Could European marine conservation policy benefit from systematic conservation planning?

Incremental increases to marine conservation areas in response to changing goals, policy, threats or new information are common practice worldwide. Ningaloo Reef, in north-western Australia, is protected by the Ningaloo Marine Park (state waters), which was expanded incrementally in 2004 so that 34% of the park now comprises ‘no-take’ sanctuary zones. To test the hypothesis that all habitats (benthic cover types) at Ningaloo are actually protected at this 34% level, a systematic conservation planning exercise was conducted using existing broad-scale habitat data (as a surrogate for marine biodiversity) and C-Plan decision-support software. Although subtidal and intertidal coral communities were found to be adequately protected, other habitats, particularly those in deeper waters seaward of the reef, did not attain the 34% target. Efficient incremental additions to the sanctuary zones to allow increased representation of these under-represented habitats were explored with C-Plan. It is recommended that systematic conservation planning incorporating new biodiversity and social information (now becoming available) be undertaken for the next iteration of the Ningaloo Marine Park management plan. This analysis at Ningaloo Reef serves as a useful example of a post hoc systematic approach to guide incremental expansion of existing marine protected areas in other parts of the world.

Download Full-text

Global synthesis of conservation studies reveals the importance of small habitat patches for biodiversity

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1813051115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 116 (3) ◽

pp. 909-914 ◽

Cited By ~ 79

Author(s):

Brendan A. Wintle ◽

Heini Kujala ◽

Amy Whitehead ◽

Alison Cameron ◽

Sam Veloz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Island Biogeography ◽

Conservation Policy ◽

Conservation Value ◽

Systematic Conservation Planning ◽

Island Size ◽

Habitat Patches ◽

Island Biogeography Theory ◽

The Relationship ◽

Conservation Decisions

Island biogeography theory posits that species richness increases with island size and decreases with isolation. This logic underpins much conservation policy and regulation, with preference given to conserving large, highly connected areas, and relative ambivalence shown toward protecting small, isolated habitat patches. We undertook a global synthesis of the relationship between the conservation value of habitat patches and their size and isolation, based on 31 systematic conservation planning studies across four continents. We found that small, isolated patches are inordinately important for biodiversity conservation. Our results provide a powerful argument for redressing the neglect of small, isolated habitat patches, for urgently prioritizing their restoration, and for avoiding simplistic application of island biogeography theory in conservation decisions.

Download Full-text

Of Whales and Dugongs: Examining the Rise of Colonial Conservation as Development in Madagascar’s Marine History

Environment and History ◽

10.3197/096734019x15755402985622 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Merrill Baker-Médard

Keyword(s):

Conservation Policy ◽

Marine Conservation ◽

Colonial Period ◽

Marine Resources ◽

Current Conservation ◽

Dual Purpose ◽

Local Resource ◽

Conservation And Development ◽

The Way

This work explores how colonial marine conservation policy in Madagascar had the dual purpose of facilitating the expansion of capital and ‘civilising’ the way Malagasy fishers used marine resources. I analyse how the legacy of narratives that emerged to bolster state-led conservation intervention during the colonial period are still present in current conservation and development narratives, perpetuating in some cases the coloniser–colonised relationship between conservation organisations and local resource users. These findings indicate a need to revamp certain aspects of marine conservation legislation in Madagascar and the need for conservation organisations to explicitly acknowledge this history when working with local resource users in order to avoid reproducing historical injustices.

Download Full-text

Incorporating putatively neutral and adaptive genomic data into marine conservation planning

Conservation Biology ◽

10.1111/cobi.13609 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Amanda Xuereb ◽

Cassidy C. D'Aloia ◽

Marco Andrello ◽

Louis Bernatchez ◽

Marie‐Josée Fortin

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Genomic Data ◽

Marine Conservation

Download Full-text

Applying systematic conservation planning to improve the allocation of restoration actions at multiple spatial scales

Restoration Ecology ◽

10.1111/rec.13403 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ben L. Gilby ◽

Andrew D. Olds ◽

Christopher J. Brown ◽

Rod M. Connolly ◽

Christopher J. Henderson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Systematic Conservation Planning ◽

Multiple Spatial Scales

Download Full-text

Systematic conservation planning in floodplain fisheries: To what extent are fishers’ needs captured in prioritisation models?

Fisheries Management and Ecology ◽

10.1111/fme.12236 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 24 (5) ◽

pp. 392-402 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

R. M. Chiaravalloti

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Systematic Conservation Planning ◽

Floodplain Fisheries

Download Full-text

INVESTIGATING CROSS CONGRUENCE BETWEEN BUTTERFLY TAXA AND ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SYSTEMATIC CONSERVATION PLANNING: A CASE STUDY FROM LESSER CAUCASUS ECOREGION OF TURKEY

European Journal of Ecology ◽

10.17161/eurojecol.v7i2.15042 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Banu Kaya özdemirel

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Biodiversity Conservation ◽

Site Selection ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Environmental Parameters ◽

Systematic Conservation Planning ◽

Ecological Community ◽

North Eastern ◽

Lesser Caucasus

Cross taxa congruence was investigated between butterfly taxa and ecological community for fine spatial scale (10 × 10 km² UTM grids) in north-eastern part of Turkey. The study area was evaluated within the scope of systematic conservation planning, and analyses were performed for sets of priority protected areas composed using complementarity-based site selection software Marxan. Cross taxa congruence was subsequently examined both in species richness and ecologic complementarity. Accordingly, it has been observed that the cross-taxon congruence between butterfly taxa and ecological community was relatively better than the results of previous studies. Another remarkable finding is that ecological community was a more robust surrogate than butterfly taxa. Although the results are valuable for conservation studies, they highlight the fact that a simple surrogate-based site selection would be inadequate to represent overall biodiversity. The weakness of congruence patterns among surrogates would also lead to gaps in biodiversity conservation. These findings therefore draw attention to the necessities of incorporating surrogates of distinct ecology or some other surrogates like environmental parameters into conservation planning. Otherwise, there may be mistakes regarding species representation and the vast majority of species may be misrepresented in protected areas and protected area plans. At this point, it should be emphasized that understating cross taxa congruence and/or relationships is a key component for efficient biodiversity conservation.

Download Full-text

Are trade-offs between flexibility and efficiency in systematic conservation planning avoidable ?

10.1101/775072 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Sabrine Drira ◽

Frida Ben Rais Lasram ◽

Tarek Hattab ◽

Yunne Jai Shin ◽

Amel Ben Rejeb Jenhani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Large Body ◽

Efficient Solutions ◽

Reserve Selection ◽

Systematic Conservation Planning ◽

Distribution Models ◽

Precise Control ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Selection Framework ◽

Selection Of

AbstractSpecies distribution models (SDMs) have been proposed as a way to provide robust inference about species-specific sites suitabilities, and have been increasingly used in systematic conservation planning (SCP) applications. However, despite the fact that the use of SDMs in SCP may raise some potential issues, conservation studies have overlooked to assess the implications of SDMs uncertainties. The integration of these uncertainties in conservation solutions requires the development of a reserve-selection approach based on a suitable optimization algorithm. A large body of research has shown that exact optimization algorithms give very precise control over the gap to optimality of conservation solutions. However, their major shortcoming is that they generate a single binary and indivisible solution. Therefore, they provide no flexibility in the implementation of conservation solutions by stakeholders. On the other hand, heuristic decision-support systems provide large amounts of sub-optimal solutions, and therefore more flexibility. This flexibility arises from the availability of many alternative and sub-optimal conservation solutions. The two principles of efficiency and flexibility are implicitly linked in conservation applications, with the most mathematically efficient solutions being inflexible and the flexible solutions provided by heuristics suffering sub-optimality. In order to avoid the trade-offs between flexibility and efficiency in systematic conservation planning, we propose in this paper a new reserve-selection framework based on mathematical programming optimization combined with a post-selection of SDM outputs. This approach leads to a reserve-selection framework that might provide flexibility while simultaneously addressing efficiency and representativeness of conservation solutions and the adequacy of conservation targets. To exemplify the approach we a nalyzed an experimental design crossing pre- and post-selection of SDM outputs versus heuristics and exact mathematical optimizations. We used the Mediterranean Sea as a biogeographical template for our analyses, integrating the outputs of 8 SDM techniques for 438 fishes species.

Download Full-text