Jimenez, Eben Kirksey, Cecilia Laskano, Amanda Lea, Jorge Lezcano, Mike Maslanka, Meryl Monfort, 

Simon Nockold, Yesuris Ortega, Trinidad Pardo, Katie Pitts, Alexander Quiros, Mercedes Rodríguez, Jenny 

Rogers, Maria Jose Salica, Tracy Stetzinger, Stefan Wheat, and Sally Williams. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

We are very grateful to the following people and organizations for their invaluable assistance and advice in the 

design and execution of this project: Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (ANAM), Pamela Baker-Masson, Matt 

Becker, Lisa Belden, Ed Bronikowski, James Carpenter, Shawna Cikanek, Andrew Crawford, Lesli Creedon, 

Sharon Devine, Matt Evans, Rob Fleischer, Ron Gagliardo, Reid Harris, Katherine Hope, Warren Lynch, Jerry 

Marantelli, Tom Mason, Roy McDiarmid, Jennifer Mickelberg, Kevin Minbiole, Don Moore, Cathi Morrison, Jim 

Murphy, Suzan Murray, Kevin Murphy, Luis Padilla, Rachel Page, Lou Perrotti, Allan Pessier, Vicky Poole, Rick 

Quintero, George Rabb, Geoff Reynolds, Louise Rollins-Smith, Oris Sanjur, Kristine Schad, Jennifer Sevin, Ed 

Smith, Ruth Stolk, Nicole Tarmon, Tim Walsh, Lisa Ware, Dave Wildt, Brad Wilson, Doug Woodhams, and 

Kevin Zippel. 

69 


9




2012 

Climate Change 

70 

Climate Change

Turn Down 

the 

Executive Summary 

Heat 

Why a 4°C Warmer World 

Must be Avoided 

71 

Climate Change

72 

Climate Change

Turn Down 

the 

Heat 

Why a 4°C Warmer World 

Must be Avoided 

November 2012 

A Report for the World Bank 

by the Potsdam Institute for 

Climate Impact Research and 

Climate Analytics 

73 


Climate Change

© 2012 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 

1818 H Street NW 

Washington DC 20433 

Telephone: 202-473-1000 

Internet: www.worldbank.org 

This work is a product of the staff of the World Bank with external contributions. 

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not 

necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, 

or the governments they represent. 

The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. 

The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in 

this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the 

legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. 

Rights and Permissions 

The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because the World Bank encourages 

dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, 

for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. 

Any queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed 

to the Office of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 

20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2422; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. 

74 

Climate Change

Acknowledgements 

The report Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided is a result of contributions 

from a wide range of experts from across the globe. We thank everyone who contributed to its richness 

and multidisciplinary outlook. 

The report has been written by a team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and 

Climate Analytics, including Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, William Hare, Olivia Serdeczny, Sophie Adams, 

Dim Coumou, Katja Frieler, Maria Martin, Ilona M. Otto, Mahé Perrette, Alexander Robinson, Marcia Rocha, 

Michiel Schaeffer, Jacob Schewe, Xiaoxi Wang, and Lila Warszawski. 

The report was commissioned by the World Bank’s Global Expert Team for Climate Change Adaptation, 

led by Erick C.M. Fernandes and Kanta Kumari Rigaud, who worked closely with the Potsdam Institute 

for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics. Jane Olga Ebinger coordinated the World Bank team 

and valuable insights were provided throughout by Rosina Bierbaum (University of Michigan) and Michael 

MacCracken (Climate Institute, Washington DC). 

The report received insightful comments from scientific peer reviewers. We would like to thank Ulisses 

Confalonieri, Andrew D. Friend, Dieter Gerten, Saleemul Huq, Pavel Kabat, Thomas Karl, Akio Kitoh, Reto 

Knutti, Anthony J. McMichael, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Martin Parry, Barrie Pittock, and John Stone. 

Valuable guidance and oversight was provided by Rachel Kyte, Mary Barton-Dock, Fionna Douglas and 

Marianne Fay. 

We are grateful to colleagues from the World Bank for their input: Sameer Akbar, Keiko Ashida, Ferid 

Belhaj, Rachid Benmessaoud, Bonizella Biagini, Anthony Bigio, Ademola Braimoh, Haleh Bridi, Penelope 

Brook, Ana Bucher, Julia Bucknall, Jacob Burke, Raffaello Cervigni, Laurence Clarke, Francoise Clottes, 

Annette Dixon, Philippe Dongier, Milen Dyoulgerov, Luis Garcia, Habiba Gitay, Susan Goldmark, Ellen 

Goldstein, Gloria Grandolini, Stephane Hallegatte, Valerie Hickey, Daniel Hoornweg, Stefan Koeberle, Motoo 

Konishi, Victoria Kwakwa, Marcus Lee, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, Meleesa McNaughton, Robin Mearns, 

Nancy Chaarani Meza, Alan Miller, Klaus Rohland, Onno Ruhl, Michal Rutkowski, Klas Sander, Hartwig 

Schafer, Patrick Verkooijen Dorte Verner, Deborah Wetzel, Ulrich Zachau and Johannes Zutt. 

We would like to thank Robert Bisset and Sonu Jain for outreach efforts to partners, the scientific 

community and the media. Perpetual Boateng, Tobias Baedeker and Patricia Braxton provided valuable 

support to the team. 

We acknowledge with gratitude Connect4Climate that contributed to the production of this report. 

75 


iii

iv 76 

Climate Change

Foreword 

It is my hope that this report shocks us into action. Even for those of us already committed to fighting 

climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency. 

This report spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what 

scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes. 

The 4°C scenarios are devastating: the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production 

potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; 

unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water 

scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of 

biodiversity, including coral reef systems. 

And most importantly, a 4°C world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty 

and new risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs. 

The lack of action on climate change not only risks putting prosperity out of reach of millions of people 

in the developing world, it threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development. 

It is clear that we already know a great deal about the threat before us. The science is unequivocal 

that humans are the cause of global warming, and major changes are already being observed: global mean 

warming is 0.8°C above pre industrial levels; oceans have warmed by 0.09°C since the 1950s and are acidifying; 

sea levels rose by about 20 cm since pre-industrial times and are now rising at 3.2 cm per decade; 

an exceptional number of extreme heat waves occurred in the last decade; major food crop growing areas 

are increasingly affected by drought. 

Despite the global community’s best intentions to keep global warming below a 2°C increase above 

pre-industrial climate, higher levels of warming are increasingly likely. Scientists agree that countries’ current 

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change emission pledges and commitments would 

most likely result in 3.5 to 4°C warming. And the longer those pledges remain unmet, the more likely a 

4°C world becomes. 

Data and evidence drive the work of the World Bank Group. Science reports, including those produced 

by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, informed our decision to ramp up work on these issues, 

leading to: a World Development Report on climate change designed to improve our understanding of the 

implications of a warming planet; a Strategic Framework on Development and Climate Change, and a report 

on Inclusive Green Growth. The World Bank is a leading advocate for ambitious action on climate change, 

not only because it is a moral imperative, but because it makes good economic sense. 

But what if we fail to ramp up efforts on mitigation? What are the implications of a 4°C world? We 

commissioned this report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics 

to help us understand the state of the science and the potential impact on development in such a world. 

77 


v

vi 

It would be so dramatically different from today’s world that it is hard to describe accurately; much relies 

on complex projections and interpretations. 

We are well aware of the uncertainty that surrounds these scenarios and we know that different scholars 

and studies sometimes disagree on the degree of risk. But the fact that such scenarios cannot be discarded 

is sufficient to justify strengthening current climate change policies. Finding ways to avoid that scenario is 

vital for the health and welfare of communities around the world. While every region of the world will be 

affected, the poor and most vulnerable would be hit hardest. 

A 4°C world can, and must, be avoided. 

The World Bank Group will continue to be a strong advocate for international and regional agreements 

and increasing climate financing. We will redouble our efforts to support fast growing national initiatives 

to mitigate carbon emissions and build adaptive capacity as well as support inclusive green growth and 

climate smart development. Our work on inclusive green growth has shown that—through more efficiency 

and smarter use of energy and natural resources—many opportunities exist to drastically reduce the climate 

impact of development, without slowing down poverty alleviation and economic growth. 

This report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything. The solutions don’t lie only in 

climate finance or climate projects. The solutions lie in effective risk management and ensuring all our 

work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4°C world in mind. The World Bank Group will 

step up to the challenge. 

78 

Dr. Jim Yong Kim 

President, World Bank Group 

Climate Change

79 


vii

Executive 

Summary 

80 

Climate Change


This report provides a snapshot of recent scientific literature and new analyses of likely impacts and risks that would be associated 

with a 4° Celsius warming within this century. It is a rigorous attempt to outline a range of risks, focusing on developing 

countries and especially the poor. A 4°C world would be one of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods 

in many regions, with serious impacts on ecosystems and associated services. But with action, a 4°C world can be avoided 

and we can likely hold warming below 2°C. 

Without further commitments and action to reduce greenhouse 

gas emissions, the world is likely to warm by more than 3°C 

above the preindustrial climate. Even with the current mitigation 

commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 

20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100. If they are not 

met, a warming of 4°C could occur as early as the 2060s. Such a 

warming level and associated sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, or 

more, by 2100 would not be the end point: a further warming to 

levels over 6°C, with several meters of sea-level rise, would likely 

occur over the following centuries. 

Thus, while the global community has committed itself to 

holding warming below 2°C to prevent “dangerous” climate 

change, and Small Island Developing states (SIDS) and Least 

Developed Countries (LDCs) have identified global warming of 

1.5°C as warming above which there would be serious threats to 

their own development and, in some cases, survival, the sum total 

of current policies—in place and pledged—will very likely lead to 

warming far in excess of these levels. Indeed, present emission 

trends put the world plausibly on a path toward 4°C warming 

within the century. 

This report is not a comprehensive scientific assessment, as 

will be forthcoming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change (IPCC) in 2013–14 in its Fifth Assessment Report. It is 

focused on developing countries, while recognizing that developed 

countries are also vulnerable and at serious risk of major damages 

from climate change. A series of recent extreme events worldwide 

continue to highlight the vulnerability of not only the developing 

world but even wealthy industrialized countries. 

81 


Uncertainties remain in projecting the extent of both climate 

change and its impacts. We take a risk-based approach in which 

risk is defined as impact multiplied by probability: an event with 

low probability can still pose a high risk if it implies serious 

consequences. 

No nation will be immune to the impacts of climate change. 

However, the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently 

unequal and tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions, 

which have the least economic, institutional, scientific, and technical 

capacity to cope and adapt. For example: 

• Even though absolute warming will be largest in high latitudes, 

the warming that will occur in the tropics is larger when compared 

to the historical range of temperature and extremes to 

which human and natural ecosystems have adapted and coped. 

The projected emergence of unprecedented high-temperature 

extremes in the tropics will consequently lead to significantly 

larger impacts on agriculture and ecosystems. 

• Sea-level rise is likely to be 15 to 20 percent larger in the tropics 

than the global mean. 

• Increases in tropical cyclone intensity are likely to be felt 

disproportionately in low-latitude regions. 

• Increasing aridity and drought are likely to increase substantially 

in many developing country regions located in tropical 

and subtropical areas. 

A world in which warming reaches 4°C above preindustrial 

levels (hereafter referred to as a 4°C world), would be one of 

1

2 

Turn Down The heaT: why a 4°C warmer worlD musT Be avoiDeD 

Figure 1: Median estimates (lines) from probabilistic temperature projections for two non-mitigation emission scenarios (SRES A1FI and a 

reference scenario close to SRESA1B), both of which come close to, or exceed by a substantial margin, 4°C warming by 2100. The results for these 

emission scenarios are compared to scenarios in which current pledges are met and to mitigation scenarios holding warming below 2°C with a 50% 

chance or more. A hypothetical scenario is also plotted for which global emissions stop in 2016, as an illustrative comparison against pathways that 

are technically and economically feasible. The spike in warming after emissions are cut to zero is due to the removal of the shading effect of sulfate 

aerosols. The 95% uncertainty range (shaded area) is provided for one scenario only to enhance readability. See (Rogelj et al., 2010; Hare et al., 

2011; Schaeffer et al., 2012) for scenarios and modeling methods. 

Global average surface temperature increase 

above pre-industrial levels (°C) 

5 

4 

3 

2°C 

1.5°C 

1 

0 

unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in 

many regions, with serious impacts on human systems, ecosystems, 

and associated services. 

Warming of 4°C can still be avoided: numerous studies show 

that there are technically and economically feasible emissions 

pathways to hold warming likely below 2°C (Figure 1). Thus the 

level of impacts that developing countries and the rest of the world 

experience will be a result of government, private sector, and civil 

society decisions and choices, including, unfortunately, inaction. 

Observed Impacts and Changes to the 

Climate System 

Illustrative low-emission scenario with negative CO2 emissions 

from upper half of literature range 

in 2nd half of 21st Historical observations 

Century 

1900 1950 2000 2050 

The unequivocal effects of greenhouse gas emission–induced 

change on the climate system, reported by the IPCC’s Fourth 

Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007, have continued to intensify, 

more or less unabated: 

• The concentration of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide 

(CO 2 ), has continued to increase from its preindustrial 

IPCC SRES A1FI 

very likely to exceed 4°C 

Reference (close to SRES A1B) 

likely to exceed 3°C 

Current Pledges 

virtually certain to exceed 2°C; 50% chance above 3°C 

Stabilization at 50% chance to exceed 2°C 

RCP3PD 

likely below 2°C; medium chance to exceed 1.5°C 

Global sudden stop to emissions in 2016 

likely below 1.5°C 

82 


Effect of current 

pledges 

Geophysical 

intertia 

2100 

concentration of approximately 278 parts per million (ppm) 

to over 391 ppm in September 2012, with the rate of rise now 

at 1.8 ppm per year. 

• The present CO 2 concentration is higher than paleoclimatic 

and geologic evidence indicates has occurred at any time in 

the last 15 million years. 

• Emissions of CO 2 are, at present, about 35,000 million metric 

tons per year (including land-use change) and, absent further 

policies, are projected to rise to 41,000 million metric tons of 

CO 2 per year in 2020. 

• Global mean temperature has continued to increase and is 

now about 0.8°C above preindustrial levels. 

A global warming of 0.8°C may not seem large, but many 

climate change impacts have already started to emerge, and the 

shift from 0.8°C to 2°C warming or beyond will pose even greater 

challenges. It is also useful to recall that a global mean temperature 

increase of 4°C approaches the difference between temperatures 

today and those of the last ice age, when much of central Europe 

and the northern United States were covered with kilometers of ice

and global mean temperatures were about 4.5°C to 7°C lower. And 

this magnitude of climate change—human induced —is occurring 

over a century, not millennia. 

The global oceans have continued to warm, with about 90 

percent of the excess heat energy trapped by the increased greenhouse 

gas concentrations since 1955 stored in the oceans as heat. 

The average increase in sea levels around the world over the 20th 

century has been about 15 to 20 centimeters. Over the last decade 

the average rate of sea-level rise has increased to about 3.2 cm per 

decade. Should this rate remain unchanged, this would mean over 

30 cm of additional sea-level rise in the 21st century. 

The warming of the atmosphere and oceans is leading to an 

accelerating loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, 

and this melting could add substantially to sea-level rise in the 

future. Overall, the rate of loss of ice has more than tripled since 

the 1993–2003 period as reported in the IPCC AR4, reaching 1.3 

cm per decade over 2004–08; the 2009 loss rate is equivalent to 

about 1.7 cm per decade. If ice sheet loss continues at these rates, 

without acceleration, the increase in global average sea level due to 

this source would be about 15 cm by the end of the 21st century. 

A clear illustration of the Greenland ice sheet’s increasing vulnerability 

to warming is the rapid growth in melt area observed since 

the 1970s. As for Arctic sea ice, it reached a record minimum in 

September 2012, halving the area of ice covering the Arctic Ocean 

in summers over the last 30 years. 

83 


ExECuTIvE SummAry 

The effects of global warming are also leading to observed 

changes in many other climate and environmental aspects of the 

Earth system. The last decade has seen an exceptional number of 

extreme heat waves around the world with consequential severe 

impacts. Human-induced climate change since the 1960s has 

increased the frequency and intensity of heat waves and thus also 

likely exacerbated their societal impacts. In some climatic regions, 

extreme precipitation and drought have increased in intensity and/ 

or frequency with a likely human influence. An example of a recent 

extreme heat wave is the Russian heat wave of 2010, which had 

very significant adverse consequences. Preliminary estimates for 

the 2010 heat wave in Russia put the death toll at 55,000, annual 

crop failure at about 25 percent, burned areas at more than 1 

million hectares, and economic losses at about US$15 billion (1 

percent gross domestic product (GDP)). 

In the absence of climate change, extreme heat waves in Europe, 

Russia, and the United States, for example, would be expected to 

occur only once every several hundred years. Observations indicate 

a tenfold increase in the surface area of the planet experiencing 

extreme heat since the 1950s. 

The area of the Earth’s land surface affected by drought has 

also likely increased substantially over the last 50 years, somewhat 

faster than projected by climate models. The 2012 drought in the 

United States impacted about 80 percent of agricultural land, 

making it the most severe drought since the 1950s. 

3

4 


Figure 2: Multi-model mean compilation of the most extreme warm monthly temperature experienced at each location in the period 2080-2100 

for the months of July (left) and January (right) in absolute temperatures (top) and anomalies compared to the most extreme monthly temperature 

simulated during present day (bottom). The intensity of the color scale has been reduced over the oceans for distinction. 

Negative effects of higher temperatures have been observed on 

agricultural production, with recent studies indicating that since 

the 1980s global maize and wheat production may have been 

reduced significantly compared to a case without climate change. 

Effects of higher temperatures on the economic growth of poor 

countries have also been observed over recent decades, suggesting 

a significant risk of further reductions in the economic growth 

in poor countries in the future due to global warming. An MIT 

study 1 used historical fluctuations in temperature within countries 

to identify its effects on aggregate economic outcomes. It reported 

that higher temperatures substantially reduce economic growth in 

poor countries and have wide-ranging effects, reducing agricultural 

output, industrial output, and political stability. These findings 

inform debates over the climate’s role in economic development 

and suggest the possibility of substantial negative impacts of 

higher temperatures on poor countries. 

1 Dell, Melissa, Benjamin F. Jones, and Benjamin A. Olken. 2012. “Temperature 

Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century.” American 

Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 4(3): 66-95. 

84 


Projected Climate Change Impacts in a 

4°C World 

The effects of 4°C warming will not be evenly distributed around 

the world, nor would the consequences be simply an extension of 

those felt at 2°C warming. The largest warming will occur over 

land and range from 4°C to 10°C. Increases of 6°C or more in 

average monthly summer temperatures would be expected in large 

regions of the world, including the Mediterranean, North Africa, 

the Middle East, and the contiguous United States (Figure 2). 

Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the 

intensity and frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent 

extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to become 

the new normal summer in a 4°C world. Tropical South America, 

central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to 

regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and 

duration. In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest 

months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest 

months at the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the 

Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Tibetan 

plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than 

°C 

°C

the most extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, 

the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer 

than today’s warmest July. 

Extreme heat waves in recent years have had severe impacts, 

causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest losses. The 

impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C world have 

not been evaluated, but they could be expected to vastly exceed 

the consequences experienced to date and potentially exceed the 

adaptive capacities of many societies and natural systems. 

Rising CO 2 Concentration and Ocean 

Acidification 

Apart from a warming of the climate system, one of the most 

serious consequences of rising carbon dioxide concentration in 

the atmosphere occurs when it dissolves in the ocean and results 

in acidification. A substantial increase in ocean acidity has been 

observed since preindustrial times. A warming of 4°C or more 

by 2100 would correspond to a CO 2 concentration above 800 ppm 

and an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean. The 

observed and projected rates of change in ocean acidity over the 

next century appear to be unparalleled in Earth’s history. Evidence 

is already emerging of the adverse consequences of acidification 

for marine organisms and ecosystems, combined with the effects 

of warming, overfishing, and habitat destruction (Figure 3). 



Figure 3: Median estimates (lines) from probabilistic projections of ocean-surface pH. Lower pH indicates more severe ocean acidification, 

which inhibits the growth of calcifying organisms, including shellfish, calcareous phytoplankton and coral reefs. The SRES A1FI scenario shows 

increasing ocean acidification is likely to be associated with over 4°C warming relative to pre-industrial levels. The 95% uncertainty range (shaded 

area) is provided for one scenario only to enhance readability and is driven mainly by carbon-cycle uncertainty. See (Bernie et al. 2010; Rogelj et 

al., 2010; Hare et al., 2011; Schaeffer et al., 2012) for scenarios and modeling methods. 

Ocean Acidity (pH) 

8.1 

8 

7.9 

7.8 

7.7 

1900 1950 2000 

Year 

2050 2100 

Illustrative low-emission scenario with 

strong negative CO2 emissions 

Global sudden stop to emissions in 2016 

RCP3PD 

50% chance to exceed 2°C 

Current Pledges 

Reference (close to SRES A1B) 

IPCC SRES A1FI 

85 

Coral reefs in particular are acutely sensitive to changes in 

water temperatures, ocean pH, and intensity and frequency of 

tropical cyclones. Reefs provide protection against coastal floods, 

storm surges, and wave damage as well as nursery grounds and 

habitat for many fish species. Coral reef growth may stop as CO 2 

concentration approaches 450 ppm over the coming decades (corresponding 

to a warming of about 1.4°C in the 2030s). By the 

time the concentration reaches around 550 ppm (corresponding 

to a warming of about 2.4°C in the 2060s), it is likely that coral 

reefs in many areas would start to dissolve. The combination 

of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and 

sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C 

global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, 

which could occur well before 4°C is reached, would 

have profound consequences for their dependent species and for 

the people who depend on them for food, income, tourism, and 

shoreline protection. 

Rising Sea Levels, Coastal Inundation 

and Loss 

Warming of 4°C will likely lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 

meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more to be 

realized in the coming centuries. Limiting warming to 2°C would 

likely reduce sea-level rise by about 20 cm by 2100 compared to 

5

6 


a 4°C world. However, even if global warming is limited to 2°C, 

global mean sea level could continue to rise, with some estimates 

ranging between 1.5 and 4 meters above present-day levels by the 

year 2300. Sea-level rise would likely be limited to below 2 meters 

only if warming were kept to well below 1.5°C. 

Sea-level rise will vary regionally: for a number of geophysically 

determined reasons, it is projected to be up to 20 percent higher 

in the tropics and below average at higher latitudes. In particular, 

the melting of the ice sheets will reduce the gravitational pull on 

the ocean toward the ice sheets and, as a consequence, ocean 

water will tend to gravitate toward the Equator. Changes in wind 

and ocean currents due to global warming and other factors will 

also affect regional sea-level rise, as will patterns of ocean heat 

uptake and warming. 

Sea-level rise impacts are projected to be asymmetrical even 

within regions and countries. Of the impacts projected for 31 

developing countries, only 10 cities account for two-thirds of the 

total exposure to extreme floods. Highly vulnerable cities are to 

be found in Mozambique, Madagascar, Mexico, Venezuela, India, 

Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. 

For small island states and river delta regions, rising sea levels 

are likely to have far ranging adverse consequences, especially 

when combined with the projected increased intensity of tropical 

cyclones in many tropical regions, other extreme weather events, 

and climate change–induced effects on oceanic ecosystems (for 

86 


example, loss of protective reefs due to temperature increases and 

ocean acidification). 

Risks to Human Support Systems: Food, 

Water, Ecosystems, and Human Health 

Although impact projections for a 4°C world are still preliminary 

and it is often difficult to make comparisons across individual 

assessments, this report identifies a number of extremely severe 

risks for vital human support systems. With extremes of temperature, 

heat waves, rainfall, and drought are projected to increase 

with warming; risks will be much higher in a 4°C world compared 

to a 2°C world. 

In a world rapidly warming toward 4°C, the most adverse 

impacts on water availability are likely to occur in association 

with growing water demand as the world population increases. 

Some estimates indicate that a 4°C warming would significantly 

exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly 

northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, 

while additional countries in Africa would be newly confronted 

with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth. 

• Drier conditions are projected for southern Europe, Africa (except 

some areas in the northeast), large parts of North America 

and South America, and southern Australia, among others.

• Wetter conditions are projected in particular for the northern 

high latitudes—that is, northern North America, northern 

Europe, and Siberia—and in some monsoon regions. Some 

regions may experience reduced water stress compared to a 

case without climate change. 

• Subseasonal and subregional changes to the hydrological 

cycle are associated with severe risks, such as flooding and 

drought, which may increase significantly even if annual 

averages change little. 

With extremes of rainfall and drought projected to increase 

with warming, these risks are expected to be much higher in a 

4°C world as compared to the 2°C world. In a 2°C world: 

• River basins dominated by a monsoon regime, such as the 

Ganges and Nile, are particularly vulnerable to changes in 

the seasonality of runoff, which may have large and adverse 

effects on water availability. 

• Mean annual runoff is projected to decrease by 20 to 40 percent 

in the Danube, Mississippi, Amazon, and Murray Darling river 

basins, but increase by roughly 20 percent in both the Nile 

and the Ganges basins. 

All these changes approximately double in magnitude in a 

4°C world. 

The risk for disruptions to ecosystems as a result of ecosystem 

shifts, wildfires, ecosystem transformation, and forest dieback would 

be significantly higher for 4°C warming as compared to reduced 

amounts of warming. Increasing vulnerability to heat and drought 

stress will likely lead to increased mortality and species extinction. 

Ecosystems will be affected by more frequent extreme weather 

events, such as forest loss due to droughts and wildfire exacerbated 

by land use and agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires 

could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately 

1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Changes would be expected 

to be even more severe in a 4°C world. 

In fact, in a 4°C world climate change seems likely to become 

the dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing habitat 

destruction as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research 

suggests that large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 

4°C world, with climate change and high CO 2 concentration driving 

a transition of the Earth´s ecosystems into a state unknown 

in human experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to 

dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem services on which 

society depends (for example, fisheries and protection of coastline—afforded 

by coral reefs and mangroves). 

Maintaining adequate food and agricultural output in the 

face of increasing population and rising levels of income will be 

a challenge irrespective of human-induced climate change. The 

IPCC AR4 projected that global food production would increase 

87 



for local average temperature rise in the range of 1°C to 3°C, but 

may decrease beyond these temperatures. 

New results published since 2007, however, are much less 

optimistic. These results suggest instead a rapidly rising risk of 

crop yield reductions as the world warms. Large negative effects 

have been observed at high and extreme temperatures in several 

regions including India, Africa, the United States, and Australia. 

For example, significant nonlinear effects have been observed in 

the United States for local daily temperatures increasing to 29°C 

for maize and 30°C for soybeans. These new results and observations 

indicate a significant risk of high-temperature thresholds 

being crossed that could substantially undermine food security 

globally in a 4°C world. 

Compounding these risks is the adverse effect of projected sealevel 

rise on agriculture in important low-lying delta areas, such 

as in Bangladesh, Egypt, Vietnam, and parts of the African coast. 

Sea-level rise would likely impact many mid-latitude coastal areas 

and increase seawater penetration into coastal aquifers used for 

irrigation of coastal plains. Further risks are posed by the likelihood 

of increased drought in mid-latitude regions and increased 

flooding at higher latitudes. 

The projected increase in intensity of extreme events in the 

future would likely have adverse implications for efforts to reduce 

poverty, particularly in developing countries. Recent projections 

suggest that the poor are especially sensitive to increases in 

drought intensity in a 4°C world, especially across Africa, South 

Asia, and other regions. 

Large-scale extreme events, such as major floods that interfere 

with food production, could also induce nutritional deficits and 

the increased incidence of epidemic diseases. Flooding can introduce 

contaminants and diseases into healthy water supplies and 

increase the incidence of diarrheal and respiratory illnesses. The 

effects of climate change on agricultural production may exacerbate 

under-nutrition and malnutrition in many regions—already major 

contributors to child mortality in developing countries. Whilst economic 

growth is projected to significantly reduce childhood stunting, 

climate change is projected to reverse these gains in a number 

of regions: substantial increases in stunting due to malnutrition 

are projected to occur with warming of 2°C to 2.5°C, especially 

in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and this is likely to get 

worse at 4°C. Despite significant efforts to improve health services 

(for example, improved medical care, vaccination development, 

surveillance programs), significant additional impacts on poverty 

levels and human health are expected. Changes in temperature, 

precipitation rates, and humidity influence vector-borne diseases 

(for example, malaria and dengue fever) as well as hantaviruses, 

leishmaniasis, Lyme disease, and schistosomiasis. 

7

8 


Further health impacts of climate change could include injuries 

and deaths due to extreme weather events. Heat-amplified levels of 

smog could exacerbate respiratory disorders and heart and blood 

vessel diseases, while in some regions climate change–induced 

increases in concentrations of aeroallergens (pollens, spores) could 

amplify rates of allergic respiratory disorders. 

Risks of Disruptions and Displacements 

in a 4°C World 

Climate change will not occur in a vacuum. Economic growth 

and population increases over the 21st century will likely add 

to human welfare and increase adaptive capacity in many, if 

not most, regions. At the same time, however, there will also be 

increasing stresses and demands on a planetary ecosystem already 

approaching critical limits and boundaries. The resilience of many 

natural and managed ecosystems is likely to be undermined by 

these pressures and the projected consequences of climate change. 

The projected impacts on water availability, ecosystems, agriculture, 

and human health could lead to large-scale displacement 

of populations and have adverse consequences for human security 

and economic and trade systems. The full scope of damages in a 

4°C world has not been assessed to date. 

Large-scale and disruptive changes in the Earth system are 

generally not included in modeling exercises, and rarely in impact 

assessments. As global warming approaches and exceeds 2°C, the 

risk of crossing thresholds of nonlinear tipping elements in the 

Earth system, with abrupt climate change impacts and unprecedented 

high-temperature climate regimes, increases. Examples 

include the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet leading 

to more rapid sea-level rise than projected in this analysis or 

large-scale Amazon dieback drastically affecting ecosystems, rivers, 

agriculture, energy production, and livelihoods in an almost 

continental scale region and potentially adding substantially to 

21st-century global warming. 

There might also be nonlinear responses within particular 

economic sectors to high levels of global warming. For example, 

nonlinear temperature effects on crops are likely to be extremely 

relevant as the world warms to 2°C and above. However, most of 

our current crop models do not yet fully account for this effect, 

or for the potential increased ranges of variability (for example, 

extreme temperatures, new invading pests and diseases, abrupt 

shifts in critical climate factors that have large impacts on yields 

and/or quality of grains). 

Projections of damage costs for climate change impacts typically 

assess the costs of local damages, including infrastructure, 

and do not provide an adequate consideration of cascade effects 

(for example, value-added chains and supply networks) at national 

and regional scales. However, in an increasingly globalized world 

88 


that experiences further specialization in production systems, and 

thus higher dependency on infrastructure to deliver produced 

goods, damages to infrastructure systems can lead to substantial 

indirect impacts. Seaports are an example of an initial point where 

a breakdown or substantial disruption in infrastructure facilities 

could trigger impacts that reach far beyond the particular location 

of the loss. 

The cumulative and interacting effects of such wide-ranging 

impacts, many of which are likely to be felt well before 4°C warming, 

are not well understood. For instance, there has not been a 

study published in the scientific literature on the full ecological, 

human, and economic consequences of a collapse of coral reef 

ecosystems, much less when combined with the likely concomitant 

loss of marine production due to rising ocean temperatures and 

increasing acidification, and the large-scale impacts on human 

settlements and infrastructure in low-lying fringe coastal zones 

that would result from sea-level rise of a meter or more this century 

and beyond. 

As the scale and number of impacts grow with increasing global 

mean temperature, interactions between them might increasingly 

occur, compounding overall impact. For example, a large shock to 

agricultural production due to extreme temperatures across many 

regions, along with substantial pressure on water resources and 

changes in the hydrological cycle, would likely impact both human 

health and livelihoods. This could, in turn, cascade into effects on 

economic development by reducing a population´s work capacity, 

which would then hinder growth in GDP. 

With pressures increasing as warming progresses toward 

4°C and combining with nonclimate–related social, economic, 

and population stresses, the risk of crossing critical social system 

thresholds will grow. At such thresholds existing institutions that 

would have supported adaptation actions would likely become 

much less effective or even collapse. One example is a risk that 

sea-level rise in atoll countries exceeds the capabilities of controlled, 

adaptive migration, resulting in the need for complete 

abandonment of an island or region. Similarly, stresses on human 

health, such as heat waves, malnutrition, and decreasing quality 

of drinking water due to seawater intrusion, have the potential 

to overburden health-care systems to a point where adaptation is 

no longer possible, and dislocation is forced. 

Thus, given that uncertainty remains about the full nature 

and scale of impacts, there is also no certainty that adaptation to 

a 4°C world is possible. A 4°C world is likely to be one in which 

communities, cities and countries would experience severe disruptions, 

damage, and dislocation, with many of these risks spread 

unequally. It is likely that the poor will suffer most and the global 

community could become more fractured, and unequal than 

today. The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed 

to occur—the heat must be turned down. Only early, cooperative, 

international actions can make that happen.

89 


9

10 90 

Climate Change

List of Abbreviations 

°C degrees Celsius 

AIS Antarctic Ice Sheet 

AOGCM Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model 

AOSIS Alliance of Small Island States 

AR4 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

AR5 Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

BAU Business As Usual 

CaCO3 Calcium carbonate 

cm centimeter 

CMIP5 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 

CO2 

Carbon dioxide 

CO2e Carbon dioxide equivalent 

DIVA Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment 

DJF December January February 

GCM General Circulation Model 

GDP Gross Domestic Product 

GIS Greenland Ice Sheet 

GtCO2e Gigatonnes—billion metric tons —of carbon dioxide equivalent 

IAM Integrated Assessment Model 

IBAU “IMAGE (Model) Business As Usual” Scenario (Hinkel et al. 2011) 

ISI-MIP Inter-Sectoral Model Inter-comparison Project 

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

JJA June July August 

LDC Least Developed Country 

MGIC Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps 

NH Northern Hemisphere 

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA) 

OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 

PG Population growth 

PGD Population growth distribution 

ppm parts per million 

RBAU “Rahmstorf Business As Usual” Scenario (Hinkel et al. 2011) 

RCP Representative Concentration Pathway 

SH Southern Hemisphere 

SLR Sea-Level Rise 

SRES IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios 

SREX IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation 

SSA Sub-Saharan Africa 

UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 

WBG World Bank Group 

WBGT Wet-Bulb Global Temperature 

WDR World Bank Group’s World Development Report 

WHO World Health Organization 

91 


11

92 

Climate Change

Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change 

to Protect Young People and Nature 

James Hansen a,1,2 3 , Pushker Kharecha a , Makiko Sato a , Frank Ackerman b , Paul J. Hearty c , 

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg d , Shi-Ling Hsu e , Fred Krueger f , Camille Parmesan g , Stefan 

Rahmstorf h , Johan Rockstrom i , Eelco J. Rohling j , Jeffrey Sachs k , Pete Smith l , Konrad 

Steffen m , Lise Van Susteren n , Karina von Schuckmann o , James C. Zachos p , 

a NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, NY 10025, 

b Stockholm Environment Institute-US Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA, c Department of Environmental 

Studies, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, NC, d Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, St. 

Lucia, Queensland, Australia, e Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, Canada, f National Religious 

Coalition on Creation Care, Santa Rosa, CA 95407-6828, g Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 

and Marine Institute, University of Plymouth, UK, h Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, 

i Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Sweden, j School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of 

Southampton, United Kingdom, k Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, NY 10027, l University of 

Aberdeen, United Kingdom, m Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of 

Colorado, n Advisory Board, Center for Health and Global Environment, Harvard Medical School, o Centre National 

de la Recherche Scientifique, LOCEAN, Paris (hosted by Ifremer, Brest), France, p Earth and Planetary Science, 

University of California at Santa Cruz 

Summary. Humanity is now the dominant force driving changes of Earth's atmospheric 

composition and thus future climate (1). The principal climate forcing is carbon dioxide (CO2) 

from fossil fuel emissions, much of which will remain in the atmosphere for millennia (1, 2). 

The climate response to this forcing and society's response to climate change are complicated by 

the system's inertia, mainly due to the ocean and the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. 

This inertia causes climate to appear to respond slowly to this human-made forcing, but further 

long-lasting responses may be locked in. We use Earth’s measured energy imbalance and 

paleoclimate data, along with simple, accurate representations of the global carbon cycle and 

temperature, to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially 

disastrous impacts on young people, future generations, and nature. We find that global CO2 

emissions reduction of about 6%/year is needed, along with massive reforestation. 

Governments have recognized the need to limit emissions to avoid dangerous humanmade 

climate change, as formalized in the Framework Convention on Climate Change (3), but 

only a few nations have made substantial progress in reducing emissions. The stark reality (4) is 

that global emissions are accelerating and new efforts are underway to massively expand fossil 

fuel extraction, by oil drilling to increasing ocean depths, into the Arctic, and onto 

environmentally fragile public lands; squeezing of oil from tar sands and tar shale; hydrofracking 

to expand extraction of natural gas; and increased mining of coal via mechanized 

longwall mining and mountain-top removal. 

1 Author contributions: J.H. conceived and drafted the paper, based on inputs from and multiple iterations with all 

co-authors; P.K. carried out carbon cycle calculations; P.K. and M.S. carried out temperature calculations; M.S. 

made all figures; Paul Epstein (deceased) drafted the health section. 

2 The authors declare no conflict of interest. 

3 To whom correspondence should be addressed: james.e.hansen@nasa.gov 

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Fig. P1. CO2 emissions by fossil fuels (1 ppm CO2 ~ 2.12 GtC). Estimated reserves and potentially 

recoverable resources are from EIA (9) and GAC (10). 

Governments not only allow this activity, but use public funds to subsidize fossil fuels at 

a rate of 400-500 billion US$ per year (5). Nor are fossil fuels required to pay their costs to 

society. Air and water pollution from extraction and burning of fossil fuels kills more than 

1,000,000 people per year and affects the health of billions of people (6). But the greatest costs 

to society are likely to be the impacts of climate change, which are already apparent and are 

expected to grow considerably (7, 8). 

Fossil fuel emissions to date are only a small fraction of potential emissions from known 

reserves and potentially recoverable resources (Fig. P1). Although there are uncertainties in 

reserves and resources, ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and continuing technological advances 

ensure that more and more of these fuels will be economically recoverable. 

Burning all fossil fuels would create a very different planet than the one that humanity 

knows. The paleoclimate record and ongoing climate change make it clear that the climate 

system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including 

ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial 

fraction of species on the planet, and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes. 

Earth's paleoclimate history helps us assess levels of global temperature consistent with 

maintaining a planet resembling that to which civilization is adapted, for example, avoiding sea 

level rise of many meters. Earth's measured energy imbalance during a time of minimum solar 

irradiance, with Earth absorbing more solar energy than the heat energy it radiates to space, 

confirms the dominant effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 on global temperature (11) and allows 

us to determine fossil fuel emission reductions needed to restore Earth's energy balance, which is 

the basic requirement for stabilizing climate. 

We conclude that initiation of phase-out of fossil fuel emissions is urgent. For example, 

if emission reductions begin this year the required rate of decline is 6%/year to restore Earth's 

energy balance, and thus approximately stabilize climate, by the end of this century. If emissions 

reductions had begun in 2005, the required rate was 3%/year. If reductions are delayed until 

2020, the required reductions are 15%/year. And these scenarios all assume a massive 100 GtC 

reforestation program, essentially restoring biospheric carbon content to its natural level. 

The implication is that we must transition rapidly to a post-fossil fuel world of clean 

energies. This transition will not occur as long as fossil fuels remain the cheapest energy in a 

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system that does not incorporate the full cost of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are cheap only because 

they are subsidized, and because they do not pay their costs to society. The high costs to human 

health, food production, and natural ecosystems of air and water pollution caused by fossil fuel 

extraction and use are borne by the public. Similarly, costs of climate change and ocean 

acidification will be borne by the public, especially by young people and future generations. 

Thus the essential underlying policy is for emissions of CO2 to come with a price that 

allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy use. The price should rise 

over decades to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust their lifestyles and investments 

to minimize costs. 

Fundamental change is unlikely without public support. Gaining that support requires 

widespread recognition that a prompt orderly transition to the post fossil fuel world, via a rising 

price on carbon emissions, is technically feasible and may even be economically beneficial apart 

from the benefits to climate. 

The most basic matter is not one of economics, however. It is a matter of morality – a 

matter of intergenerational justice. As with the earlier great moral issue of slavery, an injustice 

done by one race of humans to another, so the injustice of one generation to all those to come 

must stir the public's conscience to the point of action. 

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical 

Science Basis, Solomon, S., et al. eds., Cambridge University Press, 996 pp. 

2. Archer, D., 2005: Fate of fossil fuel CO2 in geologic time. J Geophy Res, 110, C09S05. 

3. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), 1992: United Nations, 

http://www.unfccc.int. 

4. Krauss, C., 2010: There will be fuel. New York Times, Page F1, New York edition, November 17, 

2010. 

5. G20 Summit Team, 2010: Analysis of the Scope of Energy Subsidies and Suggestions for the G-20 

Initiative. 

6. Cohen, A.J., et al., 2005: The Global Burden of Disease Due to Outdoor Air Pollution. J Toxicol 

Environ Health, Part A, 68, 1301-1307. 

7. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007: Climate Change 2007, Impacts, 

Adaptation and Vulnerability, M.L. Parry, E. A. ed., Cambridge Univ Press, 996 pp. 

8. Ackerman, F. and Stanton, E.A., 2011: Climate Risks and Carbon Prices: Revising the Social Cost of 

Carbon: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2011-40 accessed Dec. 25, 

2011. 

9. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 2011: International Energy Outlook: 

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/pdf/0484(2011).pdf accessed Sep 2011. 

10. German Advisory Council on Global Change (GAC), 2011: World in Transition - A Social Contract 

for Sustainability.: http://www.wbgu.de/en/flagship-reports/fr-2011-a-social-contract/ accessed Oct 

2011. 

11. Hansen, J., Sato, M., Kharecha, P., and von Schuckmann, K., 2011: Earth's energy imbalance and 

implications. Atmos Chem Phys, 11, 13421-13449. 

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Fig. 1. Global surface temperature anomalies relative to 1880-1920 mean. Green bars are 95% 

confidence intervals (14). 

Global warming due to human-made gases, mainly CO2, is already 0.8°C and deleterious 

climate impacts are growing worldwide. More warming is "in the pipeline" because Earth 

is out of energy balance, with absorbed solar energy exceeding planetary heat radiation. 

Maintaining a climate that resembles the Holocene, the world of relatively stable climate 

and shorelines in which civilization developed, requires rapidly reducing fossil fuel CO2 

emissions. Such a scenario is economically manageable and has multiple benefits for 

humanity and other species. Yet fossil fuel extraction is expanding, including highly 

carbon-intensive sources that can push the climate system beyond tipping points such that 

amplifying feedbacks drive further climate change beyond humanity's control. This 

situation raises profound moral issues in that young people, future generations, and nature, 

with no possibility of protecting their future well-being, will bear the principal 

consequences of actions and inactions of today's adults. 

We seek to clarify and quantify the urgency of phasing out fossil fuel emissions for the sake of 

avoiding disastrous climate change. We use Earth's paleoclimate history to determine the levels 

of global temperature that are consistent with maintaining a planet resembling that to which 

civilization is adapted. We use a tested carbon cycle model and a simple representation of global 

temperature and climate sensitivity consistent with paleoclimate data to determine the fossil fuel 

emission reductions that will be required to restore Earth's energy balance, which is the basic 

requirement for stabilizing climate. We also discuss the moral issues, our obligations to young 

people, future generations, less developed nations, indigenous people, and our fellow species. 

Global Temperature 

Global surface temperature fluctuates stochastically and also responds to natural and humanmade 

climate forcings. Forcings are imposed perturbations of Earth's energy balance such as 

changes of the sun's luminosity and human-made increase of atmospheric CO2. 

Modern Temperature. Temperature change in the past century (Fig. 1) includes unforced 

variability and forced climate change. Unusual global warmth in 1998 was due to the strongest 

El Niño of the century, a temporary warming in the tropics caused by an irregular oscillation of 

the tropical ocean-atmosphere system. Cooling in 1992-1993 was due to stratospheric aerosols 

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from the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption, which reduced sunlight reaching Earth's surface as 

much as 2%. The long-term global warming trend is predominately a forced climate change 

caused by increased human-made atmospheric gases, mainly CO2 (1). 

The basic physics underlying this global warming, the greenhouse effect, is simple. An 

increase of gases such as CO2 has little effect on incoming sunlight but makes the atmosphere 

more opaque at infrared wavelengths that radiate heat to space. The resulting Earth energy 

imbalance, absorbed solar energy exceeding heat emitted to space, causes the planet to warm. 

Efforts to assess dangerous climate change have focused on estimating a permissible 

level of global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1, 2) summarized 

broad-based assessments with a "burning embers" diagram, which indicated that major problems 

begin with global warming of 2-3°C. A probabilistic analysis (3), still partly subjective, found a 

median "dangerous" threshold of 2.8°C, with 95% confidence that the dangerous threshold was 

1.5°C or higher. These assessments were relative to global temperature in 2000; add 0.7°C to 

obtain warming relative to 1880-1920. The conclusion that humanity could tolerate global 

warming up to a few degrees Celsius meshed with common sense. After all, people readily 

tolerate much larger regional and seasonal climate variations. 

The fallacy of this logic emerged in recent years as numerous impacts of global warming 

became apparent. Summer sea ice cover in the Arctic plummeted in 2007 and 2011 to an area 40 

percent less than a few decades earlier and Arctic sea ice thickness declined a factor of four 

faster than simulated in IPCC climate models (4). The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets began 

to shed ice at a rate, now several hundred cubic kilometers per year, which is continuing to 

accelerate (5, 6). Mountain glaciers are receding rapidly all around the world with effects on 

seasonal freshwater availability of major rivers (7, 8). The hot dry subtropical climate belts have 

expanded as the troposphere has warmed and the stratosphere cooled (9-11), probably 

contributing to observed increases in the area and intensity of wildfires (12). The abundance of 

reef-building corals is decreasing at a rate of 0.5-2%/year, at least in part due to ocean warming 

and acidification caused by rising dissolved CO2 (13-15). More than half of all wild species 

have shown significant changes in where they live and in the timing of major life events (16, 17). 

Mega-heatwaves, such as those in the Moscow area in 2010 and Texas in 2011, have become 

more widespread with the increase demonstrably linked to global warming (18). 

In recognition of observed growing climate impacts while global warming is less than 

1°C, reassessment of the dangerous level of warming is needed. Earth's paleoclimate history 

provides a valuable tool for that purpose. 

Paleoclimate Temperature. Global surface temperature in the Pliocene and Pleistocene (Fig. 2) 

is inferred from the composition of shells of deep-sea-dwelling microscopic animals preserved in 

ocean sediments (19, 20). Surface temperature change between the Holocene and the last ice age 

was about 1.5 times larger than deep ocean temperature change, because deep ocean temperature 

was limited as it approached the freezing point (21). We assume the same surface temperature 

amplification toward higher temperatures, which thus may tend to overestimate Pliocene surface 

temperature (21). 

We concatenate paleoclimate (Fig. 2) and modern (Fig. 1) temperature records via the 

assumption that peak Holocene temperature (prior to the warming of the past century) was +0.5° 

±0.25°C relative to the 1880-1920 mean. The facts that Antarctica and Greenland are losing 

mass at an accelerating rate (5, 6) and sea level is rising at a rate (+3m/millennium) much higher 

than during the past several thousand years provide strong evidence that the temperature in the 

past decade (+0.75°C relative to 1880-1920) exceeded the prior Holocene maximum. 

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Fig. 2. Global temperature relative to 1880-1920 in (A) past 5,300,000 and (B) past 800,000 years (32). 

Climate oscillations evident in Fig. 2 were instigated by small perturbations of Earth's 

orbit and the tilt of its spin axis relative to the orbital plane that alter the seasonal and 

geographical distribution of sunlight on the planet (19). These forcings change very slowly, with 

periods between 20,000 and 400,000 years, and thus the climate is able to stay in quasiequilibrium 

with the forcings. The slow insolation changes instigated the climate oscillations in 

Fig. 2, but the mechanisms that caused the climate changes to be so large were two powerful 

amplifying feedbacks: the planet's surface albedo (its reflectivity, literally its whiteness) and the 

atmospheric CO2 amount. As the planet warms, ice and snow melt, causing the surface to be 

darker, absorb more sunlight and warm further. As the ocean and soil become warmer they 

release CO2 and other greenhouse gases, causing further warming. These amplifying feedbacks 

were responsible for almost the entire glacial-to-interglacial temperature change (22-24). 

Albedo and CO2 feedbacks acted as slaves to weak orbital forcings in the natural climate 

variations in Fig. 2, changing slowly over millennia. Today, however, CO2 is under the control 

of humanity as fossil fuel emissions overwhelm natural changes. Atmospheric CO2 has 

increased rapidly to a level not seen for at least 3 million years (25). Global warming induced by 

increasing CO2 will cause ice to melt and sea level to rise as the global volume of ice moves 

toward the quasi-equilibrium amount that exists for a given global temperature. As the ice melts 

and its area decreases the albedo feedback will amplify global warming. 

Paleoclimate data yield an estimate of eventual ice melt and sea level rise for a given 

global warming. The Eemian and Hosteinian interglacial periods (Fig. 2B), also known as 

marine isotope stages 5e and 11, respectively about 130,000 and 400,000 years ago, were about 

1°C warmer than the 1880-1920 mean (Fig. 2B), where paleo temperature relative to the modern 

era is based on our conclusion above that peak global Holocene temperature exceeded the 1880- 

1920 mean by 0.5 ± 0.25°C. These prior two interglacials were warm enough for sea level to 

reach levels at least 4-6 meters higher than today (26-28). Ominously, global mean temperature 

2°C higher than the 1880-1920 mean has not existed since at least the early to mid Pliocene (Fig. 

2A). Inference of Pliocene sea level change from shoreline features is complicated by local 

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tectonics, local sediment loading, convective flow in Earth's mantle, and regional vertical 

movement of the crust due to ice sheet loading or unloading (29), but the data suggest that sea 

level reached heights as much as 15-25 meters greater than today (29-32). 

Paleoclimate records are less useful for estimating how fast ice sheets will respond to 

global warming, because the human-made climate forcing is nearly instantaneous compared with 

the slowly changing forcings that drove the climate changes in Fig. 2. However, paleoclimate 

data commonly exhibit sea level change of more than 1 m/century in response to climate forcing 

much smaller than the forcing that will occur this century with continuing fossil fuel use (26-28). 

Global observations of on-going climate system changes provide another assessment tool. 

The rapid warming of the past three decades (Fig. 1) is already producing measurable effects, as 

discussed below. 

Earth's Energy Imbalance 

At a time of climate stability, Earth radiates as much energy to space as it absorbs from sunlight. 

Today Earth is out of balance because increasing atmospheric gases such as CO2 reduce Earth's 

heat radiation to space, causing an energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out. 

This imbalance causes Earth to warm and move back toward energy balance, but warming and 

restoration of energy balance are slowed by Earth's thermal inertia, due mainly to the ocean. 

The immediate planetary energy imbalance caused by a CO2 increase can be calculated 

precisely. The radiation physics is rigorously understood and does not require a climate model. 

But the ongoing energy imbalance is reduced by the fact that Earth has already warmed 0.8°C, 

thus increasing heat radiation to space. The imbalance is also affected by other factors that alter 

climate, such as changes of solar irradiance, the reflectivity of Earth's surface, and aerosols. 

Determination of the state of Earth's climate therefore requires measuring the energy 

imbalance. This is a challenge, because the imbalance is expected to be only about 1 W/m 2 or 

less, so accuracy approaching 0.1 W/m 2 is needed. The most promising approach is to measure 

the rate of changing heat content of the ocean, atmosphere, land, and ice (33). 

Observed Energy Imbalance. Nations of the world have launched a cooperative program to 

measure changing ocean heat content, distributing more than 3000 Argo floats around the world 

ocean, with each float repeatedly lowering an instrument package to a depth of 2 km and back 

(34). Ocean coverage by floats reached 90% by 2005 (34) , with the gaps mainly in sea ice 

regions, yielding the potential for an accurate energy balance assessment, provided that several 

systematic measurement biases exposed in the past decade are minimized (35, 36). 

Analysis of the Argo data yields a heat gain in the ocean's upper 2000 m of 0.41 W/m 2 

averaged over Earth's surface during 2005-2010 (37). Smaller contributions to planetary energy 

imbalance are from heat gain by the deeper ocean (+0.10 W/m 2 ), energy used in net melting of 

ice (+0.05 W/m 2 ), and energy taken up by warming continents (+0.02 W/m 2 ). Data sources for 

these estimates and uncertainties are provided elsewhere (33). The resulting net planetary 

energy imbalance for the six years 2005-2010 is +0.58 ±0.15 W/m 2 . 

This positive energy imbalance in 2005-2010 demonstrates that the effect of solar 

variability on climate is much less than the effect of human-made greenhouse gases. If the sun 

were the dominant forcing, the planet would have a negative energy balance in 2005-2010, when 

solar irradiance was at its lowest level in the period of accurate data, i.e., since the 1970s (38). 

Even though much of the greenhouse gas forcing has been expended in causing observed 0.8°C 

global warming, the residual positive forcing overwhelms the negative solar forcing, yielding a 

net planetary energy imbalance +0.58 ±0.15 W/m 2 . 

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Earth's energy imbalance averaged over the 11-year cycle of solar variability should be 

larger than the measured +0.58 W/m 2 at solar minimum. The mean imbalance averaged over the 

solar cycle is estimated to be +0.75 ±0.25 W/m 2 (33). 

Implications for CO2 Target. Earth's energy imbalance is the single most vital number 

characterizing the state of Earth's climate. It informs us about the global temperature change "in 

the pipeline" without further change of climate forcings. It also defines how much we must 

reduce greenhouse gases to restore energy balance and stabilize climate, if other forcings remain 

unchanged. The measured energy imbalance accounts for all natural and human-made climate 

forcings, including changes of Earth's surface and atmospheric aerosols. 

If Earth's mean energy imbalance is +0.5 W/m 2 , CO2 must be reduced from the current 

level of 390 ppm to about 360 ppm to increase Earth's heat radiation to space by 0.5 W/m 2 and 

restore energy balance. If Earth's energy imbalance is 0.75 W/m 2 , CO2 must be reduced to about 

345 ppm to restore energy balance (33, 39). 

The measured energy imbalance affirms that a good initial CO2 target to stabilize climate 

near current temperatures is "

Fig. 3. (A) Decay of instantaneous injection or extraction of atmospheric CO2, (B) CO2 amount if fossil 

fuel emissions are terminated at the end of 2015, 2030, or 2050. Land use emissions terminate at the end 

of 2015 in all three cases. 

Reforestation and Soil Carbon. The long CO2 lifetime does not make it impossible to return 

CO2 to 350 ppm this century. Reforestation and increasing soil carbon can help draw down 

atmospheric CO2, even though the effect on atmospheric CO2 amount decays (Fig. 3a). 

Fossil fuels account for about 80% of the CO2 increase from preindustrial 275 ppm to 

390 ppm today, with deforestation accounting for the other 20%. Net deforestation to date is 

estimated to be 100 GtC (gigatons of carbon) with ±50% uncertainty (43). 

Although complete restoration of deforested areas is unrealistic, a 100 GtC carbon 

storage is conceivable because: (1) the human-enhanced atmospheric CO2 level increases carbon 

uptake by vegetation and soils, (2) improved agricultural practices can convert agriculture from a 

CO2 source into a CO2 sink (44), (3) biomass-burning power plants with CO2 capture and storage 

can contribute to CO2 drawdown. 

Forest and soil storage of 100 GtC is a challenge, but it has other benefits. Reforestation 

has been successful in diverse places (45). Minimum tillage with biological nutrient recycling, 

as opposed to plowing and chemical fertilizers, could sequester 0.4-1.2 GtC/year (46, 47) while 

conserving water in soils, building agricultural resilience to climate change, and increasing 

productivity especially in smallholder rain-fed agriculture, thereby reducing expansion of 

agriculture into forested ecosystems (36, 48). 

Reforestation may be most beneficial in the tropics (49, 50), avoiding potential 

unintended impacts of major reforestation elsewhere (51). Net deforestation in recent decades 

has occurred mostly in the tropics (1, 52), so a large amount of land suitable for reforestation 

(meeting UNFCCC criteria) exists there (53). 

Use of bioenergy to draw down CO2 should employ feedstocks from residues, wastes, 

and dedicated energy crops that do not compete with food crops, thus avoiding loss of natural 

ecosystems and cropland (54-56). Reforestation competes with agricultural land use; land needs 

could decline by reducing use of animal products, as livestock now consume more than half of 

all crops (57, 58). 

Our reforestation scenarios decrease today's net deforestation rate linearly to zero in 

2030, followed by a sinusoidal 100 GtC biospheric carbon storage over 2031-2080. Alternative 

timings do not alter conclusions about the potential to achieve a given CO2 level such as 350 

ppm. 

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Fig. 4. (A) Atmospheric CO2 if fossil fuel emissions are cut 6%/year beginning in 2013 and 100 GtC 

reforestation drawdown occurs in 2031-2080, (B) effect of delaying onset of emissions reduction. 

CO2 Emission Reduction Scenarios. A 6%/year decrease of fossil fuel emissions beginning in 

2013, with 100 GtC reforestation, achieves a CO2 decline to 350 ppm near the end of this century 

(Fig. 4A). Cumulative fossil fuel emissions in this scenario are ~136 GtC from 2012 to 2050, 

with an additional 15 GtC by 2100. If our assumed land use changes occur a decade earlier, CO2 

returns to 350 ppm several years earlier, however that has negligible effect on the global 

temperature maximum calculated below. 

Conversely, delaying fossil fuel emission cuts until 2020 (with 2%/year emissions growth 

in 2012-2020) causes CO2 to remain in the dangerous zone (above 350 ppm) until 2300 (Fig. 

4B). If reductions are delayed until 2030, CO2 remains above 400 ppm until almost 2500. 

These results emphasize the urgency of initiating emissions reduction. If emissions 

reduction had begun in 2005, reduction at 3.5%/year would have achieved 350 ppm at 2100. 

Now the requirement is at least 6%/year. If we assume only 50 GtC reforestation, the 

requirement becomes at least 9%/year. Further delay of emissions reductions until 2020 requires 

a reduction rate of 15%/year to achieve 350 ppm in 2100. 

Geo-Engineering Atmospheric CO2. Perceived political difficulties of phasing out fossil fuel 

emissions have caused a surge of interest in possible "geo-engineering" designed to minimize 

human-made climate change (59). Such efforts must remove atmospheric CO2, if they are to 

address direct CO2 effects such as ocean acidification as well as climate change. 

At present there are no technologies capable of large-scale air capture of CO2. Keith et 

al. (60) suggest that, with strong research and development support and industrial scale pilot 

projects sustained over decades, costs as low as ~$500/tC may be achievable. An assessment by 

the American Physical Society (61) argues that the lowest currently achievable cost, using 

existing approaches, is much greater ($600/tCO2 or $2200/tC 

The cost of removing 50 ppm of CO2, at $500/tC, is ~$50 trillion (1 ppm CO2 is ~2.12 

GtC), but more than $200 trillion for the price estimate of the American Physical Society study. 

Moreover, the resulting atmospheric CO2 reduction is only ~15 ppm after 100 years, because the 

extraction induces counteracting changes in the other surface carbon reservoirs – mainly CO2 

outgassing from the ocean (Fig. 3A). The estimated cost of maintaining a 50 ppm reduction on 

the century time scale is thus ~$150-600 trillion. The cost of air capture and storage of CO2 may 

decline, but the practicality of carrying out such a program in response to a climate emergency is 

dubious, and today's young people and future generations would inherit a huge burden. 

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Fig. 5. Simulated global temperature relative to 1880-1920 mean for CO2 scenarios of Fig. 4. 

Future Global Temperature Change 

Future global temperature change depends primarily on atmospheric CO2. CO2 accounts for 

more than 80% of the growth of greenhouse gas climate forcing in the past 15 years (62). We 

approximate the net future change of human-made non-CO2 forcings as zero, as discussed above. 

We neglect future changes of natural climate forcings, such as solar irradiance and volcanic 

aerosols, whose variability contributes little to long-term global temperature trend. 

Simulated Global Temperature. We calculate global temperature change for a given CO2 

scenario using a climate response function that accurately replicates results from a global climate 

model with sensitivity 3°C for doubled CO2 (33). Climate forcings that we use for the past [Fig. 

4 of (62)] are updated annually at http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/GHG_Forcing/. 

Simulated global temperature is shown in Fig. 5 for the CO2 scenarios of Fig. 4. Peak 

global warming is ~1.1°C, declining to less than 1°C by mid-century, if CO2 emissions are 

reduced 6%/year beginning in 2013. In contrast, warming reaches 1.5°C and stays above 1°C 

until after 2400 if emissions continue to increase until 2030, even though fossil fuel emissions 

are phased out rapidly (5%/year) after 2030 and 100 GtC reforestation occurs in 2031-2080. If 

fossil fuel emissions continue to increase until 2050, simulated global warming exceeds 2°C. 

Slow Climate Feedbacks and Tipping Points. Our climate simulations, as with most climate 

models, incorporate only the effect of fast feedbacks in the climate system, such as water vapor, 

clouds, aerosols, and sea ice. Slow feedbacks, such as ice sheet disintegration are not included. 

Excluding slow feedbacks is appropriate for the past century, because we know the ice 

sheets were stable and our climate simulations employ observed greenhouse gas amounts that 

include any changes caused by slow feedbacks. Exclusion of slow feedbacks in the 21 st century, 

however, is a dubious assumption, which we used only because the rate at which slow feedbacks 

will come into play is unknown. 

Slow feedbacks are important because of their impact on threshold or "tipping point" 

events (20, 63). Climate tipping points occur when climate change reaches a level where further 

large and possibly rapid changes become inevitable, proceeding mostly under their own 

momentum. Ice sheets provide an example. Once disintegration of an ice sheet is well 

underway the dynamics of the process takes over. At that point, reducing greenhouse gases 

cannot prevent substantial sea level rise. 

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Extermination of species can also reach a tipping point, because of interdependencies 

among species. Thus climate change that is large enough or fast enough can cause entire 

ecosystems to collapse, leading to mass extinctions (17). 

Methane hydrates – methane molecules trapped in frozen water molecule cages in tundra 

and on continental shelves (64) – provide another potential tipping point. If methane hydrates 

thaw on a large scale they could greatly amplify global warming (65), because methane is a 

powerful greenhouse gas. There is already evidence of methane release from thawing permafrost 

on land (66) and from sea-bed deposits including methane hydrates (67). 

Dangerous Global Warming. Tipping points help define the dangerous level of global 

warming, even though their nonlinear nature inhibits accurate predictability of temporal details 

of collapse. Assessment of tipping point threats is aided by the combination of paleoclimate 

records defining a quasi-equilibrium response to climate change and observations of ongoing 

dynamical responses to current global warming. 

Ice sheets and sea level are a prime example. Paleoclimate data indicate that 1°C global 

warming above preindustrial levels (to the Eemian level) is likely to cause eventual sea level rise 

of several meters and 2°C (early Pliocene level) could cause eventual sea level rise as great as 

15-25 m (29-32). Satellite measurements of Earth's gravity field reveal that Greenland and 

Antarctica are losing mass and the rate of loss has accelerated since measurements began in 2002 

(5, 6), even though global temperature has barely risen above the Holocene temperature range in 

which the ice sheets have been stable for millennia. 

Methane hydrates have been implicated by paleoclimate data as a likely principal 

mechanism in several rapid global warmings (68, 69). This appears to have occurred as a 

powerful feedback amplifying a natural warming trend (68-70), (see Supporting Information). 

Global warming of 2°C, amplified at high latitudes, would commit large areas of permafrost to 

thawing and might destabilize methane hydrates in ocean sediments. 

Global warming to date is at most a few tenths of a degree above the prior Holocene 

range. Impacts on ice sheets and permafrost carbon are small so far, suggesting that these 

feedbacks may not be a major factor if global warming, now about 0.8°C, reaches a maximum of 

only ~1°C and then recedes, as in the scenario of Figs. 4A and 5A. 

In contrast, the scenarios that reach 2°C or even 1.5°C global warming via only fast 

feedbacks appear to be exceedingly dangerous. These scenarios run a high risk of the slow 

feedbacks coming into play in major ways. However, we lack knowledge of how fast the slow 

feedbacks would occur, and thus which generations would suffer the greatest consequences. 

The available information suggests that humanity faces a dichotomy of possible futures. 

Either we achieve a scenario with declining emissions, preserving a planetary climate resembling 

the Holocene, or the climate is likely to pass tipping points with amplifying feedbacks that assure 

transition to a very different planet with both foreseeable and unforeseen consequences. 

Likely Impacts of Global Warming 

Sea Level. The prior interglacial period, the Eemian, was at most ~1°C warmer than the 

Holocene (Fig. 2). Sea level reached heights several meters above today's level with instances of 

sea level change by 1-2 m/century (26, 71). Geologic shoreline evidence has been interpreted as 

indicating a rapid sea level rise to a peak 6-9 meters above present late in the Eemian followed 

by a precipitous sea level fall (28, 72), although there remains debate within the research 

community about this specific history. An important point is that Eemian sea level excursions 

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imply that rapid partial melting of Antarctic and/or Greenland ice occurred when the world was 

little warmer than today. 

During the early Pliocene, which was only 1-2°C warmer than the Holocene (Fig. 2), sea 

level attained heights as much as 15-25 meters higher than today (29-32). Such sea level rise 

suggests that parts of East Antarctica must be vulnerable to eventual melting with global 

temperature increase of 1-2°C. Indeed, satellite gravity data and radar altimetry reveal that the 

Totten Glacier of East Antarctica, which fronts a large ice mass grounded below sea level, is 

already beginning to lose mass (73). 

Expected human-caused sea level rise is controversial because predictions focus on sea 

level rise at a specific time, 2100. Prediction of sea level on a given date is inherently difficult, 

because it depends on how rapidly non-linear ice sheet disintegration begins. Focus on a single 

date also encourages people to take the estimated result as an indication of what humanity faces, 

thus failing to emphasize that the likely rate of sea level rise immediately after 2100 will be far 

larger than within the 21 st century, if CO2 emissions continue to increase. 

Most recent estimates of sea level rise by 2100 have been of the order of 1m, notably 

higher than estimates in earlier assessments (74), and it also has been argued (74, 75) that 

continued business-as-usual CO2 emissions could cause multi-meter sea level rise this century. 

In Supplementary Material we discuss and provide references for estimated sea level rise and for 

observational evidence about changing ice sheet conditions. 

The important point is that the uncertainty is not about whether continued rapid CO2 

emissions would cause large sea level rise – it is about how soon the large changes would begin. 

If all or most fossil fuels are burned, the carbon will remain in the climate system for many 

centuries, in which case multi-meter sea level rise is practically certain. Such a sea level rise 

would create hundreds of millions of global warming refugees from highly-populated low-lying 

areas, thus likely causing major international conflicts. 

Shifting Climate Zones. Theory and climate models indicate that the tropical overturning 

(Hadley) atmospheric circulation expands poleward with global warming (9). There is evidence 

in satellite and radiosonde data and in reanalyses output for poleward expansion of the tropical 

circulation by as much as a few degrees of latitude since the 1970s (10, 11), which likely 

contributes to expansion of subtropical conditions and increased aridity in the southern United 

States (7, 76), the Mediterranean region, and southern Australia. Increased aridity and 

temperature contribute to increased forest fires that burn hotter and are more destructive (12). 

Despite large year-to-year variability of temperature, decadal averages reveal isotherms 

(lines of a given average temperature) moving poleward at a typical rate of the order of 100 

km/decade in the past three decades (77), although the range shifts for specific species follow 

more complex patterns (78). This rapid shifting of climatic zones far exceeds natural rates of 

change. Movement has been in the same direction (poleward, and upward in elevation) since 

about 1975. Wild species have responded to climate change, with at least 52 percent of species 

having shifted their ranges poleward as much as 600 km [and upward as much as 400 m (79)] in 

terrestrial systems and 1000 km in marine systems (16, 80). 

Humans may adapt to shifting climate zones better than many species. However, 

political borders can interfere with human migration, and indigenous ways of life already have 

been adversely affected (74). Impacts are apparent in the Arctic, with melting tundra, reduced 

sea ice, and increased shoreline erosion. Effects of shifting climate zones also may be important 

for indigenous Americans who possess specific designated land areas, as well as other cultures 

with long-standing traditions in South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. 

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Climate Change

Extermination of Species. Biodiversity is affected by many agents including overharvesting, 

introduction of exotic species, land use changes, nitrogen fertilization, and direct effects of 

increased atmospheric CO2 on plant ecophysiology (17). However, easily discernible effects on 

animals, plants, and insects arising from rapid global warming in the past three decades have 

exposed the overriding role of climate change. 

A sudden widespread decline of frogs, with extinction of entire mountain-restricted 

species attributed to global warming (81, 82), provided a dramatic awakening. There are 

multiple causes of the detailed processes involved in global amphibian declines and extinctions 

(83, 84), but there is agreement that global warming is a key contributor and portends a 

planetary-scale mass extinction in the making unless humanity takes prompt action to stabilize 

climate while also fighting biodiversity's other threats (85). 

Mountain-restricted and polar-restricted species are particularly vulnerable. As isotherms 

move up the mountainside and poleward, so does the climate zone in which a given species can 

survive. If global warming continues unabated, many of these species will be effectively pushed 

off the planet. There are already reductions in the population and health of Arctic species in the 

southern parts of the Arctic, Antarctic species in the northern parts of the Antarctic, and alpine 

species worldwide (17). 

A critical factor for survival of some Arctic species is retention of all-year sea ice. 

Continued growth of fossil fuel emissions will cause loss of all Arctic summer sea ice within 

several decades. In contrast, the scenario in Fig.5a, with global warming peaking just over 1°C 

and then declining slowly, should allow summer sea ice to survive and then gradually increase to 

levels representative of recent decades. 

The threat to species survival is not limited to mountain and polar species. Plant and 

animal distributions are a reflection of the regional climates to which they are adapted. Although 

species attempt to migrate in response to climate change, their paths may be blocked by humanconstructed 

obstacles or natural barriers such as coast lines. As the shift of climate zones 

becomes comparable to the range of some species, less mobile species can be driven to 

extinction. Because of extensive species interdependencies, this can lead to mass extinctions. 

IPCC (74) reviewed studies relevant to estimating eventual extinctions. They estimate 

that if global warming exceeds 1.6°C above preindustrial, 9-31 percent of species will be 

committed to extinction. With global warming of 2.9°C, an estimated 21-52 percent of species 

will be committed to extinction. 

Mass extinctions occurred several times in Earth's history (86), often in conjunction with 

rapid climate change. New species evolved over millions of years, but those time scales are 

almost beyond human comprehension. If we drive many species to extinction we will leave a 

more desolate planet for our children, grandchildren, and more generations than we can imagine. 

Coral Reef Ecosystems. Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem, often 

described as the rainforests of the ocean. Over a million species, most not yet described (87), are 

estimated to populate coral reef ecosystems generating crucial ecosystem services for at least 500 

million people in tropical coastal areas. These ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the combined 

effects of ocean acidification and warming. 

Acidification arises as the ocean absorbs CO2, producing carbonic acid (88). 

Geochemical records show that ocean pH is already outside its range of the past several million 

years (89, 90). Warming causes coral bleaching, as overheated coral expel symbiotic algae and 

become vulnerable to disease and mortality (91). Coral bleaching and slowing of coral 

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Climate Change

calcification already are causing mass mortalities, increased coral disease, and reduced reef 

carbonate accretion, thus disrupting coral reef ecosystem health (14, 92). 

Local human-made stresses add to the global warming and acidification effects, all of 

these driving a contraction of 1-2% per year in the abundance of reef-building corals (13). Loss 

of the three-dimensional coral reef frameworks has consequences for the millions of species that 

depend on them. Loss of these frameworks also has consequences for the important roles that 

coral reefs play in supporting fisheries and protecting coastlines from wave stress. 

Consequences of lost coral reefs can be economically devastating for many nations, especially in 

combination with other impacts such as sea level rise and intensification of storms. 

Climate Extremes. Extremes of the hydrologic cycle are expected to intensify in a warmer 

world. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, so heavy rains become more intense, 

bringing more frequent and intense flooding. Higher temperatures, on the other hand, increase 

evaporation and intensify droughts, as does expansion of the subtropics with global warming. 

Heat waves lasting for weeks have a devastating impact on human health: the European heat 

wave of summer 2003 caused over 70,000 excess deaths (93). This heat record for Europe was 

surpassed already in 2010 (94). The number of extreme heat waves has increased several-fold 

due to global warming (18, 95) and will be multiplied further if temperatures continue to rise. 

IPCC reports (2, 74) confirm that precipitation has generally increased over land 

poleward of the subtropics and decreased at lower latitudes. Unusually heavy precipitation 

events have increased in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and Australia. Droughts are 

more common, especially in the tropics and subtropics. 

Glaciers are in near-global retreat (74). Loss of glaciers can degrade the supply of fresh 

water to millions of people (7). Increased winter snowfall with a warmer moister atmosphere 

will tend to increase spring flooding but leave rivers drier during the driest months. 

Human Health. Climate change causes a variety of human health impacts, with children 

especially vulnerable. These include food shortages, polluted air, and contaminated or scarce 

supplies of water, along with an expanding area of vectors causing infectious diseases and more 

intensely allergenic plants. World health experts have concluded with "very high confidence" 

that climate change already contributes to the global burden of disease and premature death (74). 

IPCC (74) projects the following trends, if CO2 emissions and global warming continue 

to increase, where only trends assigned very high confidence or high confidence are included: (i) 

increased malnutrition and consequent disorders, including those related to child growth and 

development, (ii) increased death, disease and injuries from heat waves, floods, storms, fires and 

droughts, (iii) increased cardio-respiratory morbidity and mortality associated with ground-level 

ozone. While IPCC also projects fewer deaths from cold, this positive effect is far outweighed 

by the negative ones. 

With the growing awareness of the consequences of human-caused climate change, adults 

and children especially are susceptible to a range of anxiety and depressive disorders. Children 

cannot avoid hearing that the window of opportunity to act in time to avoid dramatic climate 

impacts is closing, and that their future and that of other species is at stake. While the 

psychological health of our children needs to be protected, denial of the truth exposes them to 

even greater risk. 

The Supporting Information has further discussion of health impacts of climate change. 

15 

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Implications for Humanity 

Fossil fuel emissions to date are a small fraction of potential emissions from known 

reserves and potentially recoverable resources (Fig. P1). Although there are uncertainties in 

reserves and resources, ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and continuing technological advances 

ensure that more and more of these fuels will be economically recoverable. 

Burning all fossil fuels would create a very different planet than the one that humanity 

knows. The paleoclimate record and ongoing climate change make it clear that the climate 

system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including 

ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial 

fraction of species on the planet, and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes. 

Initiation of phase-out of fossil fuel emissions is urgent. CO2 from fossil fuel use stays in 

the surface climate system for millennia. Thus continued high emissions would leave young 

people and future generations with an enormous clean-up job. The task of extracting CO2 from 

the air is so great that success is uncertain at best, raising the likelihood of a spiral into climate 

catastrophes and efforts to "geo-engineer" restoration of planetary energy balance. 

Most proposed schemes to artificially restore Earth's energy balance aim to reduce solar 

heating, e.g., by maintaining a haze of stratospheric particles that reflect sunlight to space. Such 

attempts to mask one pollutant with another pollutant almost inevitably would have unintended 

consequences. Moreover, schemes that do not remove CO2 would not avert ocean acidification. 

The implication is that the world must move expeditiously to carbon-free energies and 

energy efficiency, leaving most remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Yet transition to a postfossil 

fuel world of clean energies will not occur as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. 

Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized and do not pay their costs to society. 

Air and water pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use have high costs in human health, food 

production, and natural ecosystems, costs borne by the public. Huge costs of climate change and 

ocean acidification also are borne by the public, especially young people and future generations. 

Thus the essential underlying policy, albeit not sufficient, is for emissions of CO2 to 

come with a price that allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy use. 

The price should rise over decades to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust their 

lifestyles and investments to minimize costs. The right price for carbon and the best mechanism 

for carbon pricing are more matters of practicality than of economic theory. 

Economic analyses indicate that a carbon price fully incorporating environmental and 

climate damage would be high (96). The cost of climate change is uncertain to a factor of 10 or 

more and could be as high as ~$1000/tCO2 (97). While the imposition of such a high price on 

carbon emissions is outside the realm of short-term political feasibility, a price of that magnitude 

is not required to engender a large change in emissions trajectory. 

An economic analysis indicates that a tax beginning at $15/tCO2 and rising $10/tCO2 

each year would reduce emissions in the U.S. by 30% within 10 years (98). Such a reduction is 

more than 10 times as great as the carbon content of tar sands oil carried by the proposed 

Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 barrels/day) (99). Reduced oil demand would be nearly six 

times the pipeline capacity (98), thus rendering it superfluous. 

Relative merits of a carbon tax and cap-and-trade have long been debated (100). A capand-trade 

system for CO2 emissions was implemented in Europe, but not in the U.S., where 

opponents of any action on climate won the political battle by branding cap-and-trade as a 

devious new tax. However, a gradually rising fee on carbon emissions collected from fossil fuel 

companies with proceeds fully distributed to the public, was praised by the policy director of 

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Climate Change

Republicans for Environmental Protection (101) as: "Transparent. Market-based. Does not 

enlarge government. Leaves energy decisions to individual choices… Sounds like a 

conservative climate plan." 

A rising carbon emissions price is the sine qua non for fossil fuel phase out. However, it 

is not sufficient. Governments also should encourage investment in energy R&D and drive 

energy and carbon efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles and other manufactured products. 

Investment in global climate monitoring systems and support for climate mitigation and 

adaptation in undeveloped countries are also needed. 

Despite evidence that a rising carbon price and these supplementary actions would 

drastically shrink demand for fossil fuels, governments and businesses are rushing headlong into 

expanded extraction and use of all fossil fuels. How is it possible that large human-driven 

climate change is unfolding virtually unimpeded, despite scientific understanding of likely 

consequences? Would not governments – presumably instituted for the protection of all citizens 

– have stepped in to safeguard the future of young people? A strong case can be made that the 

absence of effective leadership in most nations is related to the undue sway of special financial 

interests on government policies aided by pervasive public relations efforts by organizations that 

profit from the public's addiction to fossil fuels and wish to perpetuate that dependence (102, 

103). 

A situation in which scientific evidence cries out for action, but a political response is 

impeded by the financial power of special interests, suggests the possibility of an important role 

for the judiciary system. Indeed, in some nations the judicial branch of government may be able 

to require the executive branch to present realistic plans to protect the rights of the young (104). 

Such a legal case for young people should demand plans for emission reductions that are 

consistent with what the science shows is required to stabilize climate. Judicial recognition of 

both the exigency of the climate problem and the rights of young people, we believe, will help 

draw attention to the need for a rapid change of direction. 

Nevertheless, fundamental change is unlikely without public support. Gaining that 

support requires widespread recognition that a prompt orderly transition to the post fossil fuel 

world, via a rising price on carbon emissions, is technically feasible and may even be 

economically beneficial apart from the benefits to climate. 

The most basic matter is not one of economics, however. It is a matter of morality – a 

matter of intergenerational justice. As with the earlier great moral issue of slavery, an injustice 

done by one race of humans to another, so the injustice of one generation to others must stir the 

public's conscience to the point of action. Until there is a sustained and growing public 

involvement, it is unlikely that the needed fundamental change of direction can be achieved. 

A broad public outcry may seem unlikely given the enormous resources of the fossil fuel 

industry, which allows indoctrination of the public with the industry's perspective. The merits of 

coal, of oil from tar sands and the deep ocean, of gas from hydrofracking are repeatedly extolled, 

all of these supposedly to be acquired with utmost care of the environment. Potential climate 

concerns are addressed, if at all, by discrediting climate science and scientists (102). 

Yet human cultures have long revered the environment and other life on the planet, and 

an obligation to future generations is broadly recognized. Religious leaders have expressed 

support for ameliorating the causes of human-made climate change, in messages ranging from 

general statements by the Catholic Pope (105) to specific endorsement by the Buddhist Dalai 

Lama (106) of the target to reduce atmospheric CO2 below 350 ppm. In our Supporting 

Information, the Executive Coordinator of the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care 

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Climate Change

describes support for actions to stem climate change by an array of religions in the United States 

spanning Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox faiths. 

Indigenous people and people in developing countries have done little to cause climate 

change but will likely suffer some of the worst consequences. Many are resisting exploitation of 

their land and peacefully demanding policy changes. Indigenous people, farmers, scientists, 

environmentalists and other members of the public have peacefully demonstrated against new 

fossil fuel developments such as the tar sands Keystone pipeline (107) and hydrofracking in the 

Delaware River Basin. 

Considering the stakes involved, it is disquieting that young people have not become 

more involved in the issue of the planet's future and more insistent on intergenerational justice. 

The tentative efforts to pursue legal redress, for which our present paper provides scientific 

rationale and quantification, are an effort of adults on behalf of young people. In the case of the 

very young, their inactivity is understandable. College-educated youth are equipped to 

understand the predicament and articulate their case, but their numbers so far have been too 

modest for their voice to compete against special financial interests (102, 103). 

Yet it is possible to imagine a scenario in which a social tipping point is reached and the 

world begins to rapidly phase out fossil fuel emissions. When public concern reaches a high 

level, some influential leaders of the energy industry, well aware of the moral issue, could join 

the campaign to phase out fossil fuel emissions. Many business leaders recognize the merits of a 

rising price on carbon emissions, and likely would be supportive of such an approach once they 

realize that large rapid emission reductions are essential. Given the relative ease with which a 

carbon price can be made international (100), a rapid phasedown of emissions may be feasible. 

As fossil fuels are made to pay their costs to society, energy efficiency and clean energies could 

themselves reach a tipping point where they begin to be rapidly adopted. 

Can the human tipping point be reached before the climate system passes a point of no 

return? What we have shown in this paper is that time is rapidly running out. The era of doubts, 

delays and denial, of ineffectual half-measures, must end. The period of consequences is 

beginning. If we fail to stand up now and demand a change of course, the blame will fall on us, 

the current generation of adults. Our parents did not know that their actions could harm future 

generations. We will only be able to pretend that we did not know. And that is unforgiveable. 

Acknowledgements. This paper is dedicated to Paul Epstein, a fervent defender of the 

health of humans and the environment, who graciously provided important inputs to this paper in 

the spring and summer of 2011 while battling late stages of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. We 

thank Inez Fung and Charles Komanoff for perceptive helpful reviews and Mark Chandler, 

Bishop Dansby, Ian Dunlop, Dian Gaffen Seidel, Edward Greisch, Fred Hendrick, Tim Mock, 

Ana Prados, and Rob Socolow for helpful suggestions on a draft of the paper. 

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76. Levi, B.G., 2008: Trends in the hydrology of the western US bear the imprint of manmade climate 

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84. Rosa, I.D., Simoncelli, F., Fagotti, A., and Pascolini, R., 2007: Ecology: The proximate cause of frog 

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88. Caldeira, K. and Wickett, M.E., 2003: Oceanography: Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature, 

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Supplementary Material 

Sea Level Change 

Recent estimates of sea level rise by 2100 are around 1 m (1, 2). Ice-dynamics studies estimate that rates 

of sea-level rise of 0.8 to 2 m per century are feasible (3) and Antarctica alone could contribute up to 1.5 

m per century (4). Hansen (5, 6) has argued that BAU CO2 emissions produce a climate forcing so much 

larger than any experienced in prior interglacial periods that a non-linear ice sheet response with multimeter 

sea level rise could occur this century. 

Accurate measurements of ice sheet mass loss may provide the best means to detect nonlinear 

change. The GRACE satellite, measuring Earth's gravitational field since 2003, reveals that the 

Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, now more than 200 km 3 /year, and Antarctica is 

losing more than 100 km 3 /year (7, 8). However, the present rate of sea level rise, 3 cm/decade, is 

moderate, and the ice sheet mass balance record is too short to determine whether we have entered a 

period of continually accelerating ice loss. 

Satellite observations show that the Greenland surface area with summer melting has increased 

over the period of record, which extends from the late 1970s (9, 10). A destabilizing mechanism of 

possibly greater concern is melting of ice shelves, the tongues of ice that extend into the oceans, buttress 

the ice sheets, and limit the rate of discharge of ice into the ocean. Ocean warming is causing shrinkage 

of ice shelves around Greenland and Antarctica (11). 

Most of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which alone could raise sea level by 3-5 meters, rests on 

bedrock below sea level, making that ice sheet vulnerable to rapid change. Parts of the larger East 

Antarctic ice sheet are also vulnerable. Satellite gravity and radar altimetry reveal that the Totten Glacier 

of East Antarctica, fronting a large ice mass grounded below sea level, is beginning to lose mass (12). 

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 

Rapid global warming of at least 5°C at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (about 56 million years ago) 

provides valuable insights into the carbon cycle, climate system, and biotic responses to environmental 

change (13-15). The PETM event may be the closest analogy in Earth's history to the potential burning of 

most fossil fuels, because the PETM warming occurred in conjunction with injection of >3000 GtC of 

carbon into the climate system within ~5-10 thousand years (16, 17). 

The most common interpretation is that the carbon originated mainly from melting of methane 

hydrates, because of the difficulty of identifying other large sources. One suggested alternative carbon 

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source is release from Antarctic permafrost and peat (18). One reason for questioning the methane 

hydrate source, whether that source could be large enough given the warmer ocean at that time, has been 

affirmatively addressed (19). Regardless of the carbon source, PETM occurred during a 10-million year 

period of slow global warming driven by low-level volcanic carbon emissions, suggesting that the 

methane release may have initiated at a physical threshold, acting as a powerful feedback magnifying that 

warming. Support for the interpretation that the carbon release was an amplifying feedback is provided 

by evidence that several other PETM-like events in Earth's history (spikes in global warming and lightcarbon 

sediments) were astronomically paced, i.e., they occurred during the warm phase of climate 

oscillations associated with perturbations of Earth's orbit (14). 

The PETM witnessed global scale disruption of marine and terrestrial ecosystems with mass 

migration, temporary redistribution of many species toward higher latitude, and rapid evolution, 

particularly toward dwarfism of mammals, but with only minor extinctions (15). The evolution toward 

smaller body size may have been a result of a decline in biological productivity and food availability (20). 

An important point is that the magnitude of the PETM carbon injection and warming is 

comparable to what will occur if humanity burns most of the fossil fuels, but the human-made warming is 

occurring 10-100 times faster. We have no empirical evidence on the ability of life on Earth to maintain 

itself during such a large, rapid climate change, with climate zones shifting much faster than species have 

ever experienced. The faster carbon addition also means that acidification and carbonate dissolution in 

the surface ocean would be more severe than that experienced by surface-dwelling organisms in the 

PETM. 

Human Health 

If fossil fuel emissions continue to increase rapidly, as in the business-as-usual scenarios of IPCC (21), 

substantial impacts of climate change on human health are likely. Some effects are already beginning to 

occur. 

Infectious Disease. Increased temperature and flooding facilitate spread of infectious diseases by 

increasing the range and frequency of conditions favoring blood-sucking arthropods, such as mosquitoes, 

fleas, lice, biting flies, bugs and ticks. Warmer winters and polar amplification of warming are especially 

effective in increasing the range of these disease-bearing vectors. Tick-borne Lyme disease has expanded 

rapidly and become the most important vector-borne disease in the United States (http://www.columbialyme.org/research/abstracts.html). 

Crop Pests and Disease. Warming fortifies pests and weakens hosts in forests, agricultural systems, and 

marine life. Warmer winters allow pine bark beetles to overwinter and expand their range, to the 

detriment of boreal forests. Climate trends also favor expansion of the Asian long-horned beetle and 

wooly adelgid to the detriment of trees in the Northeast United States. Warming increases the range of 

pests such as white flies, aphids and locust that damage crops, and it stimulates growth of agricultural 

weeds, leading to increased use of pesticides and herbicides that themselves are harmful to human health. 

Warming harms coral and other species hosted by coral reefs, and, along with excess nutrients from 

fertilizers, contributes to harmful algal blooms that cause dead zones in coastal waterways and estuaries 

(22). 

Heat Waves and Droughts. Global warming, although "only" 0.8°C in the past century, is already 

sufficient to substantially increase the likelihood of extreme heat waves and droughts. The probability of 

occurrence of extreme anomalies as great as the Moscow heat wave in 2010 and the Texas/Oklahoma heat 

wave and drought of 2011 has increased by several times because of global warming (22), and the 

probability will increase even further if global warming continues to increase. Heat waves cause illness 

and death and also can lead to an increase in aggression, including violent assaults (23) and suicide (24). 

Food Insecurity. Food supplies are compromised by increasing climate extremes, crop pests, and 

displacement of food crops by biofuel crops (21). Unusually extensive droughts and floods in 2010 

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Climate Change

caused widespread grain shortages and raised food prices, causing food riots in Uganda and Burkina Faso 

and likely contributing to political instability and uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Food 

shortages and price hikes contribute to malnutrition and poor health that increase vulnerability to 

infectious diseases, and also are frequently factors in conflicts and wars (21). 

Religions and Climate 

There is widespread support among religions for preserving climate and the environment. An indicative 

sample of religious statements follows. 

World Council of Churches. At their meeting in Geneva Switzerland on 13-20 February 2008 the 

World Council of Churches called urgently for the churches to strengthen their moral stand in 

relationship to global warming and climate change, recalling its adverse effects on poor and vulnerable 

communities in various parts of the world, and encouraging the churches to reinforce their advocacy 

towards governments, NGOs, the scientific community and the business sector to intensify cooperation in 

response to global warming and climate change (http://nrccc.org/?page_id=40). 

Evangelicals. Evangelical organizations are diverse, but leaders of American evangelical faiths have 

issued an evangelical call to action concerning climate change, recognizing a responsibility to offer 

biblically-based moral witness that helps shape public policy and contributes to the will-being of the 

world (http://nrccc.org/?page_id=42). 

Jewish Faith. The Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution on climate change at 

their 116 th annual convention in Houston Texas in March 2005, concluding that Jewish and secular moral 

principles imply an obligation to minimize climate change, to live within the ecological limits of Earth, 

and to not compromise the ecological or economic security of future generations 

(http://nrccc.org/?page_id=50). 

Orthodox Faith. Patriarch Bartholomew II and the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in 

America on 25 May 2007, in a "Global Climate Change: A Moral and Spiritual Challenge," concluded 

that care of the environment is an urgent issue, and that for humans to degrade the integrity of the Earth 

by causing changes in its climate is a sin (http://nrccc.org/?page_id=34). 

Catholic Faith. Pope Benedict urged delegates at the United Nations climate conference to reach 

agreement on a responsible credible response to the the complex and disturbing effects of climate change 

(http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/29/377462). 

Southern Africa Religions. Religious leaders from across South Africa met in Lusaka Zambia on 5-6 

May 2011 to discuss climate change, recognizing the need for religions to help people retain a moral 

compass with a compassion for other living beings and the principle of justice (http://safcei.org/wpcontent/uploads/2011/07/SA-Faith-Leaders-Declaration-09-05-2011.pdf). 

Canadian Interfaith. Representatives of Canadian faith communities in 2011 stated their united 

conviction that the growing crisis of climate change needs to be met by solutions that draw upon the 

moral and spiritual resources of the world's religious traditions (http://www.cpj.ca/files/docs/Catalyst- 

Winter-2011.pdf). 

References 

1. Vermeer, M. and Rahmstorf, S., 2009: Global sea level linked to global temperature. Proc Nat 

Acad Sci, 106, 21527-21532. 

2. Grinsted, A., Moore, J., and Jevrejeva, S., 2010: Reconstructing sea level from paleo and 

projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD. Clim Dyn, 34, 461-472. 

3. Pfeffer, W. T., Harper, J. T., and O'Neel, S., 2008: Kinematic constraints on glacier contributions 

to 21st-century sea-level rise. Science, 321, 1340-1343. 

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4. Turner J. et al. (eds.), 2009: Antarctic Climate change and the environment: a contribution to the 

International Polar year 2007-2008, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Scott Polar 

Research Institute, Lensfield Road, Cambridge UK. 

5. Hansen, J., 2005: A slippery slope: How much global warming constitutes "dangerous 

anthropogenic interference"? Clim Chg, 68, 269-279. 

6. Hansen, J., 2007: Scientific reticence and sea level rise. Env Res Lett, 2 024002. 

7. Sorensen, L. S. and Forsberg, R., 2010: Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss from GRACE Monthly 

Models. Gravity, Geoid and Earth Observation, 135, 527-532, . 

8. Rignot, E., Velicogna, I., van den Broeke, M. R., Monaghan, A., and Lenaerts, J., 2011: 

Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea level rise. 

Geophys Res Lett, 38 L05503. 

9. Steffen, K., Nghiem, S. V., Huff, R., and Neumann, G., 2004: The melt anomaly of 2002 on the 

Greenland Ice Sheet from active and passive microwave satellite observations. Geophys Res Lett, 

31 L20402. 

10. Tedesco, M., et al., 2011: The role of albedo and accumulation in the 2010 melting record in 

Greenland. Env Res Lett, 6 014005. 

11. Rignot, E. and Jacobs, S. S., 2002: Rapid bottom melting widespread near Antarctic ice sheet 

grounding lines. Science, 296, 2020-2023. 

12. Rignot, E., et al., 2008: Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional 

climate modelling. Nat Geosci, 1, 106-110. 

13. Kennett, J. P., Stott, L. D.,, 1991: Abrupt deep sea warming, paleoceanographic changes, and 

benthic extinctions at the end of the Palaeocene:. Nature, 353, 319-322. 

14. Zachos, J., Pagani, M., Sloan, L., Thomas, E., and Billups, K., 2001: Trends, rhythms, and 

aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present. Science, 292, 686-693. 

15. McInerney, F. A., Wing, S.L. , 2011: The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum-a perturbation of 

carbon cycle, climate, and biosphere with implications for the future. Ann Rev Earth Plan Sci, 39, 

489-516. 

16. Zeebe, R. E., Zachos, J. C., and Dickens, G. R., 2009: Carbon dioxide forcing alone insufficient 

to explain Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum warming. Nat Geosci, 2, 576-580. 

17. Cui, Y., et al., 2011: Slow release of fossil carbon during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal 

Maximum. Nat Geosci, 4, 481-485. 

18. DeConto, R., Galeotti, S., Pagani, M., Tracy, D.M., Pollard, D., Beerling, D.J.. 2010: 

Hyperthermals and orbitally paced permafrost soil organic carbon dynamics. Geophys Res 

Abstracts, 13, EGU2011-13580. 

19. Gu, G., Dickens, G.R., Bhatnagar, G. Colwell, F.S., Hirasaki G.J., Chapman, W.G., 2011: 

Abundant Early Palaeogene marine gas hydrates despite warm deep-ocean temperatures. Nat 

Geosci, 4, 848-851. 

20. Chester, S., Bloch, J., Secord, R., Boyer, D., 2010: A new small-bodied species of Palaeonictis 

(Creodonta, Oxyaenidae) from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. J Mamm Evol, 17, 

227-243. 

21. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007: Climate Change 2007, Impacts, 

Adaptation and Vulnerability, M.L. Parry, E. A. ed., Cambridge Univ Press, 996 pp. 

22. Diaz, R. J., Rosenberg, R., 2008: Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems. 

Science, 321, 926-928. 

23. Bushman, B. J., Wang, M. C., and Anderson, C. A., 2005: Is the Curve Relating Temperature to 

Aggression Linear or Curvilinear? Assaults and Temperature in Minneapolis Reexamined. J 

Personality, Social Psychology, 89, 62-66. 

24. Page, L. A., Hajat, S. Kovats, R.S., 2007: Relationship between daily suicide counts and 

temperature in England and Wales British J Psych, 191, 106-112. 

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Global Warming's Terrifying New Math | Politics News | Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-n... 

by: Bill McKibben 

Illustration by Edel Rodriguez 

If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this 

summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records 

across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th 

consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds 

of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars 

in the universe. 

Meteorologists reported that this spring was the warmest ever recorded for our nation – in fact, it crushed the 

old record by so much that it represented the "largest temperature departure from average of any season on 

record." The same week, Saudi authorities reported that it had rained in Mecca despite a temperature of 109 

degrees, the hottest downpour in the planet's history. 

Not that our leaders seemed to notice. Last month the world's nations, meeting in Rio for the 20th-anniversary 

reprise of a massive 1992 environmental summit, accomplished nothing. Unlike George H.W. Bush, who flew 

in for the first conclave, Barack Obama didn't even attend. It was "a ghost of the glad, confident meeting 20 

years ago," the British journalist George Monbiot wrote; no one paid it much attention, footsteps echoing 

through the halls "once thronged by multitudes." Since I wrote one of the first books for a general audience 

about global warming way back in 1989, and since I've spent the intervening decades working ineffectively to 

slow that warming, I can say with some confidence that we're losing the fight, badly and quickly – losing it 

because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in. 

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When we think about global warming at all, the arguments tend to be ideological, theological and economic. 

But to grasp the seriousness of our predicament, you just need to do a little math. For the past year, an easy 

and powerful bit of arithmetical analysis first published by financial analysts in the U.K. has been making the 

rounds of environmental conferences and journals, but it hasn't yet broken through to the larger public. This 

analysis upends most of the conventional political thinking about climate change. And it allows us to 

understand our precarious – our almost-but-not-quite-finally hopeless – position with three simple numbers. 

The First Number: 2° Celsius 

f the movie had ended in Hollywood fashion, the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 would have 

marked the culmination of the global fight to slow a changing climate. The world's nations had gathered in 

the December gloom of the Danish capital for what a leading climate economist, Sir Nicholas Stern of 

Britain, called the "most important gathering since the Second World War, given what is at stake." As Danish 

energy minister Connie Hedegaard, who presided over the conference, declared at the time: "This is our 

chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we get a new and better one. If ever." 

In the event, of course, we missed it. Copenhagen failed spectacularly. Neither China nor the United States, 

which between them are responsible for 40 percent of global carbon emissions, was prepared to offer dramatic 

concessions, and so the conference drifted aimlessly for two weeks until world leaders jetted in for the final 

day. Amid considerable chaos, President Obama took the lead in drafting a face-saving "Copenhagen Accord" 

that fooled very few. Its purely voluntary agreements committed no one to anything, and even if countries 

signaled their intentions to cut carbon emissions, there was no enforcement mechanism. "Copenhagen is a 

crime scene tonight," an angry Greenpeace official declared, "with the guilty men and women fleeing to the 

airport." Headline writers were equally brutal: COPENHAGEN: THE MUNICH OF OUR TIMES? asked one. 

The accord did contain one important number, however. In Paragraph 1, it formally recognized "the scientific 

view that the increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius." And in the very next 

paragraph, it declared that "we agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required... so as to hold the 

increase in global temperature below two degrees Celsius." By insisting on two degrees – about 3.6 degrees 

Fahrenheit – the accord ratified positions taken earlier in 2009 by the G8, and the so-called Major Economies 

Forum. It was as conventional as conventional wisdom gets. The number first gained prominence, in fact, at a 

1995 climate conference chaired by Angela Merkel, then the German minister of the environment and now 

the center-right chancellor of the nation. 

Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and 

that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is 

gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the 

atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given 

those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target. "Any 

number much above one degree involves a gamble," writes Kerry Emanuel of MIT, a leading authority on 

hurricanes, "and the odds become less and less favorable as the temperature goes up." Thomas Lovejoy, once 

the World Bank's chief biodiversity adviser, puts it like this: "If we're seeing what we're seeing today at 0.8 

degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much." NASA scientist James Hansen, the planet's most prominent 

climatologist, is even blunter: "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two 

degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." At the Copenhagen summit, a spokesman 

for small island nations warned that many would not survive a two-degree rise: "Some countries will flat-out 

disappear." When delegates from developing nations were warned that two degrees would represent a "suicide 

pact" for drought-stricken Africa, many of them started chanting, "One degree, one Africa." 

Despite such well-founded misgivings, political realism bested scientific data, and the world settled on the 

two-degree target – indeed, it's fair to say that it's the only thing about climate change the world has settled on. 

All told, 167 countries responsible for more than 87 percent of the world's carbon emissions have signed on to 

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the Copenhagen Accord, endorsing the two-degree target. Only a few dozen countries have rejected it, 

including Kuwait, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Even the United Arab Emirates, which makes most of its money 

exporting oil and gas, signed on. The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the 

temperature more than two degrees Celsius – it's become the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees. 

The Second Number: 565 Gigatons 

cientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 

by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. ("Reasonable," in this 

case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a 

six-shooter.) 

This idea of a global "carbon budget" emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much 

oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned. Since we've increased the Earth's temperature by 0.8 degrees so 

far, we're currently less than halfway to the target. But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we 

stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released 

carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the 

two-degree target. 

How good are these numbers? No one is insisting that they're exact, but few dispute that they're generally 

right. The 565-gigaton figure was derived from one of the most sophisticated computer-simulation models that 

have been built by climate scientists around the world over the past few decades. And the number is being 

further confirmed by the latest climate-simulation models currently being finalized in advance of the next 

report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Looking at them as they come in, they hardly 

differ at all," says Tom Wigley, an Australian climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 

"There's maybe 40 models in the data set now, compared with 20 before. But so far the numbers are pretty 

much the same. We're just fine-tuning things. I don't think much has changed over the last decade." William 

Collins, a senior climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, agrees. "I think the results of 

this round of simulations will be quite similar," he says. "We're not getting any free lunch from additional 

understanding of the climate system." 

We're not getting any free lunch from the world's economies, either. With only a single year's lull in 2009 at 

the height of the financial crisis, we've continued to pour record amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, year 

after year. In late May, the International Energy Agency published its latest figures – CO2 emissions last year 

rose to 31.6 gigatons, up 3.2 percent from the year before. America had a warm winter and converted more 

coal-fired power plants to natural gas, so its emissions fell slightly; China kept booming, so its carbon output 

(which recently surpassed the U.S.) rose 9.3 percent; the Japanese shut down their fleet of nukes 

post-Fukushima, so their emissions edged up 2.4 percent. "There have been efforts to use more renewable 

energy and improve energy efficiency," said Corinne Le Quéré, who runs England's Tyndall Centre for 

Climate Change Research. "But what this shows is that so far the effects have been marginal." In fact, study 

after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year – and at that rate, 

we'll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today's preschoolers will be 

graduating from high school. "The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory 

is about to close," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. In fact, he continued, "When I look at this data, 

the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees." That's almost 11 degrees 

Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction. 

So, new data in hand, everyone at the Rio conference renewed their ritual calls for serious international action 

to move us back to a two-degree trajectory. The charade will continue in November, when the next 

Conference of the Parties (COP) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change convenes in Qatar. 

This will be COP 18 – COP 1 was held in Berlin in 1995, and since then the process has accomplished 

essentially nothing. Even scientists, who are notoriously reluctant to speak out, are slowly overcoming their 

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natural preference to simply provide data. "The message has been consistent for close to 30 years now," 

Collins says with a wry laugh, "and we have the instrumentation and the computer power required to present 

the evidence in detail. If we choose to continue on our present course of action, it should be done with a full 

evaluation of the evidence the scientific community has presented." He pauses, suddenly conscious of being 

on the record. "I should say, a fuller evaluation of the evidence." 

So far, though, such calls have had little effect. We're in the same position we've been in for a quarter-century: 

scientific warning followed by political inaction. Among scientists speaking off the record, disgusted candor is 

the rule. One senior scientist told me, "You know those new cigarette packs, where governments make them 

put a picture of someone with a hole in their throats? Gas pumps should have something like that." 

The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons 

his number is the scariest of all – one that, for the first time, meshes the political and scientific 

dimensions of our dilemma. It was highlighted last summer by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a team of 

London financial analysts and environmentalists who published a report in an effort to educate investors 

about the possible risks that climate change poses to their stock portfolios. The number describes the amount 

of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the 

countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it's the fossil fuel we're 

currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times 

higher. 

The Carbon Tracker Initiative – led by James Leaton, an environmentalist who served as an adviser at the 

accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers – combed through proprietary databases to figure out how much 

oil, gas and coal the world's major energy companies hold in reserve. The numbers aren't perfect – they don't 

fully reflect the recent surge in unconventional energy sources like shale gas, and they don't accurately reflect 

coal reserves, which are subject to less stringent reporting requirements than oil and gas. But for the biggest 

companies, the figures are quite exact: If you burned everything in the inventories of Russia's Lukoil and 

America's ExxonMobil, for instance, which lead the list of oil and gas companies, each would release more 

than 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Which is exactly why this new number, 2,795 gigatons, is such a big deal. Think of two degrees Celsius as the 

legal drinking limit – equivalent to the 0.08 blood-alcohol level below which you might get away with driving 

home. The 565 gigatons is how many drinks you could have and still stay below that limit – the six beers, say, 

you might consume in an evening. And the 2,795 gigatons? That's the three 12-packs the fossil-fuel industry 

has on the table, already opened and ready to pour. 

We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn. We'd 

have to keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away underground to avoid that fate. Before we knew those 

numbers, our fate had been likely. Now, barring some massive intervention, it seems certain. 

Yes, this coal and gas and oil is still technically in the soil. But it's already economically aboveground – it's 

figured into share prices, companies are borrowing money against it, nations are basing their budgets on the 

presumed returns from their patrimony. It explains why the big fossil-fuel companies have fought so hard to 

prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide – those reserves are their primary asset, the holding that gives their 

companies their value. It's why they've worked so hard these past years to figure out how to unlock the oil in 

Canada's tar sands, or how to drill miles beneath the sea, or how to frack the Appalachians. 

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, 

the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who 

now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today's market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon 

emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 

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percent of it underground, you'd be writing off $20 trillion in assets. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but 

that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might 

well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. You can 

have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it 

looks like you can't have both. Do the math: 2,795 is five times 565. That's how the story ends. 

o far, as I said at the start, environmental efforts to tackle global warming have failed. The planet's 

emissions of carbon dioxide continue to soar, especially as developing countries emulate (and supplant) 

the industries of the West. Even in rich countries, small reductions in emissions offer no sign of the real 

break with the status quo we'd need to upend the iron logic of these three numbers. Germany is one of the 

only big countries that has actually tried hard to change its energy mix; on one sunny Saturday in late May, 

that northern-latitude nation generated nearly half its power from solar panels within its borders. That's a small 

miracle – and it demonstrates that we have the technology to solve our problems. But we lack the will. So far, 

Germany's the exception; the rule is ever more carbon. 

This record of failure means we know a lot about what strategies don't work. Green groups, for instance, have 

spent a lot of time trying to change individual lifestyles: the iconic twisty light bulb has been installed by the 

millions, but so have a new generation of energy-sucking flatscreen TVs. Most of us are fundamentally 

ambivalent about going green: We like cheap flights to warm places, and we're certainly not going to give them 

up if everyone else is still taking them. Since all of us are in some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, 

tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it's as if the gay-rights 

movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from 

slaveholders. 

People perceive – correctly – that their individual actions will not make a decisive difference in the 

atmospheric concentration of CO2; by 2010, a poll found that "while recycling is widespread in America and 

73 percent of those polled are paying bills online in order to save paper," only four percent had reduced their 

utility use and only three percent had purchased hybrid cars. Given a hundred years, you could conceivably 

change lifestyles enough to matter – but time is precisely what we lack. 

A more efficient method, of course, would be to work through the political system, and environmentalists 

have tried that, too, with the same limited success. They've patiently lobbied leaders, trying to convince them 

of our peril and assuming that politicians would heed the warnings. Sometimes it has seemed to work. Barack 

Obama, for instance, campaigned more aggressively about climate change than any president before him – the 

night he won the nomination, he told supporters that his election would mark the moment "the rise of the 

oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal." And he has achieved one significant change: a steady 

increase in the fuel efficiency mandated for automobiles. It's the kind of measure, adopted a quarter-century 

ago, that would have helped enormously. But in light of the numbers I've just described, it's obviously a very 

small start indeed. 

At this point, effective action would require actually keeping most of the carbon the fossil-fuel industry wants 

to burn safely in the soil, not just changing slightly the speed at which it's burned. And there the president, 

apparently haunted by the still-echoing cry of "Drill, baby, drill," has gone out of his way to frack and mine. 

His secretary of interior, for instance, opened up a huge swath of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming for coal 

extraction: The total basin contains some 67.5 gigatons worth of carbon (or more than 10 percent of the 

available atmospheric space). He's doing the same thing with Arctic and offshore drilling; in fact, as he 

explained on the stump in March, "You have my word that we will keep drilling everywhere we can... That's a 

commitment that I make." The next day, in a yard full of oil pipe in Cushing, Oklahoma, the president 

promised to work on wind and solar energy but, at the same time, to speed up fossil-fuel development: 

"Producing more oil and gas here at home has been, and will continue to be, a critical part of an all-ofthe-above 

energy strategy." That is, he's committed to finding even more stock to add to the 2,795-gigaton 

inventory of unburned carbon. 

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Sometimes the irony is almost Borat-scale obvious: In early June, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled 

on a Norwegian research trawler to see firsthand the growing damage from climate change. "Many of the 

predictions about warming in the Arctic are being surpassed by the actual data," she said, describing the sight 

as "sobering." But the discussions she traveled to Scandinavia to have with other foreign ministers were 

mostly about how to make sure Western nations get their share of the estimated $9 trillion in oil (that's more 

than 90 billion barrels, or 37 gigatons of carbon) that will become accessible as the Arctic ice melts. Last 

month, the Obama administration indicated that it would give Shell permission to start drilling in sections of 

the Arctic. 

Almost every government with deposits of hydrocarbons straddles the same divide. Canada, for instance, is a 

liberal democracy renowned for its internationalism – no wonder, then, that it signed on to the Kyoto treaty, 

promising to cut its carbon emissions substantially by 2012. But the rising price of oil suddenly made the tar 

sands of Alberta economically attractive – and since, as NASA climatologist James Hansen pointed out in 

May, they contain as much as 240 gigatons of carbon (or almost half of the available space if we take the 565 

limit seriously), that meant Canada's commitment to Kyoto was nonsense. In December, the Canadian 

government withdrew from the treaty before it faced fines for failing to meet its commitments. 

The same kind of hypocrisy applies across the ideological board: In his speech to the Copenhagen conference, 

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez quoted Rosa Luxemburg, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and "Christ the Redeemer," 

insisting that "climate change is undoubtedly the most devastating environmental problem of this century." But 

the next spring, in the Simon Bolivar Hall of the state-run oil company, he signed an agreement with a 

consortium of international players to develop the vast Orinoco tar sands as "the most significant engine for a 

comprehensive development of the entire territory and Venezuelan population." The Orinoco deposits are 

larger than Alberta's – taken together, they'd fill up the whole available atmospheric space. 

o: the paths we have tried to tackle global warming have so far produced only gradual, halting shifts. A 

rapid, transformative change would require building a movement, and movements require enemies. As 

John F. Kennedy put it, "The civil rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as 

much as Abraham Lincoln." And enemies are what climate change has lacked. 

But what all these climate numbers make painfully, usefully clear is that the planet does indeed have an enemy 

– one far more committed to action than governments or individuals. Given this hard math, we need to view 

the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It 

is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. "Lots of companies do rotten things 

in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them 

to change those practices," says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about 

the climate crisis. "But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their 

business model. It's what they do." 

According to the Carbon Tracker report, if Exxon burns its current reserves, it would use up more than seven 

percent of the available atmospheric space between us and the risk of two degrees. BP is just behind, followed 

by the Russian firm Gazprom, then Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell, each of which would fill between 

three and four percent. Taken together, just these six firms, of the 200 listed in the Carbon Tracker report, 

would use up more than a quarter of the remaining two-degree budget. Severstal, the Russian mining giant, 

leads the list of coal companies, followed by firms like BHP Billiton and Peabody. The numbers are simply 

staggering – this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our 

planet, and they're planning to use it. 

They're clearly cognizant of global warming – they employ some of the world's best scientists, after all, and 

they're bidding on all those oil leases made possible by the staggering melt of Arctic ice. And yet they 

relentlessly search for more hydrocarbons – in early March, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson told Wall Street 

analysts that the company plans to spend $37 billion a year through 2016 (about $100 million a day) searching 

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for yet more oil and gas. 

There's not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson. Late last month, on the same day the Colorado 

fires reached their height, he told a New York audience that global warming is real, but dismissed it as an 

"engineering problem" that has "engineering solutions." Such as? "Changes to weather patterns that move 

crop-production areas around – we'll adapt to that." This in a week when Kentucky farmers were reporting 

that corn kernels were "aborting" in record heat, threatening a spike in global food prices. "The fear factor that 

people want to throw out there to say, 'We just have to stop this,' I do not accept," Tillerson said. Of course not 

– if he did accept it, he'd have to keep his reserves in the ground. Which would cost him money. It's not an 

engineering problem, in other words – it's a greed problem. 

You could argue that this is simply in the nature of these companies – that having found a profitable vein, 

they're compelled to keep mining it, more like efficient automatons than people with free will. But as the 

Supreme Court has made clear, they are people of a sort. In fact, thanks to the size of its bankroll, the 

fossil-fuel industry has far more free will than the rest of us. These companies don't simply exist in a world 

whose hungers they fulfill – they help create the boundaries of that world. 

Left to our own devices, citizens might decide to regulate carbon and stop short of the brink; according to a 

recent poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans would back an international agreement that cut carbon emissions 

90 percent by 2050. But we aren't left to our own devices. The Koch brothers, for instance, have a combined 

wealth of $50 billion, meaning they trail only Bill Gates on the list of richest Americans. They've made most of 

their money in hydrocarbons, they know any system to regulate carbon would cut those profits, and they 

reportedly plan to lavish as much as $200 million on this year's elections. In 2009, for the first time, the U.S. 

Chamber of Commerce surpassed both the Republican and Democratic National Committees on political 

spending; the following year, more than 90 percent of the Chamber's cash went to GOP candidates, many of 

whom deny the existence of global warming. Not long ago, the Chamber even filed a brief with the EPA 

urging the agency not to regulate carbon – should the world's scientists turn out to be right and the planet heats 

up, the Chamber advised, "populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, 

physiological and technological adaptations." As radical goes, demanding that we change our physiology 

seems right up there. 

Environmentalists, understandably, have been loath to make the fossil-fuel industry their enemy, respecting its 

political power and hoping instead to convince these giants that they should turn away from coal, oil and gas 

and transform themselves more broadly into "energy companies." Sometimes that strategy appeared to be 

working – emphasis on appeared. Around the turn of the century, for instance, BP made a brief attempt to 

restyle itself as "Beyond Petroleum," adapting a logo that looked like the sun and sticking solar panels on 

some of its gas stations. But its investments in alternative energy were never more than a tiny fraction of its 

budget for hydrocarbon exploration, and after a few years, many of those were wound down as new CEOs 

insisted on returning to the company's "core business." In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell 

shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in 

profits since the millennium – there's simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing 

after zephyrs and sunbeams. 

Much of that profit stems from a single historical accident: Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is 

allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. Nobody else gets that break – if you own a 

restaurant, you have to pay someone to cart away your trash, since piling it in the street would breed rats. But 

the fossil-fuel industry is different, and for sound historical reasons: Until a quarter-century ago, almost no one 

knew that CO2 was dangerous. But now that we understand that carbon is heating the planet and acidifying 

the oceans, its price becomes the central issue. 

If you put a price on carbon, through a direct tax or other methods, it would enlist markets in the fight against 

global warming. Once Exxon has to pay for the damage its carbon is doing to the atmosphere, the price of its 

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products would rise. Consumers would get a strong signal to use less fossil fuel – every time they stopped at 

the pump, they'd be reminded that you don't need a semimilitary vehicle to go to the grocery store. The 

economic playing field would now be a level one for nonpolluting energy sources. And you could do it all 

without bankrupting citizens – a so-called "fee-and-dividend" scheme would put a hefty tax on coal and gas 

and oil, then simply divide up the proceeds, sending everyone in the country a check each month for their 

share of the added costs of carbon. By switching to cleaner energy sources, most people would actually come 

out ahead. 

There's only one problem: Putting a price on carbon would reduce the profitability of the fossil-fuel industry. 

After all, the answer to the question "How high should the price of carbon be?" is "High enough to keep those 

carbon reserves that would take us past two degrees safely in the ground." The higher the price on carbon, the 

more of those reserves would be worthless. The fight, in the end, is about whether the industry will succeed in 

its fight to keep its special pollution break alive past the point of climate catastrophe, or whether, in the 

economists' parlance, we'll make them internalize those externalities. 

t's not clear, of course, that the power of the fossil-fuel industry can be broken. The U.K. analysts who 

wrote the Carbon Tracker report and drew attention to these numbers had a relatively modest goal – they 

simply wanted to remind investors that climate change poses a very real risk to the stock prices of energy 

companies. Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes 

out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who 

manage to regulate carbon. Suddenly those Chevron reserves would be a lot less valuable, and the stock would 

tank. Given that risk, the Carbon Tracker report warned investors to lessen their exposure, hedge it with some 

big plays in alternative energy. 

"The regular process of economic evolution is that businesses are left with stranded assets all the time," says 

Nick Robins, who runs HSBC's Climate Change Centre. "Think of film cameras, or typewriters. The question 

is not whether this will happen. It will. Pension systems have been hit by the dot-com and credit crunch. 

They'll be hit by this." Still, it hasn't been easy to convince investors, who have shared in the oil industry's 

record profits. "The reason you get bubbles," sighs Leaton, "is that everyone thinks they're the best analyst – 

that they'll go to the edge of the cliff and then jump back when everyone else goes over." 

So pure self-interest probably won't spark a transformative challenge to fossil fuel. But moral outrage just 

might – and that's the real meaning of this new math. It could, plausibly, give rise to a real movement. 

Once, in recent corporate history, anger forced an industry to make basic changes. That was the campaign in 

the 1980s demanding divestment from companies doing business in South Africa. It rose first on college 

campuses and then spread to municipal and state governments; 155 campuses eventually divested, and by the 

end of the decade, more than 80 cities, 25 states and 19 counties had taken some form of binding economic 

action against companies connected to the apartheid regime. "The end of apartheid stands as one of the 

crowning accomplishments of the past century," as Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it, "but we would not have 

succeeded without the help of international pressure," especially from "the divestment movement of the 

1980s." 

The fossil-fuel industry is obviously a tougher opponent, and even if you could force the hand of particular 

companies, you'd still have to figure out a strategy for dealing with all the sovereign nations that, in effect, act 

as fossil-fuel companies. But the link for college students is even more obvious in this case. If their college's 

endowment portfolio has fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that 

guarantee they won't have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree. (The same logic applies to 

the world's largest investors, pension funds, which are also theoretically interested in the future – that's when 

their members will "enjoy their retirement.") "Given the severity of the climate crisis, a comparable demand 

that our institutions dump stock from companies that are destroying the planet would not only be appropriate 

but effective," says Bob Massie, a former anti-apartheid activist who helped found the Investor Network on 

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Climate Risk. "The message is simple: We have had enough. We must sever the ties with those who profit 

from climate change – now." 

Movements rarely have predictable outcomes. But any campaign that weakens the fossil-fuel industry's 

political standing clearly increases the chances of retiring its special breaks. Consider President Obama's signal 

achievement in the climate fight, the large increase he won in mileage requirements for cars. Scientists, 

environmentalists and engineers had advocated such policies for decades, but until Detroit came under severe 

financial pressure, it was politically powerful enough to fend them off. If people come to understand the cold, 

mathematical truth – that the fossil-fuel industry is systematically undermining the planet's physical systems – 

it might weaken it enough to matter politically. Exxon and their ilk might drop their opposition to a fee-anddividend 

solution; they might even decide to become true energy companies, this time for real. 

Even if such a campaign is possible, however, we may have waited too long to start it. To make a real 

difference – to keep us under a temperature increase of two degrees – you'd need to change carbon pricing in 

Washington, and then use that victory to leverage similar shifts around the world. At this point, what happens 

in the U.S. is most important for how it will influence China and India, where emissions are growing fastest. 

(In early June, researchers concluded that China has probably under-reported its emissions by up to 20 

percent.) The three numbers I've described are daunting – they may define an essentially impossible future. 

But at least they provide intellectual clarity about the greatest challenge humans have ever faced. We know 

how much we can burn, and we know who's planning to burn more. Climate change operates on a geological 

scale and time frame, but it's not an impersonal force of nature; the more carefully you do the math, the more 

thoroughly you realize that this is, at bottom, a moral issue; we have met the enemy and they is Shell. 

Meanwhile the tide of numbers continues. The week after the Rio conference limped to its conclusion, Arctic 

sea ice hit the lowest level ever recorded for that date. Last month, on a single weekend, Tropical Storm 

Debby dumped more than 20 inches of rain on Florida – the earliest the season's fourth-named cyclone has 

ever arrived. At the same time, the largest fire in New Mexico history burned on, and the most destructive fire 

in Colorado's annals claimed 346 homes in Colorado Springs – breaking a record set the week before in Fort 

Collins. This month, scientists issued a new study concluding that global warming has dramatically increased 

the likelihood of severe heat and drought – days after a heat wave across the Plains and Midwest broke 

records that had stood since the Dust Bowl, threatening this year's harvest. You want a big number? In the 

course of this month, a quadrillion kernels of corn need to pollinate across the grain belt, something they can't 

do if temperatures remain off the charts. Just like us, our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year 

period of climatic stability we're now leaving... in the dust. 

This story is from the August 2nd, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone. 

Related 

Bill McKibben: The Arctic Ice Crisis 

Al Gore: Science and Truth Vs. the Merchants of Poison 

Climate Change and the End of Australia 

More Music 

Obama's Pot ProblemBy Tim Dickinson 

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Fossil Fuel Divestment Is A Timely Issue For Investors - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/mindylubber/2012/12/17/fossil-fuel-divestm... 

Mindy Lubber, Contributor 

President, Ceres and Director, Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) 

GREEN TECH | 12/17/2012 @ 1:53PM | 1,169 views 

While the debate rages in Washington over the 

fiscal cliff, a greater threat lies ahead. You could call 

it the climate cliff, the point of no return where our 

use of fossil fuels triggers catastrophic climate 

change. Environmental activist Bill McKibben is 

rightly drawing attention to this crisis by embarking 

on a national tour of college campuses and urging 

universities to divest their endowments of fossil fuel 

stocks, much as anti-apartheid activists pressured 

universities to shed South Africa investments in the 

1980s. 

McKibben is engaging students on an issue that will directly and 

dramatically affect their futures and all of our futures. These concerns are 

warranted, and students are increasingly seeing climate change as the moral 

issue of their generation. They see it is a major economic issue as well. As 

director of the $11 trillion Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), I have 

been working with investors for years to limit the environmental impact of 

their portfolios and redirect resources to more sustainable investments. 

Navigating this challenge raises thorny questions that are financial, political 

and even existential. But it is critical to our economy – and our planet – that 

we tackle them now. 

We cannot simply accept Wall Street refrains that divesting is hard because 

fossil fuels are embedded in our economy, and are profitable to boot. Such 

thinking denies the ‘true’ negative costs of fossil fuels. 

Many fossil fuel stocks have been profitable in recent years, but because 

neither the producers nor consumers pay to emit climate-warming carbon 

pollution into the atmosphere, those profits are grossly distorted. The 

consequences of a free license to pollute – including super storms, droughts 

and rising seas, for example – are borne by taxpayers, insurers and anyone 

in harm’s way. The economic costs of Hurricane Sandy and this summer’s 

historic drought eclipsed $100 billion, an amount equal to the combined 

annual profits of just three big oil companies, Exxon, Chevron and Royal 

Dutch Shell. 

Until there is a price on carbon, along with other clean energy policies, these 

profits will likely continue, fossil fuel consumption will keep rising and clean 

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energy will struggle to compete on an uneven playing field. 

In evaluating fossil fuel stocks, the calculus for institutional investors has 

some complications. University endowments are designed to benefit future 

generations of students whose educations will be financed by the 

endowments, directly or indirectly. Pension funds have an obligation to keep 

pension promises to current and future retirees decades into the future. As 

long as returns on fossil fuel stocks remain high (and subsidized by the lack 

of a price on carbon pollution), they will remain highly attractive to asset 

managers who must meet their duty to maximize returns. But they have a 

fiduciary duty to meet the needs of their investors, students and beneficiaries 

over the long term as well. 

This places institutional investors in a unique predicament. They are not 

allowed to invest in a way that favors one generation of beneficiaries over 

another. If investing in carbon-intensive stocks is good for current retirees 

but undermines the broader economic future for those just entering the 

workforce, are they meeting that standard? Conversely, if they divest and 

returns suffer, are they favoring younger beneficiaries over older ones? 

Clearly, they need to find a balance that ensures returns for current retirees 

while minimizing risk for future ones. Ratcheting down investments in fossil 

fuel companies would send the clearest signal that those companies must 

adapt. 

Investors should also address the inherent risks in any fossil fuel investment. 

An estimated 50-80 percent of the current market value of oil, gas and coal 

companies is based on unburned reserves; that is, resources that are still in 

the ground but which, if burned, would lead to catastrophic climate change 

and economic disaster. With a strong price on carbon, how much of those 

reserves will be left in the ground, in essence, creating liabilities that could 

take a big toll on shareholder value? 

Given such profound concerns, it is clear investors cannot stand by idly. 

Many of them are already doing more to exert their influence to achieve a 

low-carbon world. Investors are filing dozens of shareholder resolutions with 

U.S. companies every year calling for action on strategies that lower their 

carbon emissions and boost their clean energy efforts. Many of these 

resolutions are focused directly on fossil fuel companies like Exxon, 

coal-fired electric utilities and hydraulic fracturing operators whose practices 

need cleaning up. 

These investors are beginning to rebalance their portfolios by tilting their 

strategies toward clean energy and away from the riskiest high-carbon 

companies, especially coal. There are a growing number of funds and 

indexes focusing on clean energy and lower carbon companies. 

But, most important of all, global investors are clamoring for strong 

low-carbon policies – in other words, a carbon price – that will catalyze the 

necessary massive shift of capital to clean energy. Global investor groups, 

including INCR, requested exactly this in a recent letter to major 

governments whose climate negotiators met this month in Doha, Qatar. They 

are looking for clear, concise and honest market signals. 

The bottom line is this: There will be a day of reckoning when it comes to 

fossil fuels, and investors need to take far stronger steps to avoid the climate 

cliff. Fundamental shifts in investment are warranted, and investors must 

begin diverting capital away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy at a 

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much faster clip. The societal costs of inaction on the climate are immense, 

and the risks are rising just as surely as the seas. 

This article is available online at: 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mindylubber/2012/12/17/fossil-fuel-divestment-is-timely-issuefor-investors/ 

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2012 

Other Correspondence 

& Articles of Interest 

133 

Other Correspondence & Articles of Interest

From: Harris, Tara (MNZOO) [mailto:tara.harris@state.mn.us] 

Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 2:21 PM 

To: Harris, Tara (MNZOO) 

Cc: Kathy (CBSG) 

Subject: new Amur Tiger Global Species Management Plan 

Dear Amur Tiger SSP Institutional Representative: 

As you may know, this past Felid TAG annual meeting focused on global management of felids. We 

broke into work groups to discuss the possibility of creating global species management plans (GSMPs) 

for select felids, one being the Amur tiger. As detailed in the meeting report distributed on the Felid 

TAG listserv, we decided to move forward with the creation of an Amur Tiger GSMP after considering 

the benefits and challenges of doing so. I am happy to report that WAZA’s Committee for Population 

Management has approved the Amur Tiger GSMP, and I will serve as “Co‐Convenor” along with Tanya 

Arzhanova of Moscow Zoo. Kathy Traylor‐Holzer of CBSG, who serves as Tiger SSP Studbook Keeper and 

Population Advisor, will now serve also as the Population Advisor of the Amur Tiger GSMP. We will hold 

our first workshop at the Moscow Zoo sometime in 2013. The other participating regional zoo 

associations are EAZA (Europe), EARAZA (Eurasia), and JAZA (Japan). 

The primary purpose of the Amur Tiger GSMP is to bring the different regional zoo associations together 

to discuss how we can work to increase the sustainability of the global captive Amur tiger population, as 

well as the sustainability of individual regional populations. Our initial analyses showed that there are 

a number of potential transfers of tigers between regions that could benefit both the sending and 

receiving regions. The Tiger SSP, for example, could potentially benefit by transferring some genetically 

over‐represented individuals to Japan (as tentatively recommended in this year’s Amur Tiger Breeding 

and Transfer Plan), and there are options for the SSP to receive new founders from Eurasian zoos. These 

are the kinds of things that will be discussed by the GSMP. Little will change in terms of the operation of 

the Tiger SSP, and individual breeding and transfer recommendations affecting North American zoos will 

still be made by the Tiger SSP, after consultation with IRs. Conducting international transfers will be 

challenging, for sure, but we are already having success with such transfers as a participant in the 

Sumatran Tiger GSMP. 

There are a number of other potential benefits of GSMPs, such as sharing research findings and 

husbandry information, and facilitating greater connections between in situ and ex situ conservation. I 

will be sure to update you as things progress. Please also feel free to contact me if you have questions 

or concerns. 

Regards, 

Tara 

Tara Harris, Ph.D. 

Director of Conservation, Minnesota Zoo 

Coordinator, AZA Tiger Species Survival Plan 

Co‐Convenor, Amur Tiger Global Species Management Plan 

13000 Zoo Blvd, Apple Valley, MN 55124 

952‐431‐9206; tara.harris@state.mn.us 

www.mnzoo.org / Twitter: MNZoo / Facebook: MNZoo 

“To connect people, animals, and the natural world” 

134 


Zoo Conservation Outreach Group 

CHATTANOOGA ZOO CONSERVATION AWARD 

2012 CHATTANOOGA ZOO CONSERVATION AWARD WINNER—ARNAUD DESBIEZ 

Zoo Conservation Outreach Group (ZCOG) and the Chattanooga 

Zoo are pleased to announce Arnaud Desbiez, conservation 

biologist and principal investigator of the Brazilian Pantanal Giant 

Armadillo Project, as the 2012 recipient of the Chattanooga Zoo 

Conservation Award. Dr. Desbiez is Regional Conservation and 

Research Coordinator for Latin America for the Royal Zoological 

Society of Scotland, Convenor for the IUCN/SSC Conservation 

Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG) -‐‑ Brasil Network, and a Lecturer 

at the Escola Superior de Conservação Ambiental e 

Sustentabilidade (ESCAS-‐‑IPÊ) in Brazil. He holds a Ph.D. in 

Biodiversity Management from the University of Kent’s Durrell 

Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), a Master’s degree in 

Natural Resource Management from the University of Cranfield, 

and a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and International 

Development from McGill University. 

Since 2002, Dr. Debiez’s conservation and research efforts have 

focused on the Brazilian Pantanal, where he has investigated the 

interaction between native and invasive species and the use of 

forage resources by different mammal species. His current 

research examines the biology and behavioral ecology of one of 

South America’s least known and most endangered mammals: the 

Giant armadillo. Using camera traps, burrow surveys, and radio 

and GPS satellite tracking technologies, Arnaud and his team of 

Brazilian biologists hope to develop a better understanding of the 

Giant armadillo’s ecosystem function and establish conservation 

measures that will help ensure the species’ long-‐‑term survival. 

Dr. Desbiez will present the initial findings of his research from 

9:00AM-‐‑9:30AM on Sunday, September 9, 2012 in room #22B of the 

Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ. 

Please contact ZCOG2005@yahoo.com for additional details. 

135 

Other Correspondence & Articles of Interest 

Arnaud Desbiez (left) and field assistant release a Giant armadillo 

ABOUT THE AWARD: 

The Chattanooga Zoo Conservation Award was 

established in 1999 by Zoo Conservation 

Outreach Group (ZCOG) and the Friends of the 

Chattanooga Zoo (FOTZ). The award 

recognizes excellence in wildlife, habitat, and 

conservation education efforts in Latin America 

while honoring the memory of Patrick Jones, a 

longtime friend and volunteer of the 

Chattanooga Zoo. Award recipients receive 

round trip airfare, hotel, and registration to 

attend the Association of Zoos & Aquariums 

(AZA) National Conference, where they present 

the results of their research and conservation 

efforts to a gathering of the global zoo and 

aquarium community.

SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund Grants More Than $1.1 Million 

to Support Wildlife Research and Conservation 

Orlando, Fla. (August 2012) – Animals in need around the world will benefit from more than 

$1.1 million in grants awarded this year by the non-profit SeaWorld & Busch Gardens 

Conservation Fund. Since its inception, the Fund has granted more than $9 million to protect 

wildlife and wild places. 

The Fund approved grants to 88 wildlife research and conservation projects. These grants will 

help researchers identify why 90 percent of one penguin species in the wild has declined; help 

conserve and study wild polar bears and restore populations of wild puffins; and create a 

sustainable way for aquarium enthusiasts to enjoy colorful tropical fish displays. 

Additionally, the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks provide direct support to the Fund by 

placing zoological staff into the field to work alongside researchers on projects supported by the 

Fund. 

Together, the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks care for one of the world’s largest collection 

of animals, which includes more than 60,000 animals and 200 endangered species. The parks’ 

rescue teams have helped more than 20,000 orphaned, injured or ill animals. 

Just a few of the research and conservation projects supported in 2012 include: 

Responsible Tropical Aquariums – SeaWorld’s Rising Tide is an innovative research 

program that works to provide a sustainable tropical fish population for home aquariums 

and decrease dependency on collection from coral reefs. 

Declining Penguin Populations – Research is being done by the Royal Society for the 

Protection of Birds to identify the causes of the more than 90 percent population decline 

of the endangered rockhopper penguin. Efforts include population monitoring, tracking 

and foraging studies, demographic studies and a re-evaluation of potential factors driving 

the population decline. 

First Scientific Review of the Rothschild Giraffe – To develop a long-term population 

monitoring program and conservation strategy for the endangered Rothschild giraffe, the 

Fund is supporting the Giraffe Conservation Foundation’s research to create the species 

first-ever scientific review. 

Protecting Polar Bears – Polar Bears International is studying and documenting polar 

bear populations and their arctic habitat. The goal is to understand and evaluate the true 

status and condition of polar bears, and the impact of human-caused and natural events 

on their survival. 

136 


2012 SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund Grants/page 2 of 2 

Project Puffin – To help restore the Atlantic puffin to the islands off Maine, SeaWorld 

bird experts annually join researchers, brought together by the National Audubon 

Society, to observe, record, and study North American seabirds. 

“The research supported by the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund is vital to 

resuscitate dwindling animal populations all around the world,” said Brad Andrews, president 

and executive director of the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund and chief 

zoological officer for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. “Our efforts today will help sustain 

these species for generations to come.” 

For more information on the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, click here to 

follow the Fund on Facebook. 

About the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund 

A non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund supports 

wildlife research, habitat protection, animal rescue and conservation education in the U.S. and 

more than 60 countries. Since its inception, the Fund has awarded more than $9 million, 

including animal crisis grants that provide rapid response and much-needed funding to animals 

and habitats in peril due to either natural or human-caused events and catastrophes. 100 percent 

of the donations the Fund receives go to support these efforts. 

Media Contact: Greg Smith, Public Affairs, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment 

407.226.5257 or gregory.smith@seaworld.com 

137 


POLICY PERSPECTIVE 

The IUCN global assessments: partnerships, collaboration and data 

sharing for biodiversity science and policy 

Thomas E. Lacher, Jr. 1 , Luigi Boitani 2 , & Gustavo A.B. da Fonseca 3,4 

1 Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA 

2 Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale dell’Università 32, Roma 00185, Italy 

3 Global Environment Facility, 1818 H Street NW, P-4–400, Washington, DC 20433, USA 

4 Department of Zoology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil 

Keywords 

Biodiversity; conservation funding; data 

sharing; GEF; IUCN; partnerships; policy. 

Correspondence 

Thomas E. Lacher, Jr., Department of Wildlife 

and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, 

College Station, TX 77843–2258, USA. 

Tel: 979–845-5750; Fax: 979–845-3786. 

E-mail: tlacher@tamu.edu 

Received 

5 January 2012 

Accepted 

2 April 2012 

Editor 

Reed Noss 

doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00249.x 

Introduction 

Abstract 

The past 10 years have provided biodiversity researchers 

with a revolution in data management, compatibility, 

and accessibility. The development of metadata standards 

(www.dublincore.org; Graham et al. 2004), the 

facilitation of data sharing among researchers (manisnet.org; 

www.herpnet.org), and the creation of intergovernmental 

initiatives like the Global Biodiversity 

Information Facility to manage data standards, 

intellectual property rights, and data sharing practices 

(www.gbif.org; Edwards 2004) have greatly advanced 

research in many fields (King & Penman 

2009; Thomas 2009). There are now also national and 

regional information networks (www.conabio.gob.mx; 

www.mma.gov.br; www.iabin.net). 

The development of standards, data sharing, and initiatives like the Global 

Biodiversity Information Facility and others have advanced research in many 

fields, including in conservation of biodiversity. Global assessments of extinction 

risk to species have been completed by IUCN for multiple taxa. The IUCN 

global assessments have had a major impact on conservation science and practice 

as well as biodiversity funding mechanisms though the Global Environment 

Facility, the World Bank, and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund 

(CEPF). A signature of the assessments is a process of sustained interaction between 

conservation organizations and the research and academic community, 

effectively integrating science and policy on global scale. The model relies on 

several critical components: openness of the conservation community to scientific 

input and debate, engagement of the scientific community, conservation 

organization mediated data collation, and data sharing with ease of access. 

This model can be applied to other challenges to conserve biodiversity and assess 

how biodiversity loss affects the well-being of societies across the world. 

The recognition of the importance of biodiversity in meeting the Millennium 

Development Goals and the recognition of the failure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity 

Target illustrate the gap between what needs to be achieved and our 

current trajectory. 

The sharing of genomic databases has accelerated research 

in biomedicine (Field et al. 2009) and evolutionary 

biology and systematics (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ 

Genbank). Open access publishing is now common, ranging 

from full open-access journals to express online publication 

in many of the most prestigious scientific journals. 

The sharing of data for the biomedical sciences has been 

of clear benefit to society and has accelerated research in 

many fields. Data sharing and open access are now having 

the same effect on the conservation of biodiversity. 

In order for this to succeed, we need to shepherd a new 

era of collaboration and partnership among natural history 

collections, academic researchers, conservation organizations, 

funding institutions, and direct beneficiaries 

of conservation action. We present a model for open 

collaborative partnership between research and applied 

Conservation Letters 5 (2012) 327–333 Copyright and Photocopying: c○2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 327 

138 


Partners in biodiversity science and policy T. E. Lacher et al. 

science organizations, based on our experience with the 

IUCN Red List. 

The IUCN global assessments: 

influencing policy and action 

The IUCN Red List first began developing lists of threatened 

species in the 1950s, using differently and more 

subjectively defined criteria and categories from those 

now used (Mace et al. 2008). The standards were defined 

with the first publication of the Red List Categories 

and Criteria in 1994 (IUCN 1994) and these were 

revised to the current standards in 2001 (IUCN 2001). 

The criteria require documented evidence of status 

and trends in one of five areas: rates of decline in 

population size, size of the range and decline, small 

population size and decline, very small population size 

alone, and quantitative analysis and modeling of demographic 

data (Mace et al. 2008). The decision process 

on how data and numbers are applied to decisions on 

categories of extinction risk are detailed and well documented 

online (http://www.iucnredlist.org/technicaldocuments/categories-and-criteria) 

and beyond the 

scope of this article, however they have been scientifically 

vetted and are widely used. These data and the 

application to extinction risk have been applied for years 

by the Species Specialist Groups (SSG) of the Species 

Survival Commission of the IUCN. For years, assessments 

were dependent upon which SSG were in place and were 

active, so the assessments were less than comprehensive 

and often species assumed not to be under threat were 

not documented and reported. In 2000 the first Red List 

Partnership involving IUCN, Conservation International, 

BirdLife International, and NatureServe was formed to 

expand the scope and utility of the Red List. One of the 

first initiatives was the establishment of a plan for global 

assessments, involving all species within large taxonomic 

groups (Baillie et al. 2004; Mace et al. 2008). The global assessments 

pooled all previous IUCN assessment resources, 

such as the BirdLife International work on birds, the various 

SSG, the Red List Authorities, and work of partners 

like Kew Botanical Garden, the Zoological Society of London, 

and others into a process to integrate data and add 

additional regional workshops either taxon based or geographically 

focused. This process provides global coverage 

for all species in groups at levels as high as Class, with justification 

for criteria and range maps publicly available. 

This has opened opportunities for researchers to access 

data of regional relevance and has facilitated the use of 

biodiversity data for conservation purposes worldwide. 

IUCN recently presented the update of the 2011 IUCN 

Red List of Threatened Species, covering 61,900 species. 

In the last decade, comprehensive global assessments of 

all species in major taxonomic groups have been published 

for birds (BirdLife International 2008), mammals 

(Schipper et al. 2008), amphibians (Stuart et al. 2004), 

reef-building corals (Carpenter et al. 2008), and cycads, 

conifers, and seagrasses (Hoffmann et al. 2010); selected 

other groups such as freshwater crabs (Cumberlidge et al. 

2009) reptiles, bony fish, and cartilaginous fishes are either 

completed or underway (Vié et al. 2009; Hoffmann 

et al. 2010; Stuart et al. 2010). Assessments have also 

started on representative samples of speciose taxonomic 

groups, for example dragonflies (Clausnitzer et al. 2009) 

following the methodology of Baillie et al. (2008). 

A feature of the global assessment approach is to 

place the data generated for each species during the 

assessments online and with open access at http://www. 

iucnredlist.org. These databases are periodically revised 

to include changes in nomenclature, distributions, the 

description of new species, and revisions to threat 

status. The revisions are based on ongoing participation, 

ownership and critical review by IUCN staff and outside 

contributors, reinforcing ownership, networking, and 

learning. The information available from the websites can 

be accessed and analyzed for any number of conservation 

projects or activities (Ricketts et al. 2005; Rondinini et al. 

2005, 2006; Isacc et al. 2007), as well as setting targets for 

national and regional conservation plans, as in the Global 

Strategy for Plant Conservation and partners like the 

South Africa National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and 

the Centro Nacional de Conservação de Flora in Brazil. In 

addition, these data sets are extremely valuable for biogeographic 

and macroecological analyses (McKnight et al. 

2007; Kreft & Jetz 2010; Lamoreux & Lacher 2010). The 

publication of the Global Amphibian Assessment in 2004 

(Stuart et al. 2004), stimulated a wave of new research 

and action on amphibian conservation (Andreone et al. 

2005; Sodhi et al. 2008) including an ambitious plan for 

the conservation of the world’s amphibians (Mendelson 

et al. 2006; Gascon et al. 2007). 

A signature aspect of the assessments has been the 

sustained interaction between conservation organizations 

and the research and academic community. 

The Global Mammal Assessment (Schipper et al. 2008) 

involved the participation of over 1,700 researchers from 

universities, museums, natural science collections, and 

government research agencies, all of whom participated 

either through Specialist Groups of the Species Survival 

Commission of IUCN or in workshops dealing with 

evaluations of taxonomic or regional subsets of data. The 

combined expertise contributed by local and regional 

specialists in developing countries interacting with a 

number of developed country mammalogists resulted in 

a dynamic collaboration and dedication to the task that 

greatly enhanced the quality of the resulting assessment. 

328 Conservation Letters 5 (2012) 327–333 Copyright and Photocopying: c○2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 

139 


T. E. Lacher et al. Partners in biodiversity science and policy 

In an era of electronic communication, spending funds 

and time in traveling to workshops may seem to be 

inefficient or redundant. However, scholars relish the 

opportunity to unite in intense and focused workshops, 

especially when these are held in regional forums where 

they can interact with international colleagues that they 

rarely see otherwise or have never met. Many important 

collaborations and partnerships are born in such surroundings. 

Most research scientists are deeply concerned 

about the conservation status of their study organisms. 

They desire that their research be used in developing 

solutions to conservation problems. However, they have 

neither the time, because of heavy teaching loads, grant 

deadlines, and tenure and promotion pressures, nor the 

means to be actively involved in the long, slow, process 

of implementing conservation on the ground. The global 

assessments have been an effective and near ideal way 

to bring together the biodiversity research and the biodiversity 

conservation communities. The organization and 

direction provided by conservation professionals keep the 

data compilation focused on addressing conservation priorities. 

The subsequent open-access to the final databases 

makes all participants feel that they can share in the 

success of the whole. Collaboration can be difficult when 

the rewards are not mutually transparent, and the global 

assessment process has been effective in demonstrating 

these mutual benefits. The IUCN approach to the global 

assessments has and will continue to have a major impact 

on conservation science and practice. 

The global assessment process for the 

integration of science and conservation 

Openness of the conservation community to 

scientific input and debate 

There has historically been less than ideal collaboration 

between academic research scientists and the conservation 

community. The former are often viewed as 

detached, little interested in practical applications, and 

unwilling to appear to be advocates; the latter too concerned 

about quick fixes and not willing to rely on peerreviewed 

data or wait for the completion of additional 

research. The complicated relationship between academia 

and NGOs has changed in the past 10 years, and many 

large international NGOs created core science units, like 

the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation 

International, NatureServe (www.natureserve.org) 

and the newly created Luc Hoffmann Institute at WWF, 

which publish regularly in high-impact journals in collaboration 

with academic scientists. The opportunity to have 

scientists from both worlds working in a peer relationship 

has bettered conservation research broadly. Conservation 

organizations must continue to develop and support their 

internal science programs and promote the collaborative 

research interactions that have transformed this relationship. 

Even with the expansion of research capacity in 

NGOs, their bottom line mission is not to maintain indepth 

research capacity and sophisticated laboratories, library 

resources, and computational capacity, tasks more 

central to major universities across the biological, and social 

sciences spectra. But it is important that the positive 

attitude for collaboration is scaled down also to national 

and local NGOs and researchers and the local communities 

that are often on the frontline of conservation action 

without adequate scientific and logistical support. International 

NGOs can facilitate opportunities for developed 

country researchers to work at the local level through 

their country programs. 

Broad engagement of the global scientific 

community 

The success of the global assessments has been contingent 

upon engaging not only North American or European 

partners, but also researchers in the developing 

world. This is where many of the most compelling and 

critical conservation challenges exist and where a lot of 

field information is being freshly generated, and local input 

in IUCN workshops conducted on a regional geographic 

basis, with true collaboration and access to data 

and recognition on publications, is an essential element 

for conservation success, especially in the biodiversity 

hotspots (Myers et al. 2000; Mittermeier et al. 2004). As 

scientific capacity expands in developing countries, researchers 

from the region provide increasingly valuable 

insights not only on local biodiversity but on the logistics 

of new methods and field approaches and local challenges 

for the implementation of conservation on the ground 

(Rodríguez et al. 2007). They also have the most to lose 

as a result of poorly designed conservation initiatives. 

Like much conservation action on the ground that can 

fail without sincere community engagement, conservation 

science can also fail without engaging and promoting 

local expertise. Regional or taxon based workshops 

located in globally important sites for biodiversity conservation 

value and promote local expertise and enhance 

international collaborations. The Global Mammal Assessment 

sponsored 28 workshops in 18 different countries 

as an example (for the list of workshops see the SOM for 

Schipper et al. 2008). Keeping the workshops relatively 

short in duration, but intense in activity, allows more 

people to find the time to be involved and results in an 

excellent team dynamic. This also greatly facilitates the 

level of interaction among researchers. Face-to-face interaction 

and open discussion of problems and issues are 


140 



always superior to debates in the literature and via email, 

because it creates bonds and generally results in timely, 

creative solutions to thorny issues. 

Conservation mediated collation of data 

One of the major gaps in the translation of research data 

into conservation action is the difficulty in placing the 

data into a format useful for informing conservationrelated 

decisions. A hallmark of the global assessment 

workshops is the mentoring of researchers during workshops 

by conservation professionals and the entering of 

data into the Species Information Service (SIS), software 

used by IUCN and partner organizations to organize, 

store, and retrieve data on threatened species relevant 

for conservation applications (much like GenBank). This 

guarantees consistent metadata standards so that the data 

are immediately in a format that can be used and disseminated. 

Much of the most valuable data on historical and 

current species distributions and taxonomy resides in 

the natural science and biodiversity repositories of museums 

and university collections. Bringing together researchers 

from academia and the curatorial communities 

in IUCN workshops has greatly enhanced the value 

of the data collected, especially with regard to time series 

and spatial information which is critical for effective 

application to conservation and monitoring. Collections 

and museums, and the databases and reports that 

they have generated over time, can provide data on historical 

occurrences, often extending back hundreds of 

years. There has been a recent revolution in publishing 

open access data sets to stimulate research in a variety 

of fields including Earth System Science Data (www.earthsystem-science-data.net), 

Data.gov, which publishes raw 

data and apps for enhancing data analysis, and GigaScience 

(www.gigasciencejournal.com) an online, open access 

journal which publishes big data studies from across the 

full spectrum of the basic and applied life sciences. These 

efforts serve as a model for expanded sharing of not only 

Red List information, but all sort of biodiversity monitoring 

data sets as well (Andelman, 2011). 

Data sharing and ease of access 

As much as possible all researchers who contribute substantively 

to the generation of research products should 

be acknowledged with authorship, providing their engagement 

meets the standards for consideration as an 

author. The Global Mammal Assessment (Schipper et al. 

2008) had the participation of over 1,700 experts in 

workshops and meetings of Species Specialists Groups, 

130 of whom were recognized with authorship on the sci- 

entific publication, and the coral (Carpenter et al. 2008) 

and recently published mangrove (Polidoro et al. 2010) 

assessments also involved broad collaboration and shared 

authorship. Moreover, all contributors to the global assessments 

have their name attached to the species information 

they provided on the IUCN Red List website, 

which is also a citable document. Although this ensures 

knowledge of responsibility for the information it also 

provides recognition. 

Data that are of critical value to human and environmental 

well being should be open access and fully 

shared without restriction. We expect this in medical 

research, where the benefits are obvious. The scope of 

impact of environmental problems is making the public 

increasingly aware of the value of solid science to the 

mitigation of environmental threats. Funding sources, 

including federal agencies, foundations, and private 

donors are increasingly demanding free and open access 

to scientific data of conservation value. We strongly 

endorse this perspective. The data for all of the over 

60,000 assessed species in multiple taxa are available on 

the IUCN Red List web page (www.iucnredlist.org) and a 

user guide to the Red List databases is available on line. 

Researchers are openly encouraged to use these data 

and, through periodic reassessments, to help improve it. 

This generates a broad sense of ownership. 

Conservation science to influence policy 

The status and distribution of species, drawing from the 

IUCN Red List, are also being used for the purpose of 

allocating financial resources to developing countries for 

conservation projects. The Global Environment Facility 

(GEF) is the largest funding mechanism dedicated to 

financing the conservation of biodiversity on a global 

scale. Over the past 19 years, the GEF has invested 

about $3.1 billion in direct financing and leveraged 

$8.3 billion in cofinancing for over 1,000 projects that 

address the loss of globally significant biodiversity in 

155 countries (http://www.thegef.org/gef/pubs/Behind 

the Numbers 2010). Behind these numbers much has 

been accomplished—for example, GEF has been the 

driving force to ensure 10% of the world’s terrestrial 

areas are conserved through support to the improved 

management and enhanced financial sustainability of 

2,302 protected areas covering 634 million hectares. 

These, in turn, span the habitat of at least 700 globally 

threatened species (www.gefweb.org). Since 2004, a 

Global Benefits Index (GBI) for biodiversity, that draws 

data fundamentally from the IUCN Red List, has been 

used to allocate scarce resources to countries on the 

basis of their capacity to generate biodiversity benefits 


141 



globally, under its first Resource Allocation Framework 

(RAF). A revised formulation of this system (System 

for Transparent Allocation of Resources [STAR]) uses 

information that has been updated from global species 

assessments, in particular amphibians and mammals. 

The IUCN Red List data contribute the key information 

on extinction risk that is a component of the GBI used 

to prioritize investments; details of this complex process 

are available (http://www.thegef.org/gef/policy/STAR). 

As additional taxa are assessed at a global scale, and 

these assessments are updated more regularly, the GBI is 

poised to become an increasingly robust proxy indicator 

of GEF biodiversity funding priorities. 

Other funding mechanisms for conservation rely on 

Red List data. The newly created Save Our Species fund, 

with close to US$14 million in initial resources from the 

GEF, the World Bank, and other partners, is housed at 

the IUCN Species Programme and is funding projects 

on highlighted Red List species. The Critical Ecosystem 

Partnership Fund (CEPF), another partnership between 

Conservation International, the GEF, the World Bank, 

the MacArthur Foundation, Japan, and France (targeted 

funding, US$300 million) uses IUCN Red List data in the 

development of ecosystem profiles that guide prioritization 

of funding within hotspots (www.cepf.net). Other 

Red List influenced funds or prioritization schemes include 

the Mohammad bin Zayed Fund, and the development 

of Important Bird Areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, 

and the Alliance for Zero Extinction all of which are incorporated 

in guiding financial investments. 

There are many other areas of conservation where 

there is an urgent need for the integration of science and 

policy, broadly defined. There is a need for the development 

of tools for monitoring and assessing trends in biodiversity, 

first to establish a baseline for measures of environmental 

degradation or conservation success (De Fries 

et al. 2010; Andelman 2011; www.teamnetwork.org) 

and several proposals have suggested methods and 

processes (Pereira & Cooper 2006; Scholes et al. 2008). 

Agreement on which taxa to monitor is difficult, and 

this is compounded by disagreements of which aspects 

of the biology of organisms should be monitored (genetic 

diversity, survival and growth, population trends, and 

extinction risk). An additional difficulty has been finding 

scientific consensus on the biodiversity indicators to 

monitor so that they are of value to Convention of Biological 

Diversity goals and targets, such as the 2010 Target 

(Walpole et al. 2009; Butchart et al. 2010) and work towards 

the Millennium Development Goals and benefits 

of conservation for human well being (Sachs et al. 2009). 

Discussions are under way to finalize an independent 

international body to provide an officially mandated 

scientific voice on biodiversity, the Intergovernmental 

Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES 

(www.ipbes.net), much as the Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change does for climate change. We need to 

develop similar databases for the compilation of biological 

monitoring information and assessments of ecosystem 

service value. Perrings et al. (2010, 2011) highlight critical 

components needed for defining and assessing targets for 

the biodiversity and ecosystem services nexus with the 

development of IPBES. These include identification and 

prioritization of policy relevant science, the performance 

of assessments on our knowledge of the biodiversity and 

ecosystems service relationship at local to global scales, 

and the development of capacity of researchers and policy 

makers. The global assessment approach addresses all 

of these issues in assessing extinction risk, and the model 

of the global assessments seems particularly appropriate 

as a mechanism for bringing together expertise on biodiversity 

science, ecosystem function, and explicit conservation 

solutions and outcomes. There is still considerable 

lack of understanding of these relationships, which 

might best be addressed with more clarity at more local 

scales, and then integrated into a more global policy 

structure. The key challenge is to bring together all components 

of the science and conservation policy. This panel 

must find agreement among representatives of the ecological 

research community and the agencies and organizations 

that will be implementing conservation action 

based upon measures of ecosystem services. 

There is one especially effective process, in our estimation, 

to achieve the necessary integration of basic science 

and policy to advance conservation on global scale, and it 

is based upon the success of the global assessments, which 

have to a degree followed the genomics model of big science. 

These endeavors are large, complex, and costly over 

the short term, but create lasting data that have been 

specifically generated to meet policy objectives. They also 

tie a bold, overarching goal to grassroots participation and 

engagement, a critical component of success. 

Partnering, collaboration, and the ultimate sharing 

of information have often been viewed with skepticism 

or even with suspicion by some in the scientific 

community. But other large collaborations like 

the LBA (Large-scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment) 

in the Brazilian Amazon (http://lba.cptec.inpe.br/ 

lba/index.php?p=19&lg=eng), NEON (National Ecological 

Observatory Network) and the Tropical Ecology, Assessment 

and Monitoring (TEAM) Network (Andelman, 

2011) that make their data public, often in near real time, 

have seen increased productivity of the participating researchers 

and broad application of the results for dealing 

with applied questions, with no “theft” of the data. 


142 



Indeed, new, productive collaborations and international 

dialogue have been the result. The IUCN global assessments 

are a proven model for the integration of science 

with conservation action. The global assessments bring 

together researchers and conservationists on a common 

ground regarding key data and the format needed for 

policy; the need to speak a common language has never 

been so urgent. This model should be applied to other 

looming challenges in the conservation of biodiversity, 

especially in the context of the recent 2010 meeting of 

the CBD in Nagoya (Marton-Lefèvre 2010), and the ultimate 

impacts of biodiversity loss on the well being of 

societies across the world. The recognition of the importance 

of biodiversity in meeting the Millennium Development 

Goals (Sachs et al. 2009) and the recognition of 

the failure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity Target (Butchart 

et al. 2010; Hoffmann et al. 2010) illustrates the gap between 

what needs to be achieved and our current trajectory. 

There are logistical difficulties in applying the global 

assessments model to other conservation science-policy 

questions, but one can only be encouraged with the lasting 

energy and commitment that exists among the over 

7,000 volunteer scientists of the Species Survival Commission. 

One reason is that these scientists see the policy 

benefits of the application of their data. Only open, collaborative 

partnerships between the scientific and conservation 

communities, from large international organizations 

to on-the-ground local expertise, will provide a 

means for addressing these discouraging trends, though 

much more dedicated effort will be required to reverse 

them. 

Acknowledgments 

We thank Mike Hoffmann and Simon Stuart and three 

anonymous reviewers for their comments and excellent 

suggestions on the manuscript. They have all greatly improved 

the quality of the manuscript. 

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144 


Financial Costs of Meeting Global Biodiversity Conservation Targets: 

Current Spending and Unmet Needs 

Donal P. McCarthy et al. 

Science 338, 

946 (2012); 

DOI: 10.1126/science.1229803 

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REPORTS 

946 

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Acknowledgments: This research was supported by a Social 

Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand 

Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and funding from 

the University of Toronto to J.W. The McGregor Museum and 

the South African Heritage Resources Agency permitted 

temporary export of the points for study. Fieldwork at KP1 

was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and 

Humanities Research Council of Canada to M.C. B.J.S. and 

K.S.B. were funded by grants from NSF (BCS-0524087 and 

BCS-1138073) and the Hyde Family Foundation to C. Marean 

and from the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State 

University. We thank D. Morris, N. Porat, L. K. Horwitz, 

C. Marean, and P. Beaumont. Data are tabulated in the online 

supplementary materials. 

Financial Costs of Meeting Global 

Biodiversity Conservation Targets: 

Current Spending and Unmet Needs 

Donal P. McCarthy, 1,2 Paul F. Donald, 2 Jörn P. W. Scharlemann, 3,4 Graeme M. Buchanan, 2 

Andrew Balmford, 5 Jonathan M. H. Green, 5,6 Leon A. Bennun, 1 Neil D. Burgess, 5,7,8 

Lincoln D. C. Fishpool, 1 Stephen T. Garnett, 9 David L. Leonard, 10 * Richard F. Maloney, 11 

Paul Morling, 2 H. Martin Schaefer, 12 Andy Symes, 1 David A. Wiedenfeld, 13 Stuart H. M. Butchart 1 † 

World governments have committed to halting human-induced extinctions and safeguarding 

important sites for biodiversity by 2020, but the financial costs of meeting these targets are 

largely unknown. We estimate the cost of reducing the extinction risk of all globally threatened 

bird species (by ≥1 International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List category) to be 

U.S. $0.875 to $1.23 billion annually over the next decade, of which 12% is currently funded. 

Incorporating threatened nonavian species increases this total to U.S. $3.41 to $4.76 billion 

annually. We estimate that protecting and effectively managing all terrestrial sites of global 

avian conservation significance (11,731 Important Bird Areas) would cost U.S. $65.1 billion 

annually. Adding sites for other taxa increases this to U.S. $76.1 billion annually. Meeting 

these targets will require conservation funding to increase by at least an order of magnitude. 

After the failure of previous global commitments 

to reduce the rate of loss of 

biodiversity (1), parties to the Convention 

on Biological Diversity (CBD) recently adopted 

a new strategic plan, including 20 targets to be 

met by 2020 (2). Negotiations on financing the 

plan are not yet resolved, partly for lack of information 

on financial costs. We used data on 

birds, the best known class of organisms, to assess 

the financial costs of meeting two of the targets 

1 

BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Cambridge CB3 0NA, 

UK. 2 RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, UK. 

3 

United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation 

Monitoring Centre, 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 

0DL, UK. 4 School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, 

Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK. 5 Department of Zoology, University of 

Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. 6 Woodrow 

Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton 

University,Princeton,NJ08544,USA. 7 Center for Macroecology, 

Evolution and Climate, Department of Biology, University 

of Copenhagen, DK-1165 Copenhagen, Denmark. 8 Conservation 

Science Program, World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC 

20090, USA. 9 Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, 

Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory 0909, 

Australia. 10 Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit (University of Hawai‘i 

at Manoa), Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Honolulu, 

HI 96822, USA. 11 Science and Technical Group, Department of 

Conservation, Christchurch, New Zealand. 12 University of Freiburg, 

Faculty of Biology, Hauptstrasse 1, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany. 

13 

12 Fishback Court, Warrenton, VA 20186, USA. 

*Present address: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, 

OR 97266, USA. 

†To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: 

stuart.butchart@birdlife.org 

relating to conserving species and sites: (i) preventing 

the extinction of known threatened species 

and improving and sustaining their conservation 

status (Target 12) and (ii) effectively managing 

and expanding protected areas to cover 17% of 

terrestrial and inland water areas (and 10% of 

coastal and marine areas), “especially areas of particular 

importance for biodiversity” (Target 11) 

(2). These two targets align closely with the existing 

focus of much of the conservation sector; 

they are also among the most immediately urgent, 

involving discrete actions amenable to costing. 

To assess the costs of species conservation, 

we sampled 211 globally threatened bird species 

[19% of all threatened bird species on the International 

Union for Conservation of Nature 

(IUCN) Red List (3)]. We asked experts on each 

species to estimate (i) recent expenditure on conservation 

actions, and (ii) a range of costs for 

conservation actions needed to achieve the minimum 

improvement in status necessary to reclassify 

(“downlist”) each species to the next lowest 

category of extinction risk on the Red List (e.g., 

from Critically Endangered to Endangered). We 

modeled midrange cost estimates as a function of 

breeding distribution extent, degree of forest dependence, 

mean Gross Domestic Product per km 2 

of breeding range states, and mean Purchasing 

Power Parity of breeding range states, and we 

used this model to estimate costs for all other 

globally threatened bird species (4) (fig. S1). 


146 

16 NOVEMBER 2012 VOL 338 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org 

Supplementary Materials 

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/338/6109/942/DC1 

Materials and Methods 

Figs. S1 to S8 

Tables S1 to S5 

References (42–53) 

18 July 2012; accepted 4 October 2012 

10.1126/science.1227608 

The median modeled annual cost per species 

for conservation actions required to achieve downlisting 

within 10 years was U.S. $0.848 million 

(range: U.S. $0.0387 to $8.96 million; all values 

adjusted to 2012 U.S. $) (Fig. 1A and table S1). 

This compares with a median of U.S. $0.219 million 

annually [range: U.S. $0.001 to $4.82 million, 

standardized to the same 10-year period and adjusted 

for inflation (4)] for 25 threatened species 

that were successfully downlisted during 1988– 

2008 because of genuine improvements in their 

status (i.e., directly resulting from conservation 

interventions) (5) (table S2). Costs for all but one 

of these species fell within the range of our sample 

of estimated costs (Fig. 1A), although the 

median was significantly lower [analysis of variance 

(ANOVA) of natural log–transformed values: 

F 1, 259 =7.4,P

possibly even increased) funding to maintain any 

improvement in their status beyond 2020, particularly 

given the likely intensification of existing 

threats, the increasing impacts associated with 

climate change, and the emergence of potential 

new threats (9). 

The median annual expenditure within the last 

decade for the 211 species in our sample was 

U.S. $0.065 million (range: $0 to $15.2 million), 

with the majority of resources spent on just a few 

species, which reflects a common pattern documented 

at national levels (10–12). This covered a 

median of 12% of the estimated required annual 

Number of species 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

A 

10 3 

10 4 

10 5 

10 6 

10 7 

10 8 

expenditure per species. Recent funding was adequate 

(>90% of estimated need) for only 3% of 

species (n = 7), and

REPORTS 

948 

sites across 50 countries (table S6). Extrapolation 

suggests that the total cost worldwide would be 

U.S. $7.18 billion annually for currently protected 

IBAs, of which U.S. $1.58 billion (22%) is 

required in lower-income countries. 

We assessed the costs of expanding protected 

area networks to cover all unprotected and partially 

protected IBAs using spatially explicit 

agricultural land values (gross economic rents) 

from Naidoo and Iwamura (17) as a proxy for 

purchase or compensation costs (4). This produced 

a total cost of U.S. $50.7 billion annually (U.S. 

$15.9 billion, 31%, in lower-income countries), 

which is comparable to previous estimates of 

protected area expansion costs in developing 

countries (18). Applying our management cost 

model (see above) to these sites yields an estimate 

of U.S. $7.11 billion annually, resulting 

in a total figure of U.S. $57.8 billion required 

annually for protecting and effectively managing 

all IBAs. 

Globally important sites have also been systematically 

identified for mammals; amphibians; 

and certain reptile, fish, plant and invertebrate 

groups in 12 countries (19, 20). Of these sites, 

71% already qualify as IBAs and cover 80% of 

the total area (14). Assuming the areal relation 

holds worldwide and that such sites have a level 

of protection similar to that of IBAs, we estimate 

that protecting and effectively managing a more 

taxonomically comprehensive global network of 

terrestrial sites would cost U.S. $76.1 billion annually 

(U.S. $22.4 billion annually, 29% in lowerincome 

countries) (Fig. 2). 

We estimate that current annual expenditure 

on managing IBAs that are already under some 

form of protection falls short of requirements by 

Fig. 2. Current expenditure and total required for 

conserving 1115 threatened bird species and safeguarding 

11,731 important sites for birds in lowerand 

higher-income countries (black and gray bars, 

respectively). Bars for species show costs accounting 

for sharing between species, with vertical lines 

indicating costs excluding sharing. Bars for sites 

indicate management costs, with the vertical line 

for unprotected sites showing acquisition costs. 

U.S. $1.09 billion annually in lower-income countries 

(31% of needs covered) and by $2.82 billion 

annually in higher-income countries [50% of 

needs covered, although this figure is based on 

more limited data (4)]. Management of an ex- 


panded protected area network covering all currently 

unprotected or partially protected IBAs 

increases the estimated shortfall to $2.78 billion 

for lower-income countries and $8.24 billion for 

higher-income countries. 

Fig. 3. Geographic patterns in the annual cost for conservation actions (U.S. $ km −2 ) for 1097 globally 

threatened bird species (A) assuming that actions for each species are independent and (B)assumingcost 

sharing; (C) number of species km −2 ,and(D) distribution of IBAs (points; red indicating those for which 

management-cost data were included in the model) and lower-income countries (blue shading). Costs and 

number of species are divided into quantiles; areas with no globally threatened bird species present shown 

in gray in (A to C); Behrmann equal-area projection. Distribution maps for 18 globally threatened species 

are not available. 

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Downloaded from

A proportion of the costs would be shared 

between the species and site targets considered 

here. Establishing protection and managing sites 

made up 50 to 55% of the total costs for sampled 

bird species. Discounting this proportion from 

the total cost of species conservation across all 

taxa, a combined cost needed to meet both species 

and site CBD targets may be in the order of 

U.S. $78.1 billion annually (Fig. 2). It is also 

highly likely that actions to meet these two targets 

will contribute to other targets in the CBD 

strategic plan, which are critical to delivering sustainable 

development and the safeguarding of 

global biodiversity in the long term (4). 

Even with increased investment, careful prioritization 

will continue to be necessary to inform 

decisions about which areas to protect and which 

actions to undertake for species, e.g., using approaches 

that optimize returns on investment, 

given fixed budgets and defined objectives, for 

sites (21), species (7, 8), and management actions 

(22). Our finding that species facing higher categories 

of extinction risk require less investment 

for downlisting than do those in lower categories 

suggests that in many cases such analyses will 

prioritize actions for the most-threatened species 

first. We also note that there is considerable global 

spatial variation in costs and the number of 

threatened species per unit area (Fig. 3). Although 

the shortfalls in higher-income countries are substantial, 

the greatest gains per dollar will be in 

lower-income countries (23). 

Despite the limitations of the available data, 

the shortfalls we have identified clearly highlight 

the need to increase investment in biodiversity 

conservation by at least an order of magnitude, 

especially given the small, but growing, body of 

evidence linking spending and effectiveness 

(24, 25). Nevertheless, the total costs are small 

relative to the value of the potential goods and services 

that biodiversity provides (26), e.g., equivalent 

to 1 to 4% of the estimated net value of 

ecosystem services that are lost per year [estimated 

at $2 to $6.6 trillion (27–29)]. More prosaically, 

the total required is less than 20% of annual 

global consumer spending on soft drinks (30). 

These results should inform discussions among 

governments on the magnitude of the financing 

needs for implementing the CBD Strategic Plan 

for Biodiversity 2011–2020. A particular challenge 

will be how to address the current mismatch between 

the greater resources available in richer 

countries and the higher potential conservation 

gains in financially poor, biodiversity-rich countries 

(31, 32). Resolving the ongoing conservation 

funding crisis is urgent; it is likely that, 

the longer that investments in conservation are 

delayed, the more the costs will grow (23, 33), 

and the greater will be the difficulty of successfully 

meeting the targets (6, 34). 

References and Notes 

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2. CBD, Conference of the Parties Decision X/2: Strategic 

plan for biodiversity 2011–2020; www.cbd.int/decision/ 

cop/?id=12268 (2011). 

3. BirdLife International, IUCN Red List for birds; 

www.birdlife.org (2011). 

4. Further information is available as supplementary 

materials on Science Online. 

5. S. H. M. Butchart et al., PLoS Biol. 2, e383 (2004). 

6. P. F. Donald, N. J. Collar, S. J. Marsden, D. J. Pain, 

Facing Extinction: The World's Rarest Birds and the Race 

to Save Them (Poyser, London, 2010). 

7. L. N. Joseph, R. F. Maloney, H. P. Possingham, 

Conserv. Biol. 23, 328 (2009). 

8. M. A. McCarthy, C. J. Thompson, S. T. Garnett, J. Appl. Ecol. 

45, 1428 (2008). 

9. H. M. Pereira et al., Science 330, 1496 (2010). 

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P. C. L. White, Ecol. Econ. 70, 1789 (2011). 

11. T. D. Male, M. J. Bean, Ecol. Lett. 8, 986 (2005). 

12. D. L. Leonard Jr., Biol. Conserv. 141, 2054 (2008). 

13. IUCN, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Summary 

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summarystatistics/2012_1_RL_Stats_Table_1.pdf. 

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Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the 

Cambridge Conservation Initiative Collaborative Fund for 

Conservation and by Arcadia. For helpful comments and 

assistance, we thank A. Bruner, R. Naidoo, M. Ausden, 

L. Donaldson, and many other individuals who kindly 

provided estimates of costs of species conservation or 

site management; a full list is given in the supplementary 

materials. All data sources are listed in the supplementary 

materials. 

Supplementary Materials 

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/science.1229803/DC1 

Materials and Methods 

Supplementary Text 

Figs. S1 to S2 

Tables S1 to S6 

References (35–126) 

6 September 2012; accepted 4 October 2012 

Published online 11 October 2012; 

10.1126/science.1229803 

Pathological a-Synuclein Transmission 

Initiates Parkinson-like Neurodegeneration 

in Nontransgenic Mice 

Kelvin C. Luk, Victoria Kehm, Jenna Carroll, Bin Zhang, Patrick O’Brien, 

John Q. Trojanowski, Virginia M.-Y. Lee* 

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by abundant a-synuclein (a-Syn) neuronal inclusions, known 

as Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, and the massive loss of midbrain dopamine neurons. However, a 

cause-and-effect relationship between Lewy inclusion formation and neurodegeneration remains 

unclear. Here, we found that in wild-type nontransgenic mice, a single intrastriatal inoculation of 

synthetic a-Syn fibrils led to the cell-to-cell transmission of pathologic a-Syn and Parkinson’s-like 

Lewy pathology in anatomically interconnected regions. Lewy pathology accumulation resulted in 

progressivelossofdopamineneuronsinthesubstantia nigra pars compacta, but not in the adjacent 

ventral tegmental area, and was accompanied by reduced dopamine levels culminating in motor 

deficits. This recapitulation of a neurodegenerative cascade thus establishes a mechanistic link between 

transmission of pathologic a-Syn and the cardinal features of Parkinson’s disease. 

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multisystem 

neurodegenerative disorder characterized 

by two major disease processes: the accumulation 

of intraneuronal Lewy bodies/Lewy 

neurites (LBs/LNs) containing misfolded fibrillar 

a-synuclein (a-Syn), and the selective degeneration 

of midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons in the 

substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) leading to 

bradykinesia, tremor, and postural instability (1). 


REPORTS 

The etiology of these processes remains unclear, 

although in familial PD, autosomal dominant 

a-Syn gene mutations or amplifications directly 

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Institute on 

Aging and Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, 

University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, 

Philadelphia, PA 19104–4283, USA. 

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: 

vmylee@upenn.edu (V.M.Y.L.). 

149 

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 338 16 NOVEMBER 2012 949 



Downloaded from

A Population Accounting Approach to Assess Tourism 

Contributions to Conservation of IUCN-Redlisted 

Mammal Species 

Ralf C. Buckley*, J. Guy Castley, Fernanda de Vasconcellos Pegas, Alexa C. Mossaz, Rochelle Steven 

International Centre for Ecotourism Research, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia 

Abstract 

Over 1,000 mammal species are red-listed by IUCN, as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable. Conservation of 

many threatened mammal species, even inside protected areas, depends on costly active day-to-day defence against 

poaching, bushmeat hunting, invasive species and habitat encroachment. Many parks agencies worldwide now rely heavily 

on tourism for routine operational funding: .50% in some cases. This puts rare mammals at a new risk, from downturns in 

tourism driven by external socioeconomic factors. Using the survival of individual animals as a metric or currency of 

successful conservation, we calculate here what proportions of remaining populations of IUCN-redlisted mammal species 

are currently supported by funds from tourism. This proportion is $5% for over half of the species where relevant data exist, 

$15% for one fifth, and up to 66% in a few cases. Many of these species, especially the most endangered, survive only in 

one single remaining subpopulation. These proportions are not correlated either with global population sizes or recognition 

as wildlife tourism icons. Most of the more heavily tourism-dependent species, however, are medium sized (.7.5 kg) or 

larger. Historically, biological concern over the growth of tourism in protected areas has centered on direct disturbance to 

wildlife. These results show that conservation of threatened mammal species has become reliant on revenue from tourism 

to a previously unsuspected degree. On the one hand, this provides new opportunities for conservation funding; but on the 

other, dependence on such an uncertain source of funding is a new, large and growing threat to red-listed species. 

Citation: Buckley RC, Castley JG, Pegas FdV, Mossaz AC, Steven R (2012) A Population Accounting Approach to Assess Tourism Contributions to Conservation of 

IUCN-Redlisted Mammal Species. PLoS ONE 7(9): e44134. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044134 

Editor: David L. Roberts, University of Kent, United Kingdom 

Received March 5, 2012; Accepted August 1, 2012; Published September 12, 2012 

Copyright: ß 2012 Buckley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits 

unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 

Funding: No current external funding sources for this study. 

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. 

* E-mail: r.buckley@griffith.edu.au 

Introduction 

Threatened species survive largely in parks; parks need money 

to remain operational; and some of that money comes from 

tourism. Therefore, tourism contributes to the conservation of 

these species in parks. We calculate here what proportions of 

remaining global populations of IUCN-redlisted mammal species 

effectively depend on tourism revenue. That is, we use the number 

of individual living animals, ie the sizes of remaining wild 

populations, as a basic metric or currency of in-situ conservation 

success; and we use the proportions of parks agency budgets 

derived from tourism revenue as a measure of tourism contributions. 

We find that tourism now contributes significantly to the 

survival of many red-listed mammal species. This reliance on 

tourism, however, now places their survival at risk from externally 

generated downturns in tourism. 

Arresting the continuing global decline in biodiversity is a major 

and broadly agreed international goal [1–2]. Despite this, species 

extinctions continue [3–8]. Most threatened species survive mainly 

in public protected areas [8–12], but populations still decline 

[3,8,13]. Contributing factors include poaching, disease, disturbance, 

habitat clearance and encroachment, interactions with 

invasive species, and modified fire regimes. Many parks agencies, 

especially in biodiverse developing nations, lack adequate funds to 

combat these threats [14–16]. 


Especially over the past decade, parks budgets in a number of 

countries have come to rely increasingly on revenues associated 

with tourism; principally fees and prices charged to visitors by 

parks agencies for entry, activities, accommodation and purchases 

[17–19]. This applies particularly in developing nations with heavy 

dependence on international tourism. Tourism, however, is 

sensitive to socioeconomic factors such as wealth and safety. 

When it suffers externally generated downturns, parks agencies are 

suddenly without funds for operational conservation management. 

This creates new risks for rare species. The reality of such risk has 

been demonstrated in countries such as Madagascar, Nepal, 

Zimbabwe and elsewhere, where tourism collapsed following 

military coups, and many threatened species suffered greatly 

increased hunting and poaching in consequence [20–25]. 

Here we quantify these risks by calculating the numbers and 

hence the proportions of remaining individuals that rely on 

tourism revenue for conservation in parks. We acknowledge that 

the political and financial dynamics of individual protected areas, 

as well as the population dynamics and conservation measures for 

individual species, are often highly complex. Sources of parks 

funding, however, are largely substitutable: parks agencies incur 

both conservation and recreation management expenditures 

irrespective of income, and funds are reallocated internally. At 

global scale, therefore, the simple accounting approach adopted 

PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 September 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 9 | e44134 

150

here provides a valid mechanism to measure the reliance of redlisted 

mammal species on tourism revenue. 

Methods 

For each species a, we calculated the proportions T of 

remaining individuals that rely on tourism revenue for 

conservation in parks, as T a = S i n SiaR ia/G a, where S ia are 

subpopulation sizes and Ria are proportions of revenue from 

tourism for the ith of the n parks in which species a occurs, and 

Ga is its global population. Higher T indicates greater 

dependence on tourism, and hence greater revenue-related risks 

to the threatened species concerned. Ria are from gross 

revenues at national scale, since as noted above, agencies incur 

costs irrespective of income, and reallocate funds internally. In 

some nations, there are multiple categories of protected areas 

with different budget allocations per unit area; and in some 

agencies, budget data are available for individual parks. To 

maximise the number of species subpopulations for which both 

S and R data are available, however, we use the broadest and 

most widely available measure for R. 

Subpopulation data S (Table S1) are derived from: IUCN Red 

Lists and supplementary materials; previous reviews [26]; and 

individual species conservation or recovery plans where available. 

Parks funding data R (Table S2) are from agency websites and the 

most recent available financial reports, audits and compendia. 

Data for R are more limited than for S. Data for R, S and G are 

available for 90 of the 1131 mammal species currently considered 

[26] as Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically 

Endangered (CR). Data for G and S, but not R, are available 

for a further 52 species. 

For many species, data are only available for a subset of 

known subpopulations. Both the proportions of populations 

represented, and the reliability of the data concerned, differ 

considerably between species. For some individual species, 

reported population data may also change quite rapidly. IUCN 

Red Lists show common hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius, 

for example, as occurring in 138 protected parks, game, and 


Figure 1. Proportions of remaining global populations of threatened mammal species for which conservation funding is derived 

from tourism revenues. CR, Critically Endangered; EN, Endangered; VU, Vulnerable. 

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044134.g001 

nature reserves and sanctuaries. Subpopulation estimates, 

however, are available for only 20 of these, and financial data 

for only four. Ader’s duiker Cephalophus adersi occurs only in 

fragmented areas in Zanzibar and Kenya where local-scale 

population estimates are unreliable, so calculations are necessarily 

at national scale. For a few species such as black 

rhinoceros Diceros bicornis, subpopulation data are no longer 

released publicly because of poaching risks, and the data used 

here are compiled from country-level statistics. 

The scarcity of data reflects the general paucity of information 

on threatened-species populations and parks-agency operations 

worldwide. The data presented here, however, are all that are 

currently available, and are more than adequate to demonstrate 

general patterns related to tourism revenues. Previous studies 

[6,27] have faced similar deficiencies in data, but have yielded 

valuable assessments nonetheless. In particular, even though data 

are available for ,10% of the IUCN-redlisted mammal species, 

there is no indication of any bias towards either more or less 

tourism-dependent species, as outlined below. 

Results 

Tourism and Threatened Mammals 

Of the 1131 IUCN-redlisted mammal species worldwide [25], 

data to calculate T are available for 90 (Fig. 1, Table 1). These 

data are derived from 379 subpopulations in 27 countries (Tables 

S1 and S2). Global population estimates for these species range 

from ,50–500,000, with median ,3300. T is not correlated with 

global population size (Fig. 2). 

T$5% for 58% of species with available data, T$10% for 

28%, and T$15% for 20% (Fig. 1, Table 1). For two species, 

Ader’s duiker Cephalophus adersi and the Tana River crested 

mangabey Cercocebus galeritus, T.50%. That is, over half of the 

IUCN-redlisted mammal species listed in Table 1 rely on 

tourism to provide on-the-ground conservation funding for at 

least 5% of remaining individuals, and are hence at risk of at 

least a 5% population loss if tourism funding were to vanish as 

a result of a downturn in the industry. As noted earlier, in 

countries which have indeed experienced severe downturns in 


151

Table 1. Proportions of globally threatened mammal species conserved through tourism revenues to protected areas. 

Species IUCN Global population (G) 



Number of protected Numbers protected Proportion 

populations by tourism (SR)* protected (T) 

Cercocebus galeritus EN ,1200 2 793 66.1 

Cephalophus adersi CR ,1000 4 572 57.2 

Bubalus mindorensis CR ,250 1 117 46.7 

Rungwecebus kipunji CR ,1000 3 409 40.9 

Cercocebus sanjei EN ,1300 2 476 36.7 

Rhynchocyon udzungwensis VU 15000–24000 2 8797 36.7 

Hippocamelus bisulcus EN 1500 ? 512 34.1 

Axis calamianensis EN ,1000 1 318 31.8 

Nyctimene rabori EN ,2500 1 795 31.8 

Panthera leo VU ,25000 .140 7227 28.9 

Loxodonta africana VU ,500000 ,110 141371 28.3 

Beatragus hunteri CR ,600 3 169 28.1 

Diceros bicornis CR 4880 30 1067 21.9 

Equus grevyi EN 1966–2447 7 490 20.0 

Equus zebra zebra VU ,3000 17 554 18.5 

Rucervus duvaucelii VU 3500–5100 8 897 17.6 

Leontopithecus rosalia EN 1000 4 164 16.4 

Tapirus bairdii EN ,5500 14 895 16.3 

Hippopotamus amphibius VU 125000–148001 148 21015 14.2 

Setonix brachyurus VU ,10000 9 1804 14.1 

Bradypus pygmaeus CR ,5000 1 655 13.1 

Lycaon pictus EN 3000–5500 53 685 12.5 

Rhinoceros unicornis VU 2575 10 320 12.4 

Pseudalopex fulvipes CR ,250 2 28 11.4 

Pseudomys novaehollandiae VU ,10000 12 1134 11.3 

Macroderma gigas VU 7000–9000 1 860 9.6 

Burramys parvus CR 2250 2 213 9.5 

Lasiorhinus krefftii CR 115 1 11 9.4 

Potorous gilbertii CR 40 1 4 9.4 

Procolobus kirkii EN ,2000 1 183 9.2 

Lagostrophus fasciatus EN ,10000 851 8.5 

Pseudomys oralis VU ,10000 9 850 8.5 

Lagorchestes hirsutus ssp VU ,6000 3 484 8.1 

Sminthopsis aitkeni CR ,500 1 40 8.0 

Isoodon auratus barrowensis VU .25000 2 1984 7.9 

Ursus maritmus VU 20000–25000 25 1917 7.7 

Pseudomys fieldi VU 2000 2 142 7.1 

Myotis sodalis EN ,400000 9 27589 6.9 

Leontopithecus chrysopygus EN 1000 1 64 6.4 

Elephas maximus EN 41410–52345 .33 3294 6.3 

Mustela nigripes EN 500–1000 9 62 6.2 

Dipodomys insularis CR ,100 1 6 5.9 

Procyon pygmaeus CR ,1000 ? 59 5.9 

Acinonyx jubatus VU 7000–10000 19 566 5.7 

Phascogale pirata VU ,10000 3 567 5.7 

Onychogalea fraenata EN 450 3 24 5.2 

Bettongia penicillata CR ,7000 8 366 5.2 

Myrmecobius fasciatus EN ,1000 6 52 5.2 


152

Table 1. Cont. 

Species IUCN Global population (G) 



Number of protected Numbers protected Proportion 

populations by tourism (SR)* protected (T) 

Mesocapromys angelcabrerai EN ,2500 1 125 5.0 

Mesocapromys auritus EN ,2500 1 125 5.0 

Mysateles meridionalis CR ,250 1 12 5.0 

Natalus primus CR ,100 0 5 5.0 

Perameles bougainville EN ,10000 1 497 5.0 

Porcula salvania CR ,500 2 24 4.8 

Propithecus perrieri CR ,250 1 11 4.6 

Brachyteles hypoxanthus CR 855 4 34 4.0 

Hapalemur aureus EN ,1500 2 59 4.0 

Panthera tigris EN 3000–5000 .40 200 3.9 

Varecia variegata CR ,10000 9 391 3.9 

Leontopithecus caissara CR 400 2 14 3.6 

Panthera uncia EN 4080–6590 27 234 3.6 

Macaca silenus EN ,4000 17 136 3.4 

Melursus ursinus VU ,20000 .175 672 3.4 

Equus zebra hartmannae VU 25000 8 824 3.3 

Saguinus oedipus CR ,6000 3 187 3.1 

Leporillus conditor VU 4000 4 124 3.1 

Nilgiritragus hylocrius EN 2000–2500 4 73 2.9 

Pseudomys fumeus EN ,2501 3 71 2.8 

Ammospermophilus nelsoni EN 124000–413000 4 11179 2.7 

Sarcophilus harrisii EN 10000–25000 ? 661 2.6 

Leontopithecus chrysomelas EN 6001–15000 2 383 2.6 

Parantechinus apicalis EN 500–1000 6 26 2.6 

Procolobus gordonorum EN 10000–15400 1 367 2.4 

Cynomys parvidens EN 8000 1 189 2.4 

Propithecus tattersalli EN 6000–10000 1 229 2.3 

Cephalophus spadix EN ,1500 8 33 2.2 

Ailurus fulgens VU ,10000 69 174 1.7 

Canis rufus CR ,150 3 2 1.6 

Crypytoprocta ferox VU ,2500 2 34 1.4 

Equus hemionus EN ,24000 4 320 1.3 

Macrotis lagotis VU ,10000 6 131 1.3 

Blastocerus dichotomus VU ,45000 2 587 1.3 

Romerolagus diazi EN 2478–12120 2 146 1.2 

Galidictis grandidieri EN 2650–3540 1 41 1.2 

Prolemur simus CR ,100 2 1 1.0 

Gymnobelideus leadbeateri EN 2000 1 19 0.9 

Urocyon littoralis CR ,1500 2 11 0.7 

Eulemur cinereiceps EN ,7265 1 37 0.5 

Tapirus indicus EN ,5000 25 0.5 

Propithecus candidus CR ,250 2 1 0.2 

*R: Argentina 26.5%, Australia 9.4%, Bolivia 8.1%, Botswana 81.1%, Brazil 7.8%, Canada 13.7%, Chile 37.9%, Colombia 7.6%, Costa Rica 18.2%, Cuba 5.0%, Guatemala 

30.8%, Honduras 25.0%, India 8.0%, Kenya 66.1%, Madagascar 5.0%, Mexico 5.9%, Namibia 8.9%, Nepal 35.6%, Nicaragua 8.3%, Panama 13.1%, Philippines 53.0%, South 

Africa 47.2%, Tanzania 36.7%, Thailand 24.6%, United States 7.4%, Zambia 48.3%. Data from national parks agencies and international compendia (8,9). 

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044134.t001 


153



Figure 2. Global population sizes (maximum estimates) of threatened species, and proportions protected by tourism, T. 


Figure 3. Proportions of populations dependent on tourism (T), relative to body weight. Dotted lines indicate 7.5 kg mean body weight, 

and 17% protected. 



154

Figure 4. Numbers of extant subpopulations for species with known T. 


tourism, population losses of threatened species have indeed 

intensified: this is a very real mechanism. Population losses even 

at this scale are of global concern for any red-listed species. 

Rhino poaching in parts of Africa and Asia is currently causing 

annual losses around 2% of global populations, for example, 

and this is a topic of intense international public debate and 

global concern. 

There is no correlation between reliance on tourism revenue, 

and recognition as a wildlife tourism icon, confirming that the data 

are not biased towards high-T species. Some tourism icon species, 

such as lion, one-horned rhinoceros and African elephant, have 

high T ($10%), but others such as tiger, golden-headed lion 

tamarin, red panda and a number of lemur species, have low T 

(,5%) (Table 1). In addition, many high-T species such as the 

Patagonian huemul Hippocamelus bisulcus are not in themselves 

targets for wildlife tourists, but simply occur in scenically attractive 

parks. Most of the species with highest T ($15%) are at least of 

moderate body size (Fig. 3), but only a third of these are icon 

tourism attractions. 

Some of these species are already at particular risk since they 

survive only at a single site in one country. Indeed, this is one 

factor considered by IUCN in the allocation of CR or EN 

redlisting status. For the 90 species assessed here, 27% survive in 

only a single population, and reliance on tourism revenue is 

proportionately higher for more severely threatened species which 

occur in fewer remaining subpopulations (Fig. 4). Mindoro dwarf 

buffalo Bubalus mindorensis, for example, are protected in only one 

Philippine national park, with 53% of funding from tourism. 

If each individual of each endangered (EN) or critically 

endangered (CR) mammal species is given equal weight, so that, 

e.g., one Gilbert’s potoroo is counted the same as one 

hippopotamus, then in aggregate, tourism protects 4.9% of the 

40 EN and 9.6% of the 26 CR mammal species with data 

available. That is, reliance on tourism revenue is twice as severe 

for critically endangered as for endangered species. 


Discussion 


Our estimates of T are conservative for all species listed, for two 

main reasons. Firstly, we used maximum published estimates for 

G. The degree of underestimation from this factor, for different 

species a, depends on the range of different estimates for G a. 

Secondly, we calculated T a by dividing S i n SiaR ia for the n 

subpopulations where S and R data are available for each species 

a, by the global totals Ga which also include subpopulations 

without such data. Thus for the common hippopotamus, as noted 

earlier, Si n SiaRia is calculated for 4 subpopulations, but Ga is for 

at least 138. We do not extrapolate from subpopulations with data 

on S and R to those without, because parks budget structures differ 

greatly between nations. If parks budgets were available for all 

African nations, for example, T estimates for African elephant 

would be increased. The degree of underestimation from this 

factor depends on the completeness of IUCN subpopulation data 

for each species, the numbers of subpopulations where it is known 

to occur, and the countries in which those subpopulations occur. 

Arguably, the conservation values of one living individual of 

different threatened species are not equal, but inversely proportional 

to total remaining global populations. We could calculate a 

more complex conservation currency where individuals of 

different species are weighted according to relative rarity, but this 

would be less robust than the simpler metric adopted here. 

Alternatively, we could potentially use a probabilistic rather than 

an accounting model, calculating how support from tourism 

increases survival probabilities for each subpopulation, and thus 

for the species overall. This is not yet feasible, because of 

uncertainties over raw data [28], controversy over minimum 

viable population sizes [29], improvements in captive breeding 

and relocation [30], and rapid changes in contributions of tourism 

to parks revenues. We found no correlation between T and the 

recently-developed SAFE index [27], which examines the 

relationship between minimum viable populations and global 

population sizes for different species. 


155

This analysis focuses on public protected areas, because these 

are the most significant conservation reserves for most IUCNredlisted 

mammal species. Conservation on other land tenures, 

however [12,19,29,31], though complex and contested [31–33] is 

also increasingly important for many threatened species, especially 

as they face additional risks associated with climate change 

[11,17,34–36]. Tourism does also contribute to conservation of 

threatened species on private and community reserves [37]. 

Subpopulation sizes on these land tenures, however, are generally 

far smaller than in public protected areas. The results presented 

here show that revenue from tourism to public parks is currently 

far more significant for conservation of threatened species globally. 

With few exceptions [37], this revenue is raised almost entirely 

from individual park visitor fees, not commercial tour operators. 

In countries such as the Philippines, Kenya, Botswana and 

Zambia, over half of parks funding is from visitors. These 

proportions are high not only because these parks are popular 

with tourists, but because government funding for parks agencies 

in these countries is low. This reflects a new but powerful trend in 

conservation finance [16–18]. For those national parks agencies 

which do not currently charge high visitor fees, but whose parks 

protect mammal species in high demand from tourists, agencies 

are under pressure to raise fees to boost conservation funding. At 

the same time, governments are imposing new taxes on park-based 

wildlife tourism. This is currently under intense debate in India 

and several African nations. This increases the conservation risks 

identified here. In addition, if tourist demand is weak or access is 

poor, raising per capita fees decreases visitor numbers and revenues. 

Rather than relying on tourism, a safer and more effective 

strategy for conservation of threatened mammal species in 

impoverished nations would be for international donors to fund 

park ranger salaries and equipment directly. For species with only 

a few small subpopulations remaining, funding may also be 

required for captive breeding and translocations. Tourism does 

contribute to these [37], but only in a few cases. By funding parks 

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using probabilities of species survival rather than number of 

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Supporting Information 

Table S1 Subpopulation data for red-listed mammal 

species in Table 1. 

(DOC) 

Table S2 Proportions of tourism revenue in protected 

area budgets, by country. 

(DOC) 

Acknowledgments 


We thank M Hoffmann and C Hilton-Taylor, IUCN, for updated data on 

S and G. We thank Les Carlisle, &Beyond, for a field discussion which 

yielded the idea of using individual animals as a measureable conservation 

currency. 

Author Contributions 

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