Mapping Biological Resources in the Coastal Zone: An Evaluation of Methods in a Pioneering Study from Norway

For many years, the planning and management of terrestrial areas has been supported by a detailed knowledge of the distribution of habitats and their associated species. However, the detailed mapping of biological resources in extent coastal areas, such as the Norwegian coastal zone, is unrealistic due to its enormous coastline. Here, we present a useful and feasible approach and a set of simple, cost-effective methods which are suitable for providing a broad-scale overview of marine habitats and fish resources. This approach was developed in conjunction with a pioneer study conducted along the southern coast of the Skagerrak, where we combined knowledge gathered from local fishermen with scientific knowledge of important species and nature types to establish a coastal sea mapping program. GIS modeling tools were used in both the mapping program and to integrate local and scientific knowledge into digital maps made available to local area management. This multi-faceted approach, which combines local knowledge and scientific methods, provides valuable information with respect to marine biodiversity, and has been used extensively by local environmental management.     

环境监测现场室管理实践与探索

环境监测现场室管理工作是环境监测中一项基础性管理和技术工作,监测现场的管理工作是否科学有序,关系到环境监测效率的高低,对环境监测数据质量的准确性、可靠性、可比性、完整性和公正性也有着十分重要影响。因此,做好环境监测现场室管理工作已成为环境监测管理工作者必须掌握的一项基础性科学技术。文中从环境监测现场室管理工作的实践经验出发,进一步进行探索研究,力求环境监测现场室管理工作高效可行。     

Combating land degradation through participatory means: the case of Swaziland

This paper examines a community grazing project to rehabilitate degraded land in Swaziland. Using data from interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups, we show that the ways in which participatory, decentralized approaches to natural resource management play out at the local level are closely linked to national-level power structures. The successes and issues that emerge at different stages of the grazing project reflect local socioeconomic priorities and show how people manage their time and labor according to household livelihood goals. However, the project favored the interests of cattle owners who were already the more socially and politically powerful members of the community. We argue that for participatory natural resource management to be more meaningful to communities, projects should focus on local ecological priorities, rather than addressing the environmental concerns that are rooted within existing dominant power structures. This requires change to social and political relationships across levels and the building of new institutions.     

Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate: A Review of Threats and Implications for Conservation Planning in Myanmar

High levels of species richness and endemism make Myanmar a regional priority for conservation. However, decades of economic and political sanctions have resulted in low conservation investment to effectively tackle threats to biodiversity. Recent sweeping political reforms have placed Myanmar on the fast track to economic development—the expectation is increased economic investments focused on the exploitation of the country’s rich, and relatively intact, natural resources. Within a context of weak regulatory capacity and inadequate environmental safeguards, rapid economic development is likely to have far-reaching negative implications for already threatened biodiversity and natural-resource-dependent human communities. Climate change will further exacerbate prevailing threats given Myanmar’s high exposure and vulnerability. The aim of this review is to examine the implications of increased economic growth and a changing climate within the larger context of biodiversity conservation in Myanmar. We summarize conservation challenges, assess direct climatological impacts on biodiversity and conclude with recommendations for long-term adaptation approaches for biodiversity conservation.     

Assessing and managing freshwater ecosystems vulnerable to environmental change

Freshwater ecosystems are important for global biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. There is consensus in the scientific literature that freshwater ecosystems are vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change, which may trigger irreversible regime shifts upon which biodiversity and ecosystem services may be lost. There are profound uncertainties regarding the management and assessment of the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to environmental change. Quantitative approaches are needed to reduce this uncertainty. We describe available statistical and modeling approaches along with case studies that demonstrate how resilience theory can be applied to aid decision-making in natural resources management. We highlight especially how long-term monitoring efforts combined with ecological theory can provide a novel nexus between ecological impact assessment and management, and the quantification of systemic vulnerability and thus the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change.     

中国海洋环境污染监测的回顾与展望

海洋环境污染监测是海洋环境管理的“耳目”和“哨兵”．离开海洋环境污染监测．海洋环境管理将寸步难行。在过去１５年中,中国海洋环境污染监测工作取得了长足的进步,集中表现在三个方面：一是形成了从国家海洋环境监测中心一海区监测中心－管区－监察站的四级海洋环境监测体系;组建了由国务院有关部委、沿海１１个省（市）、自治区等有关部门１００多个单位２５００人参加的全国海洋环境污染监测网;每年获取各类海洋环境污染监测数据十万余个,提供了估计全国海洋环境形势的基础。二是海洋环境污染监测工作有中国的特色。组织上实行了优化布点、分级管理,初步形成了有特色的监测网络体系;技术上推行站点网络化、布点采样规范化、分析方法标准化、数据处理计算机化、质量保证工作系统化规范化,具有自己特色的技术路线正在形成;管理上逐渐走上科学管理的道路。三是为海洋环境管理服务的能力有了明显提高。该文概略地介绍了中国海洋环境污染监测工作的全貌,全面地总结了中国海洋环境１５年来的十条宝贵经验,宏观地描述了未来中国海洋环境污染监测的发展方向。     

Recognizing local people's priorities for tropical forest biodiversity

Tropical forest people often suffer from the same processes that threaten biodiversity. An improved knowledge of what is important to local people could improve decision making. This article examines the usefulness of explicitly asking what is important to local people. Our examples draw on biodiversity surveys in East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). With local communities we characterized locally valued habitats, species, and sites, and their significance. This process clarified various priorities and threats, suggested refinements and limits to management options, and indicated issues requiring specific actions, further investigation, or both. It also shows how biological evaluations are more efficient with local guidance, and reveals potential for collaborations between local communities and those concerned with conservation. Such evaluations are a first step in facilitating the incorporation of local concerns into higher-level decision making. Conservationists who engage with local views can benefit from an expanded constituency, and from new opportunities for pursuing effective conservation.     

The sustainable management and protection of forests: analysis of the current position globally

The loss of forest area globally due to change of land use, the importance of forests in the conservation of biodiversity and in carbon and other biogeochemical cycles, together with the threat to forests from pollution and from the impacts of climate change, place forestry policy and practice at the center of global environmental and sustainability strategy. Forests provide important economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits, so that in forestry, as in other areas of environmental policy and management, there are tensions between economic development and environmental protection. In this article we review the current information on global forest cover and condition, examine the international processes that relate to forest protection and to sustainable forest management, and look at the main forest certification schemes. We consider the link between the international processes and certification schemes and also their combined effectiveness. We conclude that in some regions of the world neither mechanism is achieving forest protection, while in others local or regional implementation is occurring and is having a significant impact. Choice of certification scheme and implementation of management standards are often influenced by a consideration of the associated costs, and there are some major issues over the monitoring of agreed actions and of the criteria and indicators of sustainability. There are currently a number of initiatives seeking to improve the operation of the international forestry framework (e.g., The Montreal Process, the Ministerial Convention of the Protection of Forests in Europe and European Union actions in Europe, the African Timber Organisation and International Tropical Timber Organisation initiative for African tropical forest, and the development of a worldwide voluntary agreement on forestry in the United Nations Forum on Forests). We suggest that there is a need to improve the connections between scientific understanding, policy development, and forestry practice, and also the cooperation between the various international initiatives and processes, so that the international framework is more effective and its influence is extended geographically.     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.     

Conflicting demands and shifts between policy and intra-scientific orientation during conservation research programmes

Conservation scientists must meet the sometimes conflicting demands of policy and science, but not necessarily at the same time. We analysed the policy and intra-scientific orientations of research projects on effects of stump extraction on biodiversity, and found shifts over time associated with these demands. Our results indicate that uncertainties related to both factual issues and human decisions are often ignored in policy-oriented reports and syntheses, which could give misleading indications of the reliability or feasibility of any conclusions. The policy versus intra-scientific orientation of the scientific papers generated from the surveyed projects varied substantially, although we argue that in applied research, societal relevance is generally more important than intra-scientific relevance. To make conservation science more socially relevant, there is a need for giving societal relevance higher priority, paying attention to uncertainties and increasing the awareness of the value of cross-disciplinary research considering human decisions and values.     

Geographic information systems (GIS) for participation: the future of environmental GIS?

The conventional uses of geographic information systems (GIS) in environmental management have been criticized for being undemocratic and avoiding the social dimension of these issues. To address these criticisms, new participatory approaches are being developed by the GIS community. These new techniques involve the integration of conventional spatial data and mental maps showing communities' (or various groups') perceptions of their environment and how they use resources. Case studies using these new techniques highlight how GIS is being incorporated into participatory studies. The advantages and drawbacks of using GIS for participation are discussed, with the conclusion that the techniques provide a useful new approach for environmental management.     

High-impact conservation: invasive mammal eradications from the islands of western México

Islands harbor a disproportionate amount of the earth's biodiversity, but a significant portion has been lost due in large part to the impacts of invasive mammals. Fortunately, invasive mammals can be routinely removed from islands, providing a powerful tool to prevent extinctions and restore ecosystems. Given that invasive mammals are still present on more than 80% of the world's major islands groups and remain a premier threat to the earth's biodiversity, it is important to disseminate replicable, scaleable models to eradicate invasive mammals from islands. We report on a successful model from western México during the past decade. A collaborative effort between nongovernmental organizations, academic biologists, Mexican government agencies, and local individuals has resulted in major restoration efforts in three island archipelagos. Forty-two populations of invasive mammals have been eradicated from 26 islands. For a cost of USD 21,615 per colony and USD 49,370 per taxon, 201 seabird colonies and 88 endemic terrestrial taxa have been protected, respectively. These conservation successes are a result of an operational model with three main components: i) a tri-national collaboration that integrates research, prioritization, financing, public education, policy work, capacity building, conservation action, monitoring, and evaluation; ii) proactive and dedicated natural resource management agencies; and iii) effective partnerships with academic researchers in Mexico and the United States. What is now needed is a detailed plan to eradicate invasive mammals from the remaining islands in the region that integrates the needed additional financing, capacity, technical advances, and policy issues. Island conservation in western Mexico provides an effective approach that can be readily applied to other archipelagos where conservation efforts have been limited.     

A multivariate approach for a comparison of big data matrices. Case study: thermo-hygrometric monitoring inside the Carcer Tullianum (Rome) in the absence and in the presence of visitors

In the last decades, the very fast improvement of the analytical instrumentation has led to the possibility of quickly and easily getting a lot of data; in turn, the need of advanced statistical methods suitable to extract the full information furnished by instruments has increased. Such kind of data treatments is particularly important in any case of continuous monitoring of one or more parameters, so the microclimate monitoring is a typical example for this application. Microclimate control is essential in the conservation of Cultural Heritage (CH), but decisions on optimal conservation parameters cannot base only on existing norms that do not take into account the environment’s history. Often CH has survived for many centuries in conditions that must be considered risky but also a stable state (equilibrium) resulting from a long adaptation process during which a more or less heavy damage occurred to the materials. Any successive change of microclimate parameters has interrupted this equilibrium conditions and has induced further damage to material until a new equilibrium is reached; dimension and frequency of changes are proportional to the expected damage. This thermodynamic consideration provides the background for a CH conservation project based on microclimate control and highlights the importance of environmental monitoring for the identification of equilibrium parameters to be maintained. In 2010, we monitored the microclimate of an important historical building in Rome, the Mamertino Carcer, before its opening to visitors. One year later, we repeated the monitoring in the presence of visitors, and here, we present a careful choice of multivariate data treatments adopted for an enough, simple and immediate evaluation of the microclimatic changes; this allows an easier understanding also for persons with not too deep scientific background, such as Superintendents and, in turn, really useful information to provide suggestions for a conservation project. Results evidenced the expected loss of isolation of the site that occurred by opening to visitors; this led to wider excursions of both temperature and relative humidity and, in turn, to a worsening of the conservative conditions. Surely, a monitoring of particulate matter, correlated to air fluxes and, in turn, to microclimate, is of fundamental importance for the conservation of frescoes and will be object of one of our future diagnostic interventions in the site.     

Integrating information for better environmental decisions

As more is learned about the complex nature and extent of environmental impacts from progressive human disturbance, scientists, policy analysts, decision makers, educators, and communicators are increasingly joining forces to develop strategies for preserving and protecting the environment. The Eco-Informa Foundation is an educational scientific organization dedicated to promoting the collaborative development and sharing of scientific information. The Foundation participated in a recent international conference on environmental informatics through a special symposium on integrating information for better environmental decisions. Presentations focused on four general themes: (1) remote sensing and data interpretation, including through new knowledge management tools; (2) risk assessment and communication, including for radioactively contaminated facilities, introduced biological hazards, and food safety; (3) community involvement in cleanup projects; and (4) environmental education. The general context for related issues, methods and applications, and results and recommendations from those discussions are highlighted here.     

Integrating protected area management with local needs and aspirations

Conservationists recognize that many protected areas have limited future prospects without the cooperation and support of local people, especially in developing countries. Since the 1980s Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) have attempted to reconcile park management with local needs and aspirations, usually with disappointing results. Achieving local cooperation and support without jeopardizing conservation goals remains a top priority for parks, however. Fortunately, the lessons from the ICDP experience provide an important opportunity to inform the next generation of biodiversity conservation programs, including those concerned with poverty alleviation as well as those working at ecosystem and landscape scales. More recent and more promising approaches have started to incorporate elements of adaptive management, new partnership models with stakeholders and the vertical integration of site-level work with policy initiatives and institutional development.     

Drivers influencing adaptive management: a retrospective evaluation of water quality decisions in South East Queensland (Australia)

This article analyzes interviews with natural resource managers in South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. The objectives of the research are (i) to apply and test deductive/inductive text analysis methods for constructing a conceptual model of water quality decision-making in SEQ, (ii) to understand the role of information in the decision-making process, and (iii) to understand how to improve adaptive management in SEQ. Our methodology provided the means to quickly and objectively explore interview data and also reduce potential subjective bias normally associated with deductive text analysis methods. At a more practical level, our methodology indicates potential intervention points if one is to influence the decision-making process in the region. Results indicate that relevant information is often ignored in SEQ, with significant consequences for adaptive management. Contextual factors (political, social, and environmental) together with effective communication or lobbying strategies often prevent evidence-based decisions. We propose that in addition to generating information to support decisions, adaptive management also requires an appraisal of the true character of the decision-making process, which includes how stakeholders interact, what information is relevant and salient to management, and how the available information should be communicated to stakeholders and decision-making bodies.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0537-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

European monitoring for raptors and owls: state of the art and future needs

Sixty-four percent of the 56 raptor and owl species that occur in Europe have an unfavorable conservation status. As well as requiring conservation measures in their own right, raptors and owls function as useful sentinels of wider environmental "health," because they are widespread top predators, relatively easy to monitor, and sensitive to environmental changes at a range of geographical scales. At a time of global acknowledgment of an increasing speed of biodiversity loss, and new, forward-looking and related European Union biodiversity policy, there is an urgent need to improve coordination at a pan-European scale of national initiatives that seek to monitor raptor populations. Here we describe current initiatives that make a contribution to this aim, particularly the current "MEROS" program, the results of a questionnaire survey on the current state of national raptor monitoring across 22 BirdLife Partners in Europe, the challenges faced by any enhanced pan-European monitoring scheme for raptors, and some suggested pathways for efficiently tapping expertise to contribute to such an initiative.     

People and biodiversity in the 21st century: This article belongs to Ambio’s 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Biodiversity conservation

Fifty years have elapsed since the first publication of Ambio. Throughout this period, fundamental changes have occurred in societal attitudes to biodiversity conservation. Ambio has published numerous papers that have aligned with these new approaches. High citations numbers suggest that Ambio papers have had a significant impact on conservation strategies. We review these publications and find that they align well with changed societal perspectives on biodiversity. Ambio papers have called for greater contributions of local and indigenous peoples and for conservation in multi-functional landscapes. The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity built on these principles. Negotiations are now underway for a post-2020 framework for biodiversity. Ambio papers have argued for a stronger scientific basis for conservation and for the need to adapt to changing conditions and to the rich diversity of societal preferences for conservation. International processes favor simple, generalizable approaches to conservation but we call for recognition of the diversity of ecological and human conditions in which conservation occurs. There is a need to build capacity to support a diversity of conservation approaches that are adapted to changing local conditions and to the priorities of diverse human societies.     

Participation and environmental assessment in Northern and Southern cities, with examples from Stockholm and Jakarta

Increasing public participation in environmental assessment is a common goal, North and South. Despite a relative lack of formal education and institutionalised democracy, participatory appraisal has become far more popular in low-income areas in the South, where many advocates claim that it is possible to give local residents a large measure of control over both the research process and its follow-up. In the urban context, the potential for participatory environmental assessment is related to the spatial extent of the environmental challenges. The most critical environmental problems in Southern cities tend to be local, while the most critical environmental problems for Northern cities tend to be global. Using examples from Stockholm and Jakarta, this paper illustrates how such differences alter the comparative advantages of expert and lay knowledge, and the forms of participation that can realistically be aspired to.     

On purpose in science,conservation and government. The functional integrity of the earth is at issue not biodiversity

The objectives of conservation have been focused ever more intensively for two decades on the preservation of "biodiversity." Emphasis has been on the losses of species through extinction. The cure has been the establishment of parks and reserves to protect "hot spots," especially in the tropics, where the diversity of species is high. The efforts in preservation have often extended to the development of connecting links among reserves to allow movements among them. The approach has been codified in law in the form of the Endangered Species Act in the United States and the Biodiversity Treaty, both of which address the issue species by species and each of which has obvious weaknesses. Such efforts may be appropriate but they are totally inadequate as the sum of activities in conservation in a world of 6 billion people with exploding technologies for exploiting virtually all of the earth for immediate human benefit. The biosphere is decaying rapidly as a habitat for all life, including people, not because of the extinction of species, but because of the progressive impoverishment of natural communities through human-induced chronic disruption that is now global and ubiquitous. The improverishment leads to progressive environmental dysfunction that is cumulative, but only in its later stages leads to extinction of species. Long before extinction becomes important, genetically distinct, local ecotypes are lost and the natural communities in which they were developed become improverished and dysfunctional. The most conspicuous disruption is that of climate, a global change in the environment of every ecosystem. The most elaborate and carefully interlinked array of natural reserves will succumb as climate is moved out from under them... and biodiversity will suffer the very extinctions the parks were established to avoid. But long before that, the human environment will suffer conspicuous and progressive impoverishment. The objective of conservation is the preservation of the integrity of function of landscapes (and waterbodies). Emphasis falls on forests in the normally naturally forested parts of the earth because forests are so large in area globally and have such a large influence on virtually every aspect of environment. Functional integrity requires structural integrity over 85% or more of the naturally forested zone in most areas. It also requires objective measurement and definition by the scientific community. Suddenly, conservation has become, not the preservation of biodiversity, honorable as that may be, but the preservation of the functional integrity of the human environment. That purpose is the central purpose that we assign to the governments that we establish in democracies to define and defend the public interest. It is past time for the scientific and conservation communities to recognize the urgency of this transition, join in defining competent new objectives for conservation, and to convey to the public the urgency of the need for governmental responsibility in protecting the public interest in a habitable biosphere.