Site-based conservation is an approach to
nature conservation
Nature conservation is the moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. A range of values unde ...
that relies on the designation of important or representative examples of sites supporting key habitats or species, such as
Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) or
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 ...
s (IBAs). Whilst a rational way of ensuring that the very best resources are protected, it is open to a number of criticisms:
* It tends to focus resources and protection on only the best sites.
* With a changing climate, the best sites now may not be the best ones to protect for the future.
* Wildlife is ignorant of lines drawn on maps by humans.
On balance, site-based conservation is an essential part of nature conservation, along with initiatives such as environmental subsidies and planning controls that protect biodiversity across the whole landscape (the broad and shallow approach), and the more holistic ideas of
landscape-scale conservation.
Environmental conservation
{{Environment-stub