Tuesday,April 2, 2019

Alliance for Zero Extinction Sites (AZE)

Launched globally in 2005, the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) was established to designate and effectively conserve the most important sites for global biodiversity conservation.

AZE engages governments, multilateral institutions and non-governmental biodiversity conservation organizations  to work in prevent species extinctions by identifying and safeguarding key sites, each one of which is the last remaining refuge of one or more Endangered or Critically Endangered species.

AZE members have identified 853 AZE sites, which are the areas that hold the last-remaining populations of one or more species evaluated to be Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. These locations must be effectively conserved to prevent the loss of the world’s species at highest risk of extinction, through protected area planning or other effective conservation strategies.


 

AZE Site Criteria:

AZE uses the following criteria to identify priority sites. An AZE site must meet all three criteria to qualify:

  1. Endangerment – An AZE site must contain at least one Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR) species, as assessed on the IUCN Red List.
  2. Irreplaceability – An AZE site should only be designated if it is the sole area where an EN or CR species occurs, contains the overwhelmingly significant known resident population (>95%) of the EN or CR species, or contains the overwhelmingly significant known population (>95%) for one life history segment (e.g. breeding or wintering) of the EN or CR species.
  3. Discreteness – The area must have a definable boundary within which the character of habitats, biological communities, and/or management issues have more in common with each other than they do with those in adjacent areas.

    “These criteria are the equivalent of Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) criterion A1e: Site regularly holds effectively the entire global population size of a Critically Endangered or Endangered species. Therefore, all AZE sites are also KBAs”. 

AZE Sites in the Philippines:

Site NameSpecies
Cuernos de Negros Crocidura negrina (Negros Shrew)
Zosterornis nigrorum (Negros Striped Babbler)
Mount Kambinlio and Mount Redondo Crateromys australis (Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat)
Mount Kanla-on Natural Park Ptilinopus arcanus (Negros Fruit Dove)
South and North Gigante Island Platymantis insulatus (Island forest lunch)
Tawi-Tawi Island Anthracoceros montani (Sulu Hornbill)
Gallicolumba menagei (Sulu Bleeding-heart)
Phapitreron cinereiceps (Dark-eared Brown Dove)


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