Navjot Sodhi, one the of the authors of this paper, just sent me this link – it is an early view of the pdf which will eventually be free access: Sutherland et al., 2009. One hundred questions of importance to the conservation of global biological diversity. Conservation Biology.
Abstract – We identified 100 scientific questions that, if answered, would have the greatest impact on conservation practice and policy. Representatives from 21 international organizations, regional sections and working groups of the Society for Conservation Biology, and 12 academics, from all continents except Antarctica, compiled 2291 questions of relevance to conservation of biological diversity worldwide. The questions were gathered from 761 individuals through workshops, email requests, and discussions. Voting by email to short-list questions, followed by a 2-day workshop, was used to derive the final list of 100 questions. Most of the final questions were derived through a process of modification and combination as the workshop progressed. The questions are divided into 12 sections: ecosystem functions and services, climate change, technological change, protected areas, ecosystem management and restoration, terrestrial ecosystems, marine ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems, species management, organizational systems and processes, societal context and change, and impacts of conservation interventions. We anticipate that these questions will help identify new directions for researchers and assist funders in directing funds.
“For conservation science to overcome the research implementation gap and deliver effective on-the-ground management, however, the research must be inspired by and useful to the user (Salafsky et al. 2002; van Kerkhoff & Lebel 2006). This will require collaboration between researchers and practitioners throughout the long and often messy process of research, strategy development, and implementation (Sayer & Campbell 2004; Cowling
et al. 2008).We believe that our process can be usefully repeated by a range of countries and organizations and can be focused on specific ecosystem types, conservation issues, or taxonomic groups to clarify research requirements and direction.”
The Biodiversity Crew @ NUS 