Over the past decade, conservationists have been promoting the creation of biological corridors (e.g. IUCN 1998) with the world’s most pronounced case of the Meso-American biological corridor connecting the Americas. Biological corridors are – usually narrow – areas between protected areas in which some natural habitat or physiognomic vegetation structure remains. The objective of biological corridors is to connect the populations of species in protected areas that are otherwise separated by production land-use.

Terrestrial biological corridors between pristine forest ecosystems will often consist of agro-productive systems in which some arboreal physiognomic structure is maintained (e.g. shade coffee and agro-forestry). In such anthropogenic ecosystems, only fractions of the species survive whose populations the corridor is supposed to connect. Primarily high mobility species will benefit from such connectivity, as they may temporarily bridge unfavourable habitat in search of new habitat or a mate. In the humid tropics, an inhabited terrestrial biological corridor with mainly intervened arboreous cover – like shade coffee or agro-forestry plantations - provides connectivity to those species that can at least temporarily survive under those intervened conditions and that are mobile; that is a very limited selection of species compared to the ones that live in the connected natural ecosystems. Strong flying insects generally don’t need biological corridors as they can fly across unsuitable areas, while weak flyers would fall in a corridor that is no longer their habitat and where they can’t survive. Hence, primarily medium sized and big mammals benefit from non-pristine biological corridors. Most plants and flightless and poor-flying arthropods will be unable to benefit from non-pristine biological corridors in the humid tropics. Of course on both ends of the corridor, the habitats must be suitable for a species to migrate successfully. That means that biological corridors between strongly different ecosystems are less useful, but they may serve species with large area requirements and low ecosystem selectiveness in casu, medium sized to large animals.

In anthropogenic ecosystems as well as ecosystems with open physiognomic structures (e.g. savannahs, prairies, marshes, tundras), probably more species may benefit from biological corridors, as many of those species have been selected to survive stress factors, which make them apt to survive in the less-than-optimal conditions of corridors. Many of those species are relatively mobile or have efficient dispersal mechanisms. Therefore, biological corridors are probably more effective and therefore, desirable in countries where remaining nature primarily consists of open landscapes (often resulting from human activities), e.g. (not exhaustive!), Europe (van Opstal 2000, Foppen 2000), savannahs and prairies with (migrating) large mammals in Africa, Asia and some areas in North America. Vos (1999) observes that connectivity is reversely related to the distance between suitable habitats. The further protected areas are separated from each other, the fewer the species that may benefit from the availability of a biological corridor.

Most major ecological networks (protected areas systems connected by biological corridors) are located in Eurasia; The world’s most pronounced biological corridor is the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor connecting nature in all countries from Southern Mexico to Panamá (Bennet and Wit 2001), which is an international effort among the participating countries with multi-focussed financing from many international financing institutions.

Although biological corridors may theoretically contribute to enhance the viability of small populations, one must be cautious that their creation does not lead to competition with the funding of the core protected areas. In poor countries where the mere protection of vital ecosystems is still subject to serious feasibility challenges, the connection of the protected areas of a system with biological corridors may need to be postponed until the conservation of the core system has been well-established unless the financing may be achieved through funding from sources other than for biodiversity conservation. Under well-established we understand that at least the threats of illegal invasion and aggressive poaching has disappeared.

When ecological connectivity is not feasible, human interference may be required in the form of artificial exchange of individuals among populations and assisted re-stocking, which has become common practice in Southern Africa (H.H.T. Prins pers. com.). The smaller the area the more intense management actions may be required.

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