Chapter 6 Conservation Planning and Priorities

Discussion Questions

1. In your opinion, what are the most important criteria for formulating conservation priorities? Rank the following factors in order of their importance in that regard: total num- ber of species, number of endemic species, number of threatened species, the economic value of ecosystem services, land area costs, governance (rule of law, corruption, and so on), human population density, threats such as deforestation or conversion to agriculture, and any other factors you think should be considered. Justify your rankings of these factors.
2. Some might argue that protected areas cannot halt housing developments and land conversion; they can only displace that activity to other locations. If that statement is true, how does it influence the need for good biological inventory data?
3. Develop a conservation objective that is measurable and clear, and that you think has the highest possible chance of broad public support.
4. What are the pros and cons of considering only biological metrics in conservation planning versus explicitly considering economic considerations from the beginning?

Group Projects

• Go to The Nature Conservancy’s “Conservation Gateway” website (https://www.conservationgateway.org/Pages/default.aspx) and download an ecoregional conservation assessment or plan. Next, using whatever climate projections you can find on the Web, discuss the implications of climate change for that conservation plan.

• Go to The Nature Conservancy’s “Conservation Gateway” website (https://www.conservationgateway.org/Pages/default.aspx) and download an ecoregional conservation assessment for some region in the United States. Using U.S. census data, find the poorest and wealthiest regions in the area of the plan. Can you find any striking patterns with respect to wealth and high-priority conservation areas?

• For the state or country where you live, find a map that documents the rate at which natural habitat has been lost over some recent time interval. Develop a model (verbal, statistical, or mechanistic) of what explains the spatial variation in habitat loss, and use this model to predict which areas are at greatest risk of land conversion in the next few years. You might consider population density, changes in population density, and median income as potential explanatory factors.

• Go to the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) website and download the NBSAPs for one developing nation and one developed nation. Write a brief report comparing the scope or ambitiousness of the NBSAPs, the progress each of your focal nations has made toward achieving its goals, and the major barriers remaining.

• Go to the Environmental Performance Measurement Project at Yale University (http://www.yale.edu/esi) and select 10 countries that interest you from at least three different continents. For each of those countries, select five environmental variables that you think will predict a threat to biodiversity (see the site’s Appendix C, Variable Profiles and Data). Devise a way of combining these variables to produce one biodiversity threat index for each of your countries, and then discuss how you might use that index in thinking about where you would focus your conservation investments. Now examine how well your threat index correlates with the percentages of amphibians, birds, and mammals at risk (PRTAMPH, PRTBRD, PRTMAM) in your selected nations.

Useful Websites

• Conservation by Design website offers additional information on the planning approach used by The Nature Conservancy. http://www.nature.org/science-in-action/conservation-by-design/index.htm


• Conservation Gateway is The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) online, public library. The site provides access to data, maps, and other documents posted by TNC staff and external participants. http://www.conservationgateway.org


• Environmental Performance Measurement Project provides a national Environmental Sustainability Index and the underlying socioeconomic and environmental indicators. http://www.yale.edu/esi


• Gap Analysis Program, housed within the USGS, examines the spatial overlap of biodiversity and protected areas to identify gaps in protection. http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov


• MARXAN software for conservation planning can be freely downloaded from this site. http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan


• National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), part of the Convention on Biological Diversity website, allows users to search for and download NBSAPs and other reports from more than 150 nations. http://www.cbd.int/nbsap

Suggested Readings for In-class Discussion

• Game ET, Kareiva P, Possingham HP (2013) Six common mistakes in conservation priority setting. Conserv Biol 27: 480-485. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12051/full (open access)
  
  
• Stafford-Smith M (2014) UN sustainability goals need quantified targets. Nature 513: 281. http://www.nature.com/news/un-sustainability-goals-need-quantified-targets-1.15933 (open access)
  
  
• Tear TH, Stratton BN, Game ET, Brown MA, Apse CD, Shirer RR (2014) A return-on-investment framework to identify conservation priorities in Africa. Biol Conserv 173: 42-52. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320714000305 (open access)
  
  
• Wilson KA, Meijaard E, Drummond S, Grantham HS, Boitani L, et al. (2010) Conserving biodiversity in production landscapes. Ecol Appl 20: 1721-1732.