Megan C. Evans

Why do we map threats? Linking threat mapping with actions to make better conservation decisions

Spatial representations of threatening processes – “threat maps” – can identify where biodiversity is at risk, and are often used to identify priority locations for conservation. In doing so, decision makers are prone to making errors, either by assuming that the level of threat dictates spatial priorities for action or by relying primarily on the location of mapped threats to choose possible actions. We show that threat mapping can be a useful tool when incorporated within a transparent and repeatable structured decision-making (SDM) process. SDM ensures transparent and defendable conservation decisions by linking objectives to biodiversity outcomes, and by considering constraints, consequences of actions, and uncertainty. If used to make conservation decisions, threat maps are best developed with an understanding of how species respond to actions that mitigate threats. This approach will ensure that conservation actions are prioritized where they are most cost-effective or have the greatest impact, rather than where threat levels are highest.

The Spatial Distribution of Threats to Species in Australia

Conservation is ultimately about safeguarding biodiversity by arresting and reversing the impacts of threatening processes. Although data on the distributions of species are increasingly well resolved, the spatial distributions of threats to species are poorly understood. We mapped the distributions of eight major threats to Australias threatened plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates using the geographic ranges of species affected by particular threats as surrogates for their spatial occurrence. Our results indicate that simply quantifying the proportion of species affected by particular threatening processes does not adequately capture the variation in the spatial extent, prevalence, or predominance of threats to species. Conservation planning is an inherently spatial process; therefore, explicitly considering the spatial dimension of threats could significantly enhance our ability to direct efforts to areas where the greatest conservation outcomes can be delivered.

Prioritizing conservation investments for mammal species globally

We need to set priorities for conservation because we cannot do everything, everywhere, at the same time. We determined priority areas for investment in threat abatement actions, in both a cost-effective and spatially and temporally explicit way, for the threatened mammals of the world. Our analysis presents the first fine-resolution prioritization analysis for mammals at a global scale that accounts for the risk of habitat loss, the actions required to abate this risk, the costs of these actions and the likelihood of investment success. We evaluated the likelihood of success of investments using information on the past frequency and duration of legislative effectiveness at a country scale. The establishment of new protected areas was the action receiving the greatest investment, while restoration was never chosen. The resolution of the analysis and the incorporation of likelihood of success made little difference to this result, but affected the spatial location of these investments.

What works for threatened species recovery? An empirical evaluation for Australia

Despite the growing numbers of threatened species and high levels of spending on their recovery worldwide, there is surprisingly little evidence about which conservation approaches are effective in arresting or reversing threatened species declines. Using two government data sets, we examined associations between population trends for 841 nationally-threatened terrestrial species in Australia, and four measures of conservation effort: (a) how much their distribution overlaps with strictly protected areas (IUCN I–IV), (b) and other protected areas (IUCN V–VI), (c) the number of recovery activities directed at the species, and (d) numbers of natural resource conservation activities applied in areas where populations of the threatened species occur. We found that all populations of 606 (72%) species were in decline. Species with greater distributional overlap with strictly protected areas had proportionately more populations that were increasing or stable. This effect was robust to geographic range size, data quality differences and extent of protection. Measures other than strictly protected areas showed no positive associations with stable or increasing trends. Indeed, species from regions with more natural resource conservation activities were found to be more likely to be declining, consistent with differential targeting of such generalised conservation activities to highly disturbed landscapes. Major differences in trends were also found among the different jurisdictions in which species predominantly occurred, which may be related to different legislative protections against habitat destruction. Although we were not able to test causation, this research corroborates other evidence that protected areas contribute to the stabilization or recovery of threatened species, and provides little empirical support for other conservation approaches.

Deforestation in Australia: drivers, trends and policy responses

Australia’s terrestrial environment has been dramatically modified since European colonisation. Deforestation – the clearing and modification of native forest for agricultural, urban and industrial development – remains a significant threat to Australia’s biodiversity. Substantial policy reform over the last 40 years has delivered a range of policy instruments aimed to control deforestation across all Australian States and Territories. Despite these policy efforts – as well as strong governance and high institutional capacity – deforestation rates in Australia were nonetheless globally significant at the turn of this century. Legislation introduced in Queensland and New South Wales during the mid-2000s was at the time seen to have effectively ended broad-scale clearing; however, recent policy changes have raised concerns that Australia may again become a global hotspot for deforestation. Here, I describe the deforestation trends, drivers and policy responses in Australia over the last four decades. Using satellite imagery of forest cover and deforestation events across Australia between 1972 and 2014, I present a comprehensive analysis of deforestation rates at a fine resolution. I discuss trends in deforestation with reference to the institutional, macroeconomic and environmental conditions that are associated with human-induced forest loss in Australia. I provide a detailed history and critique of the native vegetation policies introduced across Australia over the last 40 years, including recent legislative amendments and reviews. Finally, I comment on future prospects for curbing deforestation in Australia, including the role of incentive-based policies such as carbon farming, private land conservation and biodiversity offsets. Despite being a highly active policy space, very little is known of the effectiveness of policy responses to deforestation in Australia, and whether the recent shift away from ‘command and control’ policies will necessarily lead to better outcomes. My analysis demonstrates the need for an effective policy mix to curb deforestation in Australia, including a greater focus on monitoring, evaluation and policy learning.

The development of the Australian environmental offsets policy: from theory to practice

Environmental offsetting involves compensating for the residual adverse impacts of an action on the environment by generating an equivalent benefit elsewhere. As the prevalence of environmental offsetting grows, so does the challenge of translating no-net-loss goals to workable policy. From 2011–2012, the Australian Government developed an Environmental Offsets Policy and an accompanying metric (the Offsets Assessment Guide) to support decision making about offset requirements under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Through extensive stakeholder consultation and in collaboration with academic researchers, the Guide was developed with the aim of accounting appropriately for ecological equivalence in a transparent and flexible manner. This paper outlines the Australian Governments environmental offset policy development process, and describes the approach adopted for evaluating the suitability of proposed offsets in meeting the policy goals. The Guide explicitly estimates the extent to which an offset will improve the target biota and/or avert future losses, the degree of confidence that the offset will be implemented successfully, and the time it will take to deliver a conservation benefit. Since implementation of the Environmental Offsets Policy and the Guide, there has been a shift in focus from estimating offset requirements based on simplistic area ratios, toward directly evaluating the components of an offset action that determine its environmental performance. Achieving a balance between scientific robustness and policy workability is an ongoing challenge. The Environmental Offsets Policy and Guide represent an important step towards consistency and transparency in environmental offset decision-making.

The many meanings of no net loss in environmental policy

Abstract‘No net loss’ is a buzz phrase in environmental policy. Applied to a multitude of environmental targets such as biodiversity, wetlands and land productive capacity, no net loss (NNL) and related goals have been adopted by multiple countries and organizations, but these goals often lack clear reference scenarios: no net loss compared to what? Here, we examine policies with NNL and related goals, and identify three main forms of reference scenario. We categorize NNL policies as relating either to overarching policy goals, or to responses to specific impacts. We explore how to resolve conflicts between overarching and impact-specific NNL policies, and improve transparency about what NNL-type policies are actually designed to achieve.For natural capital like wetlands, biodiversity and land productive capacity, ‘no net loss’ is becoming a policy goal. This study highlights that the intended outcomes of no net loss policies can be very different depending on the reference scenario.

Ecological consequences of land clearing and policy reform in Queensland

Land clearing threatens biodiversity, impairs the functioning of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, and is a key contributor to human-induced climate change. The rates of land clearing in the State of Queensland, Australia, are at globally significant levels, and have been the subject of intense and polarised political debate. In 2016, a legislative bill that aimed to restore stronger controls over land clearing failed to pass in the Queensland Parliament, despite the clear scientific basis for policy reform. Here, we provide a short history of the recent policy debate over land clearing in Queensland, in the context of its global and national ecological significance. Land clearing affects regional climates, leading to hotter, drier climates that will impact on the Queensland economy and local communities. Loss of habitat from land clearing is a key threatening process for many endangered animals and plants. Runoff from land clearing results in sediment and nutrient enrichment, which threatens the health of the Great Barrier Reef. Australia has made national and international commitments to conserve biodiversity and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but current land clearing policies are not consistent with these commitments. Stronger regulation is needed to reduce vegetation loss, such as target-based regulation, which sets a cap on land clearing and could effectively halt vegetation loss over the long term. Lasting policy reform is required, and we recommend an effective policy mix that restricts clearing, provides economic opportunities for vegetation retention, and informs the Australian community about the value of native vegetation.

Embrace complexity to improve conservation decision making

To the Editor — In a recent issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution, Sutherland and Wordley argued that evidence is not routinely sought or used in conservation decision making1. We share the authors’ concern that management and policy decisions do not always result in good conservation outcomes, despite the availability of relevant evidence. However, the notion of ‘evidence complacency’ risks overlooking insights from decades of collective scholarship and practice on how evidence can most effectively be harnessed to inform decisions2–6. Policymakers draw on many sources of information to make decisions, with scientific evidence being just one6. Many conservation problems are highly complex, involving trade-offs between multiple objectives, values and interests7. Improving access to evidence and ensuring its relevance to policymakers and practitioners can and does influence the use of such information in decision making, but evidence is also most easily utilized in tractable, uncontroversial management situations5. As highlighted by Papworth in the same issue8, decision makers who have the time, experience and expertise are more likely to engage with additional sources of information. In cases where the political stakes are higher and conservation is just one of many competing priorities, scientific evidence alone is less likely to influence a decision. Unfortunately, the term ‘evidence complacency’ overlooks these complexities and instead implies that evidence is not used or sought out in decision making due to wilful ignorance, laziness, or carelessness (the term ‘complacency’ is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as ‘selfsatisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies’). This characterization is potentially harmful, as it seems to ascribe blame to policymakers and practitioners for situations that are often highly complex, political and beyond their direct control. As message framing is a key contributor to influencing action9, we suggest that the term ‘evidence complacency’ may undermine important efforts to increase the use of evidence in conservation policy and practice. What may be perceived as complacency can alternatively be understood as the reality of conservation policy and practice: a series of spaces with multiple knowledge types, political interests and ongoing deliberation4,5. In these spaces, researchers need to think strategically of impact pathways for evidence to inform the policy and political debates of the problem they are interested in. We need to rethink how we engage in framing conservation problems and solutions, and how we leverage multisectoral networks to ensure science forms part of decision making. We can build on the work of the Conservation Evidence project by supporting intermediary organizations and individuals who actively build relationships between science, policy and practice10, or initiatives that set research objectives and produce knowledge in collaboration with those who will use that knowledge3. The influence of science in decision making is slow, non-linear, inherently political, and based on relationships and links between multiple societal actors with a stake in a particular issue3. In a post-truth world, where science and facts are contested, there is an opportunity for the conservation community to break from traditional linear science–policy approaches to ones that embrace complexity, diversity of knowledge systems and contextual politics4,7. ❐

An introduction to achieving policy impact for early career researchers

Scientists are increasingly required to demonstrate the real world tangible impacts arising from their research. Despite significant advances in scholarship dedicated to understanding and improving the relationships between science, policy and practice, much of the existing literature remains high level, theoretical, and not immediately accessible to early career researchers (ECRs) who work outside of the policy sciences. In this paper, we draw on the literature and our own experiences working in the environmental sciences to provide an accessible resource for ECRs seeking to achieve policy impact in their chosen field. First, we describe key concepts in public policy to provide sufficient background for the non-expert. Next, we articulate a number of practical steps and tools that can help ECRs to identify and enhance the policy relevance of their research, better understand the policy world in practice and identify a range of pathways to achieving impact. Finally, we draw on our personal experiences to highlight some of the key individual characteristics and values that are needed to operate more effectively at the interface of science, policy and practice. Our hope is that the information and tools provided here can help to empower ECRs to create their own pathways to impact that best suit their individual goals, circumstances, interests and strengths.