Planning for the future: Incorporating global and local data to prioritize coral reef conservation

Abstract

Abstract1. It is necessary, yet challenging, to manage coral reefs to simultaneously address a suite of global and local stressors that act over the short and long term. Therefore, managers need practical guidance on prioritizing the locations and types of conservation that most efficiently address their goals using limited resources.2. This study is one of the first examples of a vulnerability assessment for coral reefs that uses downscaled global climate change projections and local anthropogenic stress data to prioritize coral reef locations for conservation investment. Vulnerability was separated into manageable and unmanageable components (bleaching likelihood and local anthropogenic stressors, respectively), and the highest priority was given to places with low levels of unmanageable threats and high levels of manageable threats. Following prioritization, resilience characteristics were derived from standard reef monitoring data and used to identify the specific conservation strategies most likely to succeed given local ecological conditions and threats.3. Using Indonesian coral reefs as a case study, 9.1% of total coral reef area was identified as of high conservation priority, including parts of Raja Ampat, Sulawesi, and Sumatra that are not currently included in marine protected areas (MPAs).4. Existing MPAs tend to be located in areas less threatened by local-scale anthropogenic activities, which has implications for both the implementation costs and the likely impact of conservation investment. This approach employs common and publicly available data and can therefore be replicated wherever managers face the familiar challenge of allocating limited conservation resources in the face of rapid global change and uncertainty.

Management strategies for coral reefs and people under global environmental change: 25 years of scientific research

“…Corals in these sites already experience large variations in temperature or acidity conditions, or have the genetic diversity to adapt to future conditions (Billé et al, 2013;. Finally, refugia could be places where other stress are at low levels, for instance places with low cyclone activity , or where local human impacts can be managed well (Harris et al, 2017).…”

Enhancing Climate Change Research With Open Science

“…Most scientists agree that publicly-funded research should be freely available (Dallmeier-Tiessen et al, 2011) and several institutions have successfully implemented OS practices to share data and research in open-access archives. For instance, research on climate-driven thermal bleaching events in coral reef ecosystems has benefited hugely from open access to NOAA's large-scale monitoring data (e.g., NOAA CoralWatch; Harris et al, 2017). Although comprehensive open data policies have been implemented by some governments (e.g., USA; Obama, 2013) and journal groups (e.g., Nature editors, 2018), journal policies on data sharing are typically insufficient for adequate reproducibility (Stodden et al, 2018).…”

“…Climate change triage that supports long-term values of multiple stakeholders (e.g., scientists, Indigenous communities, government, industry; Wheeler et al, 2016) will require integration of diverse datasets from multiple disciplines Access to open datasets at global and local scales facilitates conservation triage of coral reefs (Harris et al, 2017) Fast release of ideas and improved research before peer-review…”

Designating Spatial Priorities for Marine Biodiversity Conservation in the Coral Triangle

“…MPAs which have a high vulnerability to both anthropogenic and climate change pressure should be prioritized and reinforced with strategies to reduce human impacts, such as fisheries enforcement and management (McLeod et al, 2010), habitat restoration programs (Maynard et al, 2015;Harris et al, 2017), and climate change mitigation actions including reef recovery strategies (McLeod et al, 2009;Green et al, 2014). Conversely, MPAs with low vulnerabilities to both anthropogenic and climate change pressure should be prioritized as climate change refugia and possibly as candidates for MPA expansion (McLeod et al, 2010;Harris et al, 2017). MPA management plans should, moreover, be integrated within a broader framework of marine spatial planning and other ecosystem-based management regimes to effectively control negative impacts of upstream development (Hiscock, 2014;Mills et al, 2015).…”