An appraisal of systematic conservation planning for Pacific Ocean Tropical Islands coastal environments

A common objective in identifying conservation areas is to minimize conservation costs while achieving a set of conservation targets. Recent literature highlights the importance of incorporating socioeconomic costs into conservation planning. Here, we review how costs have been used in systematic marine conservation planning. Four approaches emerged from the literature: (1) uniform cost or area as a proxy for human use, (2) opportunity costs, (3) multiple socioeconomic costs, and (4) measures of naturalness or ecological impact of human activities. Most marine systematic conservation planning projects that used a spatially explicit socioeconomic cost focused on fisheries as the opportunity cost. No study has incorporated transaction or management costs into the design of marine protected areas using systematic conservation planning software. Combining multiple costs into one cost is one of the primary challenges of incorporating socioeconomic costs into conservation planning decision support tools. Combining many costs is feasible when each cost is measured in the same unit (e.g., dollars), but this information is rarely available in marine planning. Where the objective of the planning exercise is to minimize impacts on multiple stakeholder groups, the use of separate scenarios or multi‐zone software may be a viable option.

Marine biodiversity is globally declining due to a plethora of anthropogenic threats. Some of these threats are local, such as light pollution and coastal development, while other threats such as climate change operate at larger spatial scales. A range of conservation actions need to occur to effectively mitigate these mounting threats. Due to constraints on time and money for conservation actions we must set spatial priorities. These priorities need to achieve conservation goals and have a high chance of success. The aim of this thesis is to develop approaches that improve the spatial prioritisation of marine biodiversity conservation. Implementation of conservation plans is largely dependent on the cohesion of conservation objectives within the larger economic and social context that it lies within. In this thesis, I use the complex setting of the Mediterranean Sea to explore and propose innovative systematic prioritisation approaches. The Mediterranean Sea is a global biodiversity hotspot surrounded by over twenty countries. In this region threats to biodiversity and ecosystems are high and regional conservation plans based on systematic planning are still limited, providing an ideal system for investigating novel conservation planning approaches. This thesis is composed of seven chapters, which address three key themes for improving spatial conservation prioritisation. Chapter 1 is a broad introduction to the thesis. This chapter examines previous applications of conservation planning and prioritisation, highlighting gaps and limitations of current approaches. I introduce systematic conservation planning, applying it to the marine realm and specifically the Mediterranean Sea. Chapters 2 to 6 each present an approach to spatial conservation prioritisation relevant to protected area design in the Mediterranean Sea. The first theme (Chapters 2 and 3) explores ways to improve conservation efficiency in the marine realm. In Chapter 2 I present the first study that quantifies the increase in cost-efficiency of collaborative conservation in the marine realm. This approach can help deliver efficient conservation outcomes when planning spatially explicit actions within marine environments shared by many countries. Chapter 3 examines the importance of cost in marine conservation planning. I develop an approach for addressing cost when planning large-scale marine protected areas networks that span across multiple countries. I reveal that area is a poor cost surrogate for conservation cost in marine systems and that the most effective surrogates are those that account for multiple sectors or stakeholders. The second key theme of the thesis (Chapters 4 and 5) addresses the issue of adequately protecting species in conservation planning. In Chapter 4, I address the importance of incorporating species migration information into conservation planning. To ensure that species are adequately protected it is crucial to underpin conservation planning by the biological life-stages of species. In Chapter 5, I explore how to determine species threats using remote sensing and satellite imagery. I investigate a case study of nesting sea turtles in the eastern Mediterranean, and show that artificial night lights can affect their spatial nesting patterns. This study reveals the importance of satellite night-time imagery for conservation purposes. It also defines the first step of any conservation plan that strives to adequately protect species from threatening processes. The third theme (covered in Chapter 6) aims to improve implementation success. Chapter 6 applies systematic zoning tools to a country’s entire territorial waters, aiming to protect biodiversity when faced with multiple marine activities. Specifically, I quantify the trade-offs between conservation and economic objectives. The case study in this chapter is relatively complex, allowing for multiple zones and costs; it shows that prospective offshore hydrocarbon resources can have a very large influence over conservation plans. Finally, Chapter 7 is a synthesis of the thesis. I address the contributions of this research towards advancing marine conservation prioritisation both in the Mediterranean region and globally. Unifying my findings from this thesis, I propose additional steps to improve the framework of systematic conservation planning when applied to the marine realm. This thesis advances the theory of marine prioritisation, but also delivers practical outcomes, providing the first large-scale prioritisation of conservation actions for the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, this research advances our knowledge of conservation prioritisation in the marine realm. It provides strategies and methods to improve systematic conservation planning efficiency, adequacy and implementation success. This thesis focuses on how to make good decisions regarding the selection of marine protected areas (MPAs) and priority areas for marine conservation in the Mediterranean Sea that can have implications for many other parts of the world.

系统保护规划的理论、方法及关键问题

Linking regional planning and local action: Towards using social network analysis in systematic conservation planning

Conservationists are increasingly leveraging systematic conservation planning (SCP) to inform restoration actions that enhance biodiversity. However, restoration frequently drives ecological transformations at local scales, potentially resulting in trade-offs among wildlife species and communities. The Conservation Interactions Principle (CIP), coined more than 15 years ago, cautions SCP practitioners regarding the importance of jointly and fully evaluating conservation outcomes across the landscape over long timeframes. However, SCP efforts that guide landscape restoration have inadequately addressed the CIP by failing to tabulate the full value of the current ecological state. The increased application of SCP to inform restoration, reliance on increasingly small areas to sustain at-risk species and ecological communities, ineffective considerations for the changing climate, and increasing numbers of at-risk species, are collectively intensifying the need to consider unintended consequences when prioritizing sites for restoration. Improper incorporation of the CIP in SCP may result in inefficient use of conservation resources through opportunity costs and/or conservation actions that counteract one another. We suggest SCP practitioners can avoid these consequences through a more detailed accounting of the current ecological benefits to better address the CIP when conducting restoration planning. Specifically, forming interdisciplinary teams with expertise in the current and desired ecosystem states at candidate conservation sites; improving data availability; modeling and computational advancements; and applying structured decision-making approaches can all improve the integration of the CIP in SCP efforts. Improved trade-off assessment, spanning multiple ecosystems or states, can facilitate efficient, proactive, and coordinated SCP applications across space and time. In doing so, SCP can effectively guide the siting of restoration actions capable of promoting the full suite of biodiversity in a region.

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) is a field of conservation biology concerned with delivering on-the-ground actions that achieve conservation goals. It describes a set of operational models that cover both design and implementation of conservation, with a strong focus on mobilising the collective action typically required to implement conservation. SCP, as it was originally described, was composed of six different stages: collection of data, identification of conservation goals, evaluation of the existing protected area network, design of expansions, implementation of conservation action, and long-term maintenance of biodiversity in the network. Since then, the operational model has been expanded into several different variants. Conservation actions applied inside SCP include establishment and expansion of reserve networks and allocation of habitat restoration and management.Within the broader context of SCP, there is a fundamental biogeographic-economic analysis frequently called spatial conservation prioritisation or conservation assessment, which is used for identifying where important areas for biodiversity are and how conservation goals might be achieved efficiently. Here, we review the usage and meaning of the 12 biogeographic-economic core concepts of SCP: adequacy, complementarity, comprehensiveness, effectiveness, efficiency, flexibility, irreplaceability, replacement cost, representation, representativeness, threat, and vulnerability. Some of the concepts have clear definitions whereas others may have alternative and possibly conflicting definitions. With a comprehensive literature review literature, we elucidate the historical backgrounds of these concepts, the first definitions and usages, alternative later definitions, key applications, and prior reviews. This review reduces linguistic uncertainty in the application of SCP. Since SCP is a global activity with a multitude of different stakeholders involved, it is vital that those involved can speak the same language. Through these concepts, this review serves as a source of information about the historical development of SCP. It provides a comprehensive review for anyone wishing to understand the key concepts of spatial prioritisation within SCP.

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) has increasingly been used to prioritize conservation actions, including the design of new protected areas to achieve conservation objectives. Over the last 10 years, the number of marine SCP studies has increased exponentially, yet there is no structured or reliable way to find information on methods, trends, and progress. The rapid growth in methods and marine applications warrants an updated analysis of the literature, as well as reflection on the need for continuous and systematic documentation of SCP exercises in general. To address these gaps, we developed a database to document SCP exercises and populated it with 155 marine SCP exercises found in the primary literature. Based on our review, we provide an update on global advances and trends in marine SCP literature. We found accelerating growth in the number of studies over the past decade, with increasing consideration of socioeconomic variables, land-sea planning, and ecological connectivity. While several studies aimed to inform conservation decisions, we found little evidence of input from practitioners. There are important gaps in geographic coverage and little correspondence with areas most threatened. Five countries lead most studies, but their networks suggest potential for capacity building through collaborations. The varying quality and detail in documentation of studies confirmed the limited opportunities to develop and assess the application of best practice in conservation planning. A global database to track the development, implementation, and impact of SCP applications can thus provide numerous benefits. Our database constitutes an important step towards the development of a centralized repository of information on planning exercises and can serve several roles to advance SCP theory and practice: it facilitates assessing geographic coverage and gaps; scientists and practitioners can access information to identify trends in the use of data, methods, and tools; reviewers and editors of journals can assess whether studies have covered important literature and developments; donors and non-government organizations can identify regions needing further work; and practitioners and policy-makers can learn from previous plans.

基于系统保护规划的三江平原湿地保护网络体系优化

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based systematic conservation planning can form the basis for prioritizing conservation actions in a strategic and efficient manner. However, to date in the Arabian Peninsula conservation plans have generally taken an ad hoc approach to prioritizing actions spatially. Previous Sharjah Conservation Workshops highlighted this gap in our understanding of the spatial patterns of biodiversity across the Arabian Peninsula, and in particular identified the need to specify areas where conservation priorities that cross-national boundaries exist, and which may be best addressed using a Transboundary Conservation Area (TBCA) approach. Therefore a GIS and systematic conservation planning workshop was held as part of the 2010 Conference on Biodiversity Conservation in the Arabian Peninsula in order to test the potential for conducting a rapid systematic conservation assessment for the Peninsula. This paper outlines the concept and benefits of systematic conservation planning, reports on the process, data analyses and initial outputs of the GIS and systematic conservation planning workshop, and charts the way forward for developing a more robust assessment for the Arabian Peninsula.

Developing spatial prioritisation strategies to maximise conservation impact

A practical approach to setting heuristic marine biodiversity targets for systematic conservation planning

BackgroundSystematic conservation planning is a discipline concerned with the prioritisation of resources for biodiversity conservation and is often used in the design or assessment of terrestrial and marine protected area networks. Despite being an evidence-based discipline, to date there has been no comprehensive review of the outcomes of systematic conservation plans and assessments of the relative effectiveness of applications in different contexts. To address this fundamental gap in knowledge, our primary research question was: what is the extent, distribution and robustness of evidence on conservation outcomes of systematic conservation planning around the globe?MethodsA systematic mapping exercise was undertaken using standardised search terms across 29 sources, including publication databases, online repositories and a wide range of grey literature sources. The review team screened articles recursively, first by title only, then abstract and finally by full-text, using inclusion criteria related to systematic conservation plans conducted at sub-global scales and reported on since 1983. We sought studies that reported outcomes relating to natural, human, social, financial or institutional outcomes and which employed robust evaluation study designs. The following information was extracted from included studies: bibliographic details, background information including location of study and broad objectives of the plan, study design, reported outcomes and context.ResultsOf the approximately 10,000 unique articles returned through our searches, 1209 were included for full-text screening and 43 studies reported outcomes of conservation planning interventions. However, only three studies involved the use of evaluation study designs which are suitably rigorous for inclusion, according to best-practice guidelines. The three included studies were undertaken in the Gulf of California (Mexico), Réunion Island, and The Nature Conservancy’s landholdings across the USA. The studies varied widely in context, purpose and outcomes. Study designs were non-experimental or qualitative, and involved use of spatial landholdings over time, stakeholder surveys and modelling of alternative planning scenarios.ConclusionRigorous evaluations of systematic conservation plans are currently not published in academic journals or made publicly available elsewhere. Despite frequent claims relating to positive implications and outcomes of these planning activities, we show that evaluations are probably rarely conducted. This finding does not imply systematic conservation planning is not effective but highlights a significant gap in our understanding of how, when and why it may or may not be effective. Our results also corroborate claims that the literature on systematic conservation planning is dominated by methodological studies, rather than those that focus on implementation and outcomes, and support the case that this is a problematic imbalance in the literature. We emphasise the need for academics and practitioners to publish the outcomes of systematic conservation planning exercises and to consider employing robust evaluation methodologies when reporting project outcomes. Adequate reporting of outcomes will in turn enable transparency and accountability between institutions and funding bodies as well as improving the science and practice of conservation planning.

This article argues that systematic conservation planning (SCP) is an intrinsic part of the adaptive management approach within SANParks and should not be seen as a separate or different initiative. SCP operates within a complex environment that requires a deliberately adaptive approach. The similarities in philosophy, structure and functional elements of the planning process and approach between adaptive management and SCP, as applied within SANParks, are highlighted. The article distils requirements for ensuring that SCP remains strategically adaptive in its approach. Conservation implication: A deliberately adaptive approach to SCP improves its effectiveness in guiding the implementation of conservation actions and is a requirement for effective conservation planning in a complex environment.

This article argues that systematic conservation planning (SCP) is an intrinsic part of the adaptive management approach within SANParks and should not be seen as a separate or different initiative. SCP operates within a complex environment that requires a deliberately adaptive approach. The similarities in philosophy, structure and functional elements of the planning process and approach between adaptive management and SCP, as applied within SANParks, are highlighted. The article distils requirements for ensuring that SCP remains strategically adaptive in its approach.Conservation implication: A deliberately adaptive approach to SCP improves its effectiveness in guiding the implementation of conservation actions and is a requirement for effective conservation planning in a complex environment.

Conservation planning for primate communities in rapidly transforming landscapes