WILDLIFE CORRIDORS

Definitions

• Ecological connectivity is the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.
• "the action of individuals, communities, institutions, and businesses to maintain, enhance, and restore ecological flows, species movement, and dynamic processes across intact and fragmented environments."
• An ecological network for conservation is a system of core habitats (protected areas, OECMs and other intact natural areas), connected by ecological corridors, which is established, restored as needed and maintained to conserve biological diversity in systems that have been fragmented.
• They have a vertical dimension - wind turbines, fishing gear (e.g. drift nets), subsurface use rights, and lateral connectivity, for example between a river channel and an adjacent floodplains
• Illustration (technically on climate change but just to show how creatures move like blood https://blog.nature.org/science/2016/08/19/migration-in-motion-visualizing-species-movements-due-to-climate-change/)
• My piece on connectivity, salmon and migration: http://www.alexafirmenich.com/sustainability/our-planets-blood.html

Why

• Animals need to move. By doing so they shape and maintain the landscapes in which they live. The life cycles of many organisms require movement.
• Migratory species transport seeds, pollinate plants, and control pests. They also help shape the cultural identities of the people who live in these landscapes, mobile peoples, who need connected systems to maintain traditional livelihoods.
• Ecological corridors are also important to facilitate dispersal that ensures genetic diversity and permits recolonisation in areas where populations have gone extinct. These corridors can help increase populations’ resilience to large-scale natural disturbances.

How

• Connectivity, to a large degree, is dependent on how well individuals can disperse. Dispersal, in turn, is dependent in part on body size. Several studies have shown that dispersal distance is related to body size for reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. This scaling relationship between morphology and behavior – called allometry – has potential for predicting connectivity of not just single species, but entire communities.

Challenges

• Human-wildlife conflict is a considerable challenge, and developing deeper understanding behind the drivers and patterns of conflict can be useful for prevention, mitigation, and management strategies. Moreover, to make sure connectivity and corridor planning are as successful as possible, it is necessary to consider potential impacts on the people that live in areas where they share the landscape with wildlife.

Measuring where corridors need to go

• The three major components of “wildness” (trophic function, connectivity and natural dynamics)
• Tenure rights, particularly for large-scale ecological corridors, may be diverse and complex, requiring a much larger scope of social alliances and cooperation to handle
• Calculating the effective mesh size makes it possible to detect areas of low ecological fragmentation that could constitute good candidates for restoring the ecosystem integrity with a higher probability of success and also extends opportunities to assess potential paths for increasing connectivity across intensively fragmented areas.This is particularly important for finding the best connection paths to restore connectivity across highly fragmented natural regions such as in central Europe, where large extensions of intensive agriculture and build-up areas poses