... of biodiversity has been central to conservation goals of maximum preservation at the least cost (Reddy & Davalos, 2003). The hotspots approach is one of many methods for delimiting areas of priority conservation, although it has proven to be one of the most popular. 'Biodiversity hotspots' were first introduced by Myers in 1988 and may be defined as: "areas featuring exceptional concentrations of endemic species and experiencing exceptional loss of habitat" (Myers et al., 2000:853). By applying parameters to this definition, Myers et al. (2000) identified twenty-five hotpots that predominately represent tropical forests and Mediterranean-type habitat zones (numbering fifteen and five hotpots respectively). In this essay, the reasons for the existence and the localities of biodiversity hotspots will be examined. It should be noted at this stage that biodiversity hotpots do not represent a neutral scientific observation, but are implicitly influenced by human values. The approach encompasses decisions on which aspect of ...

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