Measuring conservation in a way that counts
A new study raises questions on whether current conservation science and policy for protected areas could be saving more biodiversity—with political and economic expediency often having taken prece
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
This map locates our projects across Australia and in the Asia-Pacific region.
This world map shows where we are from and the locations of our past and current projects.
Our environment is undergoing many changes, including climate change and shifting human uses of the land and sea. Conservation planning has to take these dynamics into account. Conservation planning methods have become effective at designing protected areas for snapshots of biodiversity pattern such as maps of habitats and species records, but are less successful at accounting for changing environments and human uses. Some important challenges remain in planning to promote the persistence of a wide variety of processes, including population dynamics, dispersal, regular migrations, patch dynamics of resources and disturbance, adjustment of distributions to climate change, and ongoing diversification of lineages. Conservation planning must also deal better with cumulative threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, achieved by coupling conservation planning with spatially explicit predictions of human threats such as land conversion and industrial fishing. This theme addresses both natural and anthropogenic dynamics and their interactions, including:
People involved in Theme 1:
Selected references:
Spatial management, including setting aside conservation areas, is central to curbing the global decline of biodiversity, but many threats originate from beyond the boundaries of conservation areas. This is a particular problem for marine and freshwater ecosystems, which are influenced by many activities on land. In addition, connections between land and sea support many species and ecological processes valued for conservation. Integrated land-sea planning incorporates ecological connections between land and sea and seeks to limit the downstream impacts of cross-system threats. There is still little guidance on how to manage resources and prioritise conservation actions with a whole-of-catchment approach. Managers of coastal catchments therefore face enormous challenges in allocating limited conservation resources to balance the achievement of objectives for terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. This theme includes research projects that aim to inform conservation, land use planning, and natural resource management in Australia (Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia) in the NERP Northern Australia Project 1.1, the Gulf of California (Mexico), and the Asia-Pacific region. Specific research objectives include:
People involved in Theme 2:
Selected references:
Systematic conservation planning makes intensive use of spatial and non-spatial data, yet all data are incomplete and, to some extent, inaccurate. So planners should, as far as possible, understand and account for the limitations of their data in making decisions about conservation investments. In particular, conservation planning is always based on surrogates for attributes of concern. So, for example, maps of marine habitats or terrestrial vegetation types are commonly used as surrogates for the many species that are poorly recorded or undescribed. This assumes that these surrogates reflect the variables underlying the distributions of species and that they are relatively homogeneous with respect to species composition. Similarly, spatial surrogates are commonly used in planning to approximate variables such as opportunity costs of conservation actions and social characteristics that reflect ease of implementing conservation actions. Testing of biodiversity surrogates has been extensive, but generalizations are limited by differences in methods, scales, types of surrogates, and the groups of species used to estimate effectiveness. Testing of surrogates for costs and social variables related to conservation has been very limited. Our research on this theme includes:
People involved in Theme 3:
Selected references:
Socioeconomic factors are key determinants of conservation success. Conservation is inherently a social endeavour that requires modification of human behaviour by understanding and engaging with people’s relationships with nature. Projects in this theme aim to better understand and incorporate socioeconomic considerations into several stages of the planning process, including stages dealing with spatial and non-spatial aspects of design and implementation. We adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing from economics, political science, sociology and anthropology. Our projects are in diverse socioeconomic and biophysical contexts, including Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Costa Rica. In these areas, we are working closely with natural resource managers to ensure that our research is appropriate and will inform real-world decisions. The challenges we address include:
People involved in Theme 4:
Selected references:
Systematic conservation planning must deal with trade-offs between multiple stakeholder groups by balancing social, economic, and biodiversity objectives in both time and space. Sometimes the only way to achieve this balance is through the use of computerized tools that enable stakeholders to explore first-hand the options for conservation management. About two decades of developing software for conservation planning has led to some innovative decision-support systems that have been used widely by scientists and practitioners. The first interactive conservation planning tool, C-Plan, was developed by Bob Pressey and Matthew Watts during the late 1990s. We also use Marxan, Bayesian belief and decision network tools such as Netica, Genie and Samiam, and scenario tools such as RobOff and Stella. Even with the tools available today, some remaining needs are for intuitive visualisation and interactivity, mapping of spatial options for achieving diverse conservation objectives, flexible consideration of connectivity, accounting for interactions between management actions, and incorporation of spatially and temporally variable conservation costs. This theme is developing new software systems, in collaboration with conservation practitioners, including:
C-Plan conservation planning software
C-Plan was developed by Matthew Watts and Bob Pressey in the mid-1990s. It was the first interactive decision-support tool for conservation planning, designed initially for extensive real-world negotiations over public forests in New South Wales. C-Plan has since been used in many other applications around the world (see references below) for terrestrial, freshwater and marine planning. The software has analytical and interactive functionality that has still not been replicated in other systems. In 2004, Matthew adapted C-Plan to work interactively with Marxan, taking advantage of the complementary strengths and limitations of both systems. Today, C-Plan’s main value is its ability to add unique interactive functionality and a graphic user interface to Marxan. Several planning projects have been completed and are underway using C-Plan and Marxan in tandem. Free download of C-Plan, background information on the software, and examples of applications can be obtained at this link: http://www.edg.org.au/free-tools/cplan.html. Further enquiries about C-Plan should be directed to Matthew Watts (m.watts@uq.edu.au) or Bob Pressey.
People involved in Theme 5:
Selected references:
Both regional designs and local actions are crucial to achieving conservation goals, and have complementary strengths and limitations. Regional designs allow planners to construct systems of areas that are more than the sums of their parts, but these have a poor record of translation into local actions. Local actions are motivated, understood, informed and supported by the communities most directly affected by the associated constraints on use of natural resources, but local actions tend to form collections, rather than integrated systems. Ensuring that regional conservation plans and local actions effectively inform one another requires reconciliation of two spatial scales of analysis and even two worldviews. Regional designs must be progressively updated as new information comes to light and as applied actions depart spatially from the places intended. Local actions must be coordinated, according to some larger design, so that they are complementary and functionally connected. To ensure that the best laid plans do not go to waste, an implementation strategy is required to guide the process of moving iteratively between regional designs and local actions. This requires a new set of questions and solutions than those tackled in most exercises on conservation prioritization. Projects in this theme are exploring:
People involved in Theme 6:
Selected references:
Conservation must learn from successes and failures to adapt to real-world challenges. This theme focuses on monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of conservation planning and on-ground actions to contribute to adaptive learning processes. Some of our research is global in extent, but we also cover large regions and jurisdictions, groups of conservation areas, and even single areas. Part of this theme concerns gap analysis – the extent to which objectives for representing biodiversity pattern and process have been achieved in existing conservation areas – but we extend gap analysis to reveal and understand the biases in location of conservation areas. We also focus on goals, and ways of measuring progress toward goals, for protected areas. Current measures of progress in establishing protected areas typically focus on areas or percentages covered. These measures are not meaningful indicators of true conservation outcomes such as the trend and condition of species and ecosystems. We work collaboratively with practitioners to estimate the impacts of protected area placement and management on conservation outcomes. We are also interested in the effectiveness of conservation planning in achieving outcomes on the ground and in the water. Toward all these goals, our research projects cover:
People involved in Theme 7:
Selected references:
The Coral Triangle is formally recognized as containing the marine ecoregions with 500 or more species of reef-building corals. The region is home to 76% of the world’s known coral species and very large numbers of marine species in other taxonomic groups. The Coral Triangle is also home to about 120 million people, of whom more than 2 million are fishers dependent on healthy seas to make a living. The marine resources and biodiversity of the Coral Triangle are in decline, making this region a global priority for conservation action. The boundaries of the Coral Triangle are sometimes broadened to include all the marine waters of the six countries occurring partly or wholly within the “inner” triangle: Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The boundaries have been further broadened, for example by the Asian Development Bank, to include Vanuatu and Fiji. Program 6 members have research projects in several Coral Triangle nations.
Phillipines: Rebecca Weeks, Vera Horigue and Natalie Ban. Rebecca and Natalie have explored approaches to designing marine reserve networks, focusing on ways of applying conservation planning concepts in a data-limited, developing country. Rebecca’s postdoc is developing a provincial marine management plan for Siquijor. Vera’s PhD is investigating the benefits and factors that affect coordinated planning and management of MPA networks.
Indonesia: Georgina Gurney and Bob Pressey. Georgina’s PhD research in North Sulawesi and Bali aims to understand the social impacts of marine protected areas, and the role of multi-scale factors in influencing stakeholders’ participation in collective marine management. Bob is working in Jakarta with the Coral Triangle Initiative Interim Regional Secretariat to develop approaches to marine spatial planning within the Seascapes Working Group.
Papua New Guinea: Mélanie Hamel and Glenn Almany. Mélanie’s research is focused on mapping coral reef habitats in the Madang lagoon and understanding the informativeness of habitats as surrogates for both biodiversity and opportunity costs to local fishers. Glenn has long-term research projects in the Bismarck Sea, including Kimbe Bay and Manus, on larval connectivity of coral reef fish and implications for design of marine protected areas.
Solomon Islands: Tom Brewer, Johnathan Kool and Morena Mills. Tom’s PhD focused on the social drivers of coral reef resource decline, highlighting the role of markets as a key driver of exploitation. Morena examined how systematic conservation planning can use information on opportunities for community-based management to improve the success of implemented management actions. Johnathan conducted a national terrestrial and marine gap analysis that identified indicative priority areas for conservation.
Fiji: Morena Mills, Vanessa Adams and Georgina Gurney. Program 6 has been collaborating with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Fiji Marine Program. WCS has an ongoing relationship with the district of Kubulau on the island of Vanua Levu, Fiji. Projects include modeling the opportunity costs to local fishers of marine protected areas finding out how locally based marine protected areas can help meet national level protection commitments.
| Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies | Andrew Baird | Connectivity modelling for conservation planning |
| Tom Bridge | Protection status of previously unknown benthic structures in the Great Barrier Reef | |
| Josh Cinner | Social dimensions of marine conservation | |
| Sean Connolly | Multiple stressors on coral reefs | |
| Louisa Evans | Mapping values of coral reefs for indigenous communities | |
| Michael Fabinyi | Benefits and social feasibility of coordinating local actions to form networks of marine protected areas | |
| Nick Graham | Multiple stressors on coral reefs | |
| Geoff Jones | Conservation planning for connectivity | |
| Garry Russ | Establishing and managing marine protected areas in the Philippines | |
| Dave Williamson | Conservation planning for connectivity | |
| Centre for Fishing and Fisheries Research | Andrew Chin | Conservation planning for sharks in the Great Barrier Reef |
| Michelle Heupel | Conservation planning for sharks in the Great Barrier Reef | |
| Steve Sutton | Recreational fishing and compliance | |
| Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change | David Pike | Effectiveness of spatial management for persistence of reptiles |
| Jeremy VanDerWal | Conservation planning for climate change | |
| Steve Williams | Conservation planning for climate change | |
| Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science | Bill Laurance | Land change modeling and conservation planning |
| Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research | Jon Brodie | Development scenarios and environmental impacts in the Great Barrier Reef and across northern Australia |
| Michelle Devlin | Modeling of river plumes in the Great Barrier Reef | |
| Marcus Sheaves | Pioritization for removal of barriers to fish movement | |
| School of Anthropology | Simon Foale | Benefits and social feasibility of coordinating local actions to form networks of marine protected areas |
| School of Business | Ian Atkinson | Simulations and serious games for conservation planning |
| Tim Marsh | Simulations and serious games for conservation planning | |
| Natalie Stoeckl | Resource economics and conservation planning; indigenous values of coral reefs | |
| School of Earth and Environmental Sciences | Rob Beaman | Mapping previously unknown benthic structures in the Great Barrier Reef |
| Mark Hamann | Modelling the fate of marine turtle hatchlings | |
| Milena Kim | Species prioritisation in Queensland | |
| Helene Marsh | Ecology and conservation of marine megafauna | |
| Scott Smithers | Island geomorphology, climate change and conservation planning | |
| School of Marine and Tropical Biology | Eric Wolanski | Hydrodynamic modeling in the Great Barrier Reef, and implications for conservation planning |
| The Cairns Institute | Allan Dale | Environmental governance in northern Australia |
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Mark Burgman | Expert elicitation, uncertainty, Bayesian networks |
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Ken Anthony, Hugh Sweatman, Angus Thompson | Modeling dynamic disturbances to marine ecosystems for conservation planning |
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Michael Douglas, Vanessa Adams | Catchment to coast conservation planning in northern Australia |
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Ken Vance-Borland, Chuck Willer | Project design and funding proposals for research on integrated land-sea planning |
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Nadine Marshall | Integrating social considerations into conservation planning |
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Cathy Dichmont | Collaboration on modeling alternative futures for the Great Barrier Reef coastal zone |
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Virgilio Hermoso, Mark Kennard, Simon Linke, | Integrated conservation planning for catchments; testing of habitat classifications as surrogates for biodiversity; tradeoffs between efficiency and design in conservation planning |
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Jamaluddin Jompa | Marine spatial planning in the Coral Triangle |
| Institut de Recherche pour le Développement | Serge Andréfouët | Remote sensing and mapping of coral reef habitats, testing habitat maps as surrogates for biodiversity and socioeconomic values |
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Mike Berumen | Conservation planning for coral reefs in the Saudi Red Sea |
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Sebastian Ferse, Marion Glaser | Marine conservation management in Indonesia |
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Ana Albernaz | Priority conservation areas on the Amazon floodplain |
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Scott Heron, Kimberley Maison | Modelling dynamic disturbances to coral reef environments; opportunities and challenges to manage marine-mega fauna in a changing climate |
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Rene Abesamis, Angel Alcala | Connectivity and design of marine protected areas in the Philippines |
| University College of London, Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research | Georgina Mace | Measuring impact for protected areas policy |
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Eric Treml | Connectivity modelling for marine conservation planning |
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Harold Heatwole | Distribution of seasnakes |
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Matthew Watts | Applications of the C-Plan conservation planning system |
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Richard Pollnac | Social impacts of marine protected areas |
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Gunnar Keppel | Conservation of rare and threatened plants in Fiji |
| University of the Philippines, Marine Science Institute & Marine Protected Areas Support Network | Perry Aliño | Coordinating local marine management to achieve regional objectives; evaluating management effectiveness of marine protected areas |
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Diana Pietri | The role of students in bridging the research-implementation gap |
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Warren Porter | Development of predictive tools to investigate impacts of climate change on reptiles |
| World Conservation Monitoring Centre | Val Kapos | Measuring impact for protected areas policy |
Engagement with conservation practitioners
Our research group engages with a wide range of practitioners to ensure that our research is relevant and informed by managers and policy makers. A list of groups and organisations with which we collaborate is below:
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Bob Frazer | Conservation planning for climate change; prioritization of management actions for sea turtles |
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Damon Sydes | Prioritisation of stream reaches and wetlands for weed control |
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Rose-Liza Eisma-Osorio (Philippines) | Design of MPA networks in Siquijor, Danajon Bank |
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Sergio Cerdeira, Melanie Kolb, Patricia Koleff, Tania Urquiza | Conservation planning in the Gulf of California; land-sea planning in Mexico; modeling of land use change and river plumes |
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Jorge Torre | Marine conservation planning in the Mid Riff Islands region, Gulf of California, Mexico |
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Oliver Coroza | Management effectiveness and benefits of marine protected areas in the the Verde Island Passage, Philippines |
| Coral Triangle Initiative Interim Regional Secretariat(Indonesian Ministry for Marine Affairs and Fisheries) | Suharyanto, Subandano Diposaptono, Permana Yudiarso | Contribution to Seascapes Technical Working Group, marine protected area regional exchanges |
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Maurice Knight | Marine spatial planning in the Coral Triangle |
| Daly River Management Advisory Committee(DRMAC) | John Childs | Regional conservation planning for the Daly River catchment |
| Far North Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils | Travis Sydes | Priorities for investment in protection and restoration |
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Jon Day, Laurence McCook, Malcolm Turner, Hugh Yorkston | Conservation planning for a changing coastal zone; prioritisation of management actions on GBR islands; design of marine protected areas |
| Hunter Councils Environment Division | Meredith Laing | Priorities for protection and restoration in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales |
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Kathryn Boynton, Michael Digby, Noeline Ikin | Planning for multiple objectives across catchments; bioregional planning in the Gilbert and Staaten catchments |
| Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport | Ian Lancaster | Conservation planning for the Daly River catchment |
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Bryan Wallace | Management of marine turtles in the face of climate change |
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Imogen Zethoven | Assessment of management costs of marine protected areas in the Coral Sea |
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Neca Marcovaldi | Management of marine turtles in the face of climate change |
 Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry |
Rob Coles, Len McKenzie | Seagrass conservation in the Great Barrier Reef |
| Department of Environment and Heritage Protection |
Rob Hughes, Leslie Shirreffs | Bioregional planning for the Gilbert and Staaten catchments, Gulf of Carpentaria |
| Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing |
John Hicks, Annie Moody | Estimating costs of managing protected areas; prioritisation of management actions on Great Barrier Reef islands |
| Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts |
Remote Sensing Centre, Bruce Wilson QLD Herbarium | Conservation planning for the Great Barrier Reef coast; conservation of regional ecosystems across Queensland |
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Stuart Green, Roquelito Mancao | Marine protected area networks in the Philippines |
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Derek Ball, Kerri Woodcock | Island Rescue campaign for Australian islands; prioritization of riparian restoration works; conservation planning for climate change |
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Jointly Sisiolo (Solomon Islands government) | National gap analysis for terrestrial and marine environments |
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Tom Brooks, Simon Stuart | Guidelines for conservation planning; global conservation priorities |
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Steve McDermott | Conservation planning for climate change |
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Kate Andrews | Planning for multiple objectives across catchments |
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Alison Green, Rick Hamilton, Alan White | Marine conservation planning in the Coral Triangle; conservation opportunities in the Solomon Islands; effects of markets on coral reef fish in the Solomon Islands |
| Torres Strait Regional Management Authority(NRM) | Frank Loban, Vic McGrath, Damian Miley | Incorporating indigenous knowledge into systematic conservation planning; prioritization of management actions for sea turtles; conservation planning for climate change |
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Chris Manning | Applications of conservation planning to identify priority habitats |
 Convention on Migratory Species |
Donna Kwan | Innovative programs to improve the conservation status of dugongs and their seagrass habitats |
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Ken Atkins, Keith Morris, Scott Whiting | Conservation planning for the South West Australia Ecoregion; prioritisation of management actions on islands along the Pilbara coast; marine megafauna and Indigenous engagement |
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Brett Beecham | Conservation planning for the Avon catchment, south west Western Australia |
 WCS Fiji |
Stacy Jupiter | Estimating opportunity costs of marine protected areas; linking national and local conservation objectives; design of marine protected areas in Bua |
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Stuart Campbell | Assessing the social impacts of marine protected areas in north Sulawesi |
| World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN) | Stephen Woodley | Guidelines for conservation planning; global conservation priorities |
 WWF Australia |
Chris Curnow, Sue Eber, Gilly Llewellyn, Martin Taylor | Conservation planning in the South West Australia Ecoregion; financial assessment of the Queensland 20 million hectares by 2020 election promise (Report available for download) |
| WWF Brasil |
Carlos Scaramuzza | Priority conservation areas on the Amazon floodplain |
| WWF Global Marine Program |
John Tanzer | Strategy for marine spatial planning |
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Partner Research Institutions
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au