Download Leathwick - New Zealand Institute of Forestry

Prioritising DOC’s ecosystem
and species management
John Leathwick
Shared Services Centre,
Department of Conservation,
Hamilton
Roadmap…
• The context
• Prioritizing ecosystems
• Adding species
• The implementation challenge
Broad goals…
• Tied to the NZ Biodiversity Strategy
– Under UN Convention on Biological Diversity
– Bipartisan both in authorship and political support
– Providing stable policy direction
• Goal 3 – work beyond reservation
– Maintain and restore a full range of remaining
ecosystems to a healthy functioning state
– Maintain and restore populations of all indigenous
species and subspecies
• Incorporated in DOC’s statement of intent
Reviewed in 2005…
• Some progress but
– Insufficient evidence of ‘turning the tide’
– Lack of systematic monitoring
• Called for
– “an overarching framework or model that defines
more explicit targets related to sustaining
representative examples of the full range of
ecosystems”
• Generally smart about ‘how to do’
– Less so about ‘where to do it…’
A new set of tools…
• Systematic conservation planning
– Approaches to maximising conservation outcomes
under constrained resources
• Margules & Pressey (Nature, 2000)
• Initial focussed on reserve selection
– Which sites should we protect?
• Increasing sophistication/practicality
– Focus shifting to ‘What should we manage?”
The Department’s journey…
• Initially a conceptual focus
– Regional trials of tools to prioritise projects
• Species focussed work
– A bespoke ‘cut-down’ model
– Focussed on species coverage and institutional uptake
• Our current approach
– Based more around off-the-shelf tools
– Explicit integration of ecosystem and species strands
Roadmap…
• The context
• Prioritizing ecosystems
• Adding species
• The implementation challenge
Our conservation heritage…
• A wealth of understanding – 1970s
– Nicholls – Ecological Area network – NZFS
– Kelly – Botany Division – DSIR
– Mirrored in subsequent international writings
• E.g., Christenson et al.’s ESA review
• Manage a network of large sites
– Sequences of related ecosystems
– Collectively representing the full range
Representative ecosystems…
• Requires a catalogue
– No universally accepted national classification
– Limited mapping of ecosystem patterns
• ‘Representativeness’
– New Zealand’s definition focused on single sites
• Internationally…
– The ability of a group of sites to collectively represent
the biodiversity values of a broader landscape
Representativeness…
• A team selection problem
– Requires a range of skills
• Next player selected depends on
– Those already in the team
• Early approaches based on scoring
– Assess individual site values and then sort in order
• Doesn’t work!
– Requires an iterative selection process
• Site value is updated as selection proceeds
Implementation…
• A set of around 1000 Ecosystem
Management Units (EMUs)
– Range in size 1–30,000 ha – average = 3500 ha
– Cover around 30% of Public Conservation Land
• Some land of other tenures
• Ecosystems described using
– A synthesis of published vegetation community
descriptions
• Singers & Rogers
– Organised within a bioclimatic framework
Our aim…
• “A healthy functioning state”
– Normal structure, composition and function
• Threats are mostly imported
– Browsers, predators, weeds
– Humans – dogs, 4WDs, rubbish, clearance,
• Model relating
– Ecological integrity to pressures
– Threat impacts vary across ecosystems, e.g.,
• Possums more damaging in broadleaved forests
• Wilding pines more damaging in tussock grasslands
Management actions…
• Designed to reduce
– Impacts of a full range of significant threats
• Leibeg’s law of the minimum
– Some threats remain technically difficult
• E.g., mice in mainland sites, water quality issues
• Prescriptions developed by
operations staff
– Those implementing are best qualified to design
– Supported by independent moderation and peer review
Typical spatial data…
Multi-stage prioritisation…
• Ranks sites in order
– Primarily based on their ability to achieve
representation of a full range of ecosystems
• Best-condition examples
• Rankings then fine tuned
– Collateral benefits for threatened species
– Protecting existing management gains
– Cost effectiveness
• All added with controlled influence
• Implemented in ‘Zonation’
– Developed by Atte Moilanen, University of Helsinki
A stepwise analysis…
Step one
Z initial analysis
Ecosystem layers
+ condition layer
Assess group
representation in R
Adjust wts in layer
list and re -run Z
Step two
Step three
Step four
Z – add species
Z – add mgmt. loss/gain
Z – add costs
Repeats with
species weights
of 0.1, 0.2…0.5
Repeats with
retention weights
of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20
Repeat with
cost transformed
to varying degrees
Assess ecosystem
representation
versus species
Assess ecosystem
representation
versus difference
made
Assess ecosystem
representation
versus cost
Typical priorities…
Top 400 sites…
• Contain 30% of EMUs by area
– Include examples of a full range of ecosystems
– Operational costs of $19m to manage
• Analysis process delivers
– 13% increase in threatened species coverage
– Higher priority for existing good condition sites
• e.g., Moehau, Te Urewera
– 19% reduction in costs for top 30% of sites
• Allows expansion of work by nearly 25%
Roadmap…
• The context
• Prioritizing ecosystems
• Adding species
• The implementation challenge
Adding species to the mix…
• In an ideal world…
– Assemble ecosystem and species layers
– Identify management actions and costs for each
– Prioritise to identify optimal set of sites and actions to
implement…
• The reality…
– Computationally beyond our reach at present
– Difficult to assign cost and benefit
– Species vary widely in their overlaps with ecosystems
and each other
DOC’s history…
• Run independently
– Up until eighteen months ago
– Increasing disquiet about duplication of effort
• E.g., Kauri & kiwi at Waipoua & Trounson
• Trialled the addition of species info
– Assessed both the ecosystems and species occurring
within EMUs
– Substantial gains for many species at no cost
• Although some will still require additional work
Two-stage prioritisation…
• Ecosystems work prioritised first
– Managing a representative range of ecosystems
an efficient way to protect many species
• The fence at the top of the cliff…
• Species work prioritised second
– Where possible, manage at sites already receiving
ecosystem management
– Identify their additional management requirements
• The ambulance at the bottom of the cliff…
Two parallel strands…
Species strand
Ecosystem strand
Ecosystem spatial data
management units
1 or more ecosystems
Partially
overlapping
units
Species spatial data
management sites
1 or more species
Zonation analysis to
maximise ecosystem
representation
Zonation analysis to
maximise species
representation
Adjust rankings using
species information
Adjust rankings using
ecosystem
ecosystem information
rankings
Adjust rankings using
current condition
‘difference
made’ estimates
estimates
Adjust rankings using
current achievement
‘difference
made’ estimates
estimates
Adjust rankings using
cost estimates
Adjust rankings using
cost estimates
Aligned with threat listing…
• Regular review of species status
– Experts for taxonomic groups
– Assemble a wealth of additional information
• Population trends, distributions, etc.
• Focus management on species
– Under a high level of threat
– Confident of the feasibility of management
• For other species…
– Monitoring, distributional survey, taxonomic review or
investigate causes of decline
The process…
• Overlay distributions onto EMUs
– Or identify additional sites where required
• Build species prescriptions
– Additional work for all threatened species present
• Additional in kind or intensity
• Prioritise EMUs for species
– Sites where joint ecosystem and species work delivers
maximum gains
• Or new sites where species management is required
independent of ecosystems work
Typical species data…
Roadmap…
• The context
• Prioritizing ecosystems
• Adding species
• The implementation challenge
Implementation…
• Potentially major gains in efficiency
– Currently integrating ecosystem and species
• Longer term
– Manage sites for multiple benefits
• Ecosystems, species, iconic, historic, recreation, etc.
• Maximise people’s connection with biodiversity
• Major institutional challenges
– Previously high levels of local delegation
– Any centralized planning is questioned
• New structure will more explicitly support
A well documented problem…
• Shift from supply to demand-driven
– Knight et al. in Moilanen et al. 2009
• Spatial Conservation Prioritization (Oxford Uni. Press)
• Requires consilience
–
–
–
–
The fusion of knowledge traditions (Wilson 1998)
Bringing together all institutional players
Clear articulation of goals, purposes and constraints
Building a system that is not “yours” or “mine”
• But “ours”!
Overall…
• A pragmatic approach to a difficult
problem
– Requiring a large number of tradeoffs
• On-the-run with minimal time and resources for
comparative testing
• Achieving the Biodiversity Strategy?
– Not yet
– But a significant step forwards!
• Provided that we can find the necessary resources