The Nature Conservancy takes a strategic and systematic approach to conservation planning. Ecoregional assessments are used to set goals and identify geographical priorities, and Conservation Action Planning is used to develop strategic plans for conservation areas. This study demonstrates how these planning processes were applied at the seascape scale based on a case study of Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. Conservation Action Planning was used to identify key threats and strategies, and systematic conservation planning (similar to that used for ecoregional assessments) was used to design a network of marine protected areas to be resilient to the threat of climate change. The design was based on an assessment of biodiversity and socioeconomic values, and identified 14 Areas of Interest that meet specific conservation goals. A detailed community-based planning process is now underway with local communities that own and manage these areas to refine and implement the marine protected area network.
Summary Much of northern Australia’s tropical savannas are subject to annual intense and extensive late dry season wildfires, much of this occurring on Aboriginal land. Based on the successful West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) model, which has resulted in significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, fire abatement programmes are planned for other significant regions of northern Australia. This study offers an introduction to the ideas behind a proposed environmental and social benchmarking project that aims to evaluate the potential benefits of expanding the fire abatement program in northern Australia, under the leadership of NAILSMA and its partners. Gaining a better understanding of the biodiversity, social and cultural outcomes of these fire abatement activities is an important component of demonstrating multiple benefits of these programmes. We emphasize the role of both biodiversity and cultural mapping to establish benchmarks and baseline states, with the involvement of Indigenous communities being a key element to optimize social and biodiversity benefits. Consultation with Traditional Owners and ranger groups to establish an agreed set of targets, indicators and sampling protocols and methodologies are critical component of this process. Examples of preliminary work to date are provided.
Conservation projects occur under many types of uncertainty. Where this uncertainty can affect achievement of a project's objectives, there is risk. Understanding risks to project success should influence a range of strategic and tactical decisions in conservation, and yet, formal risk assessment rarely features in the guidance or practice of conservation planning. We describe how subjective risk analysis tools can be framed to facilitate the rapid identification and assessment of risks to conservation projects, and how this information should influence conservation planning. Our approach is illustrated with an assessment of risks to conservation success as part of a conservation plan for the work of The Nature Conservancy in northern Australia. Risks can be both internal and external to a project, and occur across environmental, social, economic and political systems. Based on the relative importance of a risk and the level of certainty in its assessment we propose a series of appropriate, project level responses including research, monitoring, and active amelioration. Explicit identification, prioritization, and where possible, management of risks are important elements of using conservation resources in an informed and accountable manner.
A study was conducted in northeastern Queensland, Australia, to investigate the effects of changes in seed predator and disperser population on plant community in the different parts of the landscape (i.e. fragments of different sizes versus continuous forest). A series of six seed placement trials using the seeds of 16 plant species to determine rates of seed removal, predation or caching. The species include Corynocarpus cribbianus, Elaeocarpus largiflorens, Beilschmiedia bancrofti, B. tooram, Cryptocarya densiflora, C. pleurosperma, Endiandra dielsiana, E. insignis, E. sankeyana, Litsea connorsii, Aglaia sapindina, Syzygium johnsonii, Athertonia diversifolia, Prunus turneriana, Acronychia acronychiodes and Pouteria castanosperma. Results indicated that the component of the terrestrial mammal community that feeds on fruits in Australia's tropical rain forests represents a continuum of seed interactions from highly predatory species to primarily frugivorous seed dispersers in the order of Uromys caudimaculatus > Melomys cervinipes > Rattus spp. > Hypsiprymnodon moschatus. No species was entirely granivorous or frugivorous and all species play roles as seed predators and seed dispersers. Both as a community and as individual species, terrestrial mammals consumed fruits and seeds of all sizes and structural characteristics offered except that Rattus spp. and H. moschatus were unable to penetrate very hard seeds. Location within the landscape (either microsite or patch size) had little effect on the probability that an animal would encounter and remove a seed. Palatable species were rapidly eaten or cached regardless of microsite and regardless of whether they were in forest fragments or in continuous forest. The impacts of granivorous rodents were similar across all landscape categories and microsites. Across plant species, levels of seed predation can be variable and, importantly for some species, can be extremely high. The plant species were categorized into three distinct categories based on how they were treated by the disperser community: Group 1 species are those that are consumed or cached by predators and are rarely or never dispersed by frugivores; Group 2 species are eaten by seed predators, possibly occasionally cached, but are dispersed by several species of frugivores; and Group 3 species are only rarely eaten by vertebrate seed predators and are generally dispersed only by frugivores.
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