The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) approach helps to identify and designate areas of international importance in terms of

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

conservation using globally standardised criteria. KBAs extend the

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) concept to other

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

groups and are now being identified in many parts of the world, by a range of organisations. Examples include

Important Plant Areas Important Plant Areas (IPA) is a programme set up in the UK, by the organisation Plantlife, to provide a framework for identifying and maintaining the richest sites for plant life, possibly within existing protected areas; though the protection o ...

(IPAs), Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in the High Seas, Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites, Prime

Butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

Areas, Important

Mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

Areas and Important Sites for

Freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

Biodiversity, with prototype criteria developed for freshwater

molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil sp ...

and fish and for marine systems. The determination of KBAs often brings sites onto the conservation agenda that hadn't previously been identified as needing protection due to the nature of the two non-exclusive criteria used to determine them;

vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, com ...

; and irreplaceability. The KBA global standard was published in 2016.

Objectives

* Develop technical and conservation capacity within individual countries and on a global scale * Develop partnerships between key organisations – both governmental and nongovernmental – concerned with site conservation * Build broad understanding of the process, and broad ownership of the final site list * Focus any new survey work on the most important gaps in knowledgeEken, Güven et al. ''Key biodiversity areas: Identifying the world's priority sites for conservation – lessons learned from Turkey'' The Gaps Guide
http://www.protectedareas.info/upload/document
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References

External links

A-Z of Areas of Biodiversity Importance: Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA)
Biodiversity Ecoregions

Objectives

See also

References

External links