BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION, SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONFLICTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: A TRILEMMA OF MODERN TIMES

In the present Era of increasing evidenced impacts of Man over the planet, there exists windows-of-opportunity for researchers to show to the common public the importance to preserve biodiversity. Protected areas are most important instruments to undertake such task. Typically, protected area establishment has been opportunistically and assuming environment as static. Conservation plans are characterized by low budgets and (with the number of threatened species rising) huge aspirations. This makes optimization theory valuable for conservation planners to work with. In this talk, I will present work undertaken using optimization tools, especially developed to cope with environmental dynamics, as the ones originated from climate change. Emphasis will be given on the introduction of a novel conservation unit that, aside from the spatial dimension, it allows the scheduling of conservation areas through time. The challenging times that we face, stimulate new conceptual advances that may support complex decisions in maximizing biodiversity persistence under global change.

Diogo Alagador is interested in developing frameworks to support problem-solving in biodiversity conservation. His research is focused around the integration of Operations Research, Graph Theory, Algorithmic Science and Statistics techniques in the identification of the 'wheres' and 'whens' to conserve, taking the highest benefit per dollar spent. He develop such analyses under scenarios of climate change and socio-economic conflicts, at regional to biogeographical scales and for multiple biodiversity units (habitat, species, genetic lines, etc.).

[Host: Paulo Célio Alves, Conservation Genetics and Wildlife Management]

Image credits: Diogo Alagador