Ridges to reefs conservation plan for Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands

摘要: The Choiseul ridges to reefs conservation plan was facilitated and compiled by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in response to requests from the Lauru Land Conference of Tribal Communities (LLCTC) and the Choiseul Provincial Government. These requests came about from an understanding that the future sustainability and prosperity of the Choiseul people is integrally linked to its natural ecosystems, and the development of a Choiseul conservation plan that takes biodiversity, threats and opportunities into account will enable the Lauru people to make wise and informed choices about their future.In its simplest form, developing a conservation plan involves comparing the distribution of biodiversity with the distribution of protected areas and finding where species and ecosystems are left unprotected or under protected. To address these problems in a systematic way, the concept of ecological representation was developed. This refers to the need for protected areas to represent, or sample, the full variety of biodiversity of different biological realms (freshwater, marine and terrestrial through all the ecoregions) and biological scales (ecosystems, species and within-species variation)(Noss, 1995). A ridges to reefs approach recognizes that what we do on the land has a profound effect on streams, rivers and nearshore areas. Many island ecosystem components provide vital goods and services, such as protection against extreme weather events, while also providing habitat for marine animals and reef fish. Thus the conservation of island biodiversity represents a cost-effective and practical way for islands to ensure sustainability and adapt to threats …