Assessment of Management Effectiveness for the Strategic Assessment of the Great Barrier Reef Region

[Extract] As part of the strategic assessment of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and adjacent coastal zone, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is required to assess the effectiveness of its management arrangements to protect the values that underpin matters of national environmental significance within the Great Barrier Reef Region.Title page: Prepared for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) -- 19 March 2013 -- UniQuest Project No: C0094

Reef 2050 Plan insights report: to inform the 2019 Outlook Report: Report to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

This Report was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (under the Commonwealth of Australia), which requested that it “contribute to informing the forthcoming 2020 review of the Reef 2050 Plan by providing insights into the Reef 2050 Plan’s contributions to effective management of the Region. This should be a synthesis of any Reef 2050 specific management identified as part of the management effectiveness review” (Commonwealth of Australia 2017). This report has focused on the targets and objectives of the Reef 2050 Plan. Actions, which have been the focus of the mid-term review of the Reef 2050 Plan, are not evaluated in this report

In pursuit of knowledge: Addressing barriers to effective conservation evaluation

Evaluation, the process of assessing the effectiveness of programs and activities, has gained increasing attention in the conservation sector as programs seek to account for investments, measure their impacts, and adapt interventions to improve future outcomes. We conducted a country-wide evaluation of terrestrial-based conservation programs in Samoa. Though rarely applied, the benefit of evaluating multiple projects at once is that it highlights factors which are persistent and influential across the entire conservation sector. We found mixed success in achieving goals among conservation programs; yet this result is surrounded by uncertainty because of the quality of existing evidence on project outcomes. We explore the role of different components of the conservation management system, i.e., context, planning, inputs, processes, and outputs, in facilitating and/or constraining collection of data on project outcomes, and thereby assessment of whether projects were successful. Our study identified a number of direct and indirect barriers that affected the capacity of projects to carry out informative evaluations and generate knowledge on conservation progress in Samoa. These attributes and mechanisms include: the availability and management of data, design and planning of projects, and systems for reporting among donors and proponents. To overcome these barriers to evaluation, we believe that a shift in institutional approaches to reporting outcomes is needed, from a reflective way of thinking to a more prospective outlook

Precipitation of scale-forming materials from solution

Scale-forming metal oxides and carbonates, such as cupric oxide, can be precipitated from an ammoniacal leaching solution with minimum scale buildup by distilling the solution in an externally heated distillation chamber mounted for rotation about a generally horizontal axis. The distillation chamber includes a plurality of axially spaced annular baffles defining a plurality of compartments containing a tumbling medium, such as spherical balls. The solution is continuously introduced into the inlet end of the chamber and heated under pressure to a temperature above its boiling point as it flows over the baffles toward the outlet end of the chamber. A slurry containing the precipitated cupric oxide is continuously withdrawn from the outlet end and the evaporated gases are continuously withdrawn from the inlet end. The balls rub against each other, the interior of the chamber, and the sides of the baffles, as the chamber is rotated at a non-centrifuging speed, to provide a grinding or scrubbing action which minimizes a scale buildup of the precipitating cupric oxide.https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/patents/1099/thumbnail.jp

Perspectives of wild medicine harvesters from Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town is a fast-growing cityscape in the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa with 24 formally protected conservation areas including the World Heritage Table Mountain National Park. These sites have been protected and managed as critical sites for local biodiversity, representing potentially one-third of all Cape Floristic Region flora species and 18% of South Africa’s plant diversity. Cape Town is also inhabited by a rapidly growing culturally and economically diverse citizenry with distinct and potentially conflicting perspectives on access to, and management of, local natural resources. In a qualitative study of 58 locally resident traditional healers of distinct cultural groups, we examined motivations underlying the generally illicit activity of harvesting of wild resources from Cape Town protected areas. Resource harvester motivations primarily link to local economic survival, health care and cultural links to particular resources and practices, ‘access for all’ outlooks, and wholesale profit-seeking perspectives. We describe these motivations, contrast them with the current formal, legal and institutional perspectives for biodiversity protection in the city, and propose managerial interventions that may improve sustainability of ongoing harvest activities

The implications of primate behavioral flexibility for sustainable human–primate coexistence in anthropogenic habitats

People are an inescapable aspect of most environments inhabited by nonhuman primates today. Consequently, interest has grown in how primates adjust their behavior to live in anthropogenic habitats. However, our understanding of primate behavioral flexibility and the degree to which it will enable primates to survive alongside people in the long term remains limited. This Special Issue brings together a collection of papers that extend our knowledge of this subject. In this introduction, we first review the literature to identify past and present trends in research and then introduce the contributions to this Special Issue. Our literature review confirms that publications on primate behavior in anthropogenic habitats, including interactions with people, increased markedly since the 2000s. Publications concern a diversity of primates but include only 17% of currently recognized species, with certain primates overrepresented in studies, e.g., chimpanzees and macaques. Primates exhibit behavioral flexibility in anthropogenic habitats in various ways, most commonly documented as dietary adjustments, i.e., incorporation of human foods including agricultural crops and provisioned items, and as differences in activity, ranging, grouping patterns, and social organization, associated with changing anthropogenic factors. Publications are more likely to include information on negative rather than positive or neutral interactions between humans and primates. The contributions to this Special Issue include both empirical research and reviews that examine various aspects of the human–primate interface. Collectively, they show that primate behavior in shared landscapes does not always conflict with human interests, and demonstrate the value of examining behavior from a cost–benefit perspective without making prior assumptions concerning the nature of interactions. Careful interdisciplinary research has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of the complexities of human–primate interactions, and is crucial for identifying appropriate mechanisms to enable sustainable human–primate coexistence in the 21st century and beyond

Clinical Characteristics of a Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Population Across the Fibrosis Spectrum Measured by Magnetic Resonance Elastography: Analysis of Screening Data

Introduction: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), one of the most common liver diseases, is associated with liver-related complications and metabolic comorbidities. The phenotype is wide, ranging from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis with advanced fibrosis. In this analysis of a phase 1 trial, clinical characteristics of screened subjects with NAFLD were studied according to the extent of fibrosis assessed using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Methods: One hundred ninety-four subjects with body mass index (BMI) of 25–40\ua0kg/m2 and suspected NAFLD were assessed by MRE and grouped by MRE thresholds as a proxy for fibrosis staging (groups 0–4). Data were summarized by group levels, and correlation analyses between MRE values and clinical parameters (including magnetic resonance imaging-proton density fat fraction) were performed. Results: Most subjects had MRE values in the lower range (groups 0–1; N = 148). Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and BMI > 35\ua0kg/m2 were more frequent in groups with higher than lower MRE values. Subjects in the highest MRE groups also tended to be older and have higher liver enzyme concentrations compared with lower MRE groups. No, or weak, correlations were found between MRE values and clinical parameters (all r values ≤ 0.45). Conclusions: There was considerable variation and overlap in clinical characteristics across the spectrum of liver stiffness. Although groups with high MRE values generally included more subjects with T2D and obesity, and had higher age and concentrations of liver enzymes, the clinical characteristics did not strongly correlate with MRE scores in this population. Trial Registration: Registered on Clinicaltrials.gov on November 29, 2017 (NCT03357380)