Ice-free Antarctica is expanding - Decision POINTdecision-point.com.au/wp-content/...103_download.pdf · Connecting conservation policy Issue #103 / January 2018 makers, researchers

Connecting conservation policy makers, researchers and practitioners

Issue #103 / January 2018

Ice-free Antarctica is expanding

Challenge and opportunity as climate change impacts

the icy continent

In this issue

A ‘good’ decision is a ‘fair’ decisionThe footprint of development in the Great Western WoodlandValuing access to national parks in NepalSaving threatened species with human burials

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Our cover Jasmine Lee standing on a little bit of Antarctica which is ice free. These bits are set to grow. What does that mean for conservation? Find out on page 6. (Photo by Peter Ryan)

Decision Point is the free bimonthly magazine of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED). CEED is a network of conservation researchers working on the science of effective decision making to better conserve biodiversity. Our members are largely based at the University of Queensland, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia and RMIT University.

Editor David SaltWebsite decision-point.com.au

On the point Impact in a changing worldWhat are the strange lines in the image behind this editorial? The photo is an aerial view of a section of the Great Western Woodland – the largest remaining temperate woodland on the planet (the stippled pattern is actually trees). You’ll find it in south-western WA. The lines are tracks to facilitate minerals exploration. CEED researcher Keren Raiter attempted to measure the impact of this development (see page 8) and found there was around 150,000 km of roads and tracks in this region – and half had never even been mapped. Sometimes we take our most precious ecosystems completely for granted until they are lost (and only then do we ask why didn’t we look after that ecosystem more).

And what’s the significance of our cover image: a young woman (Jasmine Lee) standing on a rocky outcrop surrounded by ice? This photo was taken down in Antarctica, a place where rocky (ice-free) outcrops are quite rare. Ice-free land currently makes up less than 1% of the Antarctic continent yet they contain nearly all of Antarctica’s terrestrial biodiversity. As climate change proceeds unabated it’s expected the ice-free portion of the frozen continent will increase dramatically, and that presents a range of opportunities and threats to Antartica’s biodiversity. Jasmine is attempting to collect the information that will best help us seize those opportunities and counter those threats (see page 6).

Both stories are good examples of CEED’s work in helping our nation make informed decisions around important ecosystems in a changing world. The stories are also connected in that Keren and Jasmine undertook these studies as part of their PhDs. So, not only is CEED helping to highlight important conservation issues, it’s also cultivating the scientific talent of our nation, and potentially others, that we will be depending upon in the years to come.

Indeed, that is one dimension of CEED’s activity that we are particularly proud of, the nurturing of our next generation of environmental scientists. And, though it might not be apparent to the outsider, most stories appearing in Decision Point are usually the efforts of our early-career researchers (PhD students and post docs).

In this issue you’ll find heaps of stories from other CEED ECRs as well. These include stories on whales, fairness, important bird areas, community villages and conservation burials. Planning for impact in a changing world is complex undertaking. CEED’s cohort of talented ECRs is a valuable investment in dealing with a uncertain future.

David Salt Editor, [email protected]

Inside this issueCEED’s science has bite ........................................ 3

Incorporating equity in decision-making .............. 4

Planning for an expanding ice-free Antarctica... 6

Development in the Great Western Woodland ... 8

Valuing access to national parks in Nepal ............ 10

Prioritising environmental investments ........... 12

Planning with Important Bird Areas ................. 16

Do community forests reduce deforestation? .. 17

Modelling the future of southern whales ......... 18

Saving threatened species with human burials 19

CEED News ......................................................... 20

DECISION POINT #103 January 2018

DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018 3

The QS World University Rankings website sets out which universities around the world are excelling in different areas. Under ‘environmental sciences’ in 2017, Australia’s top university is The University of Queensland coming in at number 9. The University of Melbourne sits at number 18 with the ANU close behind at number 23. Not bad in a list of the world’s top 200 universities. (And it’s no coincidence that these top three Aussie unis happen to also be CEED nodes.)

Indeed, when it comes to high-performance science, Australia has traditionally been a world leader in the field of environmental sciences. That’s in part because Australia occupies a unique place on planet Earth, being a comparatively isolated island continent. As a consequence of this, our natural environment usually runs to a different beat to other places.

But it also reflects that Australians are concerned about the environment and how this impacts their lives. And that concern is reflected in our government and its agencies investing in environmental research. CEED is one example of this and that investment has proved pivotal in sustaining Australia’s position as a world leader in the environmental sciences. It’s also been instrumental in delivering the research output and outcomes that help protect our natural heritage (at both the national and international level). Here are a few examples of the type of impact CEED is having.

First, we have identified the most cost-effective strategies to recover iconic species such as the koala (see Decision Point #92) and iconic ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef (see Decision Point #96). Objective evidence-based research which informs and supports government processes to actively protect these incredible, yet vulnerable, species is an important contribution to our country and our nearest neighbours.

Another example core to the Australian fabric is fire management. Our researchers have combined field work and fire history mapping with decision support tools to identify desirable fire regimes which will protect Australia’s biodiversity and also our built environment (eg, see Decision Point #100).

And let’s jump from fire to ice. Australia’s unique global position gives us important stewardship responsibilities for the biodiversity of the great frozen continent of Antarctica. CEED

CEED’s science has biteAustralia does well when it comes to environmental researchBy Kerrie Wilson (Director, CEED)

has had a long involvement in understanding how Antarctic biodiversity can best be protected (see Jasmine Lee’s story on pages 6 & 7).

Finally, our researchers have worked closely with neighbouring countries in the Coral Triangle to establish Malaysia’s most extensive marine protected area, covering almost 1 million hectares of coral reef, mangrove, and seagrass habitat (see Decision Point #49, the whole issue was focussed on the Coral Triangle with a story on Malaysia’s marine protected area on page 4). CEED plays an important role not only in marine protected areas planning in Australia, but is helping our nearest neighbours to secure major fisheries and thereby benefiting Australia and the Asia Pacific region (see Decision Point #96 which was a special feature on marine conservation).

CEED’s goal for the future is to continue to find and implement innovative solutions to better manage our natural environment. In doing so we are helping to improve the quality of life for Australians and the broader international community. And, in so doing, we’re helping to keep environmental science in Australia at the leading edge of the global effort.

Australia is a world leader in environmental research. That’s partly because our circumstances are unique, and partly because the Australian community invests in the science that helps us understand our corner of the planet. (Image by NASA)

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There are many reasons to consider social equity in conservation decisions. On the one hand, it’s a nice thing to strive for – we all would like to think we are being ‘fair’ in the decisions we are a part of (both as an individual and as a society). On the other, it can help build community support and participation (social capital) which is really valuable for successful conservation outcomes. But how do you integrate equity into conservation decisions? What does it even mean to be equitable?

Understanding the multiple ways that equity can be perceived is key to answering these questions. Exploring different ethical frameworks can help us understand some fundamentally different perspectives of what is meant by ‘good’ or ‘right’. For example, three broad schools of ethical thought in Western philosophy include consequentialism, deontology, and virtue. Consequentialism focuses on the outcomes of actions, deontology on the actions themselves, and virtue on the inherent character of the decision-maker.

These different philosophies then give rise to different motivations and objectives in how we incorporate equity in decision-making. Equity might implicate the process or procedure (eg, who gets to make the decisions and how), recognition (eg, what types of information are considered), distribution (eg, how are outcomes, rights, responsibilities, etc. allocated), and context (eg, what past injustices and historical legacies are considered).

But, as is common with complex problems, the multiple objectives can be in conflict. For example, equitable procedures may not lead to equitable distributions. And egalitarian distributions are rarely equitable in practice. Equity is a highly normative and multifaceted concept, where the objectives of equity may not be mutually achievable. So, as a policy goal,

A ‘good’ decision is a ‘fair’ decisionTips on incorporating equity into decision-makingBy Elizabeth Law, Rachel Friedman and Carla Archibald (University of Queensland)

Key messages:

Improving social equity is important to good environmental outcomes

What constitutes equitable outcomes and processes is highly normative and subject to ethical deliberation

We encourage a more analytical incorporation of equity into conservation decision making (and provide a guide on how this might be done)

(Above) Equity is an important consideration surrounding decisions relating to ecotourism. Tourism can bring in an alternative source of income, but large numbers of tourists can degrade an area. Who should get to decide if and how much tourism should be allowed? Pictured above is the LA Ciudad Perdida (the lost city) in Colombia. It’s an example of ecotourism which tries to incorporate ethics into its practice by employing local guides and providing money to local indigenous groups. (Photo by Elizabeth Law)

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equity can be highly contested and problematic to implement. As such, we need to be really clear about what our motivations and objectives are for including equity.

As researchers studying environmental decisions, how might we proceed in regards to equity? Many of the issues we deal with are controversial and politicised; and social equity is often a concern. We recently developed a framework to help deal with this challenge (Law et al, 2017). We identified motivations for considering equity (Fig 1), illustrated how alternative ethical frameworks can influence what is considered equitable, and demonstrated how alternative objectives might be in conflict.

To help overcome the challenges associated with incorporating equity in conservation decision-making, here are ten tips for better integration.

Define motivations and objectives of equity within the context of the problem:

1. Clarify ethical motivations and how this may shape the way we identify the problem, the process and decision.

2. Identify the diversity of potential issues concerning equity at the outset, particularly the opportunities that might arise from instigating, exacerbating, or ameliorating conflict.

3. Determine which dimensions of equity are important given the objectives and the context. Given the tools and available data, which of these are tractable.

Plan for a diversity of stakeholders and objectives:

4. If stakeholders are involved in the decision process, be sensitive to potential conflict. Be aware of potential biases and limitations of the processes of elicitation and negotiation.

5. Determine the implications for equity of targets and objectives, and decide how to manage objectives that might be less measurable (though no less important).

6. Use informed and appropriate metrics of equity and efficiency carefully within planning and prioritisation (if this matches your objectives for equity).

7. Consider what you are asking stakeholders to do and whether this adequately compensates and incentivizes them for the duration of the intervention.

8. Consider decision models that allow a level of uncertainty due to self-determination.

Ensure equity is achieved during implementation:

9. Monitor and rigorously evaluate equity objectives during implementation, particularly when conservation actions rely on volunteer participation.

10. Expand, modify, or restrict the intervention as required.

We believe there is a big opportunity for conservation decision-making to be guided by these principles of ethical pluralism, particularly in the design of more holistic measures and

Wind turbines on farmland across Australia have proved a vexed policy issue for policy makers. Local communities often dislike them while individual farmers who received income for having them on their land love them. Who benefits, who suffers, what’s fair and equitable? It depends on who you ask.

Figure 1: Motivations for considering equity in environmental decision making. These different motivations influence which methods and actions are seen as right, appropriate, and useful to include in a conservation decision-making process. (From Law et al, 2017)

methods for assessing equity. There is also scope for a better understanding of the preferences stakeholders hold for equity, as well as how policies achieve equity in practice (ie, applied ethics).

Although incorporating equity into conservation decision-making adds a layer of complexity to an already challenging process, embracing this complexity will result in better more enduring conservation outcomes.

More info: : Elizabeth Law [email protected]

Reference

Law EA, NJ Bennett, CD Ives, R Friedman, KJ Davis, C Archibald & KA Wilson (2017). Equity trade-offs in conservation decision making. Conservation Biology. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.13008/abstract

6 DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018

Mention Antarctica and nature and most people think killer whales, seals and penguins. But there is so much more when it comes to biodiversity on this frozen continent. Often overlooked is a large suite of native species only found on the land, not in the sea. This terrestrial biodiversity consists of microbes, moss, lichen, two native plants and a large array of invertebrates (including tardigrades, springtails, nematodes, rotifers and mites). Some of these species occur nowhere else in the world. Living in an extreme environment means these species use a range of amazing adaptations to survive including, for example, dehydrating (anhydrobiosis) to survive long periods without water. And, when suitable environmental conditions come along, many species increase growth or activity rates.

Antarctica’s terrestrial biodiversity is simply amazing but it’s also quite constrained – limited to the small patches of ice-free land that make up less than 1% of the continent. Ice-free areas occur on mountain tops, cliffs or coastal oases, and can vary in size from a couple of square metres to hundreds of square kilometres. The large amount of regional endemism within Antarctic taxa (ie, many species are only found in a single patch or region) reflects the isolated nature of these ice-free areas. Some patches may be separated by hundreds of kilometres from their nearest neighbour.

The important question is: Are these ice-free patches under threat? Antarctica has been widely proclaimed as pristine and a “nature reserve devoted to peace and science”. Despite this, Antarctica and its dependant biodiversity is not as well protected as you might think. In fact, terrestrial biodiversity is at risk from climate change, invasive species, and expanding human activity (scientists and tourists). Furthermore, the Antarctic protected area network has been labelled as inadequate, unrepresentative and at risk (see Decision Point # 90). Conservation planning in the region is often considered behind the rest of the world.

So, while this means there is some ground to make up, it also presents a wonderful opportunity to undertake conservation in the region before the risks materialise.

Planning for an expanding ice-free AntarcticaChallenge and opportunity as climate change impacts the icy continentby Jasmine Lee (University of Queensland)

Meet Cryptopygus antarcticus, an Antarctic springtail that has evolved to cope with some of the harshest living conditions on the planet. You’ll only find it on patches of ice-free land, and its fate in a climate-change future is very uncertain. (Photo by Melissa Houghton)

(Above) Jasmine Lee in an Adelie penguin colony in West Antarctica. Ice and snow cover the Antarctic continent with bits of land poking through here and there. Climate change is set to increase the amount of ice-free land and this poses a range of challenges for conservation planners and decision makers. (Photo by Peter Ryan)

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Key messages:

Antarctica is being impacted by climate change, invasive species and an expanding human footprint

Ice-free areas, home to nearly all Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity, are projected to dramatically expand by 2100 with potentially severe consequences for native species

There is no better time than now to be doing research to feed into Antarctic policy

Making decisions for AntarcticaPolicy and decision-making operate differently in Antarctica. The region is governed through the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). While it can be challenging to achieve consensus amongst signatory countries on any Antarctic decision, multiple mechanisms exist within the ATS purely for management of the Antarctic environment. Foremost amongst these is the Environment Protocol, which is administered by the Committee on Environmental Protection (CEP). The Protocol is the international agreement that establishes the framework for comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment.

The CEP has identified several priorities to focus on in the next five years. These include how do we deal with the introduction of non-native species, tourism activities, revising the protected area network and understanding and considering impacts of climate change on the environment? Given this willingness to engage with these issues, there is no better time than now to contribute research to inform better conservation decisions in the region.

Planning for climate changeClimate change is already happening in Antarctica, parts of it are some of the most rapidly warming places on the planet. One of the major barriers to robust conservation decisions is our lack of understanding about potential climate change impacts on biodiversity and environment. We began to fill this gap by determining how climate change might impact ice-free areas by the end of this century.

Our analysis revealed that as ice melts around ice-free areas, over 17,000 km2 of new ice-free area could emerge around the continent (Lee et al, 2017). This is a 25% increase on the current ice-free area. The majority of this (14,000 km2) will be on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the current amount of ice-free area could more than triple by the year 2100.

While the amount of ice-free area will increase, the total number of ice-free patches is projected to actually decrease across the Peninsula. This is because as individual patches expand they will start to merge, leading to an increase in connectivity in the region. The impacts of this change in habitat on biodiversity, therefore, could be profound.

The expansion and increasing connectivity will undoubtedly provide new dispersal and colonisation opportunities for some native species. However, it may also enhance the spread of non-native species, some of which are already present. Currently, Antarctica’s greatest protection against non-native species is its extremely harsh weather and climate. Climate change is expected to take some of the edge off this harshness

by making the weather warmer and milder. This will allow the establishment of new non-native species that previously wouldn’t have had a chance.

And the opportunities for new species to make it to Antarctica are also likely to increase as the number of scientists and tourists visiting the region grows. Most non-native species reach the continent via ships and planes carrying scientists or tourists, with many species arriving in food or cargo shipments.

A new playing fieldThe expansion of non-native species along the Antarctic Peninsula may lead to competition with native species. Antarctica’s native species, which are currently largely constrained by abiotic factors (availability of water, sunlight and nutrients) may fare poorly if they have to cope with competition for limited space and resources. It’s largely unknown how they will perform. Over longer time periods, this may lead to regional homogenisation and extinction of some native Antarctic species.

And, as climate change continues, the impacts we describe for the Peninsula are likely to become more prominent across the rest of the continent.

Our work, now published in the journal Nature, was submitted as an Information Paper to the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (held in Beijing earlier this year). It was recognised by the CEP as an important piece of research to help inform conservation decision making in the region. By identifying sites and biogeographic regions that are likely to be heavily impacted by climate change, we can pinpoint sites for increased biosecurity and monitoring. This work will also help to inform the design of a new protected area network for continental Antarctica.

More info: Jasmine Lee [email protected]

Reference

Lee JR, B Raymond, TJ Bracegirdle, I Chadès, RA Fuller, JD Shaw & A Terauds (2017). Climate change drives expansion of Antarctic ice-free habitat. Nature 547, 49-54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature22996

Ice-free land in Antarctica is a rare commodity (only 1% of the icy continent exists in this state). But this is set to change dramatically as climate change begins to bite, and that will have enormous consequences for the biodiversity that currently depend on these areas. (Photo by Jasmine Lee)

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How do you quantify the development footprint in a large but poorly mapped area? How do you understand what drives development impacts, how these drivers interact, and ultimately provide information that can help to inform how these cumulative impacts are managed to assist in conserving the natural values of the region in perpetuity? Growing human populations and increasing scarcity of natural resources are pushing the frontiers of development into areas that have, until recently, remained relatively intact. Accounting for such impacts is essential for mitigating them, although it can be a challenging task.

Lines in the sandQuantifying the cumulative development footprint in the Great Western WoodlandsBy Keren Raiter (UWA and CSIRO)

Consider the Great Western Woodlands in south-western Australia. This is the largest remaining temperate woodland on the planet yet few people (including most Australians) have ever heard of it; and it’s under threat from a myriad of developments.

A special placeThe Great Western Woodlands are special for many reasons. They are home for a fifth of Australia’s eucalypts, more than 3,000 flowering plant species (many of which are endemic to the region), and provide a refuge for many species that have become locally extinct from the adjacent, heavily cleared, WA wheatbelt. Located in the interzone between the continent’s arid interior and the relatively wet south-west, the region consists of large expanses of diverse eucalyptus woodlands, shrublands, salt lake systems, banded ironstone formations, and mallee vegetation. It’s also the driest place in the world where tall woodlands such as this occur. What’s more, the region remains largely intact and functions ‘naturally’. It has been identified in a number of studies as a national and international priority for conservation.

But the natural values that make this region so important are under attack. Large parts of the region have been degraded

Key messages:

We digitised anthropogenic disturbances in the Great Western Woodlands to estimate the cumulative development footprint

We discovered that the majority of the development footprint in the region consists of roads, tracks, and other linear infrastructure (an estimated 150,000 km exists in the region; half has never been mapped)

This study highlights the pervasiveness of linear infrastructure and the importance of managing its cumulative impacts

(Above) Most of the developmental impact on the Great Western Woodlands is in the form of linear infrastructure such as roads and tracks. The region is criss-crossed by around 150,000 km of them, half of which don’t appear on maps. (Photo by Keren Raiter)

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by timber harvesting, stock grazing and the invasion of exotic species. It is also a rich mineral province with widespread gold, nickel, and iron ore reserves. Mineral exploration and extraction bring their own suite of impacts. More than half of the region is covered by over 5,000 active mineral tenements. There are over 330 operating mines and more than 100,000 abandoned mines dotting the landscape, and the Western Australian Government is actively promoting the state as a desirable mining destination.

Estimating the footprintThe anthropogenic footprint of the various developments in the region has never before been estimated, and the area was poorly mapped. To understand what was at play in this precious region, we created a stratified, almost-random set of sample areas (each of ~490km2) to represent a range of mining activities in areas with and without pastoralism. We then used high-resolution aerial imagery to manually digitise all the anthropogenic disturbances that we could see. We digitised disturbances as either ‘hubs’ (eg, mine pits, waste rock dumps, mining villages, dams and tailings dumps), or ‘linear’ (ie, roads, tracks, railways, exploration gridlines and fence lines). We used the results to estimate the total development footprint and length of linear infrastructure for the entire region.

We also conducted a set of analyses to identify the key drivers of the development footprint, and estimated what proportion of the surrounding landscape is likely to be affected by edge effects from the developments we observed.

Unmapped linear infrastructure, only detectable through manual digitisation, accounts for the greatest proportion of the direct development footprint. Across the 160,000 km2 Great Western Woodlands, the estimated development footprint is 690 km2, of which 67% consists of linear infrastructure and the remainder is ‘hub’ infrastructure. An estimated 150,000 km of linear infrastructure exists in the study area, equating to an average of 1 km per km2. Beyond the direct footprint, a further 4,000–55,000 km2 (3–35% of the region) lies within edge effect zones.

There were a number of factors that were found to significantly predict the extent of development footprints in the Great Western Woodlands. The principal factor was mining activity which showed a strong association with development footprints. Pastoral grazing was also found to significantly predict development footprints, but here there was an interesting interaction: at low mining project densities,

An aerial view of exploration grid lines associated with mineral exploration. The grids pass through shrubland and woodland vegetation. The white dots are drill pads. (Photo by Keren Raiter)

development footprints are more extensive in pastoral areas, but at high mining project densities, development footprints tend to be smaller on pastoral tenure compared to non-pastoral areas.

Good neighbours?Our prior expectations were that the effect (of pastoralism and mining) would be approximately additive so this result came as a surprise. It may reflect the ‘good neighbour policy’ and related codes of conduct whereby there is a stronger onus on exploration companies operating within pastoral leases to use existing roads where possible and rehabilitate all cleared areas once the exploration is complete. This finding indicates that there is substantial scope for development proponents to reduce footprints outside of pastoral leases. Other factors affecting development footprints included proximity to a town, greenstone lithology, clearing restrictions, and the presence and type of conservation estate.

Our study demonstrated the extensive and largely unmapped nature of anthropogenic disturbance in the world’s largest remaining temperate woodland. It highlighted the dominance of linear infrastructure as a component of the development footprint, and the large potential extent of edge effects, although large tracts of largely undisturbed vegetation do remain and can be conserved. Targeted manual digitisation of direct development footprints in stratified sample areas, combined with spatial analyses and hypothetical edge effect zones gleaned from the literature allowed for a relatively comprehensive quantification and characterisation of actual and potential ecological impacts. Mining activity was identified as the main predictor of development footprints.

Around the world we are seeing a proliferation of development infrastructure (especially linear infrastructure) in what have traditionally been remote locations. Our study concludes that both direct and offsite ecological impacts of linear infrastructure should be explicitly considered in environmental impact assessments (including cumulative EIAs), land-use and impact assessments, land-use and conservation planning, and monitoring.

More info: Keren Raiter [email protected]

Reference

Raiter KG, Prober SM, Hobbs RJ & Possingham HP (2017). Lines in the sand: quantifying the cumulative development footprint in the world’s largest remaining temperate woodland. Landscape Ecology 32: 1969-1986. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-017-0558-z

Keren Raiter in the Great Western Woodlands, the largest remaining temperate woodland in the world. The woodlands face multiple threats but also present an outstanding opportunity for large-scale conservation.

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Everyone knows Nepal for its mountains and natural beauty. Part of that beauty is the country’s network of national parks and reserves which were established to protect its internationally significant biodiversity. How much are visitors prepared to pay to access these parks? It’s a critical question because those entry fees are the primary source of revenue for running the parks. But would putting up fees turn away visitors and lead to a loss in revenue?

I was asked by the Nepalese Government to provide a bit of evidence on what visitors are willing to pay to enter their national parks. My analysis suggested that a fee increase would lead to a signficant increase in revenue and available resources to the government. This was enough for the government to increase entry fees, and there have been many positive developments that have flowed on from that decision.

Nature and communityNepal has established 12 national parks and many reserves and conservation areas to protect the nation’s natural assets. The oldest of these—Chitwan National Park—was established in 1973 to protect against deforestation and poaching, particularly of the one-horned rhinoceros. Chitwan was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, and has become one of Nepal’s most popular tourism destinations, attracting thousands of local and international visitors each year.

Entry fees paid by visitors to protected areas are the primary source of revenue for Nepal’s national parks. To encourage local support, many national parks also direct a portion of their entry fees to surrounding communities to use for development and natural resource management (including conservation) purposes. Up to 50% of revenues are redirected to communities.

Nepalese authorities suspected that existing entry fees for Chitwan National Park had been too low. The appropriate level of fee increase, however, was uncertain. And raising the entrance fee was not something done lightly. Businesses depending on the tourism trade feared that raising entry fees would lead to a decline in visitor numbers. So, while

Valuing access to national parks in NepalFunding parks, communities and conservation in a developing countryBy Ram Pandit (University of Western Australia)

Ram Pandit at the launch of a new program to reintroduce species (like the water buffalo in the poster) that have gone locally extinct. Such programs have been assisted by the increase in resources generated by the increase in park entry fees. (Photo by Ram Pandit)

the Nepalese Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) proposed an increase in entry fee, such a change was not supported by the Ministry of Finance due to intense opposition by tourism entrepreneurs.

Willingness to payTo help throw some light on the consequences of raising park entry fees, I was asked to investigate the ‘willingness-to-pay’ for entry to Chitwan by domestic and international visitors. The analysis also explored the factors affecting this willingness, and the trade-offs among entry fees, visitation demand and park revenue (Pandit et al, 2015).

We interviewed three groups of visitors: domestic (Nepalese), foreigners from south Asia, and foreigners from other places. And we undertook the surveys during the tourist off-season with the reasoning that this was the time that the Nepalese economy was most sensitive to a tourist downturn.

The blackbuck antelope, another of the local species being reintroduced after becoming locally extinct. (Image: DNPWC)

Visitors to Chitwan National Park were surveyed on their ‘willingness-to-pay’ to enter the iconic national park. (Photo by Ram Pandit)

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Key messages:

We estimated visitors’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) fee to access Chitwan National Park

We found that visitors’ average WTP is substantially higher (>2.5 times) than the current entry fee

This evidence led to an immediate policy change by the Nepalese Government resulting in a significant increase in resources available for conservation

What we found was that a visitors’ average willingness-to-pay was more than 2.5 times the then entry fee. In other words, charging more was unlikely to deter visitors but could lead to significant increases in revenue.

Real-world impactNow, as academic studies go, this is not rocket science and it’s unlikely the analysis will win a Nobel Prize. But that wasn’t why I did it. We aimed to generate evidence to assist in policy development. And, on this score, our study has proved enormously influential.

Using the evidence from this research, the DNPWC successfully petitioned the Nepalese Ministry of Finance to revise the entry fee policy for protected areas throughout Nepal. Resistance from tourism entrepreneurs ceased and entry fees increased throughout Nepal.

“The research findings provided the scientific basis to convince the politicians as well as local people,” says Mr GP Bhattarai, the Deputy Director General of the DNPWC. “Without this evidence the process [for reviewing] the revenue rate would have been further delayed.”

And what has raising entry fees led to? In the case of Chitwan, the immediate impact of fee revision was an almost doubling of park revenue. Local development has ensued, and new conservation activities have been funded. For example, the extra revenue has helped finance the reintroduction of locally extinct species, and funded successful anti-poaching programs that recently saw a period of over 1,000 days with no rhinoceros poaching.

Collaboration and engagementCEED-funded staff assisted in the analysis of the data, and also in a mentoring capacity to integrate environmental decision science into the research outputs, extending the impact of these results. The research was conducted in close collaboration with staff from the DNPWC who, with the assistance of some local hotels and tourist operators, did the on-ground data collection. Findings were communicated to stakeholders through briefings, workshops, presentations, and networking opportunities.

Perhaps the most significant impact of this research has been the response from inside the Department. Chitwan National Park’s Chief Park Warden, Mr RC Kandel, testified that this research had given the Department “an opportunity to enhance academic and managerial capability on science-based management”. This has helped foster a new mind-set toward the use of research to underpin policy development and decision-making processes, which is being transferred to other areas of their work.

And this is not the end of the story. We are looking at new research topics to strengthen links with the Department over the coming years. But the take away message from this exercise is that a bit of good research can go a long way when it sets out to be policy relevant and there is a window of opportunity.

More info: Ram Pandit [email protected]

Reference

Pandit R, M Dhakal & M Polyakov (2015). Valuing access to protected areas in Nepal: The case of Chitwan National Park. Tourism Management 50: 1-12. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517715000035

‘Thank you for visiting Chitwan National Park’. We hope you enjoyed your visit and are aware that your entrance fee is funding valuable conservation work and supporting the local communities. (Photo by Ram Pandit)

The heart of the jungleChitwan means ‘heart of the jungle’ and Chitwan National Park is regarded as Nepal’s premier natural attraction. It was established in 1973 and granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1984. Home to around 70 species of mammal, it is noted as being one of the last refuges of the one-horned rhinoceros and the Royal Bengal tiger. (Images DNPWC)

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In most environmental programs around the world, the funding provided by governments falls well short of that needed to deal comprehensively with the environmental issues in question. Success rates of 5-20% are common in competitive funding rounds for environmental projects.

As a result, program managers cannot avoid the need to decide which potential investments should receive funds and which should not. Even where no explicit prioritisation process is used, managers are implicitly prioritising, although probably not systematically or transparently.

The benefit that can be generated by systematic prioritisation depends in part on how heterogeneous the various investment options are. The greater the diversity in costs and benefits amongst different projects, the more important it is to accurately identify the best projects. The variance in these factors is often extremely high. It’s not uncommon for Benefit: Cost Ratios of different proposed projects to vary by several orders of magnitude.

Reinforcing that finding, we estimated the environmental gains that are possible through high quality prioritisation of investments relative to poor-quality prioritisation (and compared this with random project selection). High quality prioritisation can give you a gain of 50 to 100% relative to poor-quality prioritisation and a gain of up to 800% relative to random project selection (see Decision Point #82).

Of course, there are additional costs involved in undertaking good-quality prioritisation processes, relative to simpler approaches. However, the estimated benefits are easily large enough to justify the additional effort.

So if you are going to engage in a prioritisation process, what do you do? In the following pages I outline the basic approach. If you would like more detail on any aspect, have a look at Pannell (2015) as it sets out a relatively simple and plain-speaking discussion on the process.

Prioritising environmental investmentsWhy bother? How is it done?By David Pannell (University of Western Australia)

Key messages:

Prioritisation is unavoidable; most environmental programs have too few resources to meet their goals

Given the great variation between potential environmental investments, good prioritisation is critically important

In most cases, good prioritisation of environmental investments is reasonably easy to apply

In some cases, prioritisation is more complex and difficult, requiring special techniques

Despite the compelling case for good prioritisation, it is often not practiced

Generating the greatest environmental benefitThe starting assumption is that the objective of the process is to generate the greatest environmental benefits for the community as a whole, by allocating a limited budget across a range of potential projects. In other words, the organisation wishes to maximise the value for money from its environmental investments.

Sometimes environmental organisations seek to rank locations, or issues, or desired outcomes, with no explicit project activities defined. This is problematic because value for money depends on the answers to questions like, “what is the technical feasibility of generating the hoped-for benefits?”, “to what extent would the community cooperate?” and “what would it cost?” Those questions can only be answered for a particular set of actions or interventions – a project. Prior to ranking projects, each potential project needs to be clearly defined in terms of what would be done, where, and by whom.

Let’s begin with the simplest case, where each project is independent of other projects – the benefits and costs of a project do not depend on which other projects are implemented. We will deal with more complex cases later.

The wrong metric for ranking projectsThere are thousands of different quantitative systems to rank projects in operation around the world. At the heart of most of these systems is a formula or metric that combines various pieces of information about a project to produce a number that provides an overall assessment. There are various errors that can be made when putting together a ranking metric, and unfortunately the quality of the results is quite sensitive to some of the common errors. These errors include: weighting variables inappropriately; adding variables that should be multiplied; comparing outcomes without considering counterfactuals (ie, ignoring what might happen if the project hadn’t happened, the outcome might have occurred anyway); omitting key variables related to benefits; ignoring costs; and measuring activity (outputs) instead of outcomes. In this article we outline the basic approach that will ensure you avoid these errors.

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One crucial insight is that to estimate the benefits of a project you need to know the benefit values ‘with the project’ and the values ‘without the project’ (both of which usually have to be predicted).

Comparing values ‘with versus without’ is not the same as comparing values ‘before versus after’ the project. The reason is that conditions may not be static in the absence of the project. For example, it may be that an environmental asset would degrade in the absence of the project (as illustrated in Figure 1). Remarkably, a study looking at 17 existing systems from around the world for prioritising conservation projects found that only one correctly used the with-versus-without approach to estimate benefits (See Decision Point #69).

A simple benefit-cost metric Here is a Benefit-Cost Ratio metric for ranking environmental projects. It is the simplest theoretically defensible formula that should be used: Equation 1

where: BCR is the Benefit: Cost Ratio. The higher the BCR, the better the project, V( ) represents the values (or benefits or services) generated, P1 represents the outcomes with the project in place, P0 represents the outcomes without the project in place, A is the level of adoption/compliance (by individuals or businesses whose cooperation is needed to achieve the project’s goal) as a proportion of the level needed to achieve the project’s goal, R is the probability of project failure – in other words, the riskiness of the project, C is the total project cash costs, and M is total discounted maintenance costs.

[V(P1) – V(P0)] in the above formula represents the difference in overall values with versus without the project (assuming full compliance, A=1, and zero project risk, R=0). It is the potential benefit of the project if everything goes right.

V can be measured in monetary terms, or in some other unit that makes sense for the types of projects being ranked.

The structure of this formula is very important. Benefits (in the numerator) are divided by costs. The three main parts of the top row are multiplied together, not added, because the

overall benefit is proportional to each of these parts. There are no weights applied to any of these variables. And costs (in the denominator) get added up, rather than multiplied.

This simple formula can be modified in a number of ways to better deal with some of the complexities decision makers will face in the ‘real’ world. Here are two such modifications. The first incorporates factors dealing with time lags and discount rates. The second provides a more nuanced engagement with risk.

Incorporating time: Equation 2

where: L is the lag time in years until most benefits of the project are generated, r is the annual discount rate, to account for the fact that money spent on the project incurs the equivalent of an interest cost, and K is the total project in-kind costs of the organisation that is running the project, not costs to people whose behaviour the project is intended to influence.

The last part of the numerator, “/(1 + r)L”, is included to discount future benefits back to their present value. It is important to include this part of the formula if different projects vary substantially in the time lags until they generate benefits. The choice of discount rate, r, can make a large difference to the estimated benefits for projects with very long-term effects.

Incorporation risk: Equation 3

where: Rt, Rs, Rf and Rm are the probabilities of the project failing due to technical risk, socio-political risks, financial risks and management risks, respectively, and E is total discounted compliance costs. These are involuntarily borne private costs, where people are forced to comply by regulation or similar. We recommend that private costs that are borne voluntarily should not be included, because the fact that there is voluntary cooperation indicates that the costs are offset by unmeasured private benefits.

SimplificationsThere are a number of simplifications in the above formulae, even for the most complex of them.

• Assuming that benefits are linearly related to the proportion of people who adopt the desired new practices or behaviours;

• Representing project risks as binary variables: success or complete failure;

• Having only one time lag for all benefits from the project;

• Approximating the private benefits and voluntary private costs as zero; and

• Treating the project costs, maintenance costs and compliance costs as if there was only one combined constraint on their availability

Simplifications are essential to make the system workable, but care is needed when selecting which simplifications to use. Each of these simplifications can be relaxed if desired.

Figure 1: Comparing what happens ‘with versus without’ the project.

Equation 1

Equation 2

Equation 3

14 DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018

The choice between the three versions of the ranking formula depends on the importance of the issues being addressed, the scale and costs of the projects being considered, the time and resources available for the ranking process, and the availability of the information needed for each formula.

Measuring benefits In the BCR formulas presented in equations (1), (2) and (3), the numerators represent the benefits of a project. The equations show that the benefits are determined by several factors: the value or importance of the environmental benefits generated (measured as a difference, with versus without the project); the level of adoption or compliance with the project (ie, the extent to which the necessary actions are actually taken); various risks that may cause the project to fail; and the time lag until benefits arise. If we represent the risks as probabilities of failure, the numerator represents the ‘expected’ benefits, using ‘expected’ in the statistical sense of a weighted average.

If the projects being prioritised all produce benefits that are similar in nature, and policy makers are happy to base their measure of benefits on scientific criteria, benefits (ie, V in the above formulae) can be measured using ecological criteria that are specific to the issue. The advantages of using monetary values are that it allows you to:

(a) compare value for money for projects that address completely different types of issues (eg, river water quality versus recreational benefits versus income) and

(b) assess whether a project’s overall expected benefits exceed its total costs.

Economists have developed a range of methods that can be used to monetise environmental values: so-called non-market valuation methods. While these methods are not without their challenges and problems, they do have some strengths. One is that they allow the preferences of the broader community to be transparently considered during environmental prioritisation. They don’t rule out using an approach that combines community preferences with those of experts. The methods have been subjected to deep scrutiny and testing, and clear guidance on preferred procedures for implementing them and analysing the results are available. They result in a more logically consistent and defensible set of weightings than are often used in weighting processes that avoid monetisation.

Notwithstanding the advantages of monetising the benefits, it can be challenging to obtain appropriate values. Help from an expert is often advisable.

Measuring costsMeasuring the costs of environmental projects is conceptually simpler than the measurement of benefits, but it is not without its challenges. Many environmental prioritisation processes fail to include the full range of relevant costs, particularly maintenance costs (see Decision Point #87). If benefits are to be counted for a long time frame (eg, decades), then any relevant maintenance costs should be counted over the same time frame. Similarly to the benefits, maintenance costs should be discounted to present values, to avoid over-stating their significance. (In principle, even the initial 3-to-5-year costs of establishing a project should be discounted as well, but failing to discount over such short time frames is a less serious error than failing to discount maintenance costs.)

Let us now consider a few more more complex prioritisation problems.

Multiple versions of the same projectThere are always many different ways of designing a project, and they can vary greatly in value for money. Therefore, it can be worth evaluating more than one project per asset or issue, especially in important cases. For example, we may have identified that it is a high priority to invest in protection of a particular environmental asset (a wetland, or a particular species, or a river), but there remains the issue of how ambitious the project should be. If there is currently a 20% probability that a species will go extinct over the next 20 years, should the project aim to reduce that probability to 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.01%, or what? Should a project that addresses water pollution from agricultural nutrients aim to reduce nutrient inflows to the water body by 10%, 20%, 40% or 80%? Project options such as these can be compared by defining a separate project for each target level, and comparing the BCR for each option.

Doing this comparison can be important because the BCRs can vary widely depending on the target chosen. A key factor behind this is the empirical observation that project costs are often related to the target in a highly non-linear way, with costs escalating greatly at higher targets. For example, Figure 2 shows the estimated costs of reducing phosphorus pollution in the Gippsland Lakes in eastern Victoria, depending on the percentage reduction. Clearly, the cost increases at an increasing rate as the target reduction is increased.

When comparing distinct projects, the way to generate the most valuable environmental benefits for the available resources is to select those projects with the highest BCRs, up to the point where the budget is exhausted. However, when comparing multiple versions of the same project, the criterion is a little different. It is to select the most ambitious project that has a BCR above the threshold level for acceptance. The threshold depends on how tight funding is, and on the performance of other competing projects.

Multiple benefits from one projectThe prioritisation formulas (1), (2) and (3) discussed earlier are designed to work where there is a single type of benefit from a project, or where the values for multiple benefits have already been converted into a common currency, such as dollars, and added up. If a project has multiple benefits and they are not monetised, the other option is to combine them by weighting them (to reflect their relative importance) and adding them up

Figure 2: The estimated costs of reducing phosphorus pollution in the Gippsland Lakes (Victoria).

DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018 15

(see Pannell 2015). This is essentially what monetising them does, but sometimes people have a prejudice against using monetised values in this process.

Prioritisation when projects depend on each otherThe formulas are also founded on an assumption that the projects being compared do not depend on each other. This means that they cannot be used, for example, to compare which parts of a region should be restored through revegetation, because the benefits of such revegetation depend on what vegetation there already is, and on whether other parts of the region are revegetated. Sound optimisation in this situation requires a more complex approach, such as a mathematical model that optimises across the whole region.

A concluding comment: People often respond to the manifest inadequacy of budget allocations to the environment by demanding we should spend more. Yet, consider this. If you could double your budget for projects by putting a bit more effort into your project ranking process, would you do so? Of course you would. Doubling the environmental benefits generated from your environmental investments is rather like doubling your budget (but much much easier to achieve). If your current ranking system is of the usual questionable quality,

Dealing with uncertaintyUncertainty and knowledge gaps are unavoidable realities when evaluating and ranking projects. The available information is almost always inadequate for confident decision making. Key information gaps often include: the cause-and-effect relationship between management actions and environmental outcomes; the likely behavioural responses of people to the project; and the values resulting from the project.

Although uncertainty is often high, the ranking procedure used remains important. Even given uncertain data, the overall benefits of a program can be improved substantially by a better decision process. Indeed, benefits appear to be more sensitive to the decision process than to the uncertainty. For example, we found that there is almost no benefit in reducing data uncertainty if the improved data are used in a poor decision process (see Decision Point #82). On the other hand, even if data is uncertain, there are worthwhile benefits to be had from improving the decision process.

This is certainly not to say that uncertainty should be ignored. Once the decision process is fixed up, uncertainty can make an important difference to the delivery of benefits.

There are economic techniques to give negative weight to uncertainty when ranking projects. However, we suggest a simpler and more intuitive approach: rating the level of uncertainty for each project; and considering those ratings subjectively when ranking projects (along with information about the Benefit: Cost Ratio, and other relevant considerations).

Apart from its effect on project rankings, another aspect of uncertainty is the question of what, if anything, the organisation should do to reduce it. It is good for project managers to be explicit about the uncertainty they face, and what they plan to do about it (even if the plan is to do nothing). Simple and practical steps could be to: record significant knowledge gaps; identify the knowledge gaps that matter most through sensitivity analysis; and have an

explicit strategy for responding to key knowledge gaps as part of the project, potentially including new research or analysis.

In practice, there is a tendency for decision makers to ignore uncertainty when ranking projects, and to proceed on the basis of ‘best-guess’ information, even if the best is poor. In support of that approach, it is often argued that we should not allow lack of knowledge to hold up action, because delays may result in damage that is costly or impossible to reverse. That is reasonable up to a point, but sometimes organisations are too cavalier about proceeding with projects when they have little knowledge of whether they are worthwhile. It may be at the expense of other projects in which they have much more confidence, even though they currently appear to have lower BCRs. It is not just a question of proceeding with a project or not proceeding – it’s a question of which project to proceed with, considering the uncertainty, benefits and costs for each project. When you realise this, the argument based on not letting uncertainty stand in the way of action is rather diminished.

In some cases, a sensible strategy is to start with a detailed feasibility study or a pilot study, with the intention of learning information that will help with subsequent decision making about whether a full-scale project is worthwhile, and how a full-scale project can best be designed and implemented. A related idea is active adaptive management, which involves learning from experience in a directed and systematic way (see Decision Point #102).

Particularly for larger projects, we believe that one of these approaches should be used as they have great potential to increase the benefits that are generated. They imply that the initial ranking process should not produce decisions that are set in stone. Decisions may need to be altered once more information is collected. We should be prepared to abandon projects if it turns out that they are not as good as we initially thought, rather than throwing good money after bad.

doubling the benefits (or more) is readily achievable using the approaches advocated here.

More info: Dave Pannell [email protected]

Reference

Pannell DJ (2015). Ranking environmental projects. Working Paper 1506, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/handle/204305

16 DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018

Getting systematic with IBAsMaking the most of the marine Important Bird and Biodiversity AreasBy Jennifer McGowan (University of Queensland)

IBA stands for Important Bird and Biodiversity Area. It’s a program run by Birdlife International and has been developed over 30 years. It aims to identify sites significant for their contribution to the persistence of bird species and other biodiversity using these areas. Initially, IBAs were identified only for terrestrial and freshwater environments, but over the past decade, the IBA process and method has been adapted and applied in the marine realm.

Today, IBAs are one of the most widely distributed spatial datasets for the global oceans and these sites are considered by BirdLife International to be “the most significant sites for biodiversity conservation worldwide.” We set out to see how this information might add value to Australia’s effort at marine spatial conservation prioritisation (as a case study of how this program might be used globally).

The marine IBA program has nominated around 2,000 sites around the world for protection. That’s approximately 4.3% of the oceans. As countries race to achieve a 10% marine protected area expansion, marine IBAs will be increasingly used to inform conservation planning yet no research exists on how to integrate these sites into systematic spatial conservation planning.

In a recent analysis, my colleagues and I evaluated how marine IBAs influence spatial plans in relation to important aspects of marine spatial prioritisation: representation, irreplaceability, complementarity and cost-efficiency across 15 planning scenarios for Australia (McGowan et al, 2017).

We also tested the ability of IBAs to act as surrogates for other forms of marine biodiversity and offer best-practice guidelines on how to incorporate IBAs into marine protected area

planning. We used two performance metrics to evaluate these scenarios, including the newly published metric, Proportional Protection Equality (the development of which was led by CEED’s Alienor Chauvenet, see Chauvenet et al, 2017), which directly ties into the CBD’s Aichi Target’s (no.11) for achieving representative protected area networks.

We found that planners should treat marine IBAs as any other conservation feature and set an explicit conservation target. We discuss approaches to do this according to the underpinning characteristics of the IBA program such as: the threat status of the trigger species, defining criteria, and the method of IBA delineation. Importantly, we caution that treating IBAs in this manner does not preclude setting 100% targets for particularly critical IBAs, but warn that considering all IBAs as irreplaceable sites for conservation is impractical and inefficient.

In order to progress the integration of marine IBAs into spatial conservation prioritisation, planners must be equipped with more specialised knowledge of how and why individual IBAs exist. Further, prescriptive actions should be declared and released with the IBA polygons as some IBA sites are far more likely to drive non-spatial policy recommendations than to serve as the basis for protected areas.

We feel this research has broader policy implications for other threshold-based spatial delineations including Key Biodiversity Areas, Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas, and other species-specific approaches attempting to delineate important marine areas (eg, Important Marine Mammal Areas) with the goal of influencing international policy.

More info: Jennifer McGowan [email protected]

Reference

McGowan J, RJ Smith R, M di Marco, RH Clarke & HP Possingham (2017). An evaluation of marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in the context of spatial prioritization. Conservation Letters. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12399/full

Chauvenet A, C Kuempel, J McGowan, M Beger & HP Possingham (2017). Methods for calculating Protection Equality for conservation planning. Plos One 12 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0171591

IBAs are intended to delineate sites that are essential for the survival of birds considered at risk (while also protecting the non-bird biodiversity contained in these areas). Candidate marine IBAs consist of seaward extensions of seabird breeding colonies, non-breeding coastal congregations, migration bottlenecks and ocean distributions. The IBA dataset is one of the most comprehensive species-specific datasets available for the oceans. Pictured here are several IBA trigger species: (above) the black-browed albatross; (top right corner) the great-winged petrel; and (right) the masked booby. (Photos by Rohan Clarke)

DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018 17

Conservation and the Village ForestDo community forests reduce deforestation?By Truly Santika (University of Queensland)

Community forest management has been identified as a win-win option for reducing rates of deforestation while also improving the welfare of rural communities in developing countries. But is it delivering the hoped for benefits? Despite considerable investment around the world in community forestry, there is a lack of systematic evaluation on the impact of these policies at a landscape scale. To provide a little insight on what might be gained, we set out to assess the relative performance of a community forest scheme in Indonesia.

In an unprecedented shift in policy, the Indonesian Government recently announced a plan to allocate 12.7 million hectares of land to marginalised communities by 2019 under the Social Forestry Initiative. Currently, about two thirds of the total areas that have been allocated and proposed for social forestry is located on the island of Sumatra and Kalimantan. One scheme that has been put forward is Hutan Desa or Village Forest.

We mapped these Hutan Desa sites incorporating a number of variables relating to the tenure condition and physical circumstances of the land, and then evaluated the likelihood of deforestation with and without the presence of the community forest scheme (Santika et al, 2017).

We found that Hutan Desa performance varied by land use zones (Fig. 1). Avoided deforestation was moderate and consistent across different years and locations for Hutan Desa granted on watershed-protected forest and limited production forest. But for Hutan Desa granted on permanent or convertible production forest, the rates were higher overall but fluctuated over time and varied markedly across different locations.

This comparative performance corresponds to varying human pressure, and likely also to the complexity of issues associated with land use locations and histories. For example, watershed-protected forest and limited production forest are typically located in areas with low human pressure (high altitude, steep slopes, far from industrial agriculture), whereas permanent or convertible production forest are typically located in areas with high human pressure (lowland and near cities and major roads and industrial agriculture).

Our evaluation also highlighted that Hutan Desa located on peatland is vulnerable to extreme climate events (Fig. 2). Climatic variables, particularly the amount of rainfall during the dry period in drought years significantly reduced Hutan Desa performance in abating deforestation, especially those located on peatland and where the surrounding area has been highly degraded and recurrent fires had occurred. This was evident during the severe El Niño conditions in 2015, when the rates of deforestation escalated in Hutan Desa granted on watershed protection forest on peat soil located in extremely dry areas in Kalimantan.

Indonesia is expected to experience more intense droughts in the future due to global warming. Hence, climate change will pose additional challenges to the management of Hutan Desa located on degraded peatland. This suggests

that increased effort, technical capacity, and financial assistance will be required to maintain and improve the performance of these Hutan Desa.

The success of Hutan Desa management on peatland will require close cooperation with the Indonesian government peat restoration agency in terms of capacity building and funding.

Overall, we found that the community forest approach of Hutan Desa has successfully achieved avoided deforestation. However, strong and complex anthropogenic pressures and climate extremes remain the main challenges in the future. These pressures vary across different Hutan Desa areas. Consequently, the level of government support (in the form of technical assistance, amounts of financing, and support for local leadership) should take this into account and be implemented appropriately.

More info: Truly Santika [email protected]

Reference

Santika T, E Meijaard, S Budiharta, EA Law, A Kusworo, JA Hutabarat, TP Indrawan, M Struebig, S Raharjo, I Huda, Sulhani, AD Ekaputri, S Trison, M Stigner & KA Wilson (2017). Community forest management in Indonesia: avoided deforestation in the context of anthropogenic and climate complexities. Global Environmental Change 46: 60-71. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016305933

Figure 1: Hutan Desa performance by land use zones/histories.

Figure 2: The performance of Hutan Desa located on peat soil in Kalimantan during severe El Niño events in 2015.

18 DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018

During the 1900s, many whales were commercially harvested almost to extinction. Amongst the most impacted were the larger baleen whales, those species with comb-like baleen plates used to strain the water for food (such as krill and small fish). In 1983 the International Whaling Commission decreed a moratorium on commercial whaling in an effort to let whale populations recover. Some species have begun that recovery, others still only occur in very low numbers. What are the prospects for these massive marine mammals as we move into an increasingly climate-impacted future?

My research took an ecosystem approach to predict what whale numbers will likely be by 2100. My focus was a group of Southern Hemisphere baleen whales. Working with colleagues at CSIRO I used a model nicknamed MICE (short for Model of Intermediate Complexity for Ecosystem Assessments) to integrate important features of ocean and biological systems to create a more holistic model of the whale ecosystem.

We simulated whale populations based on what we knew about the species’ life histories and then subtracted historical catch numbers from between 1890 and today. We also coupled predator-prey information from our MICE model to global climate models, which allowed us to predict how whales are going to respond given expected future changes in primary productivity in the Southern Hemisphere.

First we estimated what current population levels are for several species. Then we projected forward.

Our analysis suggests that none of the whale populations that were harvested extensively during the 19th and 20th century have recovered, and their slower reproductive rates mean some are slower to bounce back than others.

We predict that Antarctic blue, southern right and fin whales will be at less than half their pre-exploitation numbers by 2100

Whale storyModelling the future of Earth’s titansBy Viv Tulloch (University of Queensland & CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere)

because of slow growth rates and heavy historical whaling. Blue whales are currently at around 1% of pre-whaling numbers.

One species that has bounced back relatively well after whaling stopped in the late 20th century is the humpback. More than 200,000 humpback whales were harvested from Southern Hemisphere waters since the late 18th century. Today their population is estimated to be about a third of the size it was prior to the days of industrial-scale whale harvests. While that might seem low, by 2050 we could expect the population to have recovered completely, which is good news for whale watchers along the Australian coastline.

The story is not so positive for the southern right whale (so named because this species was easy to catch with high commercial potential so was regarded as the ‘right’ whale to hunt). We estimate that southern right whales globally remain at less than 11% of their pre-whaling numbers. This species was heavily whaled in the 1800s to the point where there were only 300 left in the world by the 1920s. Then they were hit again in the 1960s and 70s by illegal Soviet whaling. Combine this with their slower reproductive rates and the outcome is for a slower recovery.

This is the first time a complex ecosystem model that includes ocean physics and climate change has been used to predict future whale numbers, and this research helps answer some of the uncertainties regarding their recovery. Population estimates and plausible future predicted trajectories for Southern Hemisphere baleen whales are basic requirements for management and conservation.

More info: Vivitskaia Tulloch [email protected]

Reference

Tulloch VJD, ÉE Plagányi, R Matear, CJ Brown & AJ Richardson (2017). Ecosystem modelling to quantify the impact of historical whaling on Southern Hemisphere baleen whales. Fish Fish 00:1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12241

One species that has bounced back relatively well after whaling stopped in the late 20th century is the humpback (pictured here). The same has not occurred for several other species. (Photo by Diego Cotterle)

Figure 1: A schematic of the interactions included in the MICE coupled with an NPZD model. Arrows identify the direction of the relationship in the model.

DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018 19

All of us will die – now imagine how beautiful it would be if our friends could visit our grave, hear the song of a critically endangered bird, and know that in death, we saved this bird from going extinct? I’m talking about a conservation burial in which burial fees are used to fund the acquisition and management of land for conservation.

It works like this: Instead of spending vast amounts of money on fancy coffins and tombstones we instead put these resources towards the purchase and restoration of habitat. Within this habitat, the burial process employs natural principles – that is, your corporeal remains decompose in the ground alongside only biodegradable materials (bypassing the embalming process).

But conservation burials go a step further than natural burials. Natural burials are about avoiding environmental damage caused by conventional burial and cremation. Conservation burials not only eliminate this damage but improve the environment.

How much life might we save going down this deathly route? Quite a lot. We recently demonstrated that the nearly four billion dollars per year spent on coffins and embalming, in the USA alone, could be enough to save every threatened species on the planet (listed by the IUCN) from going extinct (Holden & McDonald-Madden 2017).

Saving threatened species with human burials Completing the circle of life in deathBy Matthew Holden (University of Queensland)

Conservation burial cemetery in the United States, White Eagle Memorial Preserve. (Photo by Jodie Buller)

Examples of conservation burials exist in the USA, UK and Canada, where bodies are buried within the nature reserves they protect. And, if managed appropriately, human remains in a national park can add an additional sacred value to the land that people may be less inclined to violate.

However, guarding the environment in death isn’t the only way to do conservation burials. Perhaps, we could achieve better conservation outcomes if burials not only funded the protection of ecosystems above human remains, but also in distant areas of high biodiversity. A small commemorative natural burial ground in or near a city could be used to create urban greenspace for the community – and then leftover money could fund other conservation projects. At the entrance of the city’s burial ground we could erect a commemorative monument listing all of the conservation projects each individual funded in their death.

The Earth Funerals project in Armidale, Australia, aims to take a similar approach. This new project will use burial fees and donated farm land to build and restore a wildlife corridor. This corridor will extend well beyond the area allocated to human remains.

The conservation burial industry is in its infancy, and at this time mostly unregulated. Establishing appropriate governance and regulation around the burial business will be key to ensuring well intentioned participants will be prepared to invest.

A conservation burial is a no brainer. Who doesn’t want to return to the bushland when their time comes? Who wouldn’t prefer their corpse provide a lasting legacy to the protection of endangered wildlife (as opposed to having formaldehyde shot through their dead body)? So, if you want to contribute to nature in death – start now by planning your own conservation burial.

More info: Matthew Holden [email protected]

Reference

Holden MH & E McDonald-Madden (2017). Conservation from the grave: human burials to fund the conservation of threatened species. Conservation Letters. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12421/full

Death (and life) in the cityGiven the majority of the world’s population lives in cities, and that people often need to visit burial sites, it is important to consider the biodiversity gains if conservation burials only funded the protection and restoration of habitat in urban areas. Conservation burials provide a mechanism to fund systematic spatial planning that could enable urban land to be progressively acquired and set aside for the benefit of valued biodiversity. For example, if everyone living in Manhattan, New York, received conservation burials when deceased, then within three generations, 2% of the island would become new urban nature reserves.

20 DECISION POINT #103 | January 2018

CEED is an Australian Research Council (ARC) partnership between Australian and international universities and research organisations. We aim to be the world’s leading research centre for solving environmental management problems and for evaluating the outcomes of actions. More info: http://ceed.edu.au/

Monitoring for diseased devilsCEED researchers from the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland working with the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program have developed a user-friendly model to help managers decide whether an area is free from devil facial tumor disease. Led by Tracy Rout, the researchers modelled the removal of a diseased Tasmanian devil population from Forestier Peninsula (Tasmania), and analysed the costs and benefits of declaring the area disease-free prior to the reintroduction and establishment of a healthy insurance population (Rout et al, 2017).

“I think it’s a great example of scientists and practitioners working together to ensure on-ground decisions are informed by up-to-date modelling and decision analyses,” says Tracy Rout. “We developed a model that can be run from an Excel spreadsheet, so the management team could use it to plan monitoring intensity while in the field.”

Reference

Rout TM, CM Baker, S Huxtable & BA Wintle BA (2017). Monitoring, imperfect detection, and risk optimization of a Tasmanian devil insurance population. Conservation Biology. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12975/full

News

Devil facial tumor disease threatens the survival of wild populations of the Tasmanian devil. The disease is believed to be transmitted through biting and causes tumors on the face or inside the mouth. Once tumors develop, death typically occurs within months. The disease was first detected in NE Tasmania in 1996 and has since spread across most of the devil’s habitat, resulting in an 80% decline in wild populations.

Movers and stayers in a changing environmentRichard Hobbs, Leonie Valentine and colleagues believe we should be paying increased attention to species movement in response to environmental change (Hobbs et al, 2017). In particular we need to consider changes in species distributions and altered biological assemblages. Such changes are well known from paleoecological studies, but have accelerated with ongoing pervasive human influence.

Some species move, others will stay put, and this leads to an array of novel interactions. Species show a variety of responses that can allow movement or persistence. Conservation and restoration actions have traditionally focused on maintaining or returning species in particular places. More recently they increasingly also include interventions that facilitate movement. Approaches are required that incorporate the fluidity of biotic assemblages into the goals we set and the interventions we make.

Reference

Hobbs RJ, LE Valentine, R Standish & ST Jackson (2017). Movers and Stayers: Novel Assemblages in Changing Environments. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2017.11.001

Impact of a large wildfireManagement guidelines for many fire-prone ecosystems highlight the importance of maintaining a variable mosaic of fire histories for biodiversity conservation. Managers are encouraged to aim for fire mosaics that include all successional states of vegetation, and also include variation in the underlying ‘invisible mosaic’ of past fire frequencies, severities, and fire-return intervals. But how should a fire mosaic be managed following the occurrence of a large, unplanned wildfire? Does the previous fire history of vegetation and habitats persist after major wildfires? It’s a topic has that has rarely been investigated.

In this study, Claire Foster and colleagues at ANU tested to what extent a large wildfire interacted with previous fire history to affect the structure of forest, woodland, and heath vegetation in Booderee National Park (NSW south coast) (Foster et al, 2017). A massive unplanned wildfire burned half the park in 2003. The researchers tracked the recovery of vegetation structure for nine years after the event and found that the strength and persistence of fire effects differed substantially between vegetation types.

Vegetation structure was modified in forest, woodland, and heath vegetation, but among-site variability in vegetation structure was reduced only by severe fire in woodland vegetation. There were also persistent legacy effects of the previous fire regime on some attributes of vegetation structure including forest ground and understorey cover, and woodland midstorey and overstorey cover. This suggests that even after a large, severe wildfire, underlying fire histories can contribute substantially to variation in vegetation structure. Consequently, it’s important that efforts to reinstate variation in vegetation fire age after large wildfires do not inadvertently reduce variation in vegetation structure generated by the underlying invisible mosaic.

Reference

Foster C, P Barton, C MacGregor, N Robinson & DB Lindenmayer (2017). Effects of a large wildfire on vegetation structure in a variable fire mosaic. Ecological Applications http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.1614/full