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No chance Europe will recover fish stocks

19 01 2010

Alternate title: When pigs fly and fish say ‘hi’.

I’m covering a quick little review of a paper just published online in Fish and Fisheries about the two chances Europe has of meeting its legal obligations of rebuilding its North East Atlantic fish stocks by 2015 (i.e., Buckley’s and none).

The paper entitled Rebuilding fish stocks no later than 2015: will Europe meet the deadline? by Froese & Proelß describes briefly the likelihood Europe will meet the obligations set out under the United Nations’ Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of “maintaining or restoring fish stocks at levels that are capable of producing maximum sustainable yield” by 2015 as set out in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of 2002.

Using fish stock assessment data and several criteria (3 methods for estimating maximum sustainable yield [MSY], 3 methods for estimating fishing mortality [F_msy] & 2 methods for estimating spawning biomass [B_msy]), they conclude that 49 (91 %) of the examined European stocks will fail to meet the goal under a ‘business as usual’ scenario.

The upshot is that European fisheries authorities have been and continue to set their total allowable catches (TACs) too high. We’ve seen this before with Atlantic bluefin tuna and the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas. Seems like most populations of exploited fishes are in fact in the same boat (quite literally!).

It’s amazing, really, the lack of ‘political will’ in fisheries – driving your source of income into oblivion doesn’t seem to register in the short-sighted vision of those earning their associated living or those supposedly looking out for their long-term interests.

CJA Bradshaw

Froese, R., & Proelß, A. (2010). Rebuilding fish stocks no later than 2015: will Europe meet the deadline? Fish and Fisheries DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-2979.2009.00349.x

Pitcher, T., Kalikoski, D., Pramod, G., & Short, K. (2009). Not honouring the code Nature, 457 (7230), 658-659 DOI: 10.1038/457658a

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, fishing, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, Law of the Sea, science
Categories : environmental policy, Europe, fish, fisheries, harvest, marine

Conservation Biology for All

26 12 2009

A new book that I’m proud to have had a hand in writing is just about to come out with Oxford University Press called Conservation Biology for All. Edited by the venerable Conservation Scholars, Professors Navjot Sodhi (National University of Singapore) and Paul Ehrlich (Stanford University), it’s a powerhouse of some of the world’s leaders in conservation science and application.

The book strives to “…provide cutting-edge but basic conservation science to a global readership”. In short, it’s written to bring the forefront of conservation science to the general public, with OUP promising to make it freely available online within about a year from its release in early 2010 (or so the rumour goes). The main idea here is that those in most need of such a book – the conservationists in developing nations – can access the wealth of information therein without having to sacrifice the village cow to buy it.

I won’t go into any great detail about the book’s contents (mainly because I have yet to receive my own copy and read most of the chapters!), but I have perused early versions of Kevin Gaston‘s excellent chapter on biodiversity, and Tom Brook‘s overview of conservation planning and prioritisation. Our chapter (Chapter 16 by Barry Brook and me), is an overview of statistical and modelling philosophy and application with emphasis on conservation mathematics. It’s by no means a complete treatment, but it’s something we want to develop further down the track. I do hope many people find it useful.

I’ve reproduced the chapter title line-up below, with links to each of the authors websites.

Conservation Biology: Past and Present (C. Meine)
Biodiversity (K. Gaston)
Ecosystem Functions and Services (C. Sekercioglu)
Habitat Destruction: Death of a Thousand Cuts (W. Laurance)
Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change (A. Bennett & D. Saunders)
Overharvesting (C. Peres)
Invasive Species (D. Simberloff)
Climate Change (T. Lovejoy)
Fire and Biodiversity (D. Bowman & B. Murphy)
Extinctions and the Practice of Preventing Them (S. Pimm & C. Jenkins)
Conservation Planning and Priorities (T. Brooks)
Endangered Species Management: The US Experience (D. Wilcove)
Conservation in Human-Modified Landscapes (L.P. Koh & T. Gardner)
The Roles of People in Conservation (A. Claus, K. Chan & T. Satterfield)
From Conservation Theory to Practice: Crossing the Divide (M. Rao & J. Ginsberg)
The Conservation Biologist’s Toolbox – Principles for the Design and Analysis of Conservation Studies (C. Bradshaw & B. Brook)

As you can see, it’s a pretty impressive collection of conservation stars and hard-hitting topics. Can’t wait to get my own copy! I will probably blog individual chapters down the track, so stay tuned.

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science
Categories : Amazon, biodiversity, bushmeat, climate change, climate shift, conservation, conservation biology, deforestation, ecological triage, ecosystem services, environmental policy, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, hotspot, invasive species, management, planning, poverty, prioritisation, protected area

A magic conservation number

15 12 2009

Although I’ve already blogged about our recent paper in Biological Conservation on minimum viable population sizes, American Scientist just did a great little article on the paper and concept that I’ll share with you here:

Imagine how useful it would be if someone calculated the minimum population needed to preserve each threatened organism on Earth, especially in this age of accelerated extinctions.

A group of Australian researchers say they have nailed the best figure achievable with the available data: 5,000 adults. That’s right, that many, for mammals, amphibians, insects, plants and the rest.

Their goal wasn’t a target for temporary survival. Instead they set the bar much higher, aiming for a census that would allow a species to pursue a standard evolutionary lifespan, which can vary from one to 10 million years.

That sort of longevity requires abundance sufficient for a species to thrive despite significant obstacles, including random variation in sex ratios or birth and death rates, natural catastrophes and habitat decline. It also requires enough genetic variation to allow adequate amounts of beneficial mutations to emerge and spread within a populace.

“We have suggested that a major rethink is required on how we assign relative risk to a species,” says conservation biologist Lochran Traill of the University of Adelaide, lead author of a Biological Conservation paper describing the projection.

Conservation biologists already have plenty on their minds these days. Many have concluded that if current rates of species loss continue worldwide, Earth will face a mass extinction comparable to the five big extinction events documented in the past. This one would differ, however, because it would be driven by the destructive growth of one species: us.

More than 17,000 of the 47,677 species assessed for vulnerability of extinction are threatened, according to the latest Red List of Threatened Species prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That includes 21 percent of known mammals, 30 percent of known amphibians, 12 percent of known birds and 70 percent of known plants. The populations of some critically endangered species number in the hundreds, not thousands.

In an effort to help guide rescue efforts, Traill and colleagues, who include conservation biologists and a geneticist, have been exploring minimum viable population size over the past few years. Previously they completed a meta-analysis of hundreds of studies considering such estimates and concluded that a minimum head count of more than a few thousand individuals would be needed to achieve a viable population.

“We don’t have the time and resources to attend to finding thresholds for all threatened species, thus the need for a generalization that can be implemented across taxa to prevent extinction,” Traill says.

In their most recent research they used computer models to simulate what population numbers would be required to achieve long-term persistence for 1,198 different species. A minimum population of 500 could guard against inbreeding, they conclude. But for a shot at truly long-term, evolutionary success, 5,000 is the most parsimonious number, with some species likely to hit the sweet spot with slightly less or slightly more.

“The practical implications are simply that we’re not doing enough, and that many existing targets will not suffice,” Traill says, noting that many conservation programs may inadvertently be managing protected populations for extinction by settling for lower population goals.

The prospect that one number, give or take a few, would equal the minimum viable population across taxa doesn’t seem likely to Steven Beissinger, a conservation biologist at the University of California at Berkeley.

“I can’t imagine 5,000 being a meaningful number for both Alabama beach mice and the California condors. They are such different organisms,” Beissinger says.

Many variables must be considered when assessing the population needs of a given threatened species, he says. “This issue really has to do with threats more than stochastic demography. Take the same rates of reproduction and survival and put them in a healthy environment and your minimum population would be different than in an environment of excess predation, loss of habitat or effects from invasive species.”

But, Beissinger says, Traill’s group is correct for thinking that conservation biologists don’t always have enough empirically based standards to guide conservation efforts or to obtain support for those efforts from policy makers.

“One of the positive things here is that we do need some clear standards. It might not be establishing a required number of individuals. But it could be clearer policy guidelines for acceptable risks and for how many years into the future can we accept a level of risk,” Beissinger says. “Policy people do want that kind of guidance.”

Traill sees policy implications in his group’s conclusions. Having a numerical threshold could add more precision to specific conservation efforts, he says, including stabs at reversing the habitat decline or human harvesting that threaten a given species.

“We need to restore once-abundant populations to the minimum threshold,” Traill says. “In many cases it will make more economic and conservation sense to abandon hopeless-case species in favor of greater returns elsewhere.

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, minumum viable population, science
Categories : conservation, conservation biology, decline, demography, ecological triage, environmental policy, extinction, minimum viable population, modelling, mvp, population dynamics, population viability analysis, PVA

December Issue of Conservation Letters

11 12 2009

Gemsbok (Oryx gazella) in Namibia

Another great line-up in Conservation Letters‘ last issue for 2009. For full access, click here.

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, conservation letters, science
Categories : bushmeat, conservation, environmental policy, extremism, fire, logging, mammal, marine, marine protected area

Greenwash, blackwash: two faces of conservation evil

21 11 2009

Beware false prophets, and especially those masquerading as conservationists (or at least ‘green’) when they are not, in fact, doing anything for conservation at all. But this blog site isn’t about typical greenie evil-corporation-making-a-mess-of-the-Earth sermons (there are plenty of those); it’s instead about real conservation science that has/should/could have a real biodiversity benefits. This is why I highlight the bitey and the toothless together.

With the slow (painfully, inadequately, insufficiently slow) maturation of environmental awareness and the rising plight of biodiversity in general (including our own health and prosperity), it has become almost chic to embrace a so-called ‘green’ perspective. This approach has blown out into a full-scale business model where in many wealthier nations especially, it’s just plain good business to attract the green-conscious consumer to buy more ‘environmentally friendly’ products. Problem is, so many of these products are the farthest thing from green you can imagine (see examples here, here & here). This stimulated the environmentalist Jay Westerveld to coin the term greenwashing in 1986. Greenwashing is basically defined as activities that misleadingly give the impression of environmentally sound management that thereby deflect attention away from the continued pursuit of environmentally destructive activities.

Well, not that the problem has disappeared, or even dissipated (if anything, it’s growing), but I don’t want to focus on that here. Instead, I want to highlight a recent paper in which I was involved that outlines too how environmental groups can be guilty of almost the same sin – claiming businesses, practices, individuals, corporations, etc. are far more environmentally destructive than they really are. This, we termed blackwashing.

The paper by Koh and colleagues entitled Wash and spin cycle threats to tropical biodiversity just came out online in the journal Biotropica, and therein we describe the greenwashing-blackwashing twin conservation evils using the oil palm controversy as an excellent example case. Just in case you didn’t know, much of the tropical world (especially South East Asia) is undergoing massive conversion of native forests to oil palm plantations, to the overwhelming detriment of biodiversity. I’ve covered the issue in several posts on ConservationBytes.com before (see for example Tropical forests worth more standing, Indonesia’s precious peatlands under oil palm fire & More greenwashing from the Malaysian oil palm industry).

Briefly, we demonstrate how the palm oil industry is guilty of the following greenwashes:

Palm oil plantations are safe for tropical biodiversity – They are most definitely not (see Fitzherbert et al. 2008, Koh & Wilcove 2008, Brüle & Eltz 2009, Danielson et al. 2009, Venter et al. 2009)
Oil palm is planted forest – It is not, either in terms of the amount of carbon it sequesters or the biodiversity it supports (see above point).
Native forest conversion no longer occurs – An outright lie (Chazdon 2008, Butler 2008).

On the either side, various environmental groups such as Greenpeace, have promoted the following blackwashes:

Orang-utan will be extinct imminently – A gross exaggeration, although something we believe is eventually possible.
Avoided deforestation schemes (e.g., REDD) will crash carbon-trading – Again, even economists don’t believe this.

For details, see the paper online.

Now, I’d probably tend to believe some of the less outrageous claims made by some environmental groups because if anything, the state of biodiversity is probably overall worse than what most people realise. However, when environmental groups are exposed for exaggerations, or worse, lies, then their credibility goes out the window and even those essentially promoting their cause (e.g., conservation biologists like myself) will have nothing to do with them. The quasi-religious zealotry of anti-whaling campaigns is an example of a terrible waste of funds, goodwill and conservation resources that could be otherwise spent on real conservation gains. Instead, political stunts simply alienate people who would otherwise reasonably contribute to improving the state of biodiversity. Incidentally, an environmental advocacy group in Australia emailed me to support their campaign to highlight the plight of sharks. I am a firm supporter of better conservation of sharks (see recent paper and post about this here). However, when I read their campaign propaganda, the first sentence read:

“Almost 90 % of sharks have been wiped out“

I immediately distanced myself from them. This is a blatant lie and terrible over-exaggeration. Ninety per cent of sharks HAVE NOT been wiped out. Some localised depletions have occurred, and not one single shark species has been recorded going extinct since records began. While I agree the world has a serious shark problem, saying outrageous things like this will only serve to weaken your cause. My advice to any green group is to get your facts straight and avoid the sensationlist game – you won’t win it, and you probably won’t be successful in doing anything beneficial for the species you purport to save.
CJA Bradshaw

Koh, L., Ghazoul, J., Butler, R., Laurance, W., Sodhi, N., Mateo-Vega, J., & Bradshaw, C. (2009). Wash and Spin Cycle Threats to Tropical Biodiversity Biotropica DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2009.00588.x

Comments : 13 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, blackwashing, conservation, greenwashing, science
Categories : Asia, carbon, conservation, corruption, deforestation, environmental policy, Indonesia, Malaysia, oil palm, palm oil, propaganda, rain forests, Sarawak, South East Asia

Not so ‘looming’ – Anthropocene extinctions

4 11 2009

Yesterday I was asked to do a quick interview on ABC television (Midday Report) about the release of the 2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. I’ve blogged about the importance of the Red List before, but believe we have a lot more to do with species assessments and getting prioritisation right with respect to minimum viable population size. Have a listen to the interview itself, and read the IUCN’s media release reproduced below.

My basic stance is that we’ve only just started to assess the number of species on the planet (under 50000), yet there are many millions of species still largely under-studied and/or under-described (e.g., extant species richness = > 4 million protists, 16600 protozoa, 75000-300000 helminth parasites, 1.5 million fungi, 320000 plants, 4-6 million arthropods, > 6500 amphibians, 10000 birds and > 5000 mammals – see Bradshaw & Brook 2009 J Cosmol for references). What we’re looking at here is a refinement of knowledge (albeit a small one). We are indeed in the midst of the Anthropocene mass extinction event – there is nothing ‘looming’ about it. We are essentially losing species faster than we can assess them. I believe it’s important to make this clearer to those not working directly in the field of biodiversity conservation.

CJA Bradshaw

Extinction crisis continues apace – IUCN

Gland, Switzerland, 3 November, 2009 (IUCN) – The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ shows that 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction.

The results reveal 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians, 12 percent of all known birds, and 28 percent of reptiles, 37 percent of freshwater fishes, 70 percent of plants, 35 percent of invertebrates assessed so far are under threat.

“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” says Jane Smart, Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. “January sees the launch of the International Year of Biodiversity. The latest analysis of the IUCN Red List shows the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met. It’s time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it’s high on their agendas for next year, as we’re rapidly running out of time.”

Of the world’s 5,490 mammals, 79 are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, with 188 Critically Endangered, 449 Endangered and 505 Vulnerable. The Eastern Voalavo (Voalavo antsahabensis) appears on the IUCN Red List for the first time in the Endangered category. This rodent, endemic to Madagascar, is confined to montane tropical forest and is under threat from slash-and-burn farming.

There are now 1,677 reptiles on the IUCN Red List, with 293 added this year. In total, 469 are threatened with extinction and 22 are already Extinct or Extinct in the Wild. The 165 endemic Philippine species new to the IUCN Red List include the Panay Monitor Lizard (Varanus mabitang), which is Endangered. This highly-specialized monitor lizard is threatened by habitat loss due to agriculture and logging and is hunted by humans for food. The Sail-fin Water Lizard (Hydrosaurus pustulatus) enters in the Vulnerable category and is also threatened by habitat loss. Hatchlings are heavily collected both for the pet trade and for local consumption.

“The world’s reptiles are undoubtedly suffering, but the picture may be much worse than it currently looks,” says Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. “We need an assessment of all reptiles to understand the severity of the situation but we don’t have the $2-3 million to carry it out.”

The IUCN Red List shows that 1,895 of the planet’s 6,285 amphibians are in danger of extinction, making them the most threatened group of species known to date. Of these, 39 are already Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, 484 are Critically Endangered, 754 are Endangered and 657 are Vulnerable.

The Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis) has moved from Critically Endangered to Extinct in the Wild. The species was only known from the Kihansi Falls in Tanzania, where it was formerly abundant with a population of at least 17,000. Its decline is due to the construction of a dam upstream of the Kihansi Falls that removed 90 percent of the original water flow to the gorge. The fungal disease chytridiomycosis was probably responsible for the toad’s final population crash.

The fungus also affected the Rabb’s Fringe-limbed Treefrog (Ecnomiohyla rabborum), which enters the Red List as Critically Endangered. It is known only from central Panama. In 2006, the chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) was reported in its habitat and only a single male has been heard calling since. This species has been collected for captive breeding efforts but all attempts have so far failed.

Of the 12,151 plants on the IUCN Red List, 8,500 are threatened with extinction, with 114 already Extinct or Extinct in the Wild. The Queen of the Andes (Puya raimondii) has been reassessed and remains in the Endangered category. Found in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, it only produces seeds once in 80 years before dying. Climate change may already be impairing its ability to flower and cattle roam freely among many colonies, trampling or eating young plants.

There are now 7,615 invertebrates on the IUCN Red List this year, 2,639 of which are threatened with extinction. Scientists added 1,360 dragonflies and damselflies, bringing the total to 1,989, of which 261 are threatened. The Giant Jewel (Chlorocypha centripunctata), classed as Vulnerable, is found in southeast Nigeria and southwest Cameroon and is threatened by forest destruction.

Scientists also added 94 molluscs, bringing the total number assessed to 2,306, of which 1,036 are threatened. Seven freshwater snails from Lake Dianchi in Yunnan Province, China, are new to the IUCN Red List and all are threatened. These join 13 freshwater fishes from the same area, 12 of which are threatened. The main threats are pollution, introduced fish species and overharvesting.

There are now 3,120 freshwater fishes on the IUCN Red List, up 510 species from last year. Although there is still a long way to go before the status all the world’s freshwater fishes is known, 1,147 of those assessed so far are threatened with extinction. The Brown Mudfish (Neochanna apoda), found only in New Zealand, has been moved from Near Threatened to Vulnerable as it has disappeared from many areas in its range. Approximately 85-90 percent of New Zealand’s wetlands have been lost or degraded through drainage schemes, irrigation and land development.

“Creatures living in freshwater have long been neglected. This year we have again added a large number of them to the IUCN Red List and are confirming the high levels of threat to many freshwater animals and plants. This reflects the state of our precious water resources. There is now an urgency to pursue our effort but most importantly to start using this information to move towards a wise use of water resources,” says Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head of the IUCN Species Programme.

“This year’s IUCN Red List makes for sobering reading,” says Craig Hilton-Taylor, Manager of the IUCN Red List Unit. “These results are just the tip of the iceberg. We have only managed to assess 47,663 species so far; there are many more millions out there which could be under serious threat. We do, however, know from experience that conservation action works so let’s not wait until it’s too late and start saving our species now.”

The status of the Australian Grayling (Prototroctes maraena), a freshwater fish, has improved as a result of conservation efforts. Now classed as Near Threatened as opposed to Vulnerable, the population has recovered thanks to fish ladders which have been constructed over dams to allow migration, enhanced riverside vegetation and the education of fishermen, who now face heavy penalties if found with this species.

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, IUCN, Red List, science
Categories : biodiversity, conservation, conservation biology, decline, environmental policy, extinction, extinction vortex, IUCN, minimum viable population, mvp, prioritisation, Red List

Sick environment, sick people

30 10 2009

A quick post to talk about a subject I’m more and more interested in – the direct link between environmental degradation (including biodiversity loss) and human health.

To many conservationists, people are the problem, and so they focus naturally on trying to maintain biodiversity in spite of human development and spread. Well, it’s 60+ years since we’ve been doing ‘conservation biology’ and biodiversity hasn’t been this badly off since the Cretaceous mass extinction event 146-64 million years ago. We now sit squarely within the geological era more and more commonly known as the ‘Anthropocene’, so if we don’t consider people as an integral part of any ecosystem, then we are guaranteed to fail biodiversity.

I haven’t posted in a week because I was in Shanghai attending the rather clumsily entitled “Thematic Reference Group (TRG) on Environment, Agriculture and Infectious Disease’, which is a part of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/World Health Organization Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) (what a mouthful that is). What’s this all about and why is a conservation ecologist (i.e., me) taking part in the group?

It’s taken humanity a while to realise that what we do to the planet, we eventually end up doing to ourselves. The concept of ecosystem services¹ demonstrates this rather well – our food, weather, wealth and well-being are all derived from healthy, functioning ecosystems. When we start to bugger up the inter-species relationships that define one element of an ecosystem, then we hurt ourselves. I’ve blogged about this topic a few times before with respect to flooding, pollination, disease emergence and carbon sequestration.

Our specific task though on the TRG is to define the links between environmental degradation, agriculture, poverty and infectious disease in humans. Turns out, there are quite a few examples of how we’re rapidly making ourselves more susceptible to killer infectious diseases simply by our modification of the landscape and seascape.

Some examples are required to illustrate the point. Schistosomiasis is a snail-borne fluke that infects millions worldwide, and it is on the rise again from expanding habitat of its host due to poor agricultural practices, bad hygiene, damming of large river systems and climate warming. Malaria too is on the rise, with greater and greater risk in the endemic areas of its mosquito hosts. Chagas (a triatomine bug-borne trypanosome) is also increasing in extent and risk. Some work I’m currently doing under the auspices of the TRG is also showing some rather frightening correlations between the degree of environmental degradation within a country and the incidence of infectious disease (e.g., HIV, malaria, TB), non-infectious disease (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease) and indices of life expectancy and child mortality.

I won’t bore you with more details of the group because we are still drafting a major World Health Organization report on the issues and research priorities. Suffice it to say that if we want to convince policy makers that resilient functioning ecosystems with healthy biodiversity are worth saving, we have to show them the link to infectious disease in humans, and how this perpetuates poverty, rights injustices, gender imbalances and ultimately, major conflicts. An absolute pragmatist would say that the value of keeping ecosystems intact for this reason alone makes good economic sense (treating disease is expensive, to say the least). A humanitarian would argue that saving human lives by keeping our ecosystems intact is a moral obligation. As a conservation biologist, I argue that biodiversity, human well-being and economies will all benefit if we get this right. But of course, we have a lot of work to do.

CJA Bradshaw

¹Although Bruce Wilcox (another of the TRG expert members), who I will be highlighting soon as a Conservation Scholar, challenges the notion of ecosystem services as a tradeable commodity and ‘service’ as defined. More on that topic soon.

Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, health, science
Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, China, climate change, conservation, disease, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental economics, environmental policy, function, governance, human overpopulation, malaria, pollution

Sleuthing the Chinese green slime monster

21 10 2009

greenslimemonster I just returned from a week-long scientific mission in China sponsored by the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I was invited to attend a special symposium on Marine and Deltaic Systems where research synergies between Australian and Chinese scientists were to be explored. The respective academies really rolled out the red carpet for the 30 or so Australian scientists on board, so I feel very honoured to have been invited.

During our marine workshop, one of my Chinese counterparts, Dongyan Liu from the Yantai Institute for Coastal Zone Research, presented a brilliant piece of ecological sleuthing that I must share with readers of ConservationBytes.com.

The first time you go to China the thing that strikes you is that everything is big – big population, big cities, big buildings, big projects, big budgets and big, big, big environmental problems. After many years of overt environmental destruction in the name of development, the Chinese government (aided by some very capable scientists) is now starting to address the sins of the past.

Liu and colleagues published their work earlier this year in Marine Pollution Bulletin in a paper entitled World’s largest macroalgal bloom caused by expansion of seaweed aquaculture in China, which describes a bloody massive outbreak of a particularly nasty ‘green tide’.

What’s a ‘green tide’? In late June 2008 in the coastal city of Qingdao not far from Beijing (and just before the 2008 Olympics), a whopping 1 million tonnes of green muck washed up along approximately 400 km² of coastline. It took 10,000 volunteers 2 weeks to clean up the mess. At the time, many blamed the rising eutrophication of coastal China as the root cause, and a lot of people got their arse kicked over it. However, the reality was that it wasn’t so simple.

The Yellow Sea abutting this part of the Chinese coast is so named because of its relatively high productivity. Warm waters combined with good mixing mean that there are plenty of essential nutrients for green things to grow. So, adding thousands of tonnes of fertilisers from Chinese agricultural run-off seems like a logical explanation for the bloom.

Qingdao green tide 2008 © Elsevier

However, it turns out that the bulk of the green slime was comprised of a species called Enteromorpha prolifera, and it just so happens that this particularly unsavoury seaweed loves to grow on the infrastructure used for the aquaculture of nori (a.k.a. amanori or zicai) seaweed (mainly, Porphyra yezoensis). Problem is, P. yezoensis is grown mainly on the coast hundreds of kilometres to the south.

Liu and colleagues examined both satellite imagery and detailed oceanographic data from the period prior to the green tide and not only spotted green splotches many kilometres long, they also determined that the current flow and wind direction placed the trajectory of any green slime mats straight for Qingdao.

So, how does it happen? Biofouling by E. prolifera on P. yezoensis aquaculture frames is dealt with mainly by manual cleaning and then dumping the unwanted muck on the tidal flats. When the tide comes back in, it washes many thousands of kilos of this stuff back out to sea, which then accumulates in rafts and continues to grow in the warm, rich seas. Subsequent genetic work also confirmed that the muck at sea was the same stock as the stuff growing on the aquaculture frames.

Apart from some lovely sleuthing work, the implications are pretty important from a biodiversity perspective. Massive eutrophication coupled with aquaculture that inadvertently spawns a particularly nasty biofouling species is a good recipe for oxygen depletion in areas where the eventual slime monster starts to decay. This can lead to so-called ‘dead’ zones that can kill off huge numbers of marine species. So, the proper management of aquaculture in the hungry Goliath that is China becomes essential to reduce the incidence of dead zones.

Fortunately, it looks like Liu and colleagues’ work is being taken seriously by the Chinese government who is now contemplating financial support for aquaculturists to clean their infrastructure properly without dumping the sludge to sea. A simple policy shift could save a lot of species, a lot of money, and a lot of embarrassment (not to mention prevent a lot of bad smells).

CJA Bradshaw

Liu, D., Keesing, J., Xing, Q., & Shi, P. (2009). World’s largest macroalgal bloom caused by expansion of seaweed aquaculture in China Marine Pollution Bulletin, 58 (6), 888-895 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.01.013

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: algae, biodiversity, China, conservation, ecology, marine, science
Categories : algae, aquaculture, Asia, China, coasts, conservation, environmental policy, eutrophication, marine, research

Protecting Australian wilderness

1 10 2009

Today I highlight a new paper just out online in Diversity and Distributions by James Watson and colleagues: Wilderness and future conservation priorities in Australia. It’s certainly one for the Potential list.

Jim Jim Falls, Kakadu National Park

Australia has a pretty bad biodiversity conservation track record – we have some of the worst mammal extinction trends in the world, and we’ve lost at least 50 % of our forested area since European colonisation. Despite our relatively large system of parks and reserves, things aren’t going to well (even in the parks!).

Our rapidly expanding influence means that we have to start protecting larger and larger areas if we want to have any chance of slowing the modern extinction crisis. This means we have to go beyond dedicated biodiversity reserves and sequester more ‘wilderness’ (defined as “…large areas that have experienced minimal habitat loss“). Watson and colleagues therefore used Australia as a good example to determine the extent to which the national protected area network captures ‘wilderness’, and how Australia’s planned expansion of the reserve system will include ‘wilderness’ in the future.

Although there wasn’t much planning involved initially, Australia (like many other countries) started to take biodiversity conservation seriously in the mid-1990s, such that now we have about 11 % of our 7.7 million km² land area within a National Reserve System. Planning didn’t feature heavily in the early years, but it has been embraced now by nearly all planning bodies within government.

Using estimates of the total wilderness area in Australia (Fig. a), Watson and colleagues determined how much was included in the Reserve System (Fig. b), and how this value changed between 2000 and 2006.

Of the 2.93 million km² of wilderness (38 % of land area, mostly in northern and western Australia), only 14 % was protected in 2000. This value increased marginally to 19 % by 2006 as the size of the Reserve System itself increased by 37 % (i.e., from 652597 to 895326 km²).

Bottom line – our growth in reserve area didn’t really capture the necessary wilderness; instead, gains were made in areas largely modified by humans. Even where wilderness has been captured, it’s predominately in ‘multiple use’ regions (incorporating mining, forestry and grazing, for example).

This isn’t a bad thing really – by focussing on areas of high biodiversity value that are under relatively high threat embraces the biodiversity hotspot approach to conservation and emphasises restoration. This is, of course, needed. But not incorporating a wider component of the habitats within wilderness could bias conservation toward range-restricted species.

Watson and colleagues therefore make a number of recommendations:

We should strive to quantify and map spatially the important ecological and evolutionary processes that drive the distribution and abundance of biodiversity so they can be explicitly incorporated into reserve area prioritisations.
We should focus on predicting the magnitude and distribution of future threats and incorporate them into the spatial prioritisation framework.
We should incorporate realistic constraints (e.g., financial costs) into prioritisation.
We need to map and analyse a range of social and economic factors that define opportunities for conservation in conjunction with information on conservation values, threats and costs.

The bottom line is that we need to find a better balance between planning that protects threatened species and ecosystems in already highly fragmented (threatened) landscapes, and planning that protects large areas of wilderness that still contains most of its conservation values (wilderness). We’re getting there, but slowly, and hopefully in time to save our remaining threatened species from extinction.

CJA Bradshaw

Watson, J., Fuller, R., Watson, A., Mackey, B., Wilson, K., Grantham, H., Turner, M., Klein, C., Carwardine, J., Joseph, L., & Possingham, H. (2009). Wilderness and future conservation priorities in Australia Diversity and Distributions DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2009.00601.x

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, biogeography, conservation, environmental policy, habitat loss, planning, prioritisation, protected area, reserve

How to make an effective marine protected area

22 09 2009

Here’s a nice little review from the increasingly impressive Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment which seems to be showcasing a lot of good conservation research lately.

As we know, the world’s oceans are under huge threat, with predictions of 70 % loss of coral reefs by 2050, decline in kelp forests, loss of seagrasses, over-fishing, pollution and a rapidly warming and acidifying physical environment. Given all these stressors, it is absolutely imperative we spend a good deal of time thinking about the right way to impose restrictions on damage to marine areas – the simplest way to do this is via marine protected areas (MPA).

The science of MPA network design has matured over the last 10-20 years such that there is a decent body of literature now on what we need to do (now the policy makers just have to listen – some progress there too, but see also here). McLeod and colleagues in the latest issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment have published a review outlining the best, at least for coral reefs, set of recommendations for MPA network design given available information (paper title: Designing marine protected area networks to address the impacts of climate change). Definitely one for the Potential list.

Here’s what they recommend:

Size

bigger is always better
minimum diameter of an MPA should be 10-20 km to ensure exchange of propagules among protected benthic populations

Shape

simple shapes best (squares, rectangles)
avoid convoluted shapes to minimise edge effects

Representation

protect at least 20-30 % of each habitat

Replication

protect at least 3 examples of each marine habitat

Spread

select MPA in a variety of temperature regimes to avoid risk of all protected reefs succumbing to future climate changes

Critical Areas

protect nursery areas, spawning aggregations, and areas of high species diversity
protect areas demonstrating natural resilience or rapid recovery from previous disturbances

Connectivity

measure connectivity between MPA to ensure replenishment
space maximum distance of 15-20 km apart
include whole ecological units
buffer core areas
protect adjacent areas such as outlying reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves

Ecosystem Function

maintain key functional groups of species (e.g., herbivorous fishes)

Ecosystem Management

embed MPA in broader management frameworks addressing other threats
address and rectify sources of pollution
monitor changes

Of course, this is just a quick-and-dirty list as presented here – I highly recommend reading the review for specifics.

CJA Bradshaw

McLeod, E., Salm, R., Green, A., & Almany, J. (2009). Designing marine protected area networks to address the impacts of climate change Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7 (7), 362-370 DOI: 10.1890/070211

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, marine protected area, MPA, reserve design, science
Categories : acidification, biodiversity, climate change, coasts, conservation, coral reefs, deforestation, ecosystem function, environmental policy, eutrophication, fish, fisheries, fragmentation, island biogeography, management, marine protected area, MPA, prioritisation, protected area

Ice: canary in the global coal mine

14 09 2009

An intended pun from James Balog in another classic TED talk. If you thought climate change was merely a prediction from mathematical models, think again. The biodiversity implications are staggering.

“We have a problem of perception… Not enough people really get it yet.” J. Balog

Vodpod videos no longer available.
more about “TED Talks: James Balog: Time-lapse pr…”, posted with vodpod

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Tags: biodiversity, climate change, conservation, James Balog, science
Categories : Arctic, biodiversity, climate change, climate shift, conservation, environmental policy, environmental science

Can we solve Australia’s mammal extinction crisis?

3 09 2009

This ‘In Depth‘ Science Opinion piece from the ABC couldn’t have come at a better time. Written by Ian Gordon of the CSIRO, this opinion piece was written off the back of the special session on mammalian extinctions held at the recent International Congress of Ecology in Brisbane. Three previous ConservationBytes.com blogs in August (here, here and here) were devoted to specific talks at the Congress, including one about John Woinarksi’s gloomy tale of dwindling mammal populations in the Top End (which is especially frightening considering its also going on in our so-called ‘protected’ areas such as Kakadu, Litchfield and Garig Gunak Barlu National Parks!).

So, I recommend you have a read of my blog post on the shocking continued loss of Australian mammals, then read Ian’s piece copied below. Bottom lines – stop burning the shit out of our forests and encourage dingo population recovery and expansion.

Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions.

Over the last two hundred years 22 mammal species have become extinct, and over 100 are now on the threatened and endangered species list, compiled as part of the federal government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Evidence suggests Australia is on the cusp of another wave of mammal extinctions with a reduction in the abundance of some species and alarmingly, their range.

This is undoubtedly one of the major biodiversity conservation issues affecting Australia. It’s crucial we focus on the management solutions required to stop these species falling into extinction.

A South American success story

Working as a zoologist has allowed me to be involved in projects across the globe, looking at species at risk of extinction due to over-exploitation by humans.

Earlier this year I edited a book on the South American vicuña‘s comeback from the brink of extinction. Once abundant in the Andes, this wild relative of the llama suffered a sharp population drop in the 1960s due to international demand for its fleece.

An international moratorium on the sale of vicuña fleece in 1969 saw populations recover enough by 1987 for Andean communities to be able to harvest the fibre in a sustainable way. Population numbers of vicuña have remained healthy ever since, making it one of the few success stories of wildlife conservation worldwide.

Australia’s mammal extinction crisis

However Australia’s medium-sized mammals have had to deal with a different range of issues to the vicuña: the introduction of feral animals, particularly cats and foxes; increased grazing pressure; altered fire regimes; the clearing of habitat for development and production; and now, the effects of climate change.

It isn’t that any of these pressures are particularly important by themselves, but the fact that many of them act in concert has had a significant impact on causing the crashes in population numbers, and increasing the risk of species becoming extinct.

For example, the crescent nailtail wallaby was once an abundant and widespread macropod of central and western Australia. The pressures of feral cats and foxes coupled with clearing for agriculture and grazing, and altered fire regimes pushed this little species over the edge and it is now classified as extinct.

The problem is also more far-reaching than we first assumed. Many people may think that animals are becoming extinct in the south of Australia where habitat destruction is quite evident.

But the populations of iconic species in the north of Australia such as the northern quoll, golden bandicoot and the Carpentarian rock-rat are also collapsing. In our lifetime populations of some species have greatly reduced in number, and others have completely disappeared in landscapes that are considered to be in excellent condition.

The golden bandicoot, listed as a vulnerable species, used to be found across much of the north of Australia. It is now only found in very small populations in the Northern Territory and on the isolated Burrow Island off the coast of Western Australia.

Time to bring back the dingo?

Further research on the impacts of fire, grazing, invasive species and climate change on Australian mammals would be extremely valuable, but ecologists recognise that crucial management decisions need to be made now.

We’ve found ourselves in a position where we have identified the threats to Australian mammal species and documented the loss of these species, the role of science must turn more directly to identifying the opportunities for assisting the survival of these mammals.

In August I chaired a panel with Professor Chris Johnson from James Cook University at the International Congress of Ecology, to discuss what management could be put in place now to help beleaguered populations of small mammals recover.

Johnson’s main focus is to bring back the top-order predator.

He believes there is now good evidence that a stable population of dingoes suppresses the numbers and activity of foxes and cats, and some other feral animal species as well.

He argues that the effect of using a top predator like the dingo to hold down populations of foxes and cats is that the total intensity of predation on smaller native mammals can be reduced.

Bringing back the dingo has many sheep and cattle farmers raising their eyebrows because the wild dogs are known to kill stock. But guardian sheepdogs can protect stock herds by fighting off dingoes if they come too close. This still allows the dingoes to have a beneficial effect in the ecosystem.

Current trials of Maremma dogs, a type of sheepdog, at Dunluce sheep station in northwest Queensland demonstrate that they can be effective dingo deterrents in a pastoral zone.

This is just one potential solution that may work in some areas. Reinstating mosaic fire regimes, where patches of land are burnt at different times to allow the land to recover in stages, and controlling grazing around sensitive habitat of endangered mammals are other potential solutions that are currently under trial in various parts of the country.

Working together

Even though science doesn’t have all the answers I believe that it is more important than ever for land managers and scientists to work together to put new management regimes on the ground.

Our scientific knowledge can provide guidelines for land managers to reduce the pressures on our biodiversity. Through monitoring how species and ecosystems respond to on-ground management we can then learn and adapt our advice to meet future challenges facing Australia’s threatened species.

We need to act now: the international community is watching Australia and we have an opportunity to show how we can apply science through collaborative agreements with land managers to reduce the threats and protect endangered species.

We’ll then be able to add Australian animals to the short list of species, like the vicuña, that have been brought back from the brink of extinction.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, mammal, science
Categories : Australia, climate change, conservation, dingo, environmental policy, extinction, fire, invasive species, management, predator, protected area, research, threatened species

Fragmen borealis: degradation of the world’s last great forest

12 08 2009

I have the dubious pleasure today of introducing a recently published paper of ours that was at the same time both intellectually stimulating and demoralising to write. I will make no apologies for becoming emotionally involved in the scientific issues about which my colleagues and I write (as long as I can maintain with absolute sincerity that the data used and conclusions drawn are as objectively presented as I am capable), and this paper probably epitomises that stance more than most I’ve written during my career.

The topic is especially important to me because of its subtle, yet potentially disastrous consequences for biodiversity and climate change. It’s also a personal issue because it’s happening in a place I used to (many, many years ago) call home.

Despite comprising about a third of the world’s entire forested area and harbouring some of the lowest human densities anywhere, the great boreal forest that stretches across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and a huge chunk of Russia is under severe threat.

Surprised that we’re not talking about tropical deforestation for once? Surprised that so-called ‘developed’ nations are pilfering the last great carbon sink and biodiversity haven left on the planet? If you have read any of the posts on this blog, you probably shouldn’t be.

The paper today appeared online in Trends in Ecology and Evolution and is entitled Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity (by CJA Bradshaw, IG Warkentin & NS Sodhi). It’s essentially a review of the status of the boreal forest from a biodiversity perspective, and includes a detailed assessment of the degree of its fragmentation, species threat, climate- and human-influenced disturbance regime, and its carbon sequestration/emission status. I’ll summarise some of the main findings below:

Russia contains ~53 % of the boreal forest, followed by Canada (25 %), USA (18 %, mostly in Alaska), Sweden (2 %) and Finland and Norway (~1 % each); there are small areas of boreal forest in northern China and Mongolia.
Fire is the main driver of change in the boreal forest. Although clearing for logging and mining abounds, it pales in comparison to the massive driver that is fire.
There is evidence that climate change is increasing the frequency and possibly extent of fires in the boreal zone. That said, most fires are started by humans, and this is particularly the case in the largest expanse in Russia (in Russia alone, 7.5 and 14.5 million hectares burnt in 2002 and 2003, respectively).
While few countries report an overall change in boreal forest extent, the degree of fragmentation and ‘quality’ is declining – only about 40 % of the total forested area is considered ‘intact’ (defined here as areas ≥ 500 km², internally undivided by things such as roads, and with linear dimensions ≥ 10 km).
Russian boreal forest is the most degraded and least ‘intact’, and has suffered the greatest decline in the last few decades compared to other boreal countries.
Boreal countries have only < 10 % of their forests protected from wood exploitation, except Sweden where it’s about 20 %.
There are over 20000 species described in the boreal forest – a number much less than that estimated for tropical forests even of much smaller size.
94 % of the 348 IUCN Red Listed boreal species are considered to be threatened with extinction, but other estimates from local assessments compiled together in 2000 (the United Nations’ Temperate and Boreal Forest Resources Assessment) place the percentages of threatened species up to 46 % for some taxa in some countries (e.g., mosses in Sweden). The latter assessment placed the Fennoscandian countries as having the highest proportions of at-risk taxa (ferns, mosses, lichens, vascular plants, butterflies, birds, mammals and ‘other vertebrates’), with Sweden having the highest proportion in almost all categories.
Boreal forest ecosystems contain about 30 % of the terrestrial carbon stored on Earth (~ 550 Gigatonnes).

Warmer temperatures have predisposed coniferous forest in western Canada to a severe outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) extending over > 13 M ha. © BC Ministry For Range/L. Maclaughlan

Mass insect outbreaks killing millions of trees across the entire boreal region are on the rise.
Although considered in the past as a global carbon sink, recent disturbances (e.g., increasing fire and insect outbreak) and refinements of measurement mean that much of the area is probably a carbon source (at least, temporarily).
A single insect outbreak in western Canada earlier this decade thought to be the direct result of a warming planet contributed more carbon to the atmosphere than all of that country’s transport industry and fire-caused release combined.
Current timber harvest management is inadequately prepared to emulate natural fire regimes and account for shifting fire patterns with climate change.
No amount of timber management can offset the damage done by increasing fire – we must manage fire better to have any chance of saving the boreal forest as a carbon sink and biodiversity haven.

Those include the main take-home messages. I invite you to read the paper in full and contact us (the authors) if you have any questions.

CJA Bradshaw

Full reference: Bradshaw, CJA, IG Warkentin, NS Sodhi. 2009. Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity. Trends in Ecology and Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.03.019

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Tags: biodiversity, boreal forest, carbon sequestration, conservation, science
Categories : Arctic, biodiversity, biosequestration, boreal, Canada, carbon, climate change, conservation, deforestation, environmental policy, Finland, fire, fragmentation, governance, habitat loss, harvest, logging, Norway, protected area, reforestation, reserve, Russia, Sweden, temperate, USA

August issue of Conservation Letters

6 08 2009

The latest edition of Conservation Letters is now out. Click here for full access (yes, all articles are still free!).

Papers in this issue:

Why bartering biodiversity fails

Ecosystem services and conservation strategy: beware the silver bullet

Ecosystem management in Madagascar during global change

Marine protected areas, spatial scales, and governance: implications for the conservation of breeding seabirds

Protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity in the world’s watersheds (previously highlighted here on ConservationBytes.com)

Global priority areas for incorporating land–sea connections in marine conservation

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, conservation letters, science
Categories : biodiversity, climate change, deforestation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, environmental science, eutrophication, flood, habitat loss, investment, management, marine protected area, pollution

Few people, many threats – Australia’s biodiversity shame

31 07 2009

I bang on a bit about human over-population and how it drives biodiversity extinctions. Yet, it isn’t always hordes of hungry humans descending on the hapless species of this planet – Australia is a big place, but has few people (just over 20 million), yet it has one of the higher extinction rates in the world. Yes, most of the country is covered in some fairly hard-core desert and most people live in or near the areas containing the most species, but we have an appalling extinction record all the same.

A paper that came out recently in Conservation Biology and was covered a little in the media last week gives some telling figures for the Oceania region, and more importantly, explains that we have more than enough information now to implement sound, evidence-based policy to right the wrongs of the past and the present. Using IUCN Red List data, Michael Kingsford and colleagues (paper entitled Major conservation policy issues for biodiversity in Oceania), showed that of the 370 assessed species in Australia, 80 % of the threatened ones are listed because of habitat loss, 40 % from invasive species and 30 % from pollution. As we know well, it’s mainly habitat loss we have to control if we want to change things around for the better (see previous relevant posts here, here & here).

Kingsford and colleagues proceed to give a good set of policy recommendations for each of the drivers identified:

Habitat loss and degradation

Implement legislation, education, and community outreach to stop or reduce land clearing, mining, and unsustainable logging through education, incentives, and compensation for landowners that will encourage private conservation
Establish new protected areas for habitats that are absent or poorly represented
In threatened ecosystems (e.g., wetlands), establish large-scale restoration projects with local communities that incorporate conservation and connectivity
Establish transparent and evidence-based state of environment reporting on biodiversity and manage threats within and outside protected areas.
Protect free-flowing river systems (largely unregulated by dams, levees, and diversions) within the framework of the entire river basin and increase environmental flows on regulated rivers

Invasive species

Avoid deliberate introduction of exotic species, unless suitable analyses of benefits outweigh risk-weighted costs
Implement control of invasive species by assessing effectiveness of control programs and determining invasion potential
Establish regulations and enforcement for exchange or treatment of ocean ballast and regularly implement antifouling procedures

Climate change

Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions
Identify, assess, and protect important climate refugia
Ameliorate the impacts of climate change through strategic management of other threatening processes
Develop strategic plans for priority translocations and implement when needed

Overexploitation

Implement restrictions on harvest of overexploited species to maintain sustainability
Implement an ecosystem-based approach for fisheries, based on scientific data, that includes zoning the ocean; banning destructive fishing; adopting precautionary fishing principles that include size limits, quotas, and regulation with sufficient resources based on scientific assessments of stocks and; reducing bycatch through regulation and education
Implement international mechanisms to increase sustainability of fisheries by supporting international treaties for fisheries protection in the high seas; avoiding perverse subsidies and improve labelling of sustainable fisheries; and licensing exports of aquarium fish
Control unsustainable illegal logging and wildlife harvesting through local incentives and cessation of international trade

Pollution

Decrease pollution through incentives and education; reduce and improve treatment of domestic, industrial, and agriculture waste; and rehabilitate polluted areas
Strengthen government regulations to stop generation of toxic material from mining efforts that affects freshwater and marine environments
Establish legislation and regulations and financial bonds (international) to reinforce polluter-pays principles
Establish regulations, education programs, clean ups, labelling, and use of biodegradable packaging to reduce discarded fishing gear and plastics

Disease

Establish early-detection programs for pathological diseases and biosecurity controls to reduce translocation
Identify causes, risk-assessment methods, and preventative methods for diseases
Establish remote communities of organisms (captive) not exposed to disease in severe outbreaks

Implementation

Establish regional population policies based on ecologically sustainable human population levels and consumption
Ensure that all developments affecting the environment are adequately analysed for impacts over the long term
Promote economic and societal benefits from conservation through education
Determine biodiversity status and trends with indicators that diagnose and manage declines
Invest in taxonomic understanding and provision of resources (scientific and conservation) to increase capacity for conservation
Increase the capacity of government conservation agencies
Focus efforts of nongovernmental organisations on small island states on building indigenous capacity for conservation
Base conservation on risk assessment and decision support
Establish the effectiveness of conservation instruments (national and international) and their implementation

A very good set of recommendations that I hope we can continue to develop within our governments.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, policy, science
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, coral reefs, deforestation, disease, ecosystem function, education, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, fish, fisheries, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, hotspot, human overpopulation, illegal fishing, invasive species, IUCN, IUU fishing, marine protected area, monitoring, New Zealand, protected area, Red List, research, reserve, restoration, threatened species

Global conservation priorities based on human need

13 07 2009

A paper recently posted online in Conservation Letters caught my eye as a Potential on ConservationBytes.com.

Gary Luck and colleagues’ paper Protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity in the world’s watersheds is a novel approach to an admittedly problematic aspect of conservation biology – global prioritisation schemes. While certainly coming in as a Conservation Classic, the first real global conservation prioritisation scheme (Myers and colleagues’ global biodiversity hotspots) was rather subjective in its approach, and many subsequent schemes have failed to reproduce the same kinds of priorities (the congruency problem). I’m certainly not knocking biodiversity hotspots because I believe it was one of the true paradigm shifts in conservation biology, but I am cognisant of its limitations.

Another big problem with conservation prioritisation schemes is that they are a hard sell to governments – how do you convince nations (especially poor ones) to forgo the immediate gains of resource exploitation to protect what many (incorrectly and short-sightedly) deem as irrelevant centres of biotic endemism?

Well, Luck and colleagues have taken us one step closer to global acceptance of conservation prioritisation schemes by basing this latest addition on ecosystem services. In their paper they divided the world by catchments (watersheds) and then estimated the services of water provision, flood prevention and carbon storage that each provides to humanity. Water provision was a estimated as a complex combination of variables that together can be interpreted as the capacity of ecosystems to regulate water flows and quality that benefit humans (e.g., influencing seasonal water availability or nutrient levels). Flood mitigation was estimated as the system’s capacity to reduce the impact of floods on communities, and carbon storage was estimated as the system’s capacity to uptake carbon in soils and vegetation.

In general, the catchments in need of the highest priority protection were found in the poorest areas (namely, South East Asia and Africa) because their protection would be the least costly and benefit the most people. Luck and colleagues are therefore the first to incorporate cost–benefit trade-offs explicitly in developing global priorities for protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity. I take my hat off to them for a modern and highly relevant twist on an old idea. Great paper and I hope people take notice.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, priority, research, science
Categories : Africa, carbon, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, ecosystem services, environmental policy, investment, planning, poverty, prioritisation, protected area, South East Asia, threatened species, water

Out of touch, impractical and irrelevant

8 07 2009

argument The opening quote to this interesting little article says it all:

“We have all heard policy-makers in environment organisations accuse researchers as out of touch, impractical and irrelevant. We have all seen environment management agencies criticised by researchers in the media, in this journal, at conferences or in the tea room for ignoring, under-utilising or misrepresenting research findings when formulating or implementing policy.”

From the ‘researcher’ side, I can attest that I have on more than one occasion cursed the inability of policy makers (from high-level politicians down to municipal councillors) to implement sound, evidence-based advice on how to prevent (or at least minimise) environmental disasters (for a local example, see this post). I’m sure many policy makers think that (at least some) researchers are pie-in-the-sky, political naïfs that consistently fail to make their research relevant. I know that both extremes are unfortunate realities.

So when I saw Gibbons and colleagues’ paper Some practical suggestions for improving engagement between researchers and policy-makers in natural resource management, I was quite impressed with their excellent suggestions for bridging the gap.

It’s a short paper, but it recommends the following basic steps for improvement:

Understand what motivates people on each side of the policy fence. For researchers, we are locked into a system that rewards success based on a some typically non-economic metrics, such as the quality and quantity of peer-reviewed articles we write, our academic reputation amongst our peers, the amount of external funding we can attract (generally linked to the publication criterion) and the number of students we supervise to research independence. Policy makers working within a more top-down environment are compelled to advance policies that reflect their government’s philosophy (which is dictated by their constituents), and often the deadlines are fierce.
Build relationships. This goes without saying, but often doesn’t happen. Lack of trust can usually only be broken down if you respect and know your counterpart. Gibbons and company suggest that relationships can be built better through the regular dissemination of information back and forth, effective communication (clarity and brevity), and maintaining relationships after information exchange (keep in touch).
Organise regular forums. These meetings are essential to build new and productive relationships. Ways to increase contact include: maintaining ‘who’s who’ lists, encouraging secondments (people exchanges), and organising annual science-policy colloquia.
Explore alternate communication media. Face-to-face meetings are often difficult, so Gibbons et al. recommend that researchers attempt to disseminate their work regularly in other media, such as newsletters, broad-scope journals, journalistic magazines and blogs (this last suggestion is my own!). Governments can also make calls for research proposals in particular, policy-relevant areas, thus forcing alignment prior to research even getting off the ground.

Thanks for the advice.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, management, policy, science
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, conservation, conservation biology, environmental policy, environmental science, planning

Official Environment Institute video

11 06 2009

I’ve written about The University of Adelaide‘s new Environment Institute not too long ago (see post here), and now we’ve had the official launch. The people behind scenes have put together a great introductory video that we all witnessed for the first time last week. Happy to share it with ConservationBytes.com readers here.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

A couple of other excellent parts of this evening include the venerable Robyn Williams‘ speech (listen here), and our Director’s, Professor Mike Young, encouraging kick off (listen here).

I’ve very proud to be a part of this exciting initiative.

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, environment institute, science
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, carbon trading, climate change, conservation, ecology, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental economics, environmental engineering, environmental policy, environmental science, South Australia

June Issue of Conservation Letters

6 06 2009

Quick off the mark this month is the new issue of Conservation Letters. There are some exciting new papers (listed below). I encourage readers to have a look:

Policy Perspectives

Briggs, SV. Priorities and paradigms: directions in threatened species recovery

Rosen, T, A Bath. Transboundary management of large carnivores in Europe: from incident to opportunity

Letters

Kellner, JB, A Hastings. A reserve paradox: introduced heterogeneity may increase regional invasibility

Venter, O et al. Carbon payments as a safeguard for threatened tropical mammals (blog post)

Underwood, EC et al. Evaluating conservation spending for species return: a retrospective analysis in California

Halpern BS et al. Mapping cumulative human impacts to California Current marine ecosystems

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science
Categories : Asia, Borneo, carbon, carbon trading, climate change, coasts, conservation, deforestation, environmental policy, exploitation, fish, fisheries, governance, habitat loss, harvest, Indonesia, invasive species, investment, management, marine, marine protected area, oil palm, palm oil, predator, recovery, research, reserve, South East Asia, threatened species

Tropical forests worth more standing

4 06 2009

Keeping with the oil palm theme…

A paper just published online in Conservation Letters by Venter and colleagues entitled Carbon payments as a safeguard for threatened tropical mammals gets my vote for the Potential list.

We’ve been saying it again and again and again… tropical forests, the biodiversity they harbour and the ecosystem services they provide are worth more to humanity than the potential timber they represent. Now we find they’re even worth more than cash crops (e.g., oil palm) planned to replace them.

A few years ago some very clever economists and environmental policy makers came up with the concept of ‘REDD’ (reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), which is basically as system “… to provide financial incentives for developing countries that voluntarily reduce national deforestation rates and associated carbon emissions below a reference level”. Compensation can occur either via grant funding or through a carbon-trading scheme in international markets.

Now, many cash-greedy corporations argue that REDD could in no way compete with the classic rip-it-down-and-plant-the-shit-out-of-it-with-a-cash-crop approach, but Venter and colleagues now show this argument to be a bit of a furphy.

The authors asses the financial feasibility of REDD in all planned oil palm plantations in Kalimantan – Indonesia’s part of the island of Borneo in South East Asia. Borneo is also the heart of the environmental devastation typical of the tropics. They conclude that REDD is in fact a rather financially competitive scheme if we can manage to obtain carbon prices of around US$10-33/tonne. In fact, even when carbon prices are as low as US$2/tonne (as they are roughly now on the voluntary market), REDD is still competitive for areas of high forest carbon content and lower agricultural potential.

But the main advantage isn’t just the positive cash argument – many endangered mammals (and there are 46 of them in Kalimantan) such as the South East Asian equivalent of the panda (the orang-utan – ‘equivalent’ in the media-hype and political sensitivity sense, not taxonomic, of course) and the Bornean elephant (yes, they have them) are currently found in areas planned for plantation. So saving the forest obviously saves these and countless other taxa that only exist on this highly endemic island. Finally, Venter and colleagues found that where emission reductions were cheapest, these are also areas with higher-than-average densities of endangered mammals, suggesting that REDD is a fantastic option to keep developing countries in the black without compromising their extensive species richness and endemism.

Brilliant. Now if we can just get the economists and pollies to agree on a REDD model that actually works.

CJA Bradshaw