Reconciling global mammal prioritization schemes into a strategy

Abstract

The huge conservation interest thatmammals attract and the large datasets that have been collected on them have propelled a diversity of globalmammal prioritization schemes, but no comprehensive global mammal conservation strategy.We highlight some of the potential discrepancies between the schemes presented in this theme issue, including: conservation of species or areas, reactive and proactive conservation approaches, conservation knowledge and action, levels of aggregation of indicators of trend and scale issues. We propose that recently collected global mammal data and many of the mammal prioritization schemes nowavailable could be incorporated into a comprehensive global strategy for the conservation ofmammals.The task of developing such a strategy should be coordinated by a super-partes, authoritative institution (e.g. the International Union forConservation ofNature, IUCN). The strategy would facilitate funding agencies, conservation organizations and national institutions to rapidly identify a number of short-term and long-term global conservation priorities, and act complementarily to achieve them. © 2011 The Royal Society.