Managing feral goat impacts by manipulating their access to water in the rangelands

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Russell ◽  
Mike Letnic ◽  
Peter J. S. Fleming

Feral goats are a significant threat to biodiversity in Australia. However, goats are also harvested by some landholders for commercial benefit and this can lead to disagreements regarding control techniques. In the rangelands of New South Wales, feral goat distribution is closely linked to artificial watering points (AWP) such as tanks and bores. Previous surveys indicated that goat activity was rare more than 4 km from water. We hypothesised that constructing sections of goat-proof fencing in areas where goats were feeding on National Parks but watering on neighbouring properties, such that they had to travel more than 4 km from the AWP to access the park, would result in a significant decrease in goat abundance in these areas. We tested this hypothesis in Paroo-Darling National Park, Gundabooka State Conservation Area and Gundabooka National Park using changes in index (fresh goat dung groups per 100-m transect). We also measured kangaroo dung and ground cover index changes. Twelve months after the fences were constructed, goat dung significantly declined compared with non-treatment areas and the relationship between distance to water and goat dung broke down at the treatment sites. Kangaroo indices were not affected by the fences. The results for bare ground were the same as for goat dung, with significantly less bare ground and a breakdown in the relationship with distance to water at the treatment sites after the fences were constructed, but this was due to a corresponding increase in litter rather than live vegetation. This technique can be a significant tool for protecting biodiversity from feral goats, without removing the potential for neighbouring landholders to harvest the goats. If strategically used to create zones free of resident goats around the boundaries of conservation reserves, it should increase the effectiveness of other techniques such as trapping, mustering and shooting, by reducing post-control reinvasion. Recognition of access to water as an important management tool should substantially improve our management of feral goats in the rangelands.

Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.


Author(s):  
Eunseong Jeong ◽  
Taesoo Lee ◽  
Alan Dixon Brown ◽  
Sara Choi ◽  
Minyoung Son

Governments have designated national parks to protect the natural environment against ecosystem destruction and improve individuals’ emotional and recreational life. National parks enhance environment-friendly awareness by conducting ecotourism activities and individuals with environment-friendly awareness are inclined to continue to visit national parks as ecotourism destinations. The New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) is a widely used measure of environmental concern, suitable for measuring the environment-friendly attitude and revisit intention of visitors of national parks. Therefore, the study carried out structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationship between the NEP, national park conservation consciousness and environment-friendly behavioral intention. Based on the results, an implication is presented to induce national parks to cultivate individual environment-friendly awareness and for visitors to pursue sustainable, environment-friendly tourism behavior. The findings indicate that national parks are to expand educational programs and facilities for eco-tourists visiting national parks to maintain a balanced relationship between themselves and nature and have a strong environmental awareness to preserve the natural environment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cormac Walsh

AbstractNational parks and other large protected areas play an increasingly important role in the context of global social and environmental challenges. Nevertheless, they continue to be rooted in local places and cannot be separated out from their socio-cultural and historical context. Protected areas furthermore are increasingly understood to constitute critical sites of struggle whereby the very meanings of nature, landscape, and nature-society relations are up for debate. This paper examines governance arrangements and discursive practices pertaining to the management of the Danish Wadden Sea National Park and reflects on the relationship between pluralist institutional structures and pluralist, relational understandings of nature and landscape.


Oryx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Okot Omoya ◽  
Tutilo Mudumba ◽  
Stephen T. Buckland ◽  
Paul Mulondo ◽  
Andrew J. Plumptre

AbstractDespite > 60 years of conservation in Uganda's national parks the populations of lions and spotted hyaenas in these areas have never been estimated using a census method. Estimates for some sites have been extrapolated to other protected areas and educated guesses have been made but there has been nothing more definitive. We used a lure count analysis method of call-up counts to estimate populations of the lion Panthera leo and spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta in the parks where reasonable numbers of these species exist: Queen Elizabeth Protected Area, Murchison Falls Conservation Area and Kidepo Valley National Park. We estimated a total of 408 lions and 324 hyaenas for these three conservation areas. It is unlikely that other conservation areas in Uganda host > 10 lions or > 40 hyaenas. The Queen Elizabeth Protected Area had the largest populations of lions and hyaenas: 140 and 211, respectively. It is estimated that lion numbers have declined by 30% in this protected area since the late 1990s and there are increasing concerns for the long-term viability of both species in Uganda.


2021 ◽  
Vol 940 (1) ◽  
pp. 012065
Author(s):  
N S Lestari ◽  
G K Sari ◽  
Kusmayanti ◽  
W V Ponekke ◽  
F Saputra ◽  
...  

Abstract As a conservation area, national parks play essential roles in environmental services provision and have the potential to support the REDD+ program. This study aims to estimate appropriate incentives for national parks based on carbon units by integrating the economic value of environmental services and carbon stock provided by the lowland dry forest ecosystem in Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park (BNWNP) consisted of North Sulawesi and Gorontalo areas. Carbon stock was estimated by establishing sample plots, including five carbon pools. While the economic valuation of environmental services includes biodiversity using the market approach, ecotourism using the zonal travel cost method, and water service using simulation water regulation services method and market approach. The total ecosystem carbon stock in BNWNP is estimated at 73.67 Mton. Meanwhile, the estimation of the economic value of environmental services is about IDR 70.57 trillion. Based on these results, the appropriate carbon values are IDR 683,308 and IDR 1,304,238 per ton carbon for the lowland dry forest ecosystem in Gorontalo and North Sulawesi areas. This result indicates that given its essential environmental services, the incentive for protecting national parks may exceed the carbon value used in result-based payment scheme in REDD+ initiatives that have been implemented.


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 399
Author(s):  
Walter Musakwa ◽  
Trynos Gumbo ◽  
Gaynor Paradza ◽  
Ephraim Mpofu ◽  
Nesisa Analisa Nyathi ◽  
...  

National parks play an important role in maintaining natural ecosystems which are important sources of income and livelihood sustenance. Most national parks in Southern Africa are managed by their states. Before 2007, Gonarezhou National Park was managed by the Zimbabwe Parks Management and Wildlife Authority, which faced challenges in maintaining its biodiversity, community relations and infrastructure. However, in 2017 the Frankfurt Zoological Society and the Zimbabwe Parks Management and Wildlife Authority formed an innovative partnership under the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust (GCT). This study examines the relationship between GCT management, Gonarezhou National Park stakeholders and communities as well as the impact of the relationship on biodiversity and ecosystems. The study also highlights challenges faced and lessons learned in managing Gonarezhou as a protected area. To obtain the information, key informant interviews, Landsat satellite imagery, secondary data from previous studies and government sources were utilized. The results indicate that the concerted efforts of the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust to manage the park are starting to bear fruit in improving biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and engaging communities. However, challenges such as governance obstacles, problematic stakeholder management, maintaining trust in community relations, ensuring sustainability, managing the adverse impacts of climate change and human-wildlife conflicts must still be navigated to ensure the park’s sustainable management. Notwithstanding challenges, we argue that a partnership arrangement such as the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust is a desirable model that can be applied in national parks in Zimbabwe and Africa for better biodiversity management and tourism.


1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Charles Wescott

Australia possesses a distinctive national parks and conservation reserves system, in which it is the State Governments rather than the Federal Government which owns, plans, and manages, national parks and other conservation reserves.Most Australian States declared their first national parks in the latter quarter of last century, Australia's first national park being declared in New South Wales in March 1879. These critical declarations were followed by a slow accumulation of parks and reserves through to 1968. The pace of acquisition then quickened dramatically with an eight-fold expansion in the total area of national parks between 1968 and 1990, at an average rate of over 750,000 ha per annum. The present Australian system contains 530 national parks covering 20.18 million hectares or 2.6% of the land-mass. A further 28.3 million hectares is protected in other parks and conservation reserves. In terms of the percentage of their land-mass now in national parks, the leading States are Tasmania (12.8%) and Victoria (10.0%), with Western Australia (1.9%) and Queensland (2.1%) trailing far behind, and New South Wales (3.92%) and South Australia (3.1%) lying between.The Australian system is also compared with the Canadian and USA systems. All three are countries of widely comparable cultures that have national parks covering similar percentage areas, but Canada and the USA have far fewer national parks than Australia and they are in general of much greater size. In addition, Canada and the USA ‘resource’ these parks far better than the Australians do theirs. The paper concludes that Australia needs to rationalize its current system by introducing direct funding, by the Federal Government, of national park management, and duly examining the whole system of reserves from a national rather than States' viewpoint.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10090
Author(s):  
Shuiguang Chen ◽  
Xiaoxia Sun ◽  
Shipeng Su

A community can serve as a force that pushes national parks to realize sustainable development, while community participation is critical to the relationship between national park protection and community development. Therefore, the present study explored the community’s participation in the construction of Wuyishan National Park (hereinafter referred to as the Park) by means of case analysis and qualitative research. The research outcomes showed that the community’s participation was led by the authorities, which is a typical example of “passive participation”. In addition, the governing body of the Park and its communities did not form a sound organization that enabled them to manage and protect the Park in concerted efforts. In other words, they did not work well together, and had not yet established an effective community participation mechanism. Moreover, there were three major problems about the community’s participation in the Park’s governance: The community lacked the ability to take part in it, its participation took limited forms, and it displayed little initiative in the participation. To solve these problems, the present research proposes four mechanisms to improve community participation regarding technological, structural, social, and institutional resilience, i.e., intelligent guidance mechanism, nested organization mechanism, social mobilization mechanism, and institutional guarantee mechanism, respectively.


2017 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Bodziarczyk ◽  
Tomasz Zwijacz-Kozica ◽  
Anna Gazda ◽  
Janusz Szewczyk ◽  
Magdalena Frączek ◽  
...  

Abstract Effects of ungulate pressure on the development of young generation of trees is one of the most important issues in ecology and forestry. Ungulate pressure influence on the development of natural regeneration has been also reported from several national parks. Our study on the effects of ungulate browsing on the young generation of trees was conducted on more than 500 sample plots controlled during one growing season. The overall browsing pressure ranged from 7.6% in seedlings to 20.3% in low saplings. The pressure of ungulates on the regeneration of Picea abies, the dominant species in the Tatra National Park, was by and large below 1%. Broadleaved species were browsed more frequently. The relationship between the plot altitudes and browsing intensity was statistically significant for seedlings and low saplings; at the higher altitudes, the browsing pressure was greater. There was also observed a statistically significant relationship between the type of former management and the browsing degree in seedlings; in the areas subjected to “landscape protection”, the intensity of browsing was higher when compared to strictly protected areas. Pressure exerted by ungulates on tree regeneration was very unevenly distributed, i.e. some plots were heavily browsed and many others - not browsed at all. The most affected tree species were Salix caprea and Sorbus aucuparia, although the percentage of browsed individuals rarely exceeded 50%. Other species favored by ungulates was Acer pseudoplatanus; despite the high browsing pressure, this species was present among seedlings and tall saplings, suggesting that it would be able to recruit to the tree layer. Abies alba was browsed less frequently than the deciduous trees; however, among the tall saplings it was the third most browsed species.


2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry F. Recher

REGARDLESS of the merits and values of individual national parks and nature reserves, Australia's conservation reserves do not ensure the survival of the continent's biota. There are many reasons for this. Reserves, even the largest, are too small and vulnerable to broad area disturbance. Consider that, in January 2003, fires burnt more than two-thirds of Kosciuszko National Park, which at 690 000 ha is the largest park in New South Wales and one of the largest in Australia. This shows how even the largest conservation reserves are at risk of catastrophic disturbance. The much smaller Nadgee Nature Reserve (21 000 ha) in southeastern New South Wales has burnt almost in its entirety twice in the 35 years I have worked there. The Nadgee fires and those in Kosciuszko were started by lightning and were the result of prolonged drought, events common across the continent. When small size is coupled with isolation, the long-term survival of populations and the exchange of propagules within the reserve system becomes problematical. Small size and isolation do not leave much scope for plants and animals to adapt to long-term climate change, either through dispersal or by evolution. Even reserving 10 or 15% of land for nature conservation, as recommended by some international conservation agencies, will be inadequate; a target of 30% would have better ecological credentials, but even this could prove inadequate unless the nature conservation reserve system was designed to allow for long-term evolutionary change, which it is not (see Archer 2002; Recher 2002a,b).


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