Systems for assessing the effectiveness of management in protected areas

Since the mid-1990s, numerous methodologies have been developed to assess the management effectiveness of protected areas, many tailored to particular regions or habitats. Recognizing the need for a generic approach, the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) developed an evaluation framework allowing specific evaluation methodologies to be designed within a consistent overall approach. Twenty-seven assessment methodologies were analyzed in relation to this framework. Two types of data were identified: quantitative data derived from monitoring and qualitative data derived from scoring by managers and stakeholders. The distinction between methodologies based on data types reflects different approaches to assessing management. Few methodologies assess all the WCPA framework elements. More useful information for adaptive management will come from addressing all six elements. The framework can be used to adapt existing methodologies or to design new, more comprehensive methodologies for evaluation, using quantitative monitoring data, qualitative scoring data, or a combination of both.

Intertidal habitat conservation: identifying conservation targets in the absence of detailed biological information

1. Growing concern associated with threats to the marine environment has resulted in an increased demand for marine reserves that conserve representative and adequate examples of biodiversity. Often, the decisions about where to locate reserves must be made in the absence of detailed information on the patterns of distribution of the biota. Alternative approaches are required that include defining habitats using surrogates for biodiversity. Surrogate measures of biodiversity enable decisions about where to locate marine reserves to be made more reliably in the absence of detailed data on the distribution of species. 2. Intertidal habitat types derived using physical properties of the shoreline were used as a surrogate for intertidal biodiversity to assist with the identification of sites for inclusion in a candidate system of intertidal marine reserves for 17 463 km of the mainland coast of Queensland, Australia. This represents the first systematic approach, on essentially one-dimensional data, using fine-scale (tens to hundreds of metres) intertidal habitats to identify a system of marine reserves for such a large length of coast. A range of solutions would provide for the protection of a representative example of intertidal habitats in Queensland. 3. The design and planning of marine and terrestrial protected areas systems should not be undertaken independently of each other because it is likely to lead to inadequate representation of intertidal habitats in either system. The development of reserve systems specially designed to protect intertidal habitats should be integrated into the design of terrestrial and marine protected area systems. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A new method for conservation planning for the persistence of multiple species

Although the aim of conservation planning is the persistence of biodiversity, current methods trade-off ecological realism at a species level in favour of including multiple species and landscape features. For conservation planning to be relevant, the impact of landscape configuration on population processes and the viability of species needs to be considered. We present a novel method for selecting reserve systems that maximize persistence across multiple species, subject to a conservation budget. We use a spatially explicit metapopulation model to estimate extinction risk, a function of the ecology of the species and the amount, quality and configuration of habitat. We compare our new method with more traditional, area-based reserve selection methods, using a ten-species case study, and find that the expected loss of species is reduced 20-fold. Unlike previous methods, we avoid designating arbitrary weightings between reserve size and configuration; rather, our method is based on population processes and is grounded in ecological theory.

Conservation planning with irreplaceability: does the method matter?

A number of systematic conservation planning tools are available to aid in making land use decisions. Given the increasing worldwide use and application of reserve design tools, including measures of site irreplaceability, it is essential that methodological differences and their potential effect on conservation planning outcomes are understood. We compared the irreplaceability of sites for protecting ecosystems within the Brigalow Belt Bioregion, Queensland, Australia, using two alternative reserve system design tools, Marxan and C-Plan. We set Marxan to generate multiple reserve systems that met targets with minimal area; the first scenario ignored spatial objectives, while the second selected compact groups of areas. Marxan calculates the irreplaceability of each site as the proportion of solutions in which it occurs for each of these set scenarios. In contrast, C-Plan uses a statistical estimate of irreplaceability as the likelihood that each site is needed in all combinations of sites that satisfy the targets. We found that sites containing rare ecosystems are almost always irreplaceable regardless of the method. Importantly, Marxan and C-Plan gave similar outcomes when spatial objectives were ignored. Marxan with a compactness objective defined twice as much area as irreplaceable, including many sites with relatively common ecosystems. However, targets for all ecosystems were met using a similar amount of area in C-Plan and Marxan, even with compactness. The importance of differences in the outcomes of using the two methods will depend on the question being addressed; in general, the use of two or more complementary tools is beneficial.