Conservation News 563
State Key Laboratory of Plant Diversity and Specialty Crops, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
The status of the Endangered micro-endemic shrub Abatiamicrophyllain its type locality, Pedra do Imperador, Brazil
The shrub Abatia microphylla Taub. (family Salicaceae) is known only from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest in Rio de Janeiro state. Abatia is characterized by opposite leaves, a rare trait in the family shared only with the phylogenetically unrelated Pseudoscolopia, a monospecific African genus. Online databases indicate that Abatia microphylla occurs
in its type locality, Campo de Altitude in the Pedra do Imperador region, which is named after Emperor Dom Pedro II (the location is also known as Pedra do Cônego), and in Serra dos Órgãos National Park. However, after revi- sion of the specimens from Serra dos Órgãos National Park we found theywere previously misidentified and are actually Abatia americana. Thus Abatia microphylla is so far known only from Campo de Altitude, at c. 1,400 melevation. This is also the type locality for other plant species endemic to the Atlantic Forest, such as Wunderlichia insignis Baill. Pedra do Imperador is an unprotected area close to urban areas. In two visits, in May 2023 and May 2024, we located only eight and six individuals, respectively, three of the former with flowers, and the latter all sterile. Voucher specimens are deposited in the herbarium of the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória (herbarium code VIES). The flora of Pedra do Imperador is threatened by an- thropogenic impacts, including invasive species (Pteridium arachnoideum (Kaulf.) Maxon), horse farms, livestock,
installation of communication towers and irrigation ducts, plastic waste and non-natural fires. We found A. microphyl- la only at the edge of the main trail through Pedra do Imperador. In 2017, when the species was also believed to occur in Serra dos Órgãos National Park, it was categorized as Endangered on the Red List of Brazilian Flora.Weplan to revisit Campo de Altitude in May 2025, to search for ad- ditional individuals and to reassess the species’ conservation status. We hope to raise awareness among Brazilian politi- cians of the need to promote biodiversity conservation in high elevation areas, where plants are adapted to rocky soils, strong winds and low temperatures.
ÁLVARO NEPOMUCENO1,2 (
alvaronepomuceno567@gmail.com),
VALQUÍRIA FERREIRA DUTRA2 and ANDERSON ALVES-ARAÚJO3 1Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Feira de Santana,
Brazil. 2Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil. 3Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.
Let us not forget the human dimensions of ecosystem restoration
Target 2 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework concerns ecosystem restoration. Prior to that, the Bonn Challenge on Forest Landscape Restoration, the AFR100, the New York Declaration on Forests, and the Paris Agreement, amongst others, have all called for the restoration of vast areas of forest. Restoration is, however, a human endeavour that re-
quires full engagement of people at all levels of decision- making and at all stages of the restoration process. In an April 2024 report supported by WWF, the Society for Ecological Restoration and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (Mansourian et al., 2024,
iufro.org/publications/joint-publications/article/2024/04/ 24/human-dimensions-of-forest-landscape-restoration), six social scientists and five conservation and forestry prac- titioners have come together to explore the human dimen- sions of forest landscape restoration. Human dimensions of restoration are multi-layered.
Abatia microphylla, habit and inflorescence detail. Photos: Álvaro Nepomuceno and Lucas Silva.
At their simplest, they are the activities that are necessary in the human system to enable restoration, such as negoti- ating long-term objectives, resolving conflicts or carrying out multi-stakeholder consultations. But there are also underlying reasons that determine why people restore or destroy forests, and there are many factors that influence why people may or may not support restoration. For example, landlords that live far away from their landhold- ings may not feel the same attachment to their land and forests as Indigenous rural communities and thus may be more inclined to transform them to other land uses, or con- fronted with powerful companies that contribute significant
Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 555–564 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000991
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