Protecting Wildlife and Significant Habitat in Coastal New Hampshire

The Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership (“Partnership”) consists of organizations and agencies that are committed to protecting the important habitats of the Great Bay area. The Nature Conservancy has contracted with Dea Brickner-Wood of Blue Sky Associates to serve as the Coordinator of the Great Bay Partnership. The Great Bay Coordinator provided services to the overall operations of the Partnership, as outlined in this report

Assessment of Road Crossings for Improving Migratory Fish Passage in the Winnicut River Watershed

This report summarizes the results of a river continuity assessment focused on roadstream crossings. The Winnicut River is the site of a restoration project that removed a head-of-tide dam and resulted in the only free-flowing major tributary to the Great Bay Estuary. The river system currently supports a small annual run of river herring, and with the removal of the dam and ladder system, migratory fish will now have access to a total of 37 miles of potential upstream habitat. In anticipation of improved access, The Nature Conservancy conducted a fish passage assessment for all stream crossings above the head-of-tide dam. We used an assessment methodology based on the Massachusetts Riverways Program, with adjustments following a similar crossing study in the Ashuelot River system (NH). We assessed a total of 42 road crossings in the Winnicut watershed, and classified them as severe, moderate, minor, or passable for fish passage. One crossing was identified as severe, thirty-five were moderate, six were minor, and no crossings were determined to be fully passable for all fish. To develop a priority list of crossings for improvements, we focused on culverts with moderate or severe barrier rankings and screened out crossings associated with major highway infrastructure. We then used GIS analysis to determine the habitat potential upstream of each crossing, and prioritized crossings with greater than 0.5 miles of upstream habitat. We ordered priority crossings from nearest to furthest from the dam site at the river mouth. Our analysis produced a final list of 11 crossings that, if all were improved, would reestablish 19.5 miles of unfragmented habitat for migratory fish. We are sharing results of this study with local and state officials in hopes of securing funds and making structural enhancements to priority road crossings. Going forward, we hope that this information will lead to increases in migratory fish populations in the Winnicut River and throughout the entire Great Bay Estuary

Author insights 2015 survey

The annual Author Insights Survey, run by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and sister company Palgrave Macmillan forms part of a wider research programme which aims to understand general author attitudes and behaviours around publishing, to track any changes over time. The survey is conducted for internal purposes each year to provide longitudinal data and track changes in attitudes and behaviours. This year’s survey included questions on topics as diverse as factors that contribute to a journal’s reputation, the value of services offered by publishers and authors’ ideal audiences for their research. Demographic questions were also included in the survey to enable analysis by fields such as region and discipline

Assessment of Proposed Wetland Mitigation Areas in West Eugene

2 p. Review produced for HC 441: Science Colloquium: Willamette River Environmental Health, Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon, Spring term, 2004

Academics and Social Networking Sites: Benefits, Problems and Tensions in Professional Engagement with Online Networking

The web has had a profound effect on the ways people interact, with online social networks arguably playing an important role in changing or augmenting how we connect with others. However, uptake of online social networking by the academic community varies, and needs to be understood. This paper presents an independent, novel analysis of a large-scale dataset published by Nature Publishing Group detailing the results of a survey about academics use of online social networking services. An open coding approach was used to analyse 480 previously unused text responses. The analysis revealed a wide range of benefits and also problems associated with engaging with online networking, and tensions within this. The analysis provides further insight into the nuances of uptake, by exploring clusters of co-reported benefits and problems within the qualitative analysis. The findings will help move forward current debates surrounding social media use by academics from being viewed in solely beneficial terms, towards an understanding of the problems and tensions that arise through academic work online

Forests as Resources for the Poor : The Rainforest Challenge.

At AGM01, the CGIAR decided to immediately initiate the regular Challenge Program(CP) process by calling for ideas. Of the 41 CP ideas received, 13 were recommended bythe interim Science Council (iSC) and endorsed by the CGIAR for pre-proposaldevelopment. The attached pre-proposal, Forests as Resources for the Poor: The Rainforest Challenge, is one of four proposals that the iSC considered meritorious and would further consider for review after meeting certain requirements. This preproposal was discussed at the stakeholder meeting at AGM02 : Agenda item 3, session III.Document date and author are unspecified

Building capacities for transformative change towards sustainability: Imagination in Intergovernmental Science-Policy Scenario Processes

Scenario development has been recognized as a potential method to explore future change and stimulate a reflective process that can contribute to more informed decision-making. The assessment process under IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has however shown that the current predominantly biophysical and economic models and scenario processes for exploring the future of biodiversity, ecosystem services and their contributions to human wellbeing are insufficient to capture the complexity and context-specific nature of the problems facing these sectors. Several important challenges have been identified that require a more in-depth analysis of where more imaginative scenario efforts can be undertaken to address this gap. In this paper, we identify six key characteristics necessary for scenario processes: adaptability across diverse contexts, inclusion of diverse knowledge and value systems, legitimate stakeholder engagement that foregrounds the role of power and politics, an ability to grapple with uncertainty, individual and collective thinking mechanisms and relevance to policy making. We compared four cases of imaginative, arts-based scenario processes that each offer aspects of meeting these criteria. These approaches emphasise the importance of engaging the imagination of those involved in a process and harnessing it as a tool for identifying and conceptualising more transformative future trajectories. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that there is value in fostering more inclusive and creative participatory processes that acknowledge the importance of understanding multiple value systems and relationships in order to reimagine a more inclusive and just future. Based on this, we reflect on future research to understand the transformative role that imagination can play in altering and enhancing knowledge-making for global assessments, including IPBES. We conclude that creative scenario co-development processes that promote imagination and create an opening for more empathetic responses should be considered as complementary tools within the suite of methodologies used for future IPBES scenario development