Conservation and social outcomes of private protected areas

Government administered protected areas (PAs) have dominated conservation strategies, discourse, and research, yet private actors are increasingly managing land for conservation. Little is known about the social and environmental outcomes of these privately protected areas (PPAs). We searched the global literature in English on PPAs and their environmental and social outcomes and identified 412 articles suitable for inclusion. Research on PPAs was geographically skewed; more studies occurred in the United States. Environmental outcomes of PPAs were mostly positive (89%), but social outcomes of PPAs were reported less (12% of all studies), and these outcomes were more mixed (65% positive). Private protected areas increased the number or extent of ecosystems, ecoregions, or species covered by PAs (representativeness) and PA network connectivity and effectively reduced deforestation and restored degraded lands. Few PPA owners reported negative social outcomes, experienced improved social capital, increased property value, or a reduction in taxes. Local communities benefited from increased employment, training, and community-wide development (e.g., building of schools), but they reported reduced social capital and no significant difference to household income. The causal mechanisms through which PPAs influence social and environmental outcomes remain unclear, as does how political, economic, and social contexts shape these mechanisms. Future research should widen the geographical scope and diversify the types of PPAs studied and focus on determining the casual mechanisms through which PPA outcomes occur in different contexts. We propose an assessment framework that could be adopted to facilitate this process.     

生物多样性保护中模糊治理的解释与展开

面向复杂的生态环境系统,将生物多样性保护的全部要素在短时间内全部加以规则化、制度化可能会带来高昂的制度转型成本并形成负面反馈,延长有效治理的时限。生物多样性保护的复杂性、生物安全事件的突发性都需要治理系统快速做出反应,提供弹性、包容的治理机制。模糊治理的嵌入可以对精细化治理形成有效补充。这一模式将打破行政主体的关系限制,突破行政区域地理的空间限制,推进生物多样性保护协调行动。要完成这一任务,既需要完善清晰、可预测的生物多样性制度框架,为模糊治理提供规则条件,也需要适度模糊治理主体的组织关系,为模糊治理提供机制条件,还需要完善生物多样性治理的层级网络,模糊治理区域的地域关系,为模糊治理提供策略条件。     

Using Ecological Risk Assessment to Identify the Major Anthropogenic Stressor in the Waquoit Bay Watershed,Cape Cod,Massachusetts

The Waquoit Bay Watershed ecological risk assessment was performed by an interdisciplinary and interagency workgroup. This paper focuses on the steps taken to formulate the analysis plan for this watershed assessment. The workgroup initially conducted a series of meetings with the general public and local and state managers to determine environmental management objectives for the watershed. The workgroup then decided that more information was needed on the impacts of six stressors: nutrient enrichment, physical alteration of habitat, altered freshwater flow, toxic chemicals, pathogens, and fisheries harvesting. Assessment endpoints were selected to establish the link between environmental management objectives, impacts of stressors, and scientifically measurable endpoints. The following assessment endpoints were selected: estuarine eelgrass cover, scallop abundance, finfish diversity and abundance, wetland bird distribution and abundance, piping plover distribution and abundance, tissue contaminant levels, and brook trout distribution and abundance in streams. A conceptual model was developed to show the pathways between human activities, stressors, and ecological effects. The workgroup analyzed comparative risks, by first ranking stressors in terms of their potential risk to biotic resources in the watershed. Then stressors were evaluated by considering the components of stressors (e.g., the stressor chemical pollution included both heavy metals and chlorinated solvents components) in terms of intensity and extensiveness. The workgroup identified nutrient enrichment as the major stressor. Nutrient enrichment comprised both phosphorus enrichment in freshwater ponds and nitrogen enrichment within estuaries. Because phosphorus impacts were being analyzed and mitigated by the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, this assessment focused on nitrogen. The process followed to identify the predominant stressor and focus the analyses on nitrogen impacts on eelgrass and scallops will serve as an example of how to increase the use of the findings of a watershed assessment in decision making.     

Co-management of Natural Resources: A Proposed Framework

Co-management acknowledges pragmatic developments and progression of institutional choice theories in natural resource management. This innovative concept embraces a pluralistic management approach based on the principle of subsidiarity and creates opportunities for the reconciliation of competitive property claims. This article reviews definitions of co-management, distinguishes it from other property rights regimes, and develops an organizational structure of the major elements involved. Synthesis of both experiences and literature leads to the development of a conceptual framework. Co-management is structured in terms of context, components, and linking mechanisms. In concert, these elements offer insight into the practice of co-management, address the shortcomings of institutional theories, and respond to critical issues raised in related literature. The framework contributes to natural resource management by acting as a means of identification and evaluation for such arrangements, as well as a systematic guide for future inquiries.     

A river might run through it again: criteria for consideration of dam removal and interim lessons from California

Resource managers are increasingly being challenged by stakeholder groups to consider dam removal as a policy option and as a tool for watershed management. As more dam owners face high maintenance costs, and rivers as spawning grounds for anadromous fish become increasingly valuable, dam removal may provide the greatest net benefit to society. This article reviews the impact of Endangered Species Act listings for anadromous fish and recent shifts in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's hydropower benefit-costs analysis and discusses their implications for dam removal in California. We propose evaluative criteria for consideration of dam removal and apply them to two case studies: the Daguerre and Englebright Dams on the Yuba River and the Scott and Van Horne Dams on the South Eel River, California.     

Making Collaborative Watershed Management Work: The Confluence of State and Regional Initiatives

Initiatives in the Neponset, Ipswich, and Sudbury-Assabet-Concord watersheds highlight how watershed-scale innovation in engaging nongovernment participants is influenced, but not dominated, by the statewide program, the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative. The presence or absence of three elements—external support, process, and issue—and the order in which they occur, shape the viability of collaborative watershed-scale management initiatives. External support includes providing personnel or funding from outside an initiative. Process is the interaction among individuals undertaking watershed-wide policy development and/or implementation. An issue is an attention-requiring concern, vital to a watershed, that can most effectively be addressed by a coordinated strategy among different parties. A process generated by an issue is sustainable and amenable to enhancement through external support. The contribution of external support is most apparent when outside assistance is provided after an issue has crystallized into clear problem needs that can be addressed through specific research projects or implementation activities. Process is central in shaping issues, utilizing external support, and generating management results. The outcomes of voluntary processes in the three watershed initiatives highlight how the evolution of the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative leads to, and depends upon, the development of watershed-scale initiatives.     

Habitat Assessment of Non-Wadeable Rivers in Michigan

Habitat evaluation of wadeable streams based on accepted protocols provides a rapid and widely used adjunct to biological assessment. However, little effort has been devoted to habitat evaluation in non-wadeable rivers, where it is likely that protocols will differ and field logistics will be more challenging. We developed and tested a non-wadeable habitat index (NWHI) for rivers of Michigan, where non-wadeable rivers were defined as those of order ≥5, drainage area ≥1600 km², mainstem lengths ≥100 km, and mean annual discharge ≥15 m³/s. This identified 22 candidate rivers that ranged in length from 103 to 825 km and in drainage area from 1620 to 16,860 km². We measured 171 individual habitat variables over 2-km reaches at 35 locations on 14 rivers during 2000–2002, where mean wetted width was found to range from 32 to 185 m and mean thalweg depth from 0.8 to 8.3 m. We used correlation and principal components analysis to reduce the number of variables, and examined the spatial pattern of retained variables to exclude any that appeared to reflect spatial location rather than reach condition, resulting in 12 variables to be considered in the habitat index. The proposed NWHI included seven variables: riparian width, large woody debris, aquatic vegetation, bottom deposition, bank stability, thalweg substrate, and off-channel habitat. These variables were included because of their statistical association with independently derived measures of human disturbance in the riparian zone and the catchment, and because they are considered important in other habitat protocols or to the ecology of large rivers. Five variables were excluded because they were primarily related to river size rather than anthropogenic disturbance. This index correlated strongly with indices of disturbance based on the riparian (adjusted R² = 0.62) and the catchment (adjusted R² = 0.50), and distinguished the 35 river reaches into the categories of poor (2), fair (19), good (13), and excellent (1). Habitat variables retained in the NWHI differ from several used in wadeable streams, and place greater emphasis on known characteristic features of larger rivers.     

Utilization of environmental knowledge for watershed management in Northern Michigan

The Northern Michigan Environmental Research Program was conducted by the University of Michigan's Biological Station and Institute for Social Research to obtain information about the aquatic and human resources of water-rich, resort-oriented northern lower Michigan. Results of the study were directed toward long-term environmental management. Multiple methods were used to communicate study results, including self-contained information briefs, regular contacts and seminars with community leaders and public officials, and mass media. Selected illustrations of project data applied to environmental management problems are cited, e.g., curtailment of nutrient loadings, wetlands protection, improved effectiveness of riparian organizations, and highway planning. A series of shortLakeland Reports, designed to present factual information, general environmental principles, and action implications to a lay audience, proved to be effective. However, it became apparent that environmental decisions were not strongly affected by reports alone. Instead, several mutually reinforcing channels of communication must be employed to develop a climate of receptiveness and understanding to insure environmentally sound decisions.     

Transparency,accountability and empowerment in sustainability governance: a conceptual review

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a conceptual examination of the power-effects of transparency, as information disclosure, on those making accountability claims against actors deemed to be causing significant environmental harm. Informed by Lukes’s ([2005]. Power: A radical view (second edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.) multi-dimensional theory of power, I review recent scholarship to interrogate four hypotheses positing empowerment for accountability claimants arising from the disclosure of sustainability information. Across public and private governance forms, academic research suggests that information disclosure promotes the communication of the sustainability interests of affected parties, and in some cases enhances the capacity of these parties to evaluate justifications provided by relevant power-wielders. However, evidence is weaker that disclosure of sustainability information empowers accountability claimants to sanction or otherwise steer those responsible; and there is little support that transparency fosters wider political interrogation of the configurations of authority producing environmental harm. Differentiating between behavioural and non-behavioural understandings of power allows an evaluation of these research findings on the power-related effects of information disclosure.     

GENERATION OF HOURLY RAINFALL1

ABSTRACT: A rainfall model was developed to divide daily rainfall into storms and distribute storm depths over storm duration for input into the Stanford Watershed Model.