AEDA Final Report - 1

Smart science for wise decisions

Final ReportApplied Environmental Decision Analysis A Commonwealth Environment Research Facility

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AEDA Final Report - 2

Thanks for taking the time to look at our final report. In it we highlight some our big achievements and look at the challenges that lie ahead for the broader

discipline of applying decision science to environmental problems.

Our hope is you’ll find this report engaging, that you’ll gain a deeper insight into what AEDA has achieved. With luck it may also get you thinking about the real value of decision science and the value it holds for conservation in Australia.

Why is decision science important?Every mature human endeavour that involves money uses decision science – from engineering to health management. The environmental sciences have been slow to embrace rigorous tools for allocating funds and using the sciences of ecology, maths and economics to choose between management options. Things have changed - we now demand much more rigour and transparency when we are making decisions about investing in the environment – whether that be from public or private funds. This requires high quality applied ecology that enables us to predict the consequences of management options coupled with mathematical and economic tools designed to make choices in a world constrained by money and time.

What’s so special about environmental decision science?Environmental decision science is truly multidisciplinary. It requires contributions from social scientists, mathematicians, ecologists, conservation biologists, economists, computer scientists and even philosophers. Decision science brings each of these disciplines to bear on the elements of an integrated decision process.

Decision making can be broken down into five main activities: i) eliciting social preferences and setting objectives, ii) identifying plausible management/investment options, iii) developing a model or logic that defines the relationship between the options at hand and the objectives, iv) ranking or otherwise evaluating the competing options in terms of how well they are likely to satisfy objectives, v) implementing the solutions and measuring the performance of the chosen option(s). Each of these steps requires contribution from the disciplines described above in a way that is hopefully fairly clear to the reader. For example, while mathematicians are very good at building models of the relationship between actions and outcomes, we wouldn’t tend to entrust them with the job of eliciting social preferences!

Environmental decision science is young. Prior to AEDA there was no research institute in which researchers and practitioners from all the relevant disciplines worked closely together to address the pressing environmental problems of the day. AEDA represents the first major

Why AEDA What has AEDA done for us?

The start of a long journey The tools of decision theory are old, but decision science is young. The mathematics of decision theory has been developing since Pascal and Bernoulli first formalized the concepts of expected benefit and expected utility about 300 years ago. Decision theory is now a well established branch of mathematics that provides the logic and formalisms of rational decision making under uncertainty. However, the actual implementation of rational decision making requires more than can be gleaned from classical decision theory texts. It is here that we draw an important distinction between the very specific study of decision theory and the more pragmatic and multi-disciplinary decision science.

investment by a government to bring such a diverse group of researchers together for the purpose of improving environmental management and policy development. AEDA harnessed the force of over 100 either wholly or partly funded researchers focussed on this aim. However, AEDA is not the perfect example of a multidisciplinary research institute for environmental decision making. We recognise that our strengths in mathematics, ecology and ecological modelling are not equally balanced with expertise in social science and economics. The future of AEDA, and our ability to remain relevant and at the forefront of environmental decision science, will rely heavily on our ability to build meaningful collaborations with economists and social scientists.

AEDA’s legacySo what has AEDA brought to environmental management and policy that wouldn’t have happened anyway? Quite a lot if you consider our achievements (some of which are presented over the following pages). But as with any good network, AEDA’s value is much more than the sum of our parts. We’re proud of the research we’re doing but our contribution goes way beyond this.

The appearance of AEDA as a research hub served to focus the minds of busy, independent researchers on the question of how decisions are currently made, what is wrong with them, and how could they be made better? Prior to AEDA, many of the lead researchers in the hub were addressing small parts of the problem without linking all of the pieces together. AEDA has made us think about where our individual skills and research contributions fit into the overall aim of making good decisions.

This has not only provided us with a better perspective on decision making, but has frequently changed the focus of our research. In addition to the collaborative and integrative functions, the existence of AEDA has

“AEDA represents the first major investment by a government

to bring such a diverse group of researchers together for the purpose

of improving the environmental management and policy development.” Brendan Wintle (left) and Hugh Possingham

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also served to put the science of structured decision making in the forefront of the minds of policy makers and managers around the country. This point is reinforced by the increased role of AEDA members and ‘AEDA-ways-of-thinking’ in some very important public policy initiatives like the Caring for our Country program and the review of the EPBC Act.

However, influence has not been limited to ‘big P policy’. Most of AEDA’s projects have arisen through direct approaches from State Agencies, regional NRM bodies and NGOs like Greening Australia. We have even helped the NZ Government prioritise spending on its threatened species program through the use of a project prioritization protocol (see page 5), developed by AEDA researchers – an idea that is now spreading back to Australian agencies.

So AEDA has helped put smart decision-making on the map through its research and its interaction with policy processes. But AEDA has also built a profile and an awareness of decision science beyond research and policy. Through seminars, workshops and our monthly magazine Decision Point we’ve created a receptive audience for decision science that has never before existed. We’ve done this by making decision science relevant, engaging and sensible.

Decision Point, for example, is now regularly read by over 1000 people each month from a diverse range of backgrounds including NGOs, government agencies, research networks and members of the general public. Most of our readers are from outside of the decision science circle and, despite the fact we’re serving up some fairly sophisticated (and sometimes technical) science, the publication has received high praise from those that receive it (see page 15). Decision point is a major achievement of AEDA that will hopefully live a life beyond AEDA.

Posing the big questionsResearch in decision science is energising because it’s about real problems and requires diverse skills. And AEDA researchers have made important contributions to the big issues in Australasian environmental management. These include:

• How should a threatened species recovery budget be most effectively allocated? • How should Caring for our Country funding be spent? • How should the return on investment in Caring for our Country be monitored and reported? • How should we prioritise spending on climate change adaptation to avoid species’ extinctions? • What are the complex patterns of woodland biodiversity recovery in restored landscapes? • How should we manage fire regimes for biodiversity? • How effective are marine reserves in increasing fish

stocks?

Without the AEDA network, many of these National level programs would not have benefited from the clarity of structured decision making.

Of course, the bulk of our work addresses more specific challenges facing managers and policy makers:

• Is translocation of threatened species a viable response to climate change? • When should we declare a weed eradicated? • How much money should we spend on monitoring the success of vegetation restoration efforts? • What is the likely impact of climate change on alpine vegetation or arboreal marsupials? • How many surveys are needed to be sure that a threatened plant isn’t present on a proposed development site?

Our ability to focus on problems of immediate interest to managers is one of the reasons why every AEDA researcher is involved in at least one or two (and sometimes too many) collaborations with agencies and NGOs.

But would Australia’s environment have fallen to pieces if we didn’t exist? No. The way that AEDA has impacted policy and thinking across Australia, and to a lesser extent globally, will play out over decades and be hard to quantify. We will be able to point to some spectacular outcomes, like the rezoning of large areas of the world’s oceans, and new paradigms in how we think about landscapes, but a great deal of work remains to be done.

While some of our approaches are mature and being implemented, the majority of the cutting edge science we’re engaged in requires communication, testing and refinement for policy and management. So expect more spectacular gains in efficiency and effectiveness in achieving environmental management through an ongoing partnership with our friends in government and non-government organisations.

Hugh Possingham Director

“AEDA’s value is much more than the sum of our parts.”

Report contentsWhy AEDA What has AEDA done for us? 2

AEDA makes a difference? Six examples of what we’ve achieved 4

AEDA’s people? Who’s who in AEDA? 10

AEDA active Beyond the science 12

AEDA facts and figures 14 All the stuff you’d expect in a final report

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Brendan Wintle Deputy Director

AEDA & the CERF program AEDA is a Commonwealth Environmental Research Facility (CERF). The CERF program was established by the Australian Government’s Department of Environment and Water Resources to support world class, public good research through collaborative work between Australia’s best environmental researchers across a range of disciplines. These collaborations will advance our understanding of current and emerging challenges facing the conservation and use of the nation’s environmental assets.

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Threatened species in the REDD AEDA analyses the potential of carbon payments to save rainforests

“AEDA has helped demonstrate the enormous potential of REDD

money to save endangered species. It might achieve protection at

a scale we’ve never seen before.”

Why fell a tropical rainforest? Because you can make money from the timber you extract and then you can use the cleared land to grow oil palms. It’s a

tried and true operation that has led to the deforestation of many of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots. So, what might stop you from felling this same rainforest? How about a payment in excess of the money you would earn from chopping it down? But who might make this payment? Any country looking to offset its carbon emissions.

Ten years ago this would have been a fanciful suggestion but in today’s carbon-constrained world it makes eminent sense. What’s more, an economic analysis by a group of researchers led by AEDA researcher Oscar Venter has demonstrated it can work. Indeed, it might be the only thing that will save millions of hectares of tropical rainforest (and the endangered animals they hold).

Tropical deforestation is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Indonesia, for example, was clearing 1.8 million hectares of forest every year through the 1990s. Since then the rate has increased to up to 2% per year. Today, much of Indonesia’s deforestation occurs in Kalimantan where oil palm plantations are expanding at the expense of native forests.

These forests also contain many of the world’s most endangered animals and conservationists work hard to raise funds and public support to protect them. Conservation organisations often use charismatic animals like the orangutan to harness public support and raise money. But the amount of resources raised doesn’t match the money available through development. Inspite of broad public support in developed nations for saving endangered animals, the rate of conversion of Indonesia’s forests to other land uses is accelerating. It seems fast development money trumps biodiversity.

But now there’s a new factor to throw into the equation – REDD money. REDD stands for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. It’s a proposal to provide financial incentives for developing countries that voluntarily reduce national deforestation rates and associated carbon emissions below a reference level. Developed nations can offset their own emissions by preventing emissions from deforestation in developing countries.

REDD has considerable potential in Indonesia, which is the world’s largest emitter of land-based greenhouse gases, releasing almost twice the amount as the second greatest source, Brazil. Recent commitments from the World Bank ($165 million), Norway (more than $2.5 billion), and Australia ($200 million) are providing funding to develop REDD programs and the necessary organisational structures. However, it remains unclear what scale of incentives will be needed to convince tropical nations to stop deforestation (and forego the money they have traditionally earned from logging and oil palms).

“While REDD sounds like a good strategy for protecting biodiversity, there is little analysis available on what it would take to be effective,” explains Oscar Venter from AEDA’s UQ hub. “So, we set out to determine if a REDD mechanism has the financial capacity to stop planned deforestation for oil palms in Kalimantan, and to measure the biodiversity outcomes if this happens.”

And, in a world first, their analysis revealed that REDD does hold enormous potential to save both forests and species. REDD payments of between $10 to $33 per tonne of CO2 are sufficient to compete with oil palm development. But they found in some areas it was even cheaper.

“Carbon markets are growing all the time. In 2008 around US$126 billion was traded in them. If REDD is successful at harvesting some of these funds to protect tropical forests, this could fundamentally change conservation in countries such as Indonesia. This could provide benefits for endangered species at a scale that we’ve never seen before.”

The proposals to use carbon payments to conserve forests is expected to be highlighted at The United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

More info: Oscar Venter <oventer@uq.edu.au>

Reference

Venter O, E Meijaard, H Possingham, R Dennis, D Sheil, S Wich, L Hovani, & K Wilson (2009). Carbon payments as a safeguard for threatened tropical mammals, Conservation Letters, doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00059.x

Orangutan with young in Central Kalimantan. REDD carbon payments may protect the habitat of this endangered species.(Photo by Daniel Murdiyarso)

AEDA makes a difference Six examples of what we’ve

achieved

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AEDA Final Report - 5

Management priorities for threatened species Dial PPP for robust allocation

Working with AEDA, conservation managers in New Zealand have come up with a robust and transparent solution called the Project Prioritisation

Protocol (PPP). Not only does it introduce a bit of mathematical rigour into the allocation of scarce resources, it is also a powerful tool for focusing goals and guiding future research.

As with every other country in the world, New Zealand has many threatened species – there are over 2000 species on their threatened species list. How far was the budget stretching? In 2006, there was management being applied to only 188 species, all for a declared allocation of NZ$35 million. In many cases, this management was not sufficient to secure these species from extinction.

In response to this challenge, Richard Maloney and Shaun O’Connor from the Threatened Species Section of NZ Department of Conservation (DoC) recognised that to make progress in securing more threatened species they needed to make smarter decisions about how to direct funding where it can result in the biggest benefits. They started asking a question that should become a fundamental part of all conservation programs: What is the best way of allocating the limited resources to maximise the number of species which are saved?

For past 2 years, Liana Joseph and Hugh Possingham from the AEDA hub at the University of Queensland have been working hand-in-hand with Maloney and O’Connor to develop a framework to provide the optimal solution to this allocation problem. Their combined efforts have resulted in a Project Prioritisation Protocol (PPP) which DoC is exploring to prioritise management actions. Unlike many traditional conservation planning tools which provide advice about what places or which species are priorities, the PPP gives specific guidance to managers about which management actions to implement, where, and at what level, to provide the best return for their budget.

Put simply, the PPP is a cost-effectiveness analysis – it weighs up our values and the benefits, costs and likelihood of success of each management project and allows

“AEDA has developed PPP, a cost-effectiveness analysis that weighs

up values, benefits, costs and likelihood of success of each management

project. It allows managers to directly compare projects

with each other.”managers to directly compare projects with each other. The result is a rank ordered list of management projects; the projects which provide the greatest return on investment are at the top of the list. This list can guide decisions about which management projects to fund.

The ranked set of management priorities enables managers to state which actions are funding priorities and why. Importantly, it also enables the managers to state which actions they can’t afford to implement given certain budgets. The process will provide DoC with an estimate of the full price of doing the whole job (in this case, securing all the highly threatened species) and will provide the managers with a powerful tool for determining funding to best achieve this goal. The consequences of funding decisions can be clearly demonstrated; for example, what the current resources buy, and how many species can be managed if funding is increased or withdrawn.

Relative to other processes for identifying management requirements of threatened species (such as recovery planning), PPP is fast and efficient. A general criticism of traditional recovery planning processes (used in Australia and New Zealand) is that the plans take too long and are expensive to produce. Since their inception in Australia over a decade ago, recovery plans have been published for only approximately 500 taxa; leaving more than 1100 threatened species without recovery plans. They have been estimated to cost over $20,000 each! In comparison, PPP efficiently tailors the data collection process so that only crucial data is collected. In New Zealand, the process has brought together the knowledge of over 100 national experts in species biology and management for 680 of New Zealand’s most threatened species in less than a year and a half.

In addition, recovery plans are not designed to meet a specific, common objective. Consequently, they do not provide a means to compare management projects or to select the best set of actions to spend the nations’ budget for threatened species. As part of the PPP, management projects are designed to meet a specific objective for each threatened species and this enables the systematic comparison and ranking of management projects. Through PPP we are able to determine which management projects give us the biggest return on investment. These data are crucial for the targeted and transparent allocation of limited resources.

The development of PPP in New Zealand has meant that it is being received with interest and enthusiasm in other countries. For example, state and federal government departments and conservation NGOs in Australia are investigating the possibility of using it to prioritise actions for threatened species within their jurisdictions to improve transparency and efficiency of management decisions.

More info: l.joseph@uq.edu.au

References

Joseph LN, R Maloney & HP Possingham (2009). Optimal allocation of resources among threatened species: a project prioritization protocol. Conservation Biology, 23:328-338.

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What is the best way of allocating limited resources to maximise the number of species which are saved? PPP provides specific guidance.

AEDA Final Report - 6

Case study 1Planning multiple-uses in a marine park(Rottnest Island, Western Australia; based on work by Romola Stewart)

Rottnest Island is located 18 km off the coast of Perth, Western Australia. It’s a popular tourist and recreational destination but the waters surrounding the island also contain important biodiversity assets.

Marxan can be used to locate marine sanctuaries that meet biodiversity objectives whilst minimising impacts on a simplified measure of recreational uses. Marxan with Zones extends this capability by: -Placing restricted-use areas according to their benefit to biodiversity, -Accommodating complex recreational objectives for many recreational uses.

Using Marxan with Zones, the aim was to identify configurations of three zones: marine sanctuaries, restricted use areas, and recreational areas that: -Spatially separate sanctuaries and restricted-use areas from recreational activities threatening them, -Meet biodiversity conservation objectives, -Minimise the disruption to recreational users.

The information used included: -The location of biodiversity features we were interested in protecting, -The level of protection offered to biodiversity by sanctuaries, restricted-use areas and recreational areas, -The location of many current recreational uses (including fishing), -Explicit objectives and constraints for sanctuaries, restricted use areas and recreational areas.

Marxan with Zones allows us to explore the options for optimal biodiversity management outcomes in the context of recreational uses.

Marxan is a piece of decision support software used for conservation planning. It identifies areas that efficiently conserve an adequate amount of

a variety of conservation features for minimal cost. The software was born 15 years ago in Adelaide and further developed at the University of Queensland. It’s proved pretty popular - indeed, it’s used in over 100 countries making it the most widely used tool for planning marine and terrestrial reserve systems.

However, for all its strengths (which include its flexibility, ease of use and cost – it’s free!), Marxan also has weaknesses. The solutions it produces reflect a ‘black and white’ view of the world – either an area of land or sea is in or out of the reserve; there are no shades of grey. Furthermore, Marxan is used to guarantee biological constraints are met in reserves, but it could not be used to ensure a certain area is retained for a specific human use.

Of course, in the real world, conservation is more shades of grey than black and white, and effective planning needs to explicitly factor in economic and social values for multiple-use conservation areas. Which is why Marxan with Zones (or MZ) has been developed – and it’s now available for downloading. MZ has been developed by Matt Watts, a software specialist with AEDA, together with Marxan’s original authors, Ian Ball and Hugh Possingham.

“Marxan with Zones is novel in that it introduces zoning as a formal consideration of the conservation planning problem,” says Matt Watts. “This advancement represents a shift away from the basic reserve design problem towards a multiple zone scheme that supports the efficient allocation of resources across a range of different uses. At its simplest, the zoning approach can be used to identify two types of zones, with targets being set for each zone type.

“We’re using Marxan with Zones to address problems relating to biosphere reserves, multiple-use marine parks, off-reserve marine planning, and multiple-use terrestrial forestry planning (see case studies 1-3 for examples of its value). This refined version of Marxan is suitable for dealing with complex problems by considering multiple zones with different targets, planning unit costs and biodiversity benefits for each zone.

“This is a significant improvement on Marxan. The zoning plans coming out of MZ meet a variety of conservation and human-use objectives, while minimising their total cost of implementation.

“The novel functionality of MZ provides the flexibility to address a range of complex spatial planning problems so we’re hoping it will attract wide use in a range of conservation planning problems beyond those solvable by Marxan.”

Those wishing to apply MZ should first become familiar with Marxan, for which there is a large body of material available on our website and elsewhere.

Marxan with Zones can be downloaded from the Marxan website: http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan

More info: Matthew Watts <m.watts@uq.edu.au>

Watts ME, IR Ball, RS Stewart, CJ Klein, K Wilson, C Steinback, R Lourival. L Kircher and HP Possingham (2009). Marxan with zones: software for optimal conservation based land and sea use zoning. Environmental Modelling and Software.

Marxan with Zones Thanks to AEDA, the world’s most popular conservation planning software just got more better.

“With support from AEDA, Marxan with Zones has been developed making it possible to design

multiple-use conservation areas that explicitly factor in economic

values.”

Figure 1. One configuration around Rottnest Island produced by Marxan with Zones that delivers optimal trade-offs between recreation and biodiversity protection.

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AEDA Final Report - 7

Cost-effective surveillance for pest management AEDA helps streamline ‘search and destroy’

“AEDA has developed a search method

that minimises the costs of searching for an invader.”

Effectively detecting an invasive species during its earliest phase of introduction can save a lot of future damage and expense. Yet this is also when the

species is most difficult to detect, lurking at a low density in a large landscape. So, how much should we be willing to spend searching for these ‘needles in haystacks’? AEDA researcher Cindy Hauser and Michael McCarthy have developed a pest surveillance model that shows how we can best design searches that keep costs down.

The aim is to minimise the total costs of searching for the pest, controlling the infestations that we find and damage caused by the pest. To find the right balance, we need to understand the relationship between what we spend on searching and our chances of successful detection. This relationship gets complicated when we’re faced with a landscape made up of different environmental features, land uses and values. Some of the factors we need to deal with include:

• Probability of occurrence: Some locations will be more likely to harbour the pest than others. Habitat suitability models can map where the pest is most likely to find a happy home, and can incorporate dispersal to predict where the pest is most likely to have reached at a particular time.

• Ease of detection: Some habitats are easier to search than others. We need to understand how a habitat’s terrain and the search effort employed affect our chances of successfully detecting the pest.

• Benefits of detection: What will be gained if we find and treat the pest now rather than later? Economic, biodiversity and other values may indicate that some areas are more important for protection from the pest than others.

Information on the probability of pest presence, pest detectability, and the benefits of pest detection across the landscape are used to calculate the expected costs and benefits of surveillance. Increased investment in surveillance is expected to increase the proportion of

incursions detected and, therefore, decrease the impact of the pest.

When the benefits of pest management are purely economic we can answer the question: How much surveillance investment is justified for this pest? When non-economic benefits have been quantified we can instead identify the surveillance plan that maximises benefits for a given surveillance budget.

Our models shows how locations should be prioritised. Surveillance should be targeted to places where:

• the pest is most likely to be, • the terrain is easy to search, and • successful detection offers the largest benefits.

While this is hardly surprising, the procedure goes further. It tells us not only where to start looking for the pest, but when to stop at one location and move on to the next priority. One important result is that the optimal time to search a location is not a simple function of how easy it is to search. Locations that are particularly hard to search are ignored, while locations that are very easy to search are only visited briefly. Searches are longest where the ease of detection is intermediate.

While the mathematical equations describing the optimal time to spend searching may not look simple, they can be calculated in a spreadsheet (available on request). We’re hoping that this surveillance planning spreadsheet will prove to be a user-friendly resource for shrewd searchers.

More info (or for a copy of the surveillance allocation spreadsheet): Cindy Hauser <chauser@unimelb.edu.au>

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Tracking orange hawkweed Orange hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) is a daisy native to Europe that has become a major weed in the US and NZ. It currently poses a major threat to Australian grasslands. On the Victorian Bogong High Plains, the population is surveyed, mapped and sprayed with herbicide seasonally. Small infestations can rapidly mature to set seed in less than a season and it is critical that immature plants are detected as well as large infestations.

AEDA’s search method indicates that effort should be concentrated in a small proportion of sites with a high probability of orange hawkweed occurrence, though it also depends on the vegetation type. It’s worthwhile visiting grassy sites, at least briefly, even when the probability of presence is quite small because they are easy to search. However, difficult-to-search shrubby sites tend to be surveyed either thoroughly or not at all. Their inclusion in the surveillance plan requires a high probability of pest presence and large detection benefits.

Map 1: Predicted probability of orange hawkweed occurrence

Map 2: Vegetation categories

Map 3: Optimal search time (minutes per 4ha site)

Hauser CE & MA McCarthy (2009). Streamlining ‘search and destroy’: cost-effective surveillance for invasive species management. Ecology Letters 12: 683—692.

AEDA Final Report - 8

Australia’s National Reserve System (NRS) is up there among the world’s best in terms of size but an analysis by AEDA has revealed it’s not doing much in

achieving one of its primary goals – the protection of our threatened species.

The study, published in Conservation Biology, examined the level of protection the NRS afforded Australia’s threatened species. It examined the distributions of 1320 nationally listed species on Australia’s EPBC Act and assessed how well the nation’s 9000 plus reserves (covering 11.6% of Australia) protects these species.

“While a few species have a large level of protection, over 80% of the species we analysed were inadequately protected,” says Dr James Watson, the lead author on the report. “One hundred and sixty six species exist completely outside the protected area network. That’s 12% of our threatened species getting no protection from the NRS at all!

“The outcome is even worse for our most endangered species. We found that one-fifth of species considered critically endangered have no formal protection, an incredible finding considering these are the species most vulnerable to extinction.

“Indeed, our analysis shows that the current placement of the protected area network is not much better than a completely random placement of reserves, which is a poor outcome.”

So how has this come about? Is it simply poor design? Actually it’s a mix of history, the difficult nature of protecting endangered animals through land acquisition and never having closely examined how well our reserves are serving endangered animals. As was discussed in Decision Point #41, nature reserves were historically established on parcels of land that weren’t valuable for other uses. It was more about not locking up economically or agriculturally valuable land than maximising natural values. However, faced with an appalling record of protecting our biodiversity (see box), the Australian government has actively sought to increase the size of the terrestrial protected area network (the NRS) to reverse trends of species decline and extinction.

Since 1995 the Australian Government has applied systematic planning criteria to guide expansion of the NRS based on 85 bioregions defined by similarities in geology, landform, climate and ecology. The criteria prioritise bioregions with low levels of representation in the current NRS and high levels of threat to native species, as gauged by past land-use change, known extinctions and invasive plant abundance. Since implementation of this framework began in 2000, the NRS increased in size from 65 to 89 million hectares and its practice of selection is regarded as a benchmark of international best practice.

Despite the substantial growth of Australia’s protected area system, however, little was known of the extent to which this network protected highly threatened species – which was the impetus for this just released analysis. Watson and colleagues

assessed how the spatial coverage of the NRS protected threatened species

with different geographic range sizes. They then compared Australia’s existing NRS

to a hypothetical NRS that was drawn up randomly. They also ‘designed’ a third reserve network, an ‘optimal’ NRS. Using Marxan they devised a reserve system that protected threatened species for the least cost (an ‘optimal’ solution).

We’ve already mentioned the bad news – that our existing NRS offers little more protection than a randomly created set of reserves in terms of protecting protected species. However, the investigation also revealed some positive findings.

“We looked at how much additional land needs to be placed in the protected area estate to overcome its current shortcomings,” says Dr Richard Fuller, a co-author on the paper. “The good news is that if the protected area estate is planned efficiently from now on, we would only need to place 17.8% of Australia, around 6% more than is currently in the NRS, in protected areas to secure threatened species. This is not a large increase. Countries like Israel have 20% of their country protected.”

The investigators also demonstrated that if our protected area system had been formulated in the beginning with an explicit objective of protecting threatened species then we could have achieved it with much the same area as currently lies in the NRS.

“If we were to completely ignore the current reserve system’s contribution to biodiversity conservation and assume all land in Australia was available for acquisition, we found that approximately 11.9% of Australia’s land area would be required to be placed in a protected area for the adequate protection of all threatened species,” says Fuller. “In this efficient solution, we found that 16.7% of the current NRS was captured.”

The investigators stressed that while land acquisition for the enlargement of the NRS was an important strategy for protecting endangered species, it wasn’t the only action that government’s needed to invest in (see the box on beyond buying land). Indeed, the costs and the benefits of different actions needed to weighed up in order that the limited resources available were invested for the best biodiversity outcome.

Reference

Watson JEM, MC, Evans, J Carwardine, RA Fuller, LN Joseph, DB Segan, MFJ Taylor, RJ Fensham & HP Possingham (2010). The Capacity of Australia’s Protected-Area System to Represent Threatened Species. Conservation Biology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01587.x

What’s in reserve? The NRS and threatened species protection

“AEDA critically analysed the role

and value of Australia’s National Reserve System in protecting endangered

species.”5

The red goshawk (pictured here) is good example of a highly threatened species currently listed on the EPBC Act. The goshawk is poorly represented in the NRS meaning it is getting little value from the network of reserves (Image by James Watson.)

AEDA Final Report - 9

What’s the difference between an environmental impact assessment and a strategic environmental impact assessment? And what are the ingredients of

a good strategic impact assessment? AEDA has put a lot of time and effort into creating a checklist of what needs to be included.

Environmental impact assessments (EISs) are undertaken under State and/or Commonwealth laws when the development of a particular patch of ground is believed to threaten some natural value (that’s protected by State or Commonwealth law). That value might be a threatened species or a piece of endangered habitat. If this is the case, it’s the responsibility of the developers to undertake a formal assessment of the impact of the development and demonstrate that either i) the impact will not be significant, or ii) if it is, how they will reduce and/or compensate for the impact.

Well, that’s the way EISs are supposed to work, but defining the impact on a species or habitat, and how the impact might be addressed, can be very difficult. EISs are often undertaken under huge pressure from development timetables and budgets, and short timelines may not allow for proper survey of the environmental values of the area to be developed. Defining an impact on a species or community and demonstrating that it is likely to be significant is even more difficult.

In the past, assessments under the Commonwealth’s EPBC Act (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999) have mostly been done on a site by site basis. The impact of a proposed road, mine, or housing development has been considered on an individual basis. This piecemeal approach to conservation planning has not served threatened species and communities very well, because it’s hard to demonstrate that an individual action will have a significant impact on their persistence in the future. But when taken together, each of these small actions adds up.

AEDA has been advocating that strategic environmental impact assessments could address this problem, and may also be better for maintaining landscape connectivity than project-by-project assessments. Strategic impact assessments (SIAs) are regional-scale assessments of the impact of a proposed program of development on matters of national environmental significance, such as species and communities listed under the Federal EPBC Act. In other words, they are assessments of the likely impact of large-scale developments on our most threatened plants, animals and vegetation communities.

SIAs under the EPBC Act are likely to be much more common in the future, so it’s important to get the process right. If they’re done well, they could substantially improve protection for threatened species and communities in Australia. However, if they are done poorly, we might instead witness large-scale losses of important populations, habitats, and landscape connectivity.

AEDA has put considerable effort in outlining the necessary components of an effective SIA (see box) and has documented this in several submissions to Victorian planning processes and a review of the EPBC Act. AEDA has also been carrying out research on how many of these steps are undertaken in the most efficient manner.

More info: k.parris@unimelb.edu.au

What makes a good strategic impact assessment? And why are they important?) What should an SIA contain?

What processes should a strategic impact assessment involve? Here’s AEDA’s 11 step plan for an SIA (under the EPBC Act).

1. Gather all existing biological information, such as presence/absence and abundance records for all species and communities listed as threatened or migratory under the EPBC Act (and preferably those listed under State legislation as well).

2. Identify gaps in the information, and fill these with targeted field surveys at appropriate times of the year, following best-available survey guidelines (eg, information on suitable survey techniques, the arrangements of sampling plots or transects, and the number of repeat surveys required to be confident of finding a species if it is present).

3. Use established, reliable statistical methods to model the habitat requirements and distribution of all species and communities of concern. Where possible, map the predicted habitat. Evaluate and report uncertainty and errors in model predictions.

4. Identify alternative options for the proposed action or development.

5. Measure the likely social, economic and environmental benefits and impacts of each option, explicitly accounting for uncertainty. This could include modelling predicted impacts on the viability of populations, where suitable data are available.

6. Identify the best available options using recognised conservation planning and/or multi-criteria decision tools.

7. Describe specific management actions to reduce or mitigate the impact of these options, and measure the expected benefit of these actions for threatened species and communities. The suggested management actions must be known to work well.

8. Outline the expected costs of the management actions, and how these will be funded.

9. Allow for the unexpected, including new discoveries of species and/or habitats of conservation concern in areas to be impacted by the development.

10. Allow sufficient time for public consultation (eg, 60 or 90 days) after steps 1 and 8.

11. Document all stages of the process in a clear and transparent manner.

“AEDA has been defining best practice

for strategic impact assessments.”6

AEDA Final Report - 10

AEDA created a network of researchers that brought together applied mathematicians, statisticians, ecologists, geographers, decision theorists,

philosophers and social scientists. At the centre of the network was a core group made up of a group of 13 eminent researchers whose work focuses on quantitatively-oriented conservation science (see the box on the core 13).

Just as important to AEDA’s outputs (and outcomes) has been AEDA’s large cohort of Research Fellows and PhD students. In many instances it’s these people who sparked the original research idea and then built it into significant products. For an idea of who a few of them are, check out the examples presented here. (Note, the research example provided with each person is but a sample of the work they’re engaged in with AEDA and this is a just a small sample of AEDA’s Fellows and postgrads.) To read more on any of these examples please download the relevent issue of Decision Point, all available at:

AEDA’s people

www.aeda.edu.au/news

Dr Hedley Grantham University of Queensland

Reducing bycatch with dynamic marine closures

[Decision Point #31, p9]

Dr Iadine Chades University of Queensland

Optimal management of a secretive species[Decision Point #23, p4]

Liana Joseph University of Queensland

Dr Eve McDonald-Madden University of Queensland

Tracy Rout University of Melbourne

Dr Michael Bode University of Melbourne

Cost-effective global conservation spending

[Decision Point #19, p8]

Dr Don Driscoll Australian National University

PPP: A transparent and robust method for choosing management priorities for threatened species.

[Decision Point #29, p8]

Fire management for biodiversity

[Decision Point #28, p8]

Measuring ‘true’ conservaton progress in environmental

reporting [Decision Point #29, p4]

When can you declare an eradication is successful?

[Decision Point #29, p6]

Josie Carwardine

University of Queensland

Mixing economics into conservation planning

[Decision Point #21, p6]

AEDA Final Report - 11

The Core 13 For more info on each core researcher please visit

Dr Sarah BekessyRMIT University

Prof Mark BurgmanUni of Melbourne

Dr Michael McCarthyUni of Melbourne

Prof Mark ColyvanUni of Sydney

Prof Robert PresseyJames Cook Uni

Dr Clive McAlpine The University of Queensland

Prof Yakov Ben-HaimTechnion Instit. of Tech Haifa, Israel

Dr Atte MoilanenUni of Helsinki, Finland

Prof Helen ReganUniversity of California USA

Dr Martin DrechslerCentre for Environ. Research, Leipzig, Germany

Prof David LindenmayerAust National Uni, Head of the Canb Node, AEDA

Prof Hugh PossinghamUniversity of Queensland, Director, AEDA

Dr Brendan WintleUni of Melbourne, Deputy Director, AEDA

Most of AEDA’s members were based in Brisbane (at the University of Queensland), Canberra (at the Australian National University) and Melbourne (at the University of Melbourne and RMIT). Prof Hugh Possingham was AEDA’s Director, and headed the Brisbane node. Dr Brendan Wintle was AEDA’s Deputy Director and headed the Melbourne node. Prof David Lindenmayer headed up the Canberra node.

Dr Phil Gibbons Australian National University

Dr Joslin Moore University of Melbourne

Decision frameworks for managing alpine willows

[Decision Point #19, p6]

Dr Peter Baxter University of Queensland

Managing endangered species: Do we focus on birth, death or

cost? [Decision Point #19, p4]

Achieving the greatest conservation gains for our

investment? [Decision Point #30, p7]

AEDA Final Report - 12

AEDA active Beyond the science

World class research is an important output of AEDA’s activities but it’s far from being the only one. In its efforts to build a valuable network for

decision science and lift the profile of the discipline, AEDA has run over 30 worshops around the country, staged a national conference (in partnership with sister CERF Landscape Logic) and produced over 30 issues of the highly acclaimed magazine Decision Point.

The 2009 Fenner Conference on the Environment The art and science of good environmental decision making (10-12 March 2009, Canberra)The 2009 Fenner Conference on the Environment focussed on the basics of good environmental decision making with an emphasis on science and policy, prioritisation, adaptive management and cost-effective monitoring. It brought together environmental scientists from around Australia and the world to meet with senior environmental managers from regional, state and Commonwealth agencies to discuss ways we can improve decision making on environmental investments and priorities. The conference was run by AEDA and Landscape Logic with support from the Australian Academy of Science. Click here for the proceedings.

A few scenes in the Shine Dome of the capacity crowd that took part in this year’s Fenner Conference on the Environment.

Some feedback from the audience

“Challenged my thinking on prioritising”

“Showed me different way of presenting options and considering decisions. Will help me in discussions with the Minister and Senior Management”

“Very relevant in terms of CFOC and the relationship of a systems model for funding requirements”

“Heard great examples of decision theory for complex problems”

“Really interesting to hear about incorporating detection probability and targetted monitoring. Hopefully I can incorporate this into my own work.”

“Extremely useful for re-invigoration and updating knowledge of approaches and tools”

“A very good mix of people in the audience”

AEDA workshopsSince it was established AEDA has run workshops all around the nation on topics ranging from optimal monitoring through to the value of market based instruments. Some of the workshops brought scientists, policy makers and managers together to plan new research efforts, some were efforts at consultation and sharing of information, and others were briefings or training workshops on conservation planning. For example, in recent years AEDA has staged several training workshops for planners, managers and policy makers on how to use the Marxan family of planning software.

Click here for a full list of workshops.

www.aeda.edu.au/news/fenner

www.aeda.edu.au/news/events

AEDA assist DEWHA staff in applying marine planning tools to identify priority areas for protection.

An AEDA workshop on the policy/research nexus at the University of Melbourne in 2008.

A breakout group discusses biobanking at AEDA’s workshop on Market Based Instruments held in Lorne.

Participants in a Marxan and Marzone training workshop in Balikpapan, Borneo, in 2007.

AEDA Final Report - 13

Decision PointDecision Point was AEDA’s monthly magazine. With a readership of over 2000, Decision Point is building a profile and a network of interest for decision science while at the same time creating a dynamic and enduring archive of stories. Feedback from readers

“Decision Point seems to me an almost ideal newsletter for its target audience. Well done.” Dr Matt McGlone, Science Team Leader Biodiversity & Conservation, Landcare Research NZ.

“You do a great job with Decision Point. I’ve just downloaded the latest one and read it with interest and will forward it on to my postgrad students.” Professor Andrew Bennett, Deakin University

“I like it - a clean and simple way of getting some of the tough messages across.” Mark Eigenraam, Manager Landscape Economics, Vic

Depart of Sustainability & Environment

“I’m glad I’ve discovered Decision Point (or it discovered me) - the articles are almost all relevant to my work.” Dr Judy Lambert, Director, Community Solutions (social

science)

“I recently came across the magazine ‘Decision Point’ and was impressed by the approach being advanced in relation to the need for clarity and transparency in conservation management and decision-making. Yes, yes, yes. The magazine’s content and easily accessible format make this just the sort of thing I think would be very useful in my workplace for raising the awareness of my colleagues to these sorts of ideas and approaches.” Dr Glenys Jones, Planner, Performance Evaluation & Reporting, Parks and Wildlife Service

“Wow, great web site, great information and a whole new perspective for ecosystem management. I look forward to the monthly updates.” Dr Nari Williams, Murdoch University

“Thank you - I’d just like to let you know that this is the only newsletter I print and take home to read - for the pleasure of it!” Carolyn Switzer, WA Dept of Agriculture

“Our Exec Director says your email news is one of the most valuable going around.” Bryce Wilde, Natural Resources Commission, NSW Govt.

“Deeply appreciate the article on adaptive management, the main purpose of my activites under NLP for past 4+ years.” John Dalton, NSW State Landcare Coordinator, DAFF

“This is the only newsletter I print and take home to read - for the

pleasure of it!”

AEDA Final Report - 14

AEDA facts & figures All the things you’d expect in a final report

Funding & outputs

Total funding over the life of the Activity: 29 Nov 2006 – 15 May 2011 $8,792,958.60

CERF Funding ex GST $7,993,598.73

Cash support across all nodes $1,048,000.00

In kind support across all nodes $10,579,533.00

TOTAL $19,621,131.73

CERF funding was received in November 2006 and all legal requirements between UQ and the other Research Organisations were finalised in January 2007.

Throughout the life of the facility, AEDA has continued working with end users to integrate AEDA research into the development of environmental policy and decision-making, particularly with regard to DEWHA. The outcome has been a set of tools, concepts, results and methodologies which will inform good policy development, planning and management in the CERF Priority Research Areas:- responding to climate change, water and soil management and sustainable use of Australia’s biodiversity.

Outputs have occurred ahead of timelines and deliverables have exceeded the quantities stated in the application.

Outputs delivered include:

• Appointment of our Advisory Board: Prof Richard Hobbs (University of WA), Prof Charlie Zammit (DEWHA), Mr Mark Tucker (DEWHA for 1st year only), and Mr Peter Cochrane (DEWHA). Advisory Board meetings were held in February 2007, May 2007, February 2008 and September 2009.

• During the first half of 2007 development of an AEDA website commenced. This was completed in July 2007 and has continued to be developed and improved. It is an important tool in communicating AEDA’s research, events and latest news – www.aeda.edu.au.

• In mid 2007 Mr David Salt was appointed as Knowledge Broker. Since then, 45 newsletters have been produced and distributed. Approximately 2000 people subscribe to Decision Point (www.aeda.edu.au/news), most of these by their own request. Our subscribers receive Decision Point either via download from the AEDA website, email in .pdf format or hard copy mailout. These subscribers come from a range of organizations such as Research, Government, Consulting and NGO’s.

• At the beginning of 2008 AEDA bites was introduced – a weekly internal email newsletter informing members of AEDA about news and opportunities for conservation biology and planning (note, AEDA bites does not feature AEDA research). In 2009 we began expanding the list of subscribers to AEDA bites and feedback we received suggested it was of value to anyone with an interest in conservation biology and planning. Therefore, AEDA now offers the AEDA bites service to anyone who is interested in receiving it.

• A hyperlinked index of all Decision Point issues is now available – as well as a facility to search all Decision Point content with direct links to the original article. Figure 1 below shows the distribution of those who subscribe directly to Decision Point’s email list.

• Further methods of communicating the science, resources and tools developed by AEDA were produced. These included concise one page information sheets

on AEDA’s focal research themes: Optimal monitoring, Prioritisation and Spatial Planning, and Environmental Decision Making (http://www.aeda.edu.au/aeda-research-themes). These information sheets work specifically to achieve the goal of interpreting the science AEDA conducts for environmental decision makers who may, or may not, have a specifically scientific background. There are nine information sheets in total.

• Since January 2007, approximately 60 meetings, workshops and training courses have been conducted, with around 650 people attending, many coming to multiple events.

• Developing excellent communication skills (a crucial part of AEDA) was addressed specifically in November 2007 when three Science Communication Workshops were run for post graduate students, post doctoral fellows and other AEDA members. These were conducted in Brisbane. The science communication workshops set out to help scientists and practitioners learn and practice the skills needed to engage and communicate with a variety of audiences, including other scientists, the public, policymakers and journalists. Participants gained an understanding of the characteristics of effective communication. The workshop focused on communicating key messages about the participants’ work. Twenty two people attended overall, from AEDA hubs, state government departments and elsewhere.

• During the first half of 2008 development was under way for a new Marxan website, http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan/. Marxan is a software tool that provides decision support to a range of conservation planning problems. This web site went live at the end of April 2008, providing better links between existing and potential Marxan users, hints on using Marxan, the facility to download the software free of charge, and access to case studies, publication and learning opportunities for Marxan. Marxan is currently being used by DEWHA to help inform major marine conservation decisions. Since the commencement of AEDA, over 70 Post Graduate Students and 40 Post Doctoral research fellows have been supported in some way by AEDA funding via salaries, full scholarships, top-up scholarships, travel and workshop attendance support. Details of students and researchers are listed in Appendix 1 and 2. With support from CERF, the AEDA hub has published primary scientific papers in the peer-reviewed literature. Details of AEDA publications can be found at http://www.aeda.edu.au/index.html?page=117150. These include journal publications and book chapters. Aside from formal workshops and meetings, numerous local meetings have been held with end users, including state government, NGO’s and DEWHA.

• At the beginning of May 2009, Karen Gillow changed roles within the AEDA research facility to take up a second Knowledge Broker position based in Brisbane. Her work will compliment that already done by David Salt (based in Canberra). Karen’s first priority in this new role is to develop a communication and engagement strategy for AEDA from July 2009 – to December 2010, including the legacy that AEDA will leave. This role exists to facilitate communication between AEDA members and their “clients”. Our clients include DEWHA & CERF people, other federal govt departments, local and state government, NGO’s, private consultancies, both Australian and International. Karen is keen to use her varied background in marketing, science and I.T. to enhance existing methods of communication, such as web pages, and to investigate the use of other technologies to facilitate knowledge sharing and adaption between AEDA researches and environmental managers and policy makers.