Assessment of management effectiveness for the 2009 Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report

Independent assessment of management effectiveness conducted to inform the Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2009

Recovery and Management in Surin Marine National Park, Thailand

Reefs around Surin were affected by the 26 December tsunami differently depending on the marine topography, the dominant coral types and the direction of striking waves. Major waves struck Surin three times. The first was from the north-west to southeast, the second was the reverse, from southeast to northwest and the third was again from the northwest to southeast. A survey of the impact of the tsunami on Surin's reefs was undertaken using the same method applied to monitoring the site since 1998 (Department of Marine Science, Kasetsart University). While individual coral forms were effected (Table 1), long lasting effects were generally minor. The scale of impact on individual coral colonies was high but the colonies were not destroyed. Large massive corals were up-turned but were not killed, branching coral colonies were move but survived the shift and many colonies were covered by sand but rapidly uncovered by current with minimal detriment. While some sites were severely affected by the tsunami, overall the reef of Surin can be considered to be a minor affected area. Of greater concern is the slow re-establishment of a management presence to control tourism use and illegal fishing. Unfettered, both have the potential to result in a greater decline in reef condition than that identified from the tsunami

Conservation in the dark? the information used to support management decisions

The management requirements for protected areas are frequently complex and urgent; as a result, managers often need to act quickly and make decisions with limited supporting evidence at their disposal. Despite demands for high-quality information, it is unclear how much of this evidence conservation practitioners use to assist with their decision making. We investigated the information used to manage protected areas, based on the evidence reported by practitioners when evaluating their management performance. We examined the management of over 1000 protected areas run by two Australian conservation agencies - Parks Victoria and the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change - an unprecedented scope for this type of study. We found that very few conservation practitioners use evidence-based knowledge to support their management. The evidence used varies with the management issue, reserve type, and reserve size. Around 60% of conservation management decisions rely on experience-based information, and many practitioners report having insufficient evidence to assess their management decisions. While experience plays an important role in conservation management, the apparent lack of evidence-based information to support decision making in the reserves has the potential to compromise outcomes and jeopardize the investment made in protected areas for conservation

Tourism Management in Surin Marine National Park, Thailand

This paper analyses the management status of Surin Marine National Park (Surin), the effectiveness of existing management strategies, their adaptation to the problems occurring and the results of the adaptations. Surin is situated at the upper part of Andaman Sea, Thailand. Its reputation as the best shallow-water reef in Thailand attracts more than twenty thousand visitors per year who enjoy diving on the eight square kilometres of reef. Visitor management arrangements include a visitor fee, boat permits, specific activities management, a zoning plan and an information centre. In common with many other national parks, Surin faces management issues relating to this use and the capacity to manage it to protect valued resources. The current five year zoning plan is rigid and inflexible and makes it difficult for management to respond to changing circumstances. These problems contribute to concern for the effectiveness of tourism management. In addition, survey of visitor attitudes towards, and knowledge about, management revealed that visitors lack recognition of current management approaches. To address these issues, some changes have been made to management arrangements. A mooring buoy system has been established to better identify use areas and manage the level of use of sites. However, in the absence of a recognized study of the associated impact factors and effect of this decision, this plan may not be entirely successful. While the biogeography of Surin is well known, little is known about the visitors, their expectations or activities. More effective tourism management will require such information and its use to develop strategies to match visitor needs with marine resource characteristics while protecting the resource. Further revision of management approaches is also recommended

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

Management Response to the Tsunami, Surin Marine National Park, Thailand

Surin Marine National Park lies northwest of Phuket. Before the 26 December 2004 tsunami, its reputation as the best shallow-water reef in Thailand attracted more than 30000 visitors per year to the 8km2 of fringing reef. Visitor management included fees, permits, specific activities management, a zoning plan and an information centre. Zoning plan exclusion areas included the area of highest biodiversity and a coral bleached area (for natural recovery). While management faced many long-term challenges, it was generally appropriate for the visitation level and threats to the reef system. The tsunami demolished all park infrastructure and effectively destroyed the capacity to manage. Major tourist operators were reduced, currently, from four to two, although dive-boats were largely unaffected. The biodiverse exclusion area and the area most used for snorkelling (near the park headquarters) were destroyed. While tourist arrivals were decimated, rapid recovery is expected with associated demand to access unaffected sites. The problem for management is to re-establish an effective presence and define a regime that is supportive of tourism-recovery, but meets long-term conservation objectives. This paper documents pre and post tsunami reef condition, visitor and operator expectations of management and possible approaches to short and long term management

Strengthening the global system of protected areas post-2020: A perspective from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation and have never been more relevant than at the present time when the world is facing both a biodiversity and a climate change crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has been helping to set global standards and best practice guidelines in protected area planning and management for 60 years. Following this guidance, many countries have made significant progress toward their Aichi Target 11 commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The global community will be coming together at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the CBD to set new biodiversity conservation targets for the next decade, as milestones to 2050 and a vision of “a world living in harmony with nature.” This paper lays out the WCPA perspective on priorities for supporting effective protected and conserved areas for the post-2020 era

Use of freely available datasets and machine learning methods in predicting deforestation

The range and quality of freely available geo-referenced datasets is increasing. We evaluate the usefulness of free datasets for deforestation prediction by comparing generalised linear models and generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) with a variety of machine learning models (Bayesian networks, artificial neural networks and Gaussian processes) across two study regions. Freely available datasets were able to generate plausible risk maps of deforestation using all techniques for study zones in both Mexico and Madagascar. Artificial neural networks outperformed GLMMs in the Madagascan (average AUC 0.83 vs 0.80), but not the Mexican study zone (average AUC 0.81 vs 0.89). In Mexico and Madagascar, Gaussian processes (average AUC 0.89, 0.85) and structured Bayesian networks (average AUC 0.88, 0.82) performed at least as well as GLMMs (average AUC 0.89, 0.80). Bayesian networks produced more stable results across different sampling methods. Gaussian processes performed well (average AUC 0.85) with fewer predictor variables

A comparison of climate change impacts on park values on four Queensland World Heritage National Parks in Australia

Protected areas will vary in how they respond to climate-related threats and impacts. An important step in adapting protected area management to respond to climate change is identifying how protected areas and their values may be impacted. This requires an understanding of the ecological and social system impacting on the particular values so that consideration of management options and issues can be informed by this understanding. A set of Bayesian belief networks were developed to assess impacts and management issues for three key values (stream-dwelling frogs, cool temperate forest and recreational walking access) across four National Parks (Springbrook, Lamington, Mount Barney and Main Range) in Queensland, Australia. The aim was to assess how those values may be impacted by climate change, how the parks differ in relation to likely impact and options for management adaptation. We observed, depending on a protected area's physical and socio-ecological characteristics, that the values were likely to be differently affected across the parks and management responses will need to take account of these differences