Enhancing communication between conservation biologists and conservation practitioners: letter from the Conservation Front Line

[Extract] Biodiversity is being lost at an ever increasing rate (Butchart et al., 2010), leading to the degradation of ecosystems services to levels that threaten human well-being. There are significant global efforts to address this situation: spending on conservation in 2006 by major international organizations and non-governmental organizations was, for example, estimated to reach $2 billion per annum (Halpern et al., 2006), a level that has likely to have increased since that study was published. Yet, this is a drop in the ocean as compared to the requirement of over $76 billion per annum to protect threaten species and the sites they occupy (McCarthy et al., 2012). Given that we cannot continue to unsustainably use natural resources as we have in the past (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2003), better ways of protecting biodiversity have to be found, and quickly. In particular, there is clear consensus that better informed decisions are urgently needed about what needs to be conserved; where, how and why. The answer to all of these questions requires evidence; science is the source of much of that evidence