Review of the role of the landscape approach in biodiversity conservation

Achieving global conservation goals requires that realizations, agreements, and directives be customized to reach all levels. In the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity, this means that approaches to conserving biological diversity must be developed at the local landscape level to support the national implementation of the Convention. The main objective of this paper was to review the basic role of landscape in conserving biodiversity. To achieve this goal, different articles and books were referred. As it was reviewed, the three elements of landscape namely corridors, patches, and matrix contribute pivotal roles in the conservation of biodiversity as they facilitate mobility, particularly, for wild animals. In recent years, protected area management has evolved from a species-based conservation approach to a livelihoods-based landscape approach. A landscape approach to conservation offers significant benefits. It is impractical to plan and implement conservation for all species and their habitat requirements at different landscape scales. Many places around the world are considering how to simultaneously improve local livelihoods, meet national-level development needs, and achieve conservation goals on urgency as current decisions are paving the future pathway for people and biodiversity in landscapes. This is because, landscape approaches seek to provide tools and concepts for allocating and managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Therefore, landscape approaches should gain prominence in the search for solutions to reconcile conservation and development tradeoffs.