Canada has committed to protecting 30% of its land by 2030, yet existing protected areas cover only 12.4% of Canadian lands, which is insufficient to protect terrestrial biodiversity. In this study, we identified priority areas for biodiversity conservation in Canada, using data on 1506 species across nine taxonomic groups. We first evaluated the effectiveness of existing protected areas in conserving at-risk and other species. Then, we applied optimization algorithms to determine priority areas that could enhance the existing system. Our results reveal that over 90% of the species studied have less than 30% of their spatial distribution currently protected. To meet a constant conservation target of protecting at least 30% of the spatial distribution for all species, Canada would need to expand its protected area system by 16%–17% of its total land area, focusing on regions like Nunavut, Quebec, and the Northwest Territories. Alternatively, when using relative conservation targets based on species’ range sizes, Canada would need to prioritize expanding protected areas by 4.56%–5.46% of its land, with new areas primarily in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. Achieving these goals will require collaborative strategies that respect Indigenous rights and involve agreements with private landowners.

Conservation priorities and legal protections are often based on confirmed species occurrences. However, imperfect detection is likely the norm in biological surveys, resulting in negative consequences for conservation. Focusing on threatened species in the US and Canada, we show that detectability information appears to be lacking for most species that are conservation priorities. Although more research on species detection is needed, detectability estimates are important for many immediate decisions. Thus, we recommend: (1) estimating and accounting for detectability and designing rigorous surveys when confirming presence or absence is crucial. Otherwise, absence in surveys should be considered suggestive only and critical habitat should be managed even if species presences are unconfirmed. (2) When directly estimating detectability is prohibitively difficult, indirect estimates should be explored, for example through expert elicitation or trait-based predictors. (3) Detectability should be explicitly incorporated into decisions to ensure that surveys and management actions are directed where they have the greatest potential benefit.

The establishment of protected areas is a cornerstone of conservation, but permanent protection could be inefficient or even impossible in some situations. We synthesized the literature on temporarily conserved areas (TCAs) across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. We used a comprehensive search string to retrieve peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2021 from the Web of Science. We identified 27 relevant peer-reviewed articles that examined the potential benefits of TCAs in the study area, indicating TCA is a relatively understudied area of research in the peer-reviewed literature. The TCA studies were highly clustered; 77% of studies focused on protecting a single life stage of migratory species and 61% of studies related to temporary conservation of breeding or staging habitats for migratory birds. Ninety-three percent of studies focused on preventing human-driven threats, mainly on public lands of coastal areas, the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Valley in the central United States. Short-term and experimental studies were the dominant study types. TCAs have the potential to complement permanently protected areas and provide protection when permanent protection is difficult. Some included studies examined their conservation value, but the ecological, social, and economic outcomes of TCAs are unclear. More TCA research is needed to determine the role they could play in conservation worldwide. Embracing the concept of TCAs as conservation tool could lead to more comprehensive and consistent reporting of the outcomes of temporary area-based conservation measures. However, a global review and analysis of effectiveness of TCAs will be required if they are to play a formal role in meeting international targets for biodiversity conservation.

Modelling the distribution and abundance of species at risk is extremely important for their conservation and management. We used ecological niche models (ENMs) to predict the occurrence of western rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) in British Columbia (BC), Canada. We applied this to existing population estimates to support a threshold of occurrence for management and conservation. We also identified predictors influencing rattlesnake distribution and abundance in this region. Using a Geographic Information Systems platform, we incorporated ENMs, capture–mark–recapture (CMR) and radio-telemetry results, province-wide observations, Landsat imagery and provincial databases for agricultural land use to produce quantitative, spatially explicit, population estimates across BC. Using available western rattlesnake habitat estimated at 183.9 km2 and averaging estimates calculated from densities in three study populations, we generated a mean adult population size of 9722 (±SD 3009; 0.8 relative index of occurrence [RIO] threshold). Only a small area (21.6 km2) of suitable land cover was located within protected areas, potentially protecting an estimated 1144 (±354) adults. Most suitable land cover was within 500 m of roads (170.6 km2), representing potential habitat being used by an estimated 9017 (±2791) adults. At the threshold RIO value chosen (0.8), only a very small area of farmland provided suitable land cover. Our results highlight the possibility of high mortality rates for western rattlesnakes near roads and the fact that protected areas do not provide sufficient coverage to conserve the population. Given that this species has relatively low mobility and high site fidelity to home ranges, our population estimate for BC provides a useful reference for the northern part of the species’ range. It also fulfills a need to estimate population size within political jurisdictions where conservation management decisions are made, as well as presenting a method that can be applied to other parts of the range, including the southern United States. Our study provides an important benchmark for future monitoring of western rattlesnakes in BC using a repeatable and transparent approach. Similar applications can be extrapolated and applied for other threatened species to identify and quantify population distributions and threats, further supporting conservation prioritization tools to be used to maximize the effectiveness of conservation strategies under financial constraints.

espanolLa degradacion del habitat y la caza son algunas de las causas mas importantes del descenso demografico de Alectoris chukar y Phasianus colchicus, que son dos de las especies cinegeticas mas amenazadas de la provincia de Golestan del Iran. La escasez de datos relativos a la distribucion y localizacion de habitats de alta calidad para las dos especies dificulta las iniciativas de conservacion en la provincia. Utilizamos la evaluacion de multiples criterios para hacer una primera seleccion de las zonas de distribucion general y elaborar mapas de idoneidad de los habitats para las especies. A continuacion, utilizamos estos mapas en forma de algoritmo heuristico en el recocido simulado por medio del programa informatico Marxan, a fin de establecer un orden de prioridad entre las zonas para la conservacion de ambas especies. Para hallar la solucion optima, probamos varios valores del modificador de longitud de frontera en el proceso de recocido simulado. Nuestros resultados pusieron de manifiesto que la evaluacion de multiples criterios resulto util para refinar los mapas de habitat general. La evaluacion de las reservas seleccionadas confirmo la idoneidad de las zonas seleccionadas (que principalmente son contiguas a las reservas actuales) lo que facilita su gestion y la hace mas viable. La superficie total de las reservas seleccionadas fue de unos 476 km2. Como las reservas actuales de la provincia de Golestan solo representan el 23% de la superficie optima, debera estudiarse la posibilidad de anadir otras areas protegidas a efectos de conservar de forma eficiente estas dos especies. EnglishHabitat degradation and hunting are among the most important causes of population decline for Alectoris chukar and Phasianus colchicus, two of the most threatened game species in the Golestan Province of Iran. Limited data on distribution and location of high–quality habitats for the two species make conservation efforts more difficult in the province. We used multi–criteria evaluation (MCE) as a coarse–filter approach to refine the general distribution areas into habitat suitability maps for the species. We then used these maps as input to simulated annealing as a heuristic algorithm through Marxan in order to prioritize areas for conservation of the two species. To find the optimal solution, we tested various boundary length modifier (BLM) values in the simulated annealing process. Our results showed that the MCE approach was useful to refine general habitat maps. Assessment of the selected reserves confirmed the suitability of the selected areas (mainly neighboring the current reserves) making their management easier and more feasible. The total area of the selected reserves was about 476 km2. As current reserves of the Golestan Province represent only 23% of the optimal area, further protected areas should be considered to efficiently conserve these two species.

Environmental researchers in Iran have encountered serious and new challenges about the methods that can adequately respond to research demands posed by the country's recent rapid economic and social development. On one side, traditional methods of environmental impact assessment (EIA) have been criticized 1 severely by specialists and on the other, theoretical bases and practical conditions for implementing new methods of environmental impact assessment are not fully appreciated. Hence, the need to development of useful concepts and methods of environmental impact assessment is felt more than ever. The response of specialists to this need has varied between adopting complicated or simplified procedures in a hasty manner. This paper indicates that improvement of environmental impact assessment methods is achievable, using the basic concepts on ecology and the relevant fields. In addition, authors believe that determining the status and revising current methods of environmental impact assessment will be helpful to recognize the development trend of the EIA. In this paper, we review a new and of EIA and contrast it with a traditional application in Iran. To this end, a case study in the Golestan Province, Iran has been chosen which includes selection of two sites from five suggested locations for landfill and compost plants. The study provides a ground for criticizing and testing some concepts of the new and the traditional methods in selecting from the sites.

Environmental researchers in Iran have encountered serious and new challenges about the methods that responding to research demands for development, because of the rapid economic and social development of Iran during the last decades. On one side, traditional methods of environmental impact assessment have been criticized severely by specialists. On the other hand, theoretical bases and practical conditions for executing new methods of environmental impact assessment are not available in Iran. In this situation, development of useful concepts and methods of environmental impact assessment is necessary more than the past. Furthermore, the reaction of specialists to this need has varied between being complicated and simplified. This paper indicates that improvement of environmental impact assessment methods is achievable, with assist of the basic concepts on ecology and the sciences which are related to it. In addition, authors believe that determining the status and revising current methods of environmental impact assessment will be helpful to recognize the development rate of this science. To indicate these two mentioned points, with help of concepts in ecology and Philosophy science, this paper is going over both new and traditional methods of environmental impact assessment. Then, a case study in the Golestan province(in Iran) has paved the way for criticizing and testing some concepts of new and traditional methods of environmental impact assessment in Iran.