scholarly journals Kiwis Counting Kiwis: Biodiversity Monitoring on Private Land in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacki Byrd
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Biodiversity Monitoring ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Core Group ◽  
Biodiversity Protection ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Biodiversity Change

<p>This thesis seeks to determine what monitoring will measure the effectiveness of public funding for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity on private land in New Zealand. To establish this, four questions have been asked: Is monitoring of biodiversity change on private land a requirement to provide information for biodiversity status reports? With biodiversity loss such a critical world issue, New Zealand has committed to its protection along with many other nations. The country's obligations and strategies for protecting, monitoring and reporting biodiversity change on private land are provided. Current reporting practices are critiqued and conclude that key data are not being collected and that private land is not well covered. As a result, biodiversity reports include very little biodiversity outcome data from private land. Are there are a core group of biodiversity monitoring methods suitable for landowners to measure the success of their conservation actions and to measure improvements to biodiversity on their land? 19 landowners and monitors who are engaged in conservation work and biodiversity outcome monitoring on private land have been interviewed in 12 case studies. These landowners and monitors are using 31 different monitoring methods. The methods have been assessed to see how landowners use the data and assessed against a set of criteria to determine their suitability. A core group of nine biodiversity monitoring methods emerge as the most useful in these cases. Do agencies which fund biodiversity protection and enhancement on private land need to measure the success of their funding initiatives? 18 agencies have given funds to these 12 case studies to support the conservation of some of the country's most threatened and endangered species, ecosystems and habitats that are found on their land. Results show that few quantitative indicators are used to measure improvements to biodiversity which may result from these grants. This research suggests ways for agencies which fund biodiversity protection on private land to measure the success of their funding initiatives so the effectiveness of these funds can be assessed. What biodiversity information do landowners need in order to make decisions about management on their land and to inform agencies which have funded biodiversity conservation on their land? The monitoring methods in use by landowners are considered in terms of their suitability to inform land management decisions and to inform funding agencies of the outcomes of the funds. This leads to a recommended core group of methods that can meet the needs of both parties. The research found that monitoring is as much a social event as a scientific exercise. Landowners found the social resources they needed to support their monitoring included having others to work with, having others to talk to like mentors, financial support, getting rewards from their monitoring results and gaining confidence to give it a go. All landowners and monitors identified barriers to monitoring they had to overcome, and these are discussed. This thesis recommends a list of core monitoring methods that are suitable for landowners to measure progress towards their biodiversity goals, improvements to biodiversity and can assist with land management decisions. They can also be used by funding agencies to judge the effectiveness of their funding towards the protection and enhancement of biodiversity on private land in New Zealand. This investigation highlights eight issues with funding goals, biodiversity monitoring and reporting on private land and provides 17 recommendations to address the issues. With 70% of New Zealand in private ownership, it is vital that landowners understand how their land contributes to the survival of native vegetation, habitats, ecosystems, species and their genes, which live on their land. The landowners in these 12 cases understand. They undertake conservation work and biodiversity monitoring, which demonstrates that landowners could provide information and evidence to measure the effectiveness of public funding for biodiversity protection on their land. These kiwi landowners are counting kiwis, and other biodiversity indicators, to measure the effect of their conservation work and its impact on restoring New Zealand's unique flora and fauna.</p>

scholarly journals Kiwis Counting Kiwis: Biodiversity Monitoring on Private Land in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jacki Byrd
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Biodiversity Monitoring ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Core Group ◽  
Biodiversity Protection ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Biodiversity Change

<p>This thesis seeks to determine what monitoring will measure the effectiveness of public funding for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity on private land in New Zealand. To establish this, four questions have been asked: Is monitoring of biodiversity change on private land a requirement to provide information for biodiversity status reports? With biodiversity loss such a critical world issue, New Zealand has committed to its protection along with many other nations. The country's obligations and strategies for protecting, monitoring and reporting biodiversity change on private land are provided. Current reporting practices are critiqued and conclude that key data are not being collected and that private land is not well covered. As a result, biodiversity reports include very little biodiversity outcome data from private land. Are there are a core group of biodiversity monitoring methods suitable for landowners to measure the success of their conservation actions and to measure improvements to biodiversity on their land? 19 landowners and monitors who are engaged in conservation work and biodiversity outcome monitoring on private land have been interviewed in 12 case studies. These landowners and monitors are using 31 different monitoring methods. The methods have been assessed to see how landowners use the data and assessed against a set of criteria to determine their suitability. A core group of nine biodiversity monitoring methods emerge as the most useful in these cases. Do agencies which fund biodiversity protection and enhancement on private land need to measure the success of their funding initiatives? 18 agencies have given funds to these 12 case studies to support the conservation of some of the country's most threatened and endangered species, ecosystems and habitats that are found on their land. Results show that few quantitative indicators are used to measure improvements to biodiversity which may result from these grants. This research suggests ways for agencies which fund biodiversity protection on private land to measure the success of their funding initiatives so the effectiveness of these funds can be assessed. What biodiversity information do landowners need in order to make decisions about management on their land and to inform agencies which have funded biodiversity conservation on their land? The monitoring methods in use by landowners are considered in terms of their suitability to inform land management decisions and to inform funding agencies of the outcomes of the funds. This leads to a recommended core group of methods that can meet the needs of both parties. The research found that monitoring is as much a social event as a scientific exercise. Landowners found the social resources they needed to support their monitoring included having others to work with, having others to talk to like mentors, financial support, getting rewards from their monitoring results and gaining confidence to give it a go. All landowners and monitors identified barriers to monitoring they had to overcome, and these are discussed. This thesis recommends a list of core monitoring methods that are suitable for landowners to measure progress towards their biodiversity goals, improvements to biodiversity and can assist with land management decisions. They can also be used by funding agencies to judge the effectiveness of their funding towards the protection and enhancement of biodiversity on private land in New Zealand. This investigation highlights eight issues with funding goals, biodiversity monitoring and reporting on private land and provides 17 recommendations to address the issues. With 70% of New Zealand in private ownership, it is vital that landowners understand how their land contributes to the survival of native vegetation, habitats, ecosystems, species and their genes, which live on their land. The landowners in these 12 cases understand. They undertake conservation work and biodiversity monitoring, which demonstrates that landowners could provide information and evidence to measure the effectiveness of public funding for biodiversity protection on their land. These kiwi landowners are counting kiwis, and other biodiversity indicators, to measure the effect of their conservation work and its impact on restoring New Zealand's unique flora and fauna.</p>

scholarly journals Improving and parameterising nitrogen and phosphorus modelling for application of LUCI in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Martha Trodahl
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Stream Water ◽  
Nutrient Loss ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Quality Models ◽  
Export Coefficient ◽  
Water Quality Models

<p>Over the last 50 years freshwater and marine environments have become severely impaired due to contamination from pathogens, heavy metals, sediment, industrial chemicals and nutrients (MEA 2005b). In many countries, including New Zealand, increased nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loading to terrestrial and freshwater environments from diffuse nutrient sources are of particular concern (MEA 2005a; PCE 2015b; Steffen et al. 2015) and many governments now mandate control of diffuse nutrient loss to water. Water quality models are invaluable tools that can assist with decision making around this widespread issue through exploration of the current situation and future scenarios.  Many water quality models exist, functioning at a variety of temporal and spatial scales and varying in detail and complexity. However, few, if any, simultaneously represent sub-field to catchment scale processes and outcomes, both of which are required to fully address water quality issues associated with diffuse nutrient sources. Those that do, likely require extensive time and expertise to operate. Water quality models embedded in the Land Utilisation and Capability Indicator (LUCI), an ecosystem service decision support framework, offer the opportunity to overcome these limitations. Being highly spatially explicit, yet straightforward to use, they can inform and assist individual land owners, catchment managers and other stakeholders with planning, decision making and management of water quality at sub-field to landscape scale.  To model diffuse nutrient losses LUCI, like many catchment scale water quality models, requires some form of estimated nutrient loss, or export coefficient, from land units within the catchment of interest. To be representative export coefficients must consider climate, soil, topography, and land cover and management variables. A number of methods of export coefficient derivation exist, although generally they consider only very limited geo-climatic, land cover and land management variables.  The principal aim of this study is development of algorithms capable of calculating New Zealand site specific N and P export coefficients from detailed geo-climatic, land cover and land management variables, for application in LUCI water quality models. Algorithms for pastoral land cover are developed from a large dataset comprising real pastoral farm input and output data from nutrient budgeting model OVERSEER. Algorithms are extended to land covers other than pasture, albeit in a limited manner. This is achieved through rescaling of the pastoral algorithms to account for relative differences in literature reported N and P losses from pasture and a variety of other New Zealand land covers. Application of the developed algorithms in LUCI water quality models results in positioning of export coefficients at the DEM grid square scale (≤ 15 m x 15 m for New Zealand). In addition, intra-basin configuration is considered in LUCI, at the same grid square scale, as water and nutrient flows are cascaded through the catchment. Application of the export coefficient calculating algorithms are applied to two contrasting New Zealand catchments. Tuapaka catchment, an 85ha agricultural foothill catchment in Manawatu, North Island, and Lake Rotorua catchment, a 502 km2 volcanic, mixed land cover catchment in Bay of Plenty, North Island.  This research is supported by Ravensdown, a farmer owned co-operative, which plans to use LUCI extensively to advise and assist farmers with water quality issues. The ability to model mitigation strategies in LUCI is an important capability. Therefore, this research also includes a review of five particularly important on-farm mitigation strategies, which will later be used by the wider LUCI development team to assist with better parameterisation and improved performance of mitigation options in LUCI.  Application of the developed algorithms at farm to catchment scale in LUCI results in considerably more nuanced, detailed maps and data showing N and P sources and pathways, compared to LUCI’s previously used ‘one export coefficient per land cover’ approach. Although results indicate absolute nutrient loss values are not always ‘correct’ compared to either OVERSEER predictions or in-stream water quality measurements, these differences appear comparable to those seen with similar water quality models. In addition, the issue of representativeness of OVERSEER predictions and in-stream water quality measurements exists.  Nevertheless improvement to absolute predictions is always an aim. This research indicates further improvements to LUCI water quality predictions could result from refinement of both pastoral and other land cover algorithms, and from improved representation of attenuation processes in LUCI, including groundwater representation. However, lack of measured on-land and in-stream N and P loss data is a major challenge to both algorithm refinement and to evaluation of results. In addition, more detailed spatial data would provide more nuanced results from algorithm application.  Although the algorithm application context in this research is LUCI water quality models applied in New Zealand, this does not preclude application of the developed algorithms in other export coefficient based, catchment scale water quality models. Using spatial data pertaining to climate, soil, topographic and land management variables, land units of combined variables can be identified and the algorithms applied, resulting in explicitly positioned export coefficients that can be fed into the catchment scale water quality model of interest. Therefore, developments made here potentially represent a wider contribution to catchment scale modelling using export coefficients.</p>

Fire as a Land Management Tool: Rural Sector Perceptions of Burn-off Practice in New Zealand

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Bayne ◽  
Veronica R. Clifford ◽  
Brenda R. Baillie ◽  
H. Grant Pearce
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Rural Sector

Evaluation of camera traps for monitoring European rabbits before and after control operations in Otago, New Zealand

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 621 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. David M. Latham ◽  
Graham Nugent ◽  
Bruce Warburton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Camera Traps ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Control Operation ◽  
Point Counts ◽  
Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease ◽  
European Rabbits

Context European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are reaching plague proportions again in some parts of New Zealand as the effect of rabbit haemorrhagic disease begins to wane. Effective monitoring techniques are required to quantify the success of alternative methods of controlling rabbits, such as poisoning. Aim To evaluate camera traps as a method of estimating the percentage of rabbits killed in a poison control operation, and to compare results obtained from cameras with those from traditional monitoring methods (spotlight transects and vantage-point counts). Methods We deployed cameras and conducted vantage-point counts and spotlight transects to compare a priori statistical power. We then used these monitoring methods to estimate percentage kill from a case study rabbit-control operation using sodium fluoroacetate (compound 1080). Key results Cameras had good statistical power to detect large reductions in rabbit numbers (>90%) and the percentage kill estimated using cameras was comparable with spotlight transects and vantage-point counts. Conclusions Cameras set up at fixed sampling locations can be an effective method of quantitatively assessing rabbit population control outcomes. We recommend that ≥6 cameras per 100 ha should remain active for at least 5 days before and 5 days following control, so as to obtain reliable estimates of percentage kill. Implications Cameras may be preferable to conventional monitoring methods where there is insufficient area to walk or drive transects, terrain is too rugged or scrubby for transects, and there are no or few vantage points from which to count rabbits.

scholarly journals THE SOIL QUALITY MONITORING WITH USING OF THE GEOINFORMATION ANALYSIS

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-95
Author(s):  
O.P. Fedchenko ◽  
A.E. Kuharuk ◽  
N.I. Lytvynenko
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Soil Mapping ◽  
Sustainable Land Management ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Local Data

The soil mapping is very important for the effective implementation of sustainable land management. In recent decades, the methods of mapping soil data have become much more, which improves the quality of the maps produced. Despite these improvements, field data on the ground remain the best source of information verified over the centuries and useful for soil mapping and sustainable land management. “Local” data and experience should be an important aspect of soil mapping, as farmers are one of the main end users of the maps produced, and therefore cartographic data should be relevant to the realities and needs of farmers. An important problem for Ukraine is the actualization of the quality of land. Information on the quality of Ukraine's land fund is currently out of date. The process of monitoring the state of lands should be modernized and automated, and the means to implement this process is the introduction of geoinformation monitoring methods. Currently, the main purpose of work on the analysis and display of data on the quality of soils is the modernization of research methods, as well as the display of results in a new format - using GIS. Geoinformatics is a promising scientific field that is developing rapidly. In the coming years, all areas of geographical knowledge will develop under the strong influence of geographic information technologies, computer processing of spatial information, and the use of global telecommunications networks will expand. The use of geographic information systems in agriculture makes it possible to apply new opportunities for managing agriculture and its main resource - land. The main advantage is the ability to share a database that contains certain data needed for land management, and is constantly updated and updated. GIS-technologies are also used to develop and analyze a large number of design solutions, creating recommendation and management maps in the agricultural sector.

scholarly journals Spread of Chilean needle grass (Nassella neesiana) in Marlborough New Zealand

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 266-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Pest Management ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Management Strategy ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
And Control

Chilean needle grass (Nassella neesiana) is a containment pest in the Regional Pest Management Strategy for Marlborough It is of concern because it has sharptipped seeds that bore into the eyes and pelts of livestock Discovered in Marlborough in the 1930s it now infests 4311 ha In 1987 18 properties were infested increasing to 53 by 2000 and 96 by December 2005 In addition both the range and density of Chilean needle grass has increased significantly since 1987 and to date no infestations have been eradicated Failure to stop this spread is due to the difficulty of both identification and control Effective control and land management methods for this weed are urgently needed The probability of this weed spreading further both within and beyond Marlborough appears to be high This conclusion along with land use changes has implications for the review of the Regional Pest Management Plan

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