Aim high - Decision Point

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Issue #93 / December 2015

Aim high

But beware the planning fallacy. Bias and NRM

Balancing trade-offs between land uses in Kalimantan

Climate change, fruit and the species that eat fruit

More to Australia’s marine biodiversity than the GBR

Decision Point

Plus

Decision Point is the monthly magazine of the Environmental Decisions Group (EDG). It presents news and views on environmental decision making, biodiversity, conservation planning and monitoring. See the back cover for more info on the EDG. Decision Point is available free from http://www.decision-point.com.au/

Interactions between climate & landscape change When to act? Setting management thresholds Marxan goes to Barcelona Text analysis tools for conservation science

Issue #93 / December 2015

Contents



On the point

A bias for action

Research briefs   

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Text analysis tools for conservation science Conservation and offshore hydrocarbon exploitation Bolder science needed now for protected areas

‘Bias’ and natural resource management 4 Acknowledging that environmental managers are only human

Balancing trade-offs between land-use 6 Exploring options in an abandoned ag project in Kalimantan

When to act? 8 Setting conservation management thresholds

Climate extremes, nectar and fruit

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Consequences for nectarivores and frugivores

Risk = [ExposurexVulnerability]xHazard 12 Interactions between climate change and landscape change

Marxan goes to Barcelona

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The Tulloch twins take Marxan to a new audience

For peat’s sake

In Search of Excellence was one of the biggest selling business books ever. Published in 1982, the book set out to explore the secrets of success of some of the world’s leading companies. Its authors found eight common themes which they argued were responsible for the success of the chosen corporations. Up front was ‘a bias for action’ or simply ‘getting on with it’. Indeed, this theme of doing something – anything – is better than doing nothing is a common characteristic of many of our political leaders. The very act of ‘action’ is seen as a laudable character trait by many. ‘Action is character’, claimed F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of course, in and of itself, ‘action’ is not necessarily the best move. The actions precipitated by many of our bold leaders quickly come undone leaving unfortunate legacies that we pay for over many generations (consider the Mega Rice Project in Kalimantan discussed on page 6). And many of the ‘action’ companies held up in the book In Search of Excellence went on to perform poor or indifferently. Their very use of the term ‘a bias for action’ is open to question. ‘Bias’ means a tendency towards something however in the economics and psychology literature it describes ‘beliefs that are inconsistent with reality or behaviours that compromise the achievement of objectives’. In other words, bias is not a good basis for effective decision making yet it is ever present. What happens if we are blind to the biases that do creep into our decisions? It’s a question that has been asked in many areas of human endeavour but not one frequently explored for natural resource management. Sayed Iftekhar and David Pannell set out to rectify this and on page 4 they explain how bias has led to some poor decisions being made about major NRM investments. Environmental decision science is all about weighing up options and making choices. Sometimes the best option is no action, but this shouldn’t be confused with not making a decision. So, rather than ‘action is character’, maybe we should be suggesting ‘a good decision is better than no decision’.

David Salt Editor Decision Point [email protected]

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The sad tale of Kalimantan’s peat swamp forests

Project planners are often excessively optimistic about the performance of a project that they are developing. It’s important to aim high but making judgments about a planned activity that are systematically over-optimistic can lead to some very poor decisions. Read about bias and NRM on page 4.

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Decision Point is the monthly magazine of the Environmental Decision Group (EDG). The EDG 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, RMIT and CSIRO. Decision Point is available free from: http://www.decision-point.com.au/

Research Briefs Text analysis tools for conservation science

Conservation and offshore hydrocarbon exploitation

Keeping track of conceptual and methodological developments is a critical skill for research scientists, but this task is becoming increasingly difficult due to the high rate of academic publication. As a crisis discipline, conservation science is particularly in need of tools that facilitate rapid yet insightful synthesis.

All around the world there are marine areas important for biodiversity that are experiencing exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas resources. Such operations are expanding to previously inaccessible deep waters and other frontier regions. Conservation challenges arising from offshore hydrocarbon development are wide-ranging. These challenges include threats to ecosystems and marine species from oil spills, negative impacts on native biodiversity from invasive species colonizing drilling infrastructure, and increased political conflicts that can delay conservation actions.

Martin Westgate and colleagues at the Australian National University have recently demonstrated how a commonly-used method for text mining – latent Dirichlet allocation or ‘topic modeling’ – can be used in conjunction with statistical tools already familiar to ecologists (cluster analysis, regression, and network analysis) to investigate trends and identify potential research gaps in the scientific literature. They then demonstrated these properties using the literature on ecological surrogates and indicators as a case study. Their analysis of topic popularity in their case study showed a strong emphasis on the monitoring and management of fragmented ecosystems, while gap analysis suggested a greater role for genetic surrogates and indicators. Their results showed that automated text analysis methods need to be used with care, but can provide information that is complementary to that given by systematic reviews and metaanalyses. Text analysis has strong potential for increasing scientists’ capacity for rapid and detailed synthesis of conservation science. Reference Westgate MJ, PS Barton, JC Pierson & DB Lindenmayer (2015). Text analysis tools for identification of emerging topics and research gaps in conservation science. Conservation Biology, doi:10/111/ cobi.12605. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12605/abstract

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Text analysis has strong potential for increasing scientists’ capacity for rapid and detailed synthesis of conservation science.

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In light of these threats, conservationists need to urgently consider some possible opportunities for conservation that could be leveraged from these mining operations. Options include the use of facilities and infrastructure of the deep and ultra-deep hydrocarbon industry for deep-sea conservation research and monitoring and establishing new conservation research, practice, and monitoring funds and environmental offsetting schemes. The conservation community, including conservation scientists, should become more involved in the earliest planning and exploration phases and remain involved throughout the operations so as to influence decision making and promote continuous monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystems. A prompt response by conservation professionals to offshore oil and gas developments can mitigate impacts of future decisions and actions of the industry and governments. New environmental decision support tools can be used to explicitly incorporate the impacts of hydrocarbon operations on biodiversity into marine spatial and conservation plans and thus allow for optimum trade-offs among multiple objectives, costs, and risks. Reference Kark S, E Brokovich, T Mazor & N Levin. (2015), Emerging conservation challenges and prospects in an era of offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation. Conservation Biology doi: 10.1111/cobi.12562. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12562/abstract

Bolder science needed now for protected areas Recognising that protected areas are essential for effective biodiversity conservation action, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established ambitious protected-area targets as part of the 2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity. Target 11 of the strategic plan aims to put 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine regions under protected-area status by 2020. These protected areas are required to be of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected, and to include ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs).

James Watson and colleagues argue that the conservation-science community can help by:

While the area-based targets are explicit and measurable, the lack of guidance on the terms (i) ‘important’ and ‘representative’; (ii) ‘effective’; and (iii) OECMs makes it difficult to know how nations are implementing the target. There is a real risk that Target 11 may be achieved in terms of area while failing the overall strategic goal for which it is established, because the areas are poorly located, inadequately managed, or based on unjustifiable inclusion of OECMs.

By providing ecologically-sensible targets and new performance metrics for measuring the effectiveness of both protected areas and OECMs, the science community can actively ensure that the achievement of the required area in Target 11 is not simply an end in itself, but generates genuine benefits for biodiversity.

(i) establishing ecologically-sensible protected-area targets to help prioritize important biodiversity areas and achieve ecological representation; (ii) identify clear, comparable performance metrics of ecological effectiveness so we can assess progress toward these targets; and (iii) identify metrics and report on the contribution OECMs make towards the target.

Reference Watson JEM, ES Darling, O Venter, M Maron, J Walston, HP Possingham, N Dudley, M Hockings, M Barnes & TM Brooks (2015). Bolder science needed now for protected areas. Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12645, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12645/abstract

Decision Point #93 - December 2015

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Editorial ‘Bias’ and natural resource management

Acknowledging that environmental managers are only human By Sayed Iftekhar and David Pannell (University of Western Australia) People in all walks of life – from town planners to judges and financial regulators – are subject to bias in their perceptions and judgements. Of course, this applies to environmental managers and natural resource managers too. We recently explored the influence of bias in natural resource management (NRM) and found that we may be able to improve our performance if we recognise these influences and work to reduce them.

Many shades of bias Decision makers do not always perceive things accurately. It has been shown that, in making judgments dealing with uncertainty, decision makers are susceptible to different types of biases – beliefs that are inconsistent with reality or behaviors that compromise the achievement of objectives. There is some research around which demonstrates that people are subject to a range of biases. However, the influence of bias has received little attention in the conservation literature. We set out to explore the consequences of these biases on NRM in general and adaptive management in particular (Iftekhar and Pannell, 2015). Based on our survey of the economics and psychology literature we explored the impacts of action bias, the planning fallacy, reliance on limited information, limited reliance on systematic learning, framing effects, and reference-point bias.

Dealing with the planning fallacy Each bias can have an adverse impact on our capacity to undertake effective adaptive natural resource management. The ‘planning fallacy’, as one example, is the tendency of project planners to be excessively optimistic about the performance of a project that they are developing. It’s a very common bias and we suspect that it has led to some very poor decisions being made about major NRM investments. A strategy to reduce the planning fallacy is to ask managers to forecast the completion time, cost, or benefits for a range of comparable projects rather than a single project. This strategy, known as Reference Class Forecasting, has been effective in reducing time and cost overruns of large infrastructure projects.

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A strategy to reduce the planning fallacy is to ask managers to forecast the completion time, cost, or benefits for a range of comparable projects rather than a single project.

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Based on what we know about these biases there is evidence to expect that: 1.

Managers are likely to undertake on-ground actions even when these are not worthwhile.

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They could suffer from the cognitive illusion of being more in control of the system than they actually are.

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They could be overconfident about the expected outcome of their decisions.

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They may be overly optimistic in terms of expected completion time of the project.

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They might rely on a partial set of information for decision making even when more complete information is available.

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They might rely on trial-and-error learning and repeating their past successful choices instead of collecting and comparing information about the full set of decision options; and

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Managers could try to achieve predefined goals rather than the best possible outcomes from a project.

Minimising the impact Bias is a part of human life. The take home message from this study is that NRM agencies need to be aware of the influence of biases when management decisions are undertaken. There are many things they can do that will help minimise the impact of bias.

Where the planning fallacy is in evidence, adaptive management may help to reduce its adverse consequences. Adaptive management, involving information collection and refinement of project design, helps in correcting decisions that were initially made on an excessively confident or optimistic basis. If necessary, targets can be modified or the project can be terminated following the collection of improved information.

The consequences of bias Based on our survey of the economics and psychology literature, we believe that environmental managers and natural resource managers should be on the look out for a range of common biases that have the potential to adversely impact NRM and specifically adapative management (see the box ‘Nine shades of bias’). Sayed Iftekhar, on the right, listens to ecologist Geoff Kay in a grassy woodland (a threatened ecosystem). Sayed has investigated how NRM managers are often influenced by unacknowledged biases in their decision making.

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Nine shades of bias Here are nine behavioral biases that we believe can potentially affect adaptive management Action bias: Tendency to take actions even when it is better to delay action Framing effect: Tendency to respond differently to alternatively worded but objectively equivalent descriptions of the same item Reference-point bias: Tendency to overemphasize a predetermined benchmark for a variable when estimating the level of that variable Availability heuristic: Tendency to give more weight to events that can be recalled more easily Planning fallacy: Making judgments about a planned activity that are systematically over-optimistic, including underestimating project completion time, underestimating costs, or overestimating benefits “Satisficing rule”: Tendency to stop searching for a better decision once a decision that seems sufficiently good is identified Loss aversion: Tendency to value losses more highly than similar gains Reliance on limited information: Tendency to use a subset of information even when full set of information is available Limited reliance on systematic learning: Tendency to use information from past successful efforts rather than using information from both successful and failed efforts.

Project planners are often excessively optimistic about the performance of a project that they are developing. It’s important to aim high but making judgments about a planned activity that are systematically over-optimistic (including underestimating project completion time, underestimating costs, or overestimating benefits) can lead to some very poor decisions.

First, agencies need to promote a culture of learning. It needs to be recognized that both successful and failed projects generate valuable information about the future state and expected impacts of the management interventions. This could be done by providing appropriate incentives (tangible and intangible) for the managers and decision makers to consider the full range of options before making any decision, or asking managers to justify their decisions to external parties. Second, adoption of a decision support system could facilitate retention and storing of relevant information. It may also make learning from past projects easier and help in systematic evidencebased decision making. Of course, relevant staff should be adequately trained and properly incentivized to use such systems. Third, conducting benefit-cost analyses of planned options would help to refine and prioritize the options during the design phase of an adaptive management cycle. Benefit-cost analysis provides a systematic and objective framework to include all relevant costs and benefits (both market and nonmarket goods and services) related to a project. In the process of identifying benefits and costs, it also helps in identifying whether there is complementarity among them (to avoid double counting) and the time lag and uncertainty attached to realization of each benefit and each cost. Thus, benefitcost analysis could be used as a tool to comprehensively assess the expected merits of a project.

Fourth, involvement of external third-party reviewers may also help in designing more realistic and feasible projects. And, finally, scenario analysis should be conducted as part of the assessment and design phase to anticipate the expected outcomes of different options. It is advisable to consider the likely impacts of different types of biases, and the effectiveness of potential remedial measures before making any final recommendation for use in decision making for natural resources. More info: Sayed Iftekhar [email protected] Reference Iftekhar MS & DJ Pannell (2015). “Biases” in Adaptive Natural Resource Management. Conservation Letters. doi:10.1111/ conl.12189 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/conl.12189/

Studying behavioral bias Both psychology and economics have rich literatures on the influences of different types of bias on behavior. Experimental economics serves three main purposes: testing theories, building new theories from observing experimental outcomes, and testing policy and management options. Behavioral economics also integrates insights from psychology to explain economic decision making. It studies the effects of psychological factors such as emotional, social, and cognitive factors on many decisions and economic processes. A related field is behavioral decision theory, which studies how people make decisions as well as how they should make decisions.

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Balancing trade-offs between land-use policy objectives Exploring options in an abandoned agricultural project in Kalimantan By Elizabeth Law (University of Queensland) Conservation and economic paradigms are shifting. In decades past it seemed fine to dedicate land to either conservation or production. But more recently we realise that this is inadequate to save all biodiversity, particularly where we want and need it. We live in a world of complexity and competing objectives: multiple stakeholders, multiple uses of the same land and multiple goals (effectiveness, efficiency and equity). Given this complexity, why, where, and how do we best conserve nature?

correspond directly to carbon in above and below ground biomass, nor stocks that include stores in soil, or the potential for sequestration and carbon emissions mitigation in the future.

We’ve been working on a few different ways to understand how policy choices can impact multiple objectives, and we’ve been using a globally important case study region – the abandoned Mega Rice Project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.

We found the commonly used metrics of above-ground biomass are not an adequate surrogate for emission dynamics in the Ex Mega Rice Project Region. Further, current regulation that limits development on peatland, while perhaps avoiding further catastrophic loss, may fail to encourage the restoration this area badly needs. Our discussion in this paper highlights that the most appropriate carbon proxy may not be the most accurate one, but rather the one that best incentivizes positive actions in suitable locations.

Rehabilitating a mistake

Identifying trade-offs between ecosystem services

In 1996 the Mega Rice Project set out to transform an area of tropical peat forest in Kalimantan into a rice producing region. It was part of an agricultural self-sufficiency program which, against the advice of agricultural experts, was rushed forward. Within two years almost one million hectares of tropical lowland peat forest had been cleared, over 4000 km of canals were carved out of the peat, and thousands of families were translocated to the region. The venture largely failed to meet its agricultural objectives, and the environmental damage it inflicted was exacerbated by droughts associated with an extreme El Nino event in 1998. The tinderdry degraded peatland suffered extensive fires, sending large volumes of haze throughout south east Asia, and releasing massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (see the story ‘For peat’s sake’ on page 16).

Some of the landscapes we are focussing on are being managed to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. These landscapes need to be managed for multiple social, economic and environmental goals (see A modular approach to REDD+). In Law et al. (2015b) we quantified and mapped key (policy-relevant) ecosystem-service values, and evaluated the expected outcomes of four future land-use scenarios in the study region. We found that these prospective land-use plans should see considerable improvements on current land use.

The project region is now the focus of a global effort to reduce carbon emissions, with concurrent goals of reducing poverty through agricultural development, while also conserving and rehabilitating the biodiversity that’s left. This includes securing a future for charismatic threatened primates such as the Bornean Orang-utan. The region is also a focus for widespread oil-palm development, and ongoing (albeit currently illegal) forestry activities.

That’s good, but our analysis identified several potential tradeoffs that decision makers need to keep in mind. For example, oil-palm development may push smallholder agriculture into low-productivity areas, and therefore negatively impact on the livelihood opportunities for local people, as well as on biodiversity and carbon outcomes. This highlights that for effective, efficient, and equitable management these local-scale trade-offs will need to be carefully considered in future land-use planning for the region.

How do you manage all these expectations? How do you sustain the different environmental values (real and potential) embedded in this landscape? A first step towards sustainable management is to understand the spatial distributions of the various environmental values. However, different stakeholders often perceive these values in different ways.

Measurement matters in managing landscape carbon In Law et al. (2015a), we explored the implications (for carbon, biodiversity, and development) of different methods used to estimate carbon stocks and flows. There are many ways to conceptualise and measure carbon dynamics in landscapes. One of the easiest methods is to estimate carbon stock in the visible part of the forest (above ground). However, this does not necessarily

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For effective, efficient, and equitable management these local-scale trade-offs will need to be carefully considered in future land-use planning.

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Farmers at work in an Indonesian rice field. The Mega Rice Project aimed to help grow the economy, create employment and alleviate poverty for men and women. Unfortunately, the many other values of the peat swamp it replaced were discounted. (Photo by Josh Estey.)

Finding effective policy strategies By simulating the impact of different land-use policies, we can estimate potential outcomes and highlight where we may anticipate conflicts. In Law et al. (2015c,d) we focused on two alternative strategies of land-sharing and land-sparing, which both aim to improve biodiversity and production across the landscape. Land sparing involves maximising production in parts of the landscape in order to spare other parts of the landscape which can be devoted to non-production values like biodiversity conservation. Land sharing involves reducing the intensity of production across the landscape to make it more suitable for non-production values, in other words sharing the land to multiple values. Land-sharing and land-sparing provide a simple but realistic contrast of strategies embodied in agricultural and environmental policies currently applied in landscapes around the world. The relative benefits and shortcomings of the two approaches have recently been the focus of considerable debate. However, the strength and therefore preference for either approach is heavily dependent on specific context where they are applied. This makes it very difficult to generalise: what works best in long standing agricultural regions of temperate Europe may not be the best option in the forest frontiers in tropical Indonesia. Complicating matters further, few studies have looked at both ecological and economic objectives over the entire landscape. In Law et al. (2015c) we developed a simple model of land-sharing and sparing to test the influence of contextual variables. While past debate has focussed mainly on species types (whether they are sensitive or tolerant to agriculture), we show that the preference for either strategy also depends heavily on the amount of land currently in agriculture, the types of crops considered, how non-agricultural land is managed, and how strongly policies are applied. We also find an influence of the way objectives are framed (whether main objective is to maximise biodiversity or agricultural production), and how decisions are made (whether or not losses are tolerated). Overall, this study shows that even simplified policy decisions can be complex.

Analysing strategies in complex landscapes In Law et al. (2015d) we explored the implications of land sparing vs land sharing for the Ex Mega Rice Project region. This was the first study to assess the value and preference for land-sharing and land-sparing policies over a real (complex) landscape, including

Rattan weaving, a traditional craft generating income for the local people. Land-use planning of the Ex Mega Rice Project region needs to meet multiple objectives including providing livelihoods for local stakeholders. (Photo by Josh Estey)

consideration of multiple ecosystem services and multiple stakeholder values. We assessed outcomes from land-sharing and land-sparing policies, when applied to four alternative land-use plans for the region. We found that no plan or policy scenario assessed could satisfy all stakeholder targets. While some plans did pretty well, the remaining conflicts would potentially derail any advances made. Further, our analysis suggested that despite incremental improvement, neither land-sharing nor sparing would provide substantial benefits additional to that obtained from better land-use allocation from the outset. We hope these results will spur attention to the continued improvement of land-use plans for the region. In particular, these results beg the question: Is simultaneous achievement of all stakeholder targets even possible in this region? And if land uses could be optimised for each strategy, which would give the best outcomes? Stay tuned – this question will be answered in an upcoming paper, which uses some super-exciting new developments for the Marxan software family! More info: Elizabeth Law [email protected] References *Law EA, Bryan BA, Torabi N, Bekessy SA, McAlpine CA & Wilson KA (2015a). Measurement matters in managing landscape carbon. Ecosystem Services 13: 6-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.07.007 Law EA, Bryan BA, Meijaard E, Mallawarachchi T, Struebig M, Wilson KA (2015b). Ecosystem services from a degraded peatland of Central Kalimantan: implications for policy, planning, and management. Ecological Applications 25: 70-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-2014.1 *Law EA, and Wilson KA. (2015c). Providing context for the landsharing and land-sparing debate. Conservation Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12168 *Law EA, Meijaard E, Bryan BA, Mallawarachchi T, Koh LP, Wilson KA (2015d). Better land-use allocation outperforms land sparing and land sharing approaches to conservation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biological Conservation 186: 276-286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.03.004

Micro dams are being constructed as part of the rehabilitation of degraded peatland. (Photo by Josh Esty)

* Available open access.

Decision Point #93 - December 2015

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When to act?

Setting conservation management thresholds By Prue Addison (Australian Institute of Marine Science), Kelly de Bie (Parks Victoria) and Libby Rumpff (University of Melbourne) Monitoring is routinely used by conservation managers to determine the state of the environmental values they are responsible for. That might be the numbers of a threatened species or the health of an ecosystem in a national park. When changes in condition are observed, decisions should be made about whether or not to intervene. It might be that the numbers of the threatened species have dropped to a level where this population requires assistance or the health of the ecosystem deteriorates and needs some form of intervention.

Why set management thresholds? Management thresholds are changes that ‘trigger’ a manager to do something, to actively intervene in the system they are responsible for. They are a useful tool to inform decision-makers about when undesirable environmental changes require management intervention. Management thresholds are commonly used in natural resource management like fisheries and water quality management, but they are not so common in conservation. The consequences of not having a threshold to trigger action can be dire. There have been instances where programs have monitored species of conservation value until they became extinct without triggering an adequate or timely intervention (consider the recent extinction of the Christmas Island pipistrelle, see Decision Point #60). Instances such as these highlight the critical need for a proactive form of conservation management, where management thresholds and associated management actions are defined a priori, rather than reacting to unexpected future ecosystem changes.

Management thresholds for the real world There are existing approaches to setting conservation management thresholds, including identifying thresholds of potential concern, statistical thresholds, and decision thresholds. However, one single approach to setting management thresholds will not be suitable for all contexts, as conservation decisions often involve different circumstances that will require different tools and approaches. When working with Parks Victoria to improve the management of a Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park, we found ourselves in need of an approach to develop management thresholds that (1) must be set for environmental indicators in the face of multiple competing objectives; (2) need to incorporate scientific understanding and value judgments; and, (3) involve participants in the process with limited modelling experience. In response to these needs we devised a new participatory modelling approach for setting management thresholds that was suitable for this decision context.

Figure 1: The steps of the participatory modelling process and recommended techniques to set management thresholds. The approach we devised follows the steps of structured decisionmaking, a process that is very useful in supporting multi-objective conservation decision-making (see Decision Point #74 for a range of articles on structured decision-making). In addition to incorporating scientific knowledge and value judgments into decision-making, structured decision-making promotes the involvement of decision makers, stakeholders, and experts in the decision-making process. Our approach uses a novel combination of modelling techniques to set conservation management thresholds (Figure 1).

Thresholds for a brown alga

Rocky intertidal reefs in Victoria, Australia, with a close up of the brown alga, Hormosira banksii. (Photo by Museum Victoria)

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In Addison et al, (2015) we describe this participatory modelling approach to set management thresholds, and illustrate its application using a case study where management thresholds were set for an intertidal mat-forming brown alga, Hormosira banksii (Figure 2), in Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park. (The alga is commonly known as Neptune’s necklace.)

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There is a critical need for a proactive form of

conservation management, where management thresholds and associated management actions are defined a priori, rather than reacting to unexpected future ecosystem changes.

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Figure 2: The ecological scenarios developed using scenario planning, representing the current condition (70% cover), and plausible declines in percent cover of Hormosira (42%, 30% and 15% cover) that may occur under increased threatening processes in the future. Monitoring data shows the current condition of Hormosira (solid blue line).

Management staff and scientists were involved in a workshop to test the approach, and set management thresholds to address the threat of trampling by visitors to an intertidal rocky reef. Managers were faced with a multi-objective problem, which ultimately involved a trade-off between a fundamental environmental objective, to maintain the condition of intertidal reef communities, with social and economic objectives to ensure management intervention did not detract from the visitor experience and was cost-effective. A key part of our approach is to define potential future condition states of the primary ecological indicator, referred to as ecological scenarios. In this case we used scenario planning to define scenarios that represent the current condition, and plausible declines in percent cover of Hormosira that may occur under increased threatening processes in the future (Figure 3). Workshop participants defined the fundamental objectives for the management of the intertidal reef, which were to: maximize rocky intertidal reef communities (represented by the proxy indicator, H. banksii cover), minimize resources spent on management, maximize visitor satisfaction, and maximize visitor numbers to the intertidal reef. They then defined four discrete management alternatives, each made up of a set of individual actions, and estimated the consequence of these alternatives on the objectives for each ecological scenario. A weighted additive model was used to aggregate participants’ consequence estimates. Model outputs (decision scores) clearly expressed uncertainty (Figure 3), which can be considered by decision-makers and used to inform where to set management thresholds. The threshold and ‘preferred’ management strategy will depend on the decision-maker’s risk attitude, and may vary with different decision contexts. In Figure 3 for example, a risk averse decision maker may operate under the status-quo alternative, but set a

Figure 4: The medium protection management threshold implementation range (amber shading) for Hormosira informed by decision scores in Figure 3. The ecological scenarios are represented by the four horizontal lines (as presented in Figure 2).

management threshold at 42% cover to trigger a change to the medium protection management alternative, because it is now the preferred alternative (has the highest lower-bound decision score). This can then inform the range within which the management threshold would be set for the medium protection alternative (between 15 – 42% cover of H. banksii; Figure 4). The final decision to set a management threshold will reflect a decision makers’ risk tolerance associated with the decision context. A risk-averse decision maker will set a management threshold toward the maximum value of the implementation range, whereas a risk-seeking decision maker may set a management threshold toward the minimum value of the implementation range. Long-term monitoring data should be regularly evaluated against management thresholds. If a management threshold is breached, the associated management action should be implemented. If a management threshold has not been breached, monitoring should continue under the preferred management. The learn-and-review feedback loops (Figure 1) encourage the continual improvement through clarifying uncertainty associated with model parameters, evaluating the true effectiveness of management interventions, and revising the decision context where necessary. More info: Prue Addison [email protected] Note: This research was part of Prue Addison’s PhD at the University of Melbourne. She is now a postdoc at AIMS. Reference

Figure 3: The performance of the four management alternatives under the ecological scenarios representing the current condition (70% cover) and three plausible states of reduced cover of Hormosira (42%, 30%, & 15% cover).

Addison PFE, K de Bie & L Rumpff (2015). Setting conservation management thresholds using a novel participatory modelling approach. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12544. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12544/epdf

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Climate extremes impact nectar and fruit availability

And that has consequences for all birds and mammals that depend on them By Nathalie Butt, Leonie Seabrook, Jozef Syktus and Clive McAlpine (University of Queensland) The impacts of climate change on species are well-recognised and, in many cases, already happening. These impacts include shifts in species’ distributions and changes in productivity. These changes in productivity can be driven by longer growing seasons in mid to high latitudes, in response to increasing temperatures. Climate change however, is more than a shift in average temperature and rainfall; it also drives extremes – a result of more complex weather and climate events. Changes in the frequency and intensity of these events are early signals of climate change, and the most recent projections (from the IPCC and elsewhere) show that the frequency and intensity of climate extremes will increase during the current century. Extreme events can significantly affect biodiversity on differing time scales. Heatwaves killing populations of flying foxes, or cyclonic winds and floods destroying beaches and turtle nests are examples of immediate impacts. But extreme events can also result in longerterm disruption, by causing changes in phenology, the timing of life history events such as nectar and fruit production. Droughts, for example, can lead to delays and reductions in seasonal flowering and fruiting, while increases in heavy rainfall over a long period can result in flower or fruit drop.

Extreme nectar Changes in nectar, flower and fruit production, in terms of their timing, quality and quantity, will of course affect the animals that rely on these food resources. In tropical and sub-tropical forests across the world, many species are obligate nectarivores or frugivores. Or, in plainer language, these species have a specialized diet and only eat these tree products (nectar or fruit). Almost a third of the world’s terrestrial birds rely directly on flowers, fruit or seed for food. Even for facultative nectarivores and frugivores (animals who can eat more than just nectar and fruit but have diets rich in these items) they are an important dietary component – especially at specific times of the year. For instance, fruit is a fundamental food resource for monkeys throughout the tropics and sub-tropics. When food is scarce, which can happen on a regular, seasonal, basis, frugivores use diet-switching or change their foraging range patterns to compensate. Impacts of climate extremes on the vertebrate fauna that depend on these food resources is a global problem, but also very relevant to

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It is likely that increases in rainfall variability and intensity, and extreme temperatures may result in less-reliable and more spatially-dispersed nectar and fruit resources.

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Australia with our highly variable climate and widespread extreme events. Flowering and nectar production in many Australian eucalypt ecosystems are cued by episodic events such as drought, or flooding rains, or a sequence of dry followed by wet, and many different fauna species depend on these cycles of food availability. However, heatwaves are known to reduce the regularity of prolific flowering in many species, and one tree species important for many nectarivorous bird and mammal species, Corymbia maculata, spotted gum, is known to produce less nectar per flower after a run of high temperatures. Drought can also reduce nectar production, and in Australia’s tropical savannas, plant-available moisture in the dry season is determined by rainfall in the preceding wet season: if this is lower than average, nectar availability in the dry season will be reduced. Trees in the Myrtaceae family, which includes guava and melaleuca as well as eucalypts, are essential sources for pollen and nectar for a diverse range of Australian fauna. Specialist nectarivores, such as the marsupial honey possum and the squirrel glider, are highly vulnerable to seasonal variations in nectar availability – these variations are likely to fluctuate even more in future. As well as directly affecting the health and productivity of the species that depend on these resources, climate extremes could also result in changes in species interactions and knock-on effects on ecosystem function and productivity, including tree and forest regeneration (think of the seed dispersal and pollination services animals provide).

Future nectar So what do we know about the future? The seasonality and interannual- to decadal-scale variability of rainfall and temperature

Sugar gliders, lorikeets and (following page) ring-tailed lemurs and fig birds are all nectarivores or frugivores meaning they could be impacted by the impact of climate extremes on their food sources.

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Figure 1: Changes in key climate-extreme variables in six global regions: (l-r) Western Latin America; the Amazon basin; West Africa; East Africa; southern India & Southeast Asia; Australasia. The scale of change on the y-axis varies between -8 and +10 and relates to the relevant variable eg, °C for temperature or number of days for rainfall > 20 mm per day. The information is derived from the CMIP5 climate are already changing, as are the frequency and intensity of extreme events (see Figure 1). It is not clear exactly how tree reproductive phenology will change in response, but it is likely that increases in rainfall variability and intensity, and extreme temperatures may result in less-reliable and more spatially-dispersed nectar and fruit resources. This will affect both mammals and birds. Changes in animal species assemblages may in turn affect ecosystem function, and this could lead to a cascade of local extinctions. We do not have detailed knowledge of the underlying response mechanism in many cases, however, and so don’t know exactly how resource availability will be affected. The lack of knowledge means that there is scope for research to help quantify the potential impacts, in several areas. We should: 1. Focus on understanding the spatial and temporal relationships between climate events and resource bottlenecks and their effect on the animals that rely on them (see Maron et al, 2015); 2. Focus on the biodiversity impacts of climate extremes rather than changes in mean climate alone; 3. Carry out biome-specific studies of the impact of extremes, including establishing critical thresholds – how will these impacts vary in different places and in different ecosystems?

extremes ensemble data for ‘business-as-usual’ RCP 8.5 scenario, 1980-2000 compared with 2080-2100 for: Annual maximum value of daily maximum temperature (Celsius); Simple precipitation intensity index (mm/days/year); Annual count of days when rain > 20 mm (days/year); Maximum number of consecutive dry days (days/year).

4. Take account of how the interaction of climate and non-climate stressors, for example landscape fragmentation, could trigger cascading changes to forests and animals. Climate change is often discussed in terms of what it might mean for agriculture and our capacity to feed a growing human population. Maybe it’s time we started thinking beyond our own needs to consider the consequences of climate change on the food supplies of those species dependent on forest nectar and fruit across the world. More info: Nathalie Butt [email protected] References Butt N, L Seabrook, M Maron, BL Law, TP Dawson, J Syktus & C McAlpine (2015). Cascading effects of climate extremes on vertebrate fauna through changes to low-latitude tree flowering and fruiting phenology. Global Change Biology doi: 10.1111/gcb.12869 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12869/abstract Maron M, CA McAlpine, JEM Watson, S Maxwell & P Barnard (2015). Climate-induced resource bottlenecks exacerbate species vulnerability: a review. Diversity and Distributions 21: 731–743. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12339/full

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Risk = [Exposure x Vulnerability] x Hazard Why interactions between climate and landscape change matter for conservation priorities By Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) It was becoming increasingly clear that an approach to conservation that deals with threats one by one without considering how those threats interact is inadequate when biodiversity is threatened by multiple, co-occurring stressors. For example, in Decision Point #57 I showed how species in areas with high temperatures and where average rainfall has decreased over time will likely suffer greater impacts from habitat loss fragmentation. Three years on, EDG researchers have now taken this understanding of synergistic interactions one step further, and assessed the future risk of global biodiversity loss due to climate change and landcover interactions. Understanding the role of multiple stressors (eg, climate change and habitat loss) on biodiversity is essential for identifying policy responses and managing the impact of global change on biodiversity. Our study addresses this critical issue and provides new insights into global investment in conservation priority ‘hotspots’. The team from UQ (CEED), CSIRO, Microsoft Research, University of Saskatchewan, and the Sapienza University of Rome ran a risk analysis to model the interaction between habitat loss and climate to quantify the implications of these interactions on birds and mammals globally. Climate scenarios for the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change were used along with the projected land-cover change scenarios of human development from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The vulnerability model depended on climate projections according to an empirical model derived from a previous global meta-analysis (see Decision Point #57). Risk was calculated as the number of species of birds and mammals impacted by habitat loss from future land-cover change with and without the interaction (Figure 1).

Impacts on mammals and birds Our analysis found that climate change will exacerbate the risk of mammal and bird declines due to future land-cover change by up to 24% for mammals and 43% for birds. Orange and dark red in Figure 2 indicate areas where the interaction between climate change and habitat loss increases in risk from future land-cover change, whereas

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Climate change will exacerbate the risk of mammal and bird declines due to future land-cover change by up to 24% for mammals and 43% for birds.

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light to dark green indicate areas where risk either declines or remains unchanged. Birds are systematically more impacted because the effects of climate on vulnerability is relatively larger than they are for mammals. Risk for mammals and birds increases the most in areas where temperature change is predicted to increase the most. In contrast, risk declines most in areas where mean precipitation is expected to increase the most. We also revealed that 15–32% of terrestrial biodiversity hotspots change by their ranking when they are ranked according to their risk of species impacted with and without interactions.

Is this important for decision-making? Such an interaction may modify the spatial patterns of declines and lead to shifts in conservation priorities that would otherwise be missed if they are ignored. For example, if the outcome of an interaction is negative in your conservation area of interest, there may be opportunities to reduce the impacts through adaptation strategies or actions such as increasing habitat quality and extent. For communities that are unlikely to be able to migrate to suitable environments elsewhere (eg, alpine and freshwater communities), it may be possible to minimize interactions through the protection or installation of climate refuges or buffer strips or by manipulating

Vulnerability model

(Mantyka-Pringle et al, 2012)

Risk model

(Mantyka-Pringle et al, 2015)

Figure 1: The steps taken to calculate the risk of biodiversity loss from habitat loss.

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Our ever changing landscapes: pictured here is a mural in the town of Sheffield in Tasmania showing a Tasmanian landscape with the now extinct Tasmanian tiger and the threatened Tasmanian devil. The Tasmanian tiger went extinct due to a number of stresses including over hunting, habitat loss and disease. Dealing with any of these threats individually probably wouldn’t have saved this species just as dealing with climate change or land-cover change separately may not save many of today’s threatened species into the future. The key lies in understanding the interactions between the multiple stressors. (Photo by Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle)

Figure 2: A map showing the effect of the interaction between climate change and habitat loss on the risk of species being impacted from future land-cover change (and across biodiversity hotspots) for

vegetation structure, composition, or disturbance regimes (see Mantyka-Pringle et al, 2014 and Decision Point #78). Other adaptation strategies may include translocating vulnerable species to novel habitats, altering fire regimes, or mitigating other threats such as invasive species, habitat fragmentation and pollution. Policy-makers and planners should therefore optimize management actions as well as protected area placement in areas where biodiversity and endangered species are at most risk. In contrast, if the outcome of an interaction is positive, limited conservation effort may be warranted and scarce resources can be re-allocated to other regions identified as priorities for conservation. The take away message from our analysis is that conservation efforts need to take into account the interaction between a changing climate and land-cover change if we are to develop cost-effective conservation policies and strategies. More info: Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle [email protected] References Mantyka-Pringle C, TG Martin & JR Rhodes (2012). Interactions between climate and habitat loss effects on biodiversity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Global Change Biology 18:1239-1252. Mantyka-Pringle CS, TG Martin, DB Moffatt, S Linke & JR Rhodes (2014). Understanding and Predicting the Combined Effects of Climate Change and Land-Use Change on Freshwater Macroinvertebrates and Fish. Journal of Applied Ecology 51: 572-581. Mantyka-Pringle CS, P Visconti, M Di Marco, TG Martin, C Rondinini & JR Rhodes (2015). Climate change modifies risk of global biodiversity loss due to land-cover change. Biological Conservation 187: 103111. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320715001615

terrestrial mammals and birds. Values represent the percent change in the number of species affected after considering the interaction with climate for different climate change and land-cover change scenarios.

Climate change AND land-cover change Climate change can interact with land-cover change by exacerbating the impact of habitat loss and fragmentation on biodiversity. It does this by increasing the susceptibility of fragmented biological populations to extinction risks connected with random events (like fires or disease outbreaks). Climate change can also hinder the ability of species to cope with modified land-cover. If climate change depresses population sizes or causes increased variability in population dynamics, for example as a consequence of increased incidents of extreme events, then habitat networks may require larger patches and improved connectivity to maintain populations. Loss and fragmentation of habitat may also hinder the movement of species and their ability to cope with climate change through tracking of suitable climatic conditions. Even relatively intact landscapes are at risk, particularly where landscape heterogeneity is low, forcing species to move potentially large distances to track suitable climatic conditions. Population responses to extreme climatic events, such as fire and flooding, are also likely to be affected by habitat quality, area and heterogeneity. Interactions between climate change and landcover change may therefore be widespread phenomena and have the potential to fundamentally alter the magnitude and spatial patterns of declines in biodiversity.

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News Marxan goes to Barcelona

The Tulloch twins take the world’s most used conservation planning software to Spain Marxan, the world’s most popular conservation planning software has just made landfall in Barcelona, Spain. She wasn’t on holiday (Marxan’s creators like to think of the program as ‘she’), she was there for work, being introduced to a group of postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, conservation practitioners and academics from France, Italy, Spain, Ecuador and South Africa. The introductory Marxan workshop will hopefully lead to better environmental decision-making in all of these countries. “This is the first time the ‘Spatial Conservation Planning with Marxan’ course has ever been run in Barcelona,” says Ayesha Tulloch, a CEED Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University. “The five-day course provided the participants with the knowledge necessary to use Marxan, as well as advanced skills in applying systematic conservation-planning software to solve different kinds of conservation problems.”

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We allowed participants a firstever glimpse of exciting new ways to incorporate uncertainty in our data or in threats into decisions using ‘Marxan with Probability’.

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Marxan is more than a single software program, it’s a suite of decision-support tools originally designed by Ian Ball and Hugh Possingham in 2000. Its flexibility and ease of use (not to mention the fact that it is free) has made it the world’s most-used software for supporting the design of marine and terrestrial reserves and allocating scarce conservation resources. Holding the course in Spain is part of an ongoing program of Marxan introductions that has seen the international community of Marxan-users blossom. Over 7000 environmental professionals in more than 180 countries are regularly using Marxan. Its application has influenced how humans manage 5% of the Earth’s surface. The course in Barcelona was run by Ayesha and her twin sister, Vivitskaia, a CEED Doctoral student at the University of Queensland. It was run with the support of Transmitting Science (www. transmittingscience.org), a Spanish science education company established to improve the science capacity of the region. “It was fantastic presenting the course in Barcelona to such an eager and diverse audience,” says Ayesha. “Using both marine and terrestrial conservation planning examples and hands-on exercises from CEED research, we showed participants how to solve important basic planning problems of where to place protected areas given limited conservation budgets. “Participants then went on to solve more advanced and realistic planning problems of deciding where to undertake different management actions when there are multiple objectives such as achieving both biodiversity protection and minimizing the loss of income to local stakeholders such as farmers or fishers.”

International participants in the ‘Spatial Conservation Planning with Marxan’ course. Ayesha is on the right in the back row. Vivitskaia is seated on the left. Using MarZone, one of the advanced applications of Marxan, participants were able to identify configurations of sites that contribute to a range of management objectives by accommodating different types of activities. Participants were excited by the range in functionality of MarZone for supporting their own local and regional planning problems, including research along the Mediterranean coastline to achieve a balance of protection and economic objectives in the face of competing fishing, development and extraction. “One problem we constantly have to deal with in environmental decision making is uncertainty,” says Vivitskaia. “When trying to decide where we should protect or manage declining biodiversity we are often uncertain where exactly the species are located, and how different threatening processes such as climate change, infrastructure development or invasive species, might impact them. “In our course we allowed participants a first-ever glimpse of exciting new ways to incorporate uncertainty in our data or in threats into decisions using ‘Marxan with Probability’.” In addition to forming valuable new collaborations between CEED and academics from around the world, workshop participants went away with a broad suite of tools for addressing different types of planning problems, and a new passion for more effective environmental decision making. More info: Ayesha Tulloch [email protected]

Ayesha Tulloch introduces the first ‘Spatial Conservation Planning with Marxan’ course ever to be run in Barcelona.

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Marxan: http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan/ and check out the new Marxan prospectus: http://ceed.edu.au/images/Documents/Marxan_ SponsorshipProspectus_Final_Spreads_web.pdf

More to marine biodiversity than GBR

Dbytes

Two CEED researchers have made a plea for a review of the Commonwealth marine protected areas around Australia to be more representative. Jennifer McGowan and Hugh Possingham have recently posted an editorial on the National Geographic blogsite pointing out Australia has a big opportunity to better conserve our marine natural heritage.

Dbytes is EDG’s internal eNewsletter. It gets sent to members and associates of EDG each week, and consists of small snippets of information relating to environmental decision making. They might be government documents, research articles, blogs or reports from other research groups. Here are six bytes from recent issues. If you would like to receive the Dbytes eNewsletter, email [email protected]

The researchers bemoan the fact that many people can’t see beyond the Great Barrier Reef when it comes to our magnificent marine biodiversity.

1. Policy advice: Use experts wisely

“Yes, the Great Barrier Reef is important, but let’s not forget about protecting the rest of our marine estate,” says McGowan. “As it happens, Australia’s network of marine protected areas is currently under review so the time is right to make a stand.” See the blog at http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/16/ a-big-opportunity-to-conserve-australias-marine-natural-heritage/

Policymakers are ignoring evidence on how advisers make judgements and predictions, warn William J. Sutherland and Mark A. Burgman. Sutherland WJ & M Burgman (2015). Nature 526: 317–318; (15 October 2015) http://www.nature.com/news/policy-advice-use-experts-wisely-1.18539

2. Priorities for effective feral cat management Predation by feral cats is one of the greatest threats facing Australia’s unique and irreplaceable fauna. In April, Australia’s leading feral cat researchers and managers met at the 2015 National Feral Cat Workshop to determine how to effectively protect our native fauna through feral cat management. http://www.pestsmart.org.au/2015-national-feral-cat-management-workshopproceedings/

3. Acting now on long-term monitoring

A giant cuttlefish on Australia’s Great Southern Reef. (Photo by Catlin Seaview Survey).

Tackling illegal wildlife trade – a theory of change

Engaging local communities is recognised as a key approach to tackling the trade in illegal wildlife. But how is such engagement done effectively? A new report led by CEED Research Fellow Duan Biggs has developed a ‘theory of change’ that seeks to answer this challenge. The report, Engaging local communities in tackling illegal wildlife trade. Can a ‘theory of change’ help? is a co-production of the International Institute for Environment and Development (iied), the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi) and CEED. Poaching and the associated illegal wildlife trade are devastating populations of iconic species such as rhinos, elephants and tigers, as well as a host of lesser known species. Current approaches to tackling the problem focus on law enforcement, reducing market demand and supporting local communities that live in and around regions where the poaching takes place. To date, most attention has been paid to the first two approaches with relatively limited attention given to the third. The reason is that, while people agree we need to engage local communities in order to tackle illegal trade in wildlife effectively, they don’t know what to do, or how to do it.

In 2050, which aspects of ecosystem change will we regret not having measured? New research, completed thanks to TERN’s Long Term Ecological Research Network and recently published in the journal Austral Ecology, has assessed what needs to be done to meet Australia’s ecological information needs by 2050 and what long-term infrastructure will be required. http://www.tern.org.au/2050-Ecological-Crunch-Time-bgp3834.html

4. NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub final report The 2011-2015 Final Report of the National Environmental Research Program Marine Biodiversity Hub is now available online, as well as in hard copy. http://www.nespmarine.edu.au/news/nerp-marine-biodiversity-hub-final-reportpublished

5. New campaign highlights Great Dividing Range The Australian Conservation Foundation has launched a new campaign to focus attention on the Great Dividing Range’s importance to life in eastern Australia – and on threats to the range’s beauty and health.

6. Aust climate change policy: a chronology Australia’s commitment to climate action over the past three decades could be seen as inconsistent and lacking in direction. This Parliamentary Library chronology provide the best summary around of what actually occurred. A must read for any student in policy http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/ Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/ClimateChron

See the report: http://www.iied.org/how-can-we-engagecommunities-help-reduce-illegal-wildlife-trade

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For peat’s sake The peat swamp forest in the south of Kalimantan is an unusual ecosystem that is home to many unique or rare species such as orangutans. It consists of diverse range of tropical trees standing on a layer of peat up to10-12m deep. The peat is partly decayed and waterlogged plant material, and it in turn covers relatively infertile soil. Peat is a major store of carbon, and provides complex regulation of local hydrology: like a sponge, peatlands soak up excess rain in the wet seasons, and let it out gradually in dry seasons. Peat swamp forests may take several centuries to regenerate (and this is only possible when conditions are conducive).

ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONS GROUP A peat swamp forest in Kalimantan. (Photo by Ruanda Agung Sugardiman) In 1996 the Indonesian government initiated the Mega Rice Project, which aimed to convert one million hectares of peat swamp forest to rice paddies, by clearing and draining the peat swamp forest. Where the forests had frequently flooded up to 2m deep in the rainy season, now their surface is often tinder dry, and nearby agriculture is subject to a cruel regime of floods and droughts. While government has abandoned the Project, the drying peat remains vulnerable to fires which continue to break out on a massive scale. In addition to the loss of biodiversity and release of large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, the cleared and drained peat forests have released acid run off into the surrounding rivers reducing fish catches up to 150km upstream from the river mouth. The Project region is now the focus of a global effort to reduce carbon emissions, with concurrent goals of reducing poverty through agricultural development, while also conserving and rehabilitating the biodiversity that’s left. The region is also a focus for widespread oil-palm development, and forestry activities. How do you reconcile all these expectations? How do you sustain the different environmental values (real and potential) embedded in this landscape? Elizabeth Law has been asking these very questions and you can read about what’s she’s found in our story on page 6.

The Environmental Decision Group (EDG) 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, RMIT University and CSIRO. Decision Point is the magazine of the EDG. Decision Point is jointly funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and the National Environmental Science Programme’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub. The funding of the research presented in this issue of Decision Point, like most research, comes from multiple sources and is identified in the original papers on which the stories are based (references are provided in each story). In terms of CEED and the National Environmental Research Program Environmental Decisions Hub (NERP), the research on bias and NRM (p4,5) was supported by CEED; the work on trade-offs between land-use policy (p6,7) was supported by CEED and NERP; the research involving decision thresholds (p8,9) was supported by CEED and NERP; the paper on climate change and phenology (p10,11) was supported by CEED; and the study on climate change and landscape change (p12,13) was supported by CEED. To contact us, please visit our websites at: http://ceed.edu.au/ or http://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/

Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions

A satellite image of fires burning on cleared and drained peat forests in 2006. (Image by NASA, Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team)

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