Geodiversity meets Biodiversity: a landscape approach for biogeocultural conservation and governance in Mediterranean central Chile

Geodiversity Action Plans as a Tool for Developing Sustainable Tourism and Environmental Education

A complex approach to geodiversity and landscape in order to foster geoconservation and develop geotourism and geoeducation is usually more effective than isolated protection and promotion of geoheritage sites without wider context. A Geodiversity Action Plan (GAP) represents a reasonable tool for how to follow these goals in cooperation with local stakeholders. This specific document is not focused only on an inventory of sites of Earth science interest in an area, but encompasses all geodiversity (geological, geomorphological, soil and hydrological features, processes, systems and relationships). As geoconservation often goes hand in hand with education, sustainable tourism and promotion, the GAP includes practical proposals for management and rational use of the area’s geodiversity and geoheritage. This complex approach is needed as it provides a complement to the site-oriented protection or management and, moreover, it can be perceived as coherent with a geoethical approach. The paper presents a case study from Moravian-Slovak border (a central part of Bílé Karpaty/Biele Karpaty Mountains) where the proposal for GAP (including inventory, assessment and management measures) was elaborated together with local authorities, schools and other stakeholders.

Old Processes, New Movements: The Inclusion of Geodiversity in Biological and Ecological Discourse

There exists substantial variation in the qualitative and quantitative interpretations of the concept of geodiversity and its embedded elements and values. The resulting divergence and ambiguity in applications of the term constrain its present use as an operationalized concept in nature conservation research and discourse, unlike its seemingly analogous biotic term, ‘biodiversity’. This paper presents findings from a critical literature review of 299 academic journal articles and texts that define geodiversity values, or otherwise incorporate geodiversity or its derived elements and values as components of conservation. Contrary to previous suggestions, we have found that most geoscientists have united behind a single definition of geodiversity and applied it frequently in their primary and applied, geotouristic, research. Qualitative elements of geodiversity, including system support values and aesthetic appeals within nature conservation, have been largely confined to geoconservation and geoscientific literature and are nearly absent from biological discourse. Encouragingly, however, we have observed a more recent increase in research pertaining to quantitative interpretations of abiotic geodiversity elements and their relationship with the spatial distribution and abundance of species. Although the inclusion of geodiversity elements (quantitative and qualitative) in conservation assessment and biodiversity research has been and remains far less universal than for biodiversity elements, there is strong potential for further unification of these two concepts, especially though collaborative quantitative research. The more that geodiversity is discussed outside of geographic and geoscientific disciplines, broader recognition and validated use of the concept of geodiversity will be used in the understanding, interpretation, and protection of patterns and processes at the landscape scale.