Prue F. E. Addison

Are we missing the boat? Current uses of long-term biological monitoring data in the evaluation and management of marine protected areas

Protected area management agencies are increasingly using management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) to better understand, learn from and improve conservation efforts around the globe. Outcome assessment is the final stage of MEE, where conservation outcomes are measured to determine whether management objectives are being achieved. When quantitative monitoring data are available, best-practice examples of outcome assessments demonstrate that data should be assessed against quantitative condition categories. Such assessments enable more transparent and repeatable integration of monitoring data into MEE, which can promote evidence-based management and improve public accountability and reporting. We interviewed key informants from marine protected area (MPA) management agencies to investigate how scientific data sources, especially long-term biological monitoring data, are currently informing conservation management. Our study revealed that even when long-term monitoring results are available, management agencies are not using them for quantitative condition assessment in MEE. Instead, many agencies conduct qualitative condition assessments, where monitoring results are interpreted using expert judgment only. Whilst we found substantial evidence for the use of long-term monitoring data in the evidence-based management of MPAs, MEE is rarely the sole mechanism that facilitates the knowledge transfer of scientific evidence to management action. This suggests that the first goal of MEE (to enable environmental accountability and reporting) is being achieved, but the second and arguably more important goal of facilitating evidence-based management is not. Given that many MEE approaches are in their infancy, recommendations are made to assist management agencies realize the full potential of long-term quantitative monitoring data for protected area evaluation and evidence-based management.

Conservation practitioners' perspectives on decision triggers for evidence‐based management

Conservation practitioners’ perspectives on decision triggers for evidence-based management Prue F. E. Addison*, Carly N. Cook and Kelly de Bie Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK; School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia; and Parks Victoria, 535 Bourke St, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia

Society Is Ready for a New Kind of Science—Is Academia?

Society Is Ready for a New Kind of Science—Is Academia? Bonnie L. Keeler, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, Anne D. Guerry, Prue F. E. Addison, Charles Bettigole, Ingrid C. Burke, Brad Gentry, Lauren Chambliss, Carrie Young, Alexander J. Travis, Chris T. Darimont, Doria R. Gordon, Jessica Hellmann, Peter Kareiva, Steve Monfort, Lydia Olander, Tim Profeta, Hugh P. Possingham, Carissa Slotterback, Eleanor Sterling, Tamara Ticktin, and Bhaskar Vira July 2017

Towards quantitative condition assessment of biodiversity outcomes: Insights from Australian marine protected areas

Protected area management effectiveness (PAME) evaluation is increasingly undertaken to evaluate governance, assess conservation outcomes and inform evidence-based management of protected areas (PAs). Within PAME, quantitative approaches to assess biodiversity outcomes are now emerging, where biological monitoring data are directly assessed against quantitative (numerically defined) condition categories (termed quantitative condition assessments). However, more commonly qualitative condition assessments are employed in PAME, which use descriptive condition categories and are evaluated largely with expert judgement that can be subject to a range of biases, such as linguistic uncertainty and overconfidence. Despite the benefits of increased transparency and repeatability of evaluations, quantitative condition assessments are rarely used in PAME. To understand why, we interviewed practitioners from all Australian marine protected area (MPA) networks, which have access to long-term biological monitoring data and are developing or conducting PAME evaluations. Our research revealed that there is a desire within management agencies to implement quantitative condition assessment of biodiversity outcomes in Australian MPAs. However, practitioners report many challenges in transitioning from undertaking qualitative to quantitative condition assessments of biodiversity outcomes, which are hampering progress. Challenges include a lack of agency capacity (staff numbers and money), knowledge gaps, and diminishing public and political support for PAs. We point to opportunities to target strategies that will assist agencies overcome these challenges, including new decision support tools, approaches to better finance conservation efforts, and to promote more management relevant science. While a single solution is unlikely to achieve full evidence-based conservation, we suggest ways for agencies to target strategies and advance PAME evaluations toward best practice.

Integrating decision triggers into conservation management practice

1.Decision triggers show great potential for facilitating timely management action, promoting evidence-based management and preventing undesirable changes to the status of species, ecosystems and threats. Integration of decision triggers into day-to-day management practice has been slow, constrained by insufficient resources and limited in-house expertise. Arguably, the greatest impediment is the lack of an overarching process with robust and accessible methods for developing and implementing decision triggers in a manner that fits within an organisations established processes and skill sets. 2.We identify the steps necessary for setting decision triggers and highlight how these steps align with commonly used conservation planning and management frameworks, for ease of adoption. 3.We emphasise that decision triggers do not require a known ecological threshold, and can be applied to data rich and data poor contexts, with single or multiple management objectives. 4.Synthesis and applications. This work highlights the necessary steps involved, and importantly, the suite of methods that can be used to set decision triggers with the aim of supporting practitioners in the development of robust and defensible decision triggers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

A Global Mitigation Hierarchy for Nature Conservation

Abstract Efforts to conserve biodiversity comprise a patchwork of international goals, national-level plans, and local interventions that, overall, are failing. We discuss the potential utility of applying the mitigation hierarchy, widely used during economic development activities, to all negative human impacts on biodiversity. Evaluating all biodiversity losses and gains through the mitigation hierarchy could help prioritize consideration of conservation goals and drive the empirical evaluation of conservation investments through the explicit consideration of counterfactual trends and ecosystem dynamics across scales. We explore the challenges in using this framework to achieve global conservation goals, including operationalization and monitoring and compliance, and we discuss solutions and research priorities. The mitigation hierarchys conceptual power and ability to clarify thinking could provide the step change needed to integrate the multiple elements of conservation goals and interventions in order to achieve successful biodiversity outcomes.

Conservation accord: Corporate incentives

In their Perspective “How to pay for saving biodiversity” (4 May, p. [486][1]), E. B. Barbier and colleagues suggest that corporations should support global biodiversity conservation. They propose an international policy, similar to the Paris Climate Change Agreement, alongside an objective of

A new wave of marine evidence-based management: emerging challenges and solutions to transform monitoring, evaluating, and reporting

Sustainable management and conservation of the world’s oceans requires effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Despite the growing political and social imperative for these activities, there are some persistent and emerging challenges that marine practitioners face in undertaking these activities. In 2015, a diverse group of marine practitioners came together to discuss the emerging challenges associated with marine monitoring, evaluation and reporting, and potential solutions to address these challenges. Three emerging challenges were identified: (1) the need to incorporate environmental, social and economic dimensions in evaluation and reporting; (2) the implications of big data, creating challenges in data management and interpretation; and, (3) dealing with uncertainty throughout monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities. We point to key solutions to address these challenges across monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities: 1) integrating models into marine management systems to help understand, interpret, and manage the environmental and socio-economic dimensions of uncertain and complex marine systems; 2) utilising big data sources and new technologies to collect, process, store, and analyse data; and 3) applying approaches to evaluate, account for, and report on the multiple sources and types of uncertainty. These solutions point towards a potential for a new wave of evidence-based marine management, through more innovative monitoring, rigorous evaluation and transparent reporting. Effective collaboration and institutional support across the science–management–policy interface will be crucial to deal with emerging challenges, and implement the tools and approaches embedded within these solutions.