In 1999 the Joint Nature Conservation Committee published a
review of biodiversity in the UK Overseas Territories
(Proctor and Fleming 1999). Since then, a considerable amount
of work has been carried out on the ground to conserve biodiversity
in the UK Overseas Territories (OTs).
In 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity, the Steering
group of the UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies (CDs)
Research and Training Steering programme agreed that the
publication was out-dated, and created an editorial committee to
decide what to focus on in a new updated publication. Some of the
key changes were that Crown Dependencies needed to be included, and
the chapters needed to be authored by specialists from the Overseas
Territories and Crown Dependencies.
Having agreed some basic headings, the editorial group approached
the Steering group for lead authors. As a result, each chapter is
authored by an individual or a group from the relevant Overseas
Territory or Crown Dependency who has played a lead role in
biodiversity conservation in their territory. As the quantity and
level of information provided by authors varies from chapter to
chapter, a summary four or five pages has been created for each, so
that comparisons cross island can be made. The additional
information has been included in appendices that are
below.
The editorial committee has kept the information in the
language and voice of the authors. It was agreed that this
publication aims to be a 2011 snapshot of Biodiversity and its
conservation in the OTs and CDs as presented by the authors. There
is a lot of information in the appendices that can be used as a
foundation for further scientific analysis or
research.
A review team, identified by the editorial committee,
comprising members from a number of UK and international
organisations was also given the opportunity to review the
document. The Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Sovereign base
areas of Cyprus have not been included in this
publication.”
Objectives
The objectives of this publication are:
(1) To provide a ‘snapshot’ of Biodiversity in the UKOTs and CDs.
Note: this is not intended to be exhaustive in the level of detail
provided.
(2) To provide a central access ‘place’ where as many links as
possible to other sources of biodiversity information about the OTs
and CDs can be found.