From: Participants in the Freshwater Protected Areas Symposium, Coolum, November 2008
Jon Nevill
School of
Government,
University of
Tasmania, Churchill
Ave Hobart TAS
7005
ph 0422 926 515
Eren Turak
Rivers and Wetlands
Unit
Department of
Environment and
Climate Change
NSW, PO A290
Sydney Sth 1232
02 9995 5506
Simon Linke
Research Fellow
School of Integrative
Biology,
University of
Queensland,
St. Lucia, QLD 4072
07 3365 1686
Stephanie
Januchowski
ARC Centre of
Excellence for Coral
Reef Studies
James Cook
University
Townsville Q 4810
07 4781 6024
15 January 2009
To:
Ministers
Natural Resources Management Ministerial Council
C/o Ms Kate Woffenden
NRMMC Secretariat
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
GPO Box 858
Canberra ACT 2601
Dear Ministers
Identification and protection of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems
We are writing firstly to congratulate you on your support for the program aimed at identifying
and protecting high conservation value aquatic ecosystems (HCVAEs). Secondly, we want to
express our concern that an extremely important opportunity is being lost in the way this
program is being rolled out. We are writing to you as Symposium participants rather than
representatives of our respective organisations.
By way of background, the recent Australian Protected Areas Congress (APAC) was held at
Coolum on the Sunshine Coast in November 2008. The Congress was supported by the
Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, the Commonwealth Department for the
Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, as well as several other agencies, including local
government. The Congress included a full day symposium on protection of freshwater
ecosystems. Several speakers from both State and Commonwealth agencies presented
information directly relating to the current Commonwealth/State collaborative HCVAE
program. This program is the responsibility of the Aquatic Ecosystems Task Group, which
reports to the NRMMC.
The freshwater symposium concluded with a discussion session. The central focus of this
session was the current HCVAE program. The session benefited greatly from the attendance
of both State and Commonwealth program managers. The essence of our concerns, widely
supported at that discussion session is that the current HCVAE program is not utilizing
modern systematic conservation planning approaches within a cohesive national framework.
This is likely to produce problems in HCVAE identification, and will (in our view) result in lost
opportunities for the establishment of a variety of protective mechanisms for HCVAEs.
Once HCVAEs have been identified within a national framework, protection of these areas
will depend on a variety of mechanisms – some resting on national frameworks, some
relying on regional or catchment frameworks, and others deriving from State and municipal
planning and assessment statutes and processes. For example, the National Reserve
System (NRS) as well as Ramsar sites (under the aegis of the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999) both offer national frameworks. Regional natural
resource management agencies (and in some States catchment management agencies)
provide the opportunities of protection at a finer scale. At a still finer scale, State impact
assessment and land use planning procedures provide important mechanisms for protecting
aquatic ecosystems within the landscape – a crucial issue. In summary, the protection of
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HCVAEs, once identified, will rely both on the creation of specific protected areas, and on
the use of a variety of planning instruments to control the impacts of potentially damaging
developments within the wider landscape.
The current strategy for identifying HCVAEs relies on a criteria-based approach. For
example all Ramsar sites (and other sites already identified as internationally significant) will
be included. So will sites deemed to be good examples (representative) of different types of
aquatic ecosystems. This is good – as far as it goes. However each State will select sites on
the basis of State ecosystem inventories, which (particularly in less densely populated States
such as WA) may be incomplete, and biased to areas with data-rich or iconic sites. The use
of State inventories also means that sites will be selected without the benefit of the
perspective which a national framework would provide. A criteria-based approach does not
use the principle of complementarity (see attached discussion paper) which means that sites
which provide important values when examined against a national framework may be
ignored, and sites which unnecessarily duplicate values may be included. The key strength
of a systematic approach, now endorsed by major conservation agencies around the world,
is that the goals and targets of the program are explicit and often quantitative, providing
transparency and defensibility about the inclusion and exclusion of sites. A systematic
approach promotes efficiency and allows planners to account for the cost acquisition prior to
selecting sites, while a criteria-based approach, neglecting cost, may result in unnecessary
cost and duplicate selection of sites whose values are already protected. Where sites are
protected by means other than acquisition, a systematic approach has advantages of
transparency, and allows identification of irreplaceable values – focusing protective
strategies.
In relation to both terrestrial conservation planning and marine conservation planning, much
of the world’s leading-edge work is being done in the southern hemisphere – particularly in
New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. The Possingham Lab at the University of
Queensland, the Pressey Lab at James Cook University, and the Fenner School for
Environment and Society (formerly the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies) at
the Australian National University house some of the world’s leading researchers in
systematic conservation planning. In terms of freshwater conservation planning, New
Zealand’s Waters of National Importance program (2004) applied a systematic approach
over the whole nation. In Australia, Victoria’s recent investigation of River Murray wetlands
(by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council) applied a systematic approach, albeit to
a small area. The Commonwealth’s Wild Rivers Project (1999) and the reports of the
National Land and Water Resources Audit (2000 – 2003) assembled important, though
incomplete, national datasets.
There is no doubt that Australia has the resources and the capability to apply a systematic
approach to the identification of HCVAEs within a national framework. All we need is the will
and the funding, and we can do it. Rather than progress the current outdated and ineffective
criteria-based approach, we strongly recommend that the collaborative Aquatic Ecosystems
Task Group take a small step back and a large step forward, and embrace a systematic
approach based on the development of an national inventory of freshwater ecosystems.
We would be very happy to take this matter up with your representatives if this would assist
you. Jon Nevill is happy to act as a spokesperson (and is available both during normal
working hours and after hours) however you should feel free to contact any of us. We would
also encourage direct contact with experts such as Hugh Possingham or Bob Pressey. While
the HCVAE task group comprises representatives from all States, we see the
Commonwealth (particularly through DEWHA) as especially important in its leadership role.
Yours sincerely
Jon Nevill, on behalf of the above signatories.
2
A systematic conservation planning approach to identifying regional
and national priorities for freshwater conservation
Josie Carwardine1, Simon Linke1and Bob Pressey1,2
10th August 2007
1The
Ecology Centre, the University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia,
email: j.carwardine@uq.edu.au
2ARC
Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville QLD
4811, Australia, email: bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au
Introduction
Conservation priorities have historically been placed where more productive land uses are
unsuitable, a criterion that is not systematic, and is unlikely to result in a conservation plan
that protects a comprehensive range of biodiversity (Pressey and Taffs 2001). Systematic
conservation planning has evolved in the past 25 years to provide a more rigorous,
defensible and transparent basis for setting spatial conservation priorities. The objective,
using tools such as C-Plan, Marxan, and Res-Net, is to design systems of conservation
areas that represent target amounts of biodiversity features for a minimal cost, usually area
(Margules and Pressey 2000, Possingham et al. 2000) and promote the persistence of
biodiversity processes. Systematic conservation planning has become the international norm
for identifying conservation areas in terrestrial and marine systems, influencing policy and
legislation internationally, shaping decisions by global non-government organisations, and
featuring in hundreds of presentations at meetings of the Society for Conservation Biology.
Importantly, it can be used to make spatially explicit decisions about a variety of
conservation actions, including invasive species control, restoration of native vegetation, and
minimizing pollution (Wilson et al. in press). Systematic conservation planning tools have
rarely been applied to freshwater systems, probably because conservation attention has
focused mainly on protection of terrestrial habitats. However, in recent years, a number of
studies have adopted systematic conservation principles to a freshwater setting (e.g. Higgins
et al. 2005, Linke et al. 2007)
Rationale
Spatially explicit index-based or scoring approaches are commonly used to prioritize
freshwater systems, and are also used in many broad-scale terrestrial assessments, e.g.
global biodiversity hotspots based on species richness or rarity. Scoring approaches have
the benefits of explicitness, usually combining several relevant considerations for
conservation priority, and consistency in application. However, they also have several
important limitations, demonstrated in the literature since the late 1980s (Smith and
Theberge 1987, Pressey 1997). These include:
(i)
Combining rankings for criteria can be mathematically invalid and not meaningful
(Naturalness + species richness – threat = ?);
(ii)
Outstanding scores for one or more criteria can be averaged out by low scores
(a high score for fish should not be superseded by a low score for waterbirds);
(iii)
There are no stopping rules for conservation action (how far down a list of
priorities should planners go?);
(iv)
It is usually infeasible to represent all conservation assets in a set of highestscoring areas because scoring lists do not recognise complementarity (below);
Systematic conservation planning has been developed in response to these limitations of
scoring approaches (Pressey 2002). It has several important advantages over earlier
scoring systems:
1. Explicit and quantitative targets or objectives. These can be set and achieved in line with
quantitative policy guidelines (e.g. Australia is committed to the protection of
representative ecosystems and to the protection of rare and endangered species). For
example a set of targets might be to conserve 15% of each ecosystem type, or 50% of the
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range of all rare species. The equivalent index-based approaches can only set targets
such as: to conserve the largest, most biodiverse, and/or rarest areas, which tells us
nothing about the overall amounts of each asset that will end up in our final set of
conservation priority areas. Other objectives in systematic methods can be framed to
promote the persistence of biodiversity processes (Pressey et al. 2007) or to represent
ecosystems with stewardship covenants whilst minimizing the opportunity costs of
reduced grazing to the landholder. Without explicit objectives and targets, index-based
approaches struggle to deal with these kinds of trade-offs.
2. Complementarity and efficiency. Because the whole of a conservation area system is
worth more than the sum of the parts, the systematic approach aims to select areas that
complement each other and the existing network in terms of the conservation assets.
Scoring approaches (on the other hand) assess each area individually. Highest ranking
areas can contain the same conservation features which are duplicated, while other
features remain completely unrepresented, especially if they occur only in low-ranking
areas. This was the single most important motivation for developing systematic methods
(Pressey 2002) that identify sets of complementary areas. Complementarity promotes
efficiency. Accounting for spatially variable information on the cost of specific actions has
been shown to substantially improve efficiency, compared with the approach of
designating ‘priority areas’ and considering actions and their costs post hoc (Carwardine
et al. 2006). Scoring approaches (and a concerning but decreasing proportion of
systematic assessments), tend to ignore cost a priori. Systematic conservation planning
approaches have the advantage of being able to synthesize multiple alternative costs and
actions, without using flawed scoring techniques.
3. Irreplaceability and flexibility. Systematic conservation planning tools generate multiple
alternative sets of areas that meet conservation objectives, providing flexible options and
measures of irreplaceability (selection frequency, or a modelled approximation of the
likelihood that an area is needed to meet the conservation objectives). Irreplaceability can
be used as a quantitative measure of priority: areas with higher irreplaceability are likely to
require more urgent action because, if they are lost, targets for one or more biological
assets are unable to be met. Higher scores in index-based systems do not necessarily
equate to a required urgency of action to protect assets, because the scores were not
derived using asset-based targets.
4. Adequacy and persistence. Adequacy refers broadly to the persistence of biodiversity
processes, including population dynamics, movement and migration, patch dynamics,
catchment processes and river flows, and many others. Adequacy is difficult to quantify
and implement, but systematic methods are being developed that achieve explicit
objectives related to adequacy (Pressey et al. 2007). Some of these are being adapted
specifically for freshwater systems to consider longitudinal and lateral connectivity (below).
Approaches
In the past few years, a small number of exceptional studies have made the conceptual and
technical leap to develop freshwater systematic conservation planning tools that enhance the
existing software tools. Although theoretically a similar approach, lentic and lotic systems
exhibit lateral and longitudinal flows, meaning that the directionality in connectivity cannot be
ignored. Spatial context has been addressed in terrestrial and marine systems by
preferentially clustering areas together to minimize the total boundary length of the system.
Such an approach can be extended to account for connections between upper and lower
reaches within catchments (e.g. see Linke et al. 2007). While landscape condition is rarely
considered in terrestrial systems, habitat condition has long been used in scoring freshwater
systems. Current existing conservation planning software offers the building blocks to
incorporate flow, condition and other freshwater-specific considerations (Linke et al. 2007).
Research associated with AEDA/UQ is already adapting a river script to be built into
MARXAN, and the eWater CRC is developing a systematic Catchment Planning Tool.
Estuarine and subterranean systems can also be addressed by modifying existing software
tools. The NZ WONI approach (Chadderton et al. 2004), while operating at broad
resolutions, also provides valuable insights. A transition to a nationally adopted systematic
approach for freshwater systems is feasible, logical and efficient.
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Systematic conservation planning can be undertaken at any local, regional, national or global
scale. The two levels of significance (regional and national) required in a freshwater
prioritization protocol can be identified by undertaking planning at these two scales. Areas
designated as high priority (i.e. those with a high irreplaceability) at a national scale indicate
a national importance for targeted biodiversity assets, i.e. if one of these areas were lost or
further degraded there are none or very few alternative areas in the entire country that can
represent the same biodiversity assets cost-effectively. Areas allocated high irreplaceability
in a regional analysis are those which represent the only cost-effective options for
conserving one or more assets in that particular region, although there may be other areas in
other regions which contain the same or similar biodiversity assets. All nationally significant
areas will also be regionally significant if the same targets and data are used, but regional
analyses can take advantage of better, finer resolution data that are not available at a
national scale. At either scale, irreplaceability values can be used for triggering conservation
actions (e.g. purchasing the area around a nationally significant stream reach), and can be
interpreted as tools for land-use controls. For example, in considering a proposed
development, an approval authority (council or catchment board) might be legally obliged to
protect a prescribed ecosystem value (e.g. an area that is regionally irreplaceable because it
contains the last population of a rare river turtle).
Data
Data requirements for systematic and scoring approaches are essentially the same. Data
deficiencies and biases will have similar effects in both approaches, by favouring areas
where biological data is more prevalent. This can be overcome by using species models
rather than point data, and by using comprehensive environmental or habitat classes in
addition to species data. Current potentially useful datasets we are aware of for freshwater
planning in Australia include: NRHP database for aquatic invertebrates, extensively mapped
fish distributions for the east and the tropics, and a comprehensive database of
environmental information (e.g. data developed by Janet Stein at ANU). This latter dataset
could be/is being used to derive a more biologically meaningful environmental classification
for freshwater systems than is possible with IBRA regions. Importantly, there is the potential
to derive highly flexible classifications (regionalisations) of streams and wetlands based on
different criteria (e.g. fish, invertebrates, physical variables) and at different levels of
agglomeration tailored to specific problems.
Capacity
Australian researchers are at the cutting edge of systematic conservation planning research.
We boast four pioneers in this research field: Bob Pressey, Hugh Possingham, Chris
Margules, and Dan Faith, as well as pioneers of aquatic conservation planning: Simon Linke,
Eren Turak, Janet Stein and Peter Davies. Most modern conservation planning exercises in
terrestrial and marine systems worldwide are based on systematic tools, and the most widely
used tools were developed in Australia by these researchers. The rapidly expanding
research groups surrounding these core academics are providing increasing numbers of
PhD graduates with the comprehensive understanding and skills needed to continue and
improve this legacy. Australia has the capacity to lead the world by example in adopting
systematic freshwater conservation planning as our national protocol.
Literature cited
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Possingham H.P. (2006) Where do we act to get the biggest bang for our buck? A
systematic spatial prioritisation approach for Australia. Report to Department of
Environment and Heritage.
Chadderton WL, Brown DJ and Stephens RT (2004) Identifying freshwater ecosystems of
national importance for biodiversity – discussion document. Department of
Conservation, Wellington, New Zealand.
Higgins J.V. Bryer M.T., Khoury M.L., Fitzhugh T.W. (2005) A Freshwater Classification
Approach for Biodiversity Conservation Planning. Conservation Biology 19:432–445
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Linke S., Pressey R., Bailey R.C. and Norris R.H. (2007) Management options for river
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Margules, C.R., and Pressey, R.L (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405:243253.
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