R. W. Carter

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 infor...

Sewage impacts coral reefs at multiple levels of ecological organization

Against a backdrop of rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification which pose global threats to coral reefs, excess nutrients and turbidity continue to be significant stressors at regional and local scales. Because interventions usually require local data on pollution impacts, we measured ecological responses to sewage discharges in Surin Marine Park, Thailand. Wastewater disposal significantly increased inorganic nutrients and turbidity levels, and this degradation in water quality resulted in substantial ecological shifts in the form of (i) increased macroalgal density and species richness, (ii) lower cover of hard corals, and (iii) significant declines in fish abundance. Thus, the effects of nutrient pollution and turbidity can cascade across several levels of ecological organization to change key properties of the benthos and fish on coral reefs. Maintenance or restoration of ecological reef health requires improved wastewater management and run-off control for reefs to deliver their valuable ecosystems services.

Managers consider multiple lines of evidence important for biodiversity management decisions

Protected area managers often fail to use empirical evidence for their management decisions, yet it is unclear whether this arises from a lack of available data, difficulty in interpreting scientific information for management application, or because managers do not value science for their decisions. To better understand the use of evidence for management decisions, we asked protected area managers in Australia what information is important when making decisions, the types of evidence they find most valuable, and the types of evidence they have for their protected areas. Managers described a complex array of information needed for management decisions, with nine different factors representing decisions about individual management issues and how to prioritize management actions. While managers reported less access to empirical evidence than other sources, this is not because they do not value it, reporting it to be the most valuable source of evidence. Instead, they make up the shortfall in empirical evidence with experience and information synthesized from multiple lines of evidence, which can provide important context for their decisions. We conclude that managers value a diversity of evidence because they face complex conservation decisions. Therefore, while empirical evidence can play an important role, alone this cannot provide all the knowledge managers need.

Toward More Reflexive Use of Adaptive Management

Adaptive management is commonly identified as a way to address situations where ecological and social uncertainty exists. Two discourses are common: a focus on experimentation, and a focus on collaboration. The roles of experimental and collaborative adaptive management in contemporary practice are reviewed to identify tools for bridging the discourses. Examples include broadening the scope of contributions during the buy-in and goal-setting stages, using conceptual models and decision support tools to include stakeholders in model development, experimentation using indicators of concern to stakeholders, an experimental focus that reflects the level of statistical confidence required by management, and the engagement of stakeholders in data interpretation so that those affected by management outcomes can learn and adapt accordingly. In this context, a framework of questions that managers can use to reflect on both ecological and social uncertainties as they relate to individual management contexts is proposed.

Managing the impacts of SCUBA divers on Thailand's coral reefs.

While dive tourism enjoys continued growth worldwide, concern exists that it is contributing to the degradation of coral communities, biologically and aesthetically. This study examined the effect of SCUBA diver contacts with coral and other substrates. Ninety-three percent of divers made contact with substrata during a 10-minute observation period with an average of 97 contacts per hour of diving. Two-thirds of the divers caused some coral damage by breaking fragments from fragile coral forms with an average of 19 breakages per hour of diving. Fin damage was the major type of damage. Underwater photographers caused less damage per contact than non-photographers; as did male divers, compared with females. Diver-induced damage decreases with increasing number of logged dives and attendance at pre-dive briefings. Park managers can help reduce impact by identifying and directing use to sites that are resistant to damage, matching diver competence and site preferences, and alerting operators to dive conditions. Minimising impact requires dive operators to be proactive in promoting minimal impact diving behaviour. This includes selecting sites that match diver expectations and experience, and providing pre-dive briefings in the context of diver activities and physical capacity, and site susceptibility to impact and current strength.

Resource management in tourism research: a new direction?

This analysis of papers in tourism journals found that tourism research is expanding in volume but is static in content; non-responsive to contemporary issues; dominated by academics; disinterested in resource, host community and cultural issues; oriented towards supply and descriptive rather than directed towards methodology and theory development. Despite concern for sustainability, the absence of resource management in tourism discourse is highlighted. While others have attributed this situation to the evolutionary development of tourism inquiry, this paper suggests that this is symptomatic of a discipline that lacks direction, and which is not moving towards maturity. This situation contrasts with other disciplines where a clear evolutionary development is evident. Our diagnosis is that tourism research can and will develop and mature only when it explicitly considers the nature of the tourism resource, and the interaction of the industry with it, thereby finding a place in the spectrum of resource management sciences.

Bayesian belief modeling of climate change impacts for informing regional adaptation options

A sequential approach to combining two established modeling techniques (systems thinking and Bayesian Belief Networks; BBNs) was developed and applied to climate change adaptation research within the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQ-CARI). Six participatory workshops involving 66 stakeholders based within SEQ produced six system conceptualizations and 22 alpha-level BBNs. The outcomes of the initial systems modeling exercise successfully allowed the selection of critical determinants of key response variables for in depth analysis within more homogeneous, sector-based groups of participants. Using two cases, this article focuses on the processes and methodological issues relating to the use of the BBN modeling technique when the data are based on expert opinion. The study expected to find both generic and specific determinants of adaptive capacity based on the perceptions of the stakeholders involved. While generic determinants were found (e.g. funding and awareness levels), sensitivity analysis identified the importance of pragmatic, context-based determinants, which also had methodological implications. The article raises questions about the most appropriate scale at which the methodology applied can be used to identify useful generic determinants of adaptive capacity when, at the scale used, the most useful determinants were sector-specific. Comparisons between individual BBN conditional probabilities identified diverging and converging beliefs, and that the sensitivity of response variables to direct descendant nodes was not always perceived consistently. It was often the accompanying narrative that provided important contextual information that explained observed differences, highlighting the benefits of using critical narrative with modeling tools.

Accountability, Reporting, or Management Improvement? Development of a State of the Parks Assessment System in New South Wales, Australia

Management effectiveness evaluation has been recognized as an important mechanism for both reporting on and improving protected area management. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s program of work on protected areas calls on all countries to implement such systems. In 2004, the first whole of system assessment of park management effectiveness, based on the IUCN-WCPA Management Effectiveness Evaluation Framework, was undertaken in New South Wales, Australia as part of a State of the Parks reporting requirement. This article describes the development of the State of the Parks assessment tool, its elements, and how it addresses the management effectiveness difficulties associated with assessments conducted across an extensive and diverse range of park types. The importance of engaging staff, at all levels, throughout the process is highlighted, as well as the adjustments made to the assessment tool based on staff feedback. While some results are presented, the main purpose of the article is to identify and discuss important procedural and methodological considerations. These include balancing quantitative and qualitative assessment approaches, achieving a comprehensive understanding of the management processes, and responding to any problems associated with assessments.

Wastewater discharge degrades coastal waters and reef communities in southern Thailand.

Runoff and sewage discharge from land developments can cause significant changes in water quality of coastal waters, resulting in coral degradation. Coastal waters around Phuket, Thailand are influenced by numerous sewage outfalls associated with rapid tourism development. Water quality and biological monitoring around the Phuket region was undertaken to quantify water quality and biotic characteristics at various distances from sewage outfalls. The surveys revealed strong gradients in water quality and biotic characteristics associated with tourism concentration levels as well as seasonal variability. Water and reef quality tended to decrease with increasing tourist intensity, but improved with increasing distance from sewage discharge within each of the three study locations. In addition, the effect of wastewater discharge was not localised around the source of pollution, but appeared to be transported to non-developed sites by currents, and exacerbated in the wet season.

Short-Term Perturbations and Tourism Effects: The case of SARS in China

The 2003 SARS epidemic created a significant negative impact on tourism development in China. This paper reviews the effects on tourism of different short-term crises, analyses the effects of SARS and explores the possibility of tourism businesses being buffered from such short-term crisis and the possible new motivations derived from the crisis. Tourism’s lack of resistance but high resilience to short term crises provides tourism and regional planning challenges. These characteristics suggest diversification and partnerships can minimise community vulnerability to crises and rapid economic recovery is possible based on tourism’s resilient nature.