WCS 3-Sentence Science

Identifying Conservation “Hot Spots” for the Nile River

June 14, 2019

Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Kendall Jones on improving conservation of river systems:

1. The river Nile flows across 11 African countries, supporting millions of human livelihoods, and holding globally important biodiversity and endemism yet no basin-wide spatial conservation planning has been attempted to date, and the importance of coordinated conservation planning for the Nile’s biodiversity remains unknown.
2. The river Nile flows across 11 African countries, supporting millions of human livelihoods, and holding globally important biodiversity and endemism yet no basin-wide spatial conservation planning has been attempted to date, and the importance of coordinated conservation planning for the Nile’s biodiversity remains unknown.
3. The team provided a framework for improving return on conservation investment — not just for the Nile but for other complex river systems — finding that collaborative conservation efforts save 34 percent of costs compared to an uncoordinated, business-as-usual scenario.

Study and Journal: “Navigating the complexities of coordinated conservation along the river Nile” from Science Advances
WCS Co-Author(s): Kendall Jones , WCS Conservation Planning Specialist

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.