Walking in STEP: Lessons for linking spatial prioritisations to implementation strategies

Spatial prioritisations are increasingly being undertaken to allocate the investment of limited conservation resources. These techniques are highly effective at identifying where important areas for conservation are located, but of limited use for deciding how implementation of conservation action should be undertaken. Conservation planning should be a collaborative social process, and necessitates that spatial prioritisations be complemented with an implementation strategy. We undertook a conservation planning initiative in the Subtropical Thicket biome in South Africa, complementing a spatial prioritisation with an implementation strategy. Believing strongly in the importance of developing a ‘safe-fail’ culture in conservation, we detail our activities and document our successes and failures. We synthesize lessons from our experience of collaboratively developing an implementation strategy with stakeholders, so as to ensure it effectively complements a spatial prioritisation.     

农林开发项目水土保持准入条件

 农林开发项目扰动土地面积位于全国各类开发建设项目之首,砍伐、运输、整地、栽植等一系列活动造成地表植被和覆盖物被清除,致使表层土壤完全暴露,土壤松散,由此造成的水土流失量最大,约占开发建设项目水土流失总量的25%。通过分析农林开发项目主要技术指标、对水土流失和生态环境的影响基础上,进一步查阅了环境、资源、农业等法律、法规、技术规范和标准、规划,并进行了实地调研,经分析、归纳、总结,提出了农林开发项目实行准入、限批和缓批的条件以及水土保持方案准入的基本条件,为国家宏观决策和有关部门立项审批提供了科学的理论依据和技术支撑。     

Decision analysis to guide recovery of the po‘ouli, a critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper

We used a probabilistic decision tree to help select among alternative recovery strategies for the Po‘ouli, a critically endangered forest bird endemic to the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Po‘ouli is one of the rarest birds in the world, with only three individuals known, and no breeding pairs. The most urgent conservation need for the species is to create a breeding pair and obtain eggs for captive propagation. Seven recovery strategies had been proposed, and there was disagreement among conservation workers about which strategy to pursue. In addition to lengthy discussions, a decision tree was introduced to provide an objective way of quantifying the chance of success under each alternative. All available information was used to attempt evaluation of each node in the decision tree. The overall chance of obtaining eggs was calculated by multiplying estimates at each node under each alternative. All options produced low estimates of potential success, but two options, removal of all birds to captivity and placement of the birds in a field aviary in an accessible location, produced similar estimates of success. The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife eventually agreed that removal to captivity was the preferred alternative because it could be implemented quickly, which was important considering the advanced age of the birds, and would make it easier to provide veterinary care and ensure their safety from predators, severe weather, and vandals. Decision trees and other structured models should not be relied on exclusively, but they can provide an objective method of helping to make difficult conservation decisions and provide a record of complex thought processes used in reaching a determination. The case of the Po‘ouli may serve as a template for navigation towards a decision to recover other species of extreme rarity.     

陕西省丹汉江流域水土保持工程投资情况分析

为了研究陕西省丹汉江流域水土保持工程投资的构成和使用情况,解决国家投资不能满足实际需求的矛盾,通过对典型小流域投资情况的实地调查和数据比较,分析了陕西省丹汉江流域人工费用和原材料价格变化、水土保持工程投资的实际需求和使用方式等。结果表明:陕西省丹汉江流域水土保持工程的实际投资需求远高于概算标准,近年来人工费用和原材料价格大幅上涨,地方配套资金难落实,群众投劳和项目捆绑的数量十分有限,项目资金主要来源于中央投资,而实际落实的中央资金不仅要用于工程建设,还要用于前期工作和项目管理等方面。所有这些因素,导致项目资金严重不足。建议修订水土保持工程概(估)算定额、增加水土保持工程单位面积投资标准、提高中央投资比例、落实地方配套资金、多方融资、鼓励群众参与项目建设以及增加前期工作和项目管理费用等。     

取消“两工”对水土保持工程建设的影响及对策

 农村义务工和劳动积累工统称“两工”,“两工”是水土保持工程建设的主要投入渠道。取消“两工”使水土保持工作面临严峻的挑战,每年投入缺口在150亿元左右。根据农村经济体制改革和公共财政体系建设的基本原理,建议:探索建立水土保持生态建设投入新机制,即政府把水土保持生态建设纳入公共财政体系,加大投入力度;探索建立农民投工投劳专项转移支付制度和水土保持生态补偿制度;鼓励公众参与编制水土保持规划,采取民办公助等形式,调动农民参与水土保持生态建设的积极性。     

城建工程水土保持准入条件

 城建工程项目开挖、填筑土石方量大,对地表、植被破坏点多、面广,工程建设引发的水土流失和环境损坏直接影响城市人居环境,是较为敏感的项目之一。在分析城建工程项目占用土地特征及其水土流失特点的基础上,通过查阅大量与城镇建设相关的有关环境、资源的法律法规、技术规范,经分析、归纳、总结,提出城建工程项目的水土保持准入、限批、缓批条件,提出水土保持方案准入条件以及水土保持方案的准入排序意见。     

Evaluation of liming operations through benefit-cost analysis

This paper presents a methodology for assessing the benefits and costs of liming acidified waters. Public decision makers generally have to choose among a variety of projects for public investment. Benefit-cost analysis offers one set of tools to assist the decision maker. This paper provides the benefit-cost tool to the decision maker to allow him or her to understand whether a liming project is justified from an economics perspective. The rudiments of benefit-cost analysis are first derived with particular attention paid to issues such as accounting stance, discounting, non-market benefit estimation and computation of applicable economic costs. The paper also provides detailed information on the costs associated with liming acidified waters and the appropriate methods by which benefits are to be computed. A hypothetical examples is provided to assist the reader in understanding the application of benefit-cost analysis to liming projects. Available data sources for future analyses are described for seven states and the federal government.     

开发建设项目水土流失影响度评价方法研究

 为落实树立科学发展观、建设资源节约型社会和环境友好型社会的要求,开发建设项目水土保持方案审批已成为项目核准的必备要件,并正在向选优审批转变。开展水土保持损益分析就是为优化审批水土保持方案提供科学依据。其中开发建设项目水土流失影响度是其核心内容,将开发建设项目的影响时间、扰动后的侵蚀强度、影响范围、可恢复程度和生产运行期影响5个主导因子拟合为一个综合评价模型定量计算,分析开发建设项目对水土流失的影响,并以水土流失影响度为标准,客观评价开发建设项目,为政府行政决策和宏观调节提供科学支撑。     

Systematic reserve design as a dynamic process: F-TRAC and the Florida Forever program

Systematic conservation planning has become an important tool for increasing the efficiency of conservation decisions, but many planning efforts result in static plans that may lose relevance over time. We developed a process whereby planning is integrated into the decision-making process and updated every six months in response to conservation actions. The Florida Forever program is a 10-year, $3 billion land acquisition program expected to acquire approximately 1.25 million acres (607,000 ha) for conservation in Florida through the year 2010. With limited funding and duration, the program needs to be able to efficiently protect the most natural resources for a fixed cost, a situation well suited to a systematic reserve design approach. To inform this program, we conducted an assessment of natural resource conservation needs and developed the Florida Forever Tool for Efficient Resource Acquisition and Conservation (F-TRAC), a systematic reserve design analysis based on a simulated annealing site selection algorithm using Marxan software. The analysis considered conservation needs for a variety of natural resources including species, natural communities, high quality watersheds, wetlands, and sustainable forestry. Each 6-month analysis identifies an efficient portfolio of sites for resource protection, given the amount of land area likely remaining to be acquired by the Florida Forever program. The Spring 2004 model portfolio had a cost threshold of 206,308 ha, met conservation targets for 18 of 32 resource conservation features, and identified approximately 116,000 ha outside of current land acquisition projects. This study also demonstrates the use of reserve design results to evaluate existing and proposed land acquisition projects and inform decision makers; and the evaluation of acquisition trends and program success based on potential achievements as indicated by reserve design analyses.     

Pre-emptive conservation versus “fire-fighting”: A decision theoretic approach

How can conservation planners optimally and effectively allocate limited resources between imminently threatened and presently secure areas? Such choices must be made at multiple spatial scales involving a variety of conservation targets. Allocation strategies range from a “fire-fighting” approach, which gives priority to heavily developed areas at high risk of further habitat loss, to a “pre-emptive” approach giving priority to intact habitat tracts before they become threatened. We determined optimal dynamic reserve selection strategies when selections are made in imminently threatened and presently secure areas that will become threatened at uncertain times in the future. The objective was to maximize the expected number of endemic species conserved, predicted with species-area curves. The model was solved for three forms of species-area curve proposed in theoretical studies of habitat loss. Alternative scenarios were considered on the relationship between land prices and development risk. For the most commonly proposed form of the species-area relationship, the fire-fighting approach is optimal even if land prices rise substantially when presently secure areas become threatened. This reflects the assumption that species decline accelerates only after a large proportion of original habitat has been lost. The possibility of large species losses at lower levels of habitat loss justifies at least some pre-emptive conservation, even if land prices are not correlated with threat. If species decline is proportional with habitat loss, the optimal conservation strategy depends strongly on land price dynamics.     

Management costs for small protected areas and economies of scale in habitat conservation

Protected area management must be resourced adequately to achieve its conservation objectives. The variability in management costs across candidate sites for protection therefore should inform conservation planning. For example, when considering whether to accept a donation of a property, a conservation organisation must determine whether an adequate endowment is available to fund future management activities. We examine variation in management costs across 78 small protected areas in the UK that are managed by a conservation NGO, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. Management costs exceed acquisition costs when funded on an endowment basis and are not correlated with acquisition costs or with proxy measures for conservation costs commonly relied upon in conservation planning studies. A combination of geographic, ecological and socioeconomic characteristics of sites explains 50% of the variation in management costs. Site area is the most important determinant of management costs, which demonstrate economies of scale; implementing conservation management on an additional hectare adjacent to a larger protected area would incur a lower cost than doing the same adjacent to a smaller site. In evidencing this effect of site area, we avoid problems of spurious correlation that confound previous studies. Protected areas that encompass a greater richness of priority habitats for conservation also require more expensive management. Conservation organisations may have little option but to create small protected areas to conserve biodiversity in highly fragmented landscapes, but the decision to do so should take account of the greater cost burden that small protected areas incur.     

Shortcuts for marine conservation planning: The effectiveness of socioeconomic data surrogates

Marine protected area (MPA) networks designed without consideration of the interests of local communities are likely to fail. However, in many regions where conservation action is needed most urgently, socioeconomic data are not available at spatial scales relevant to conservation planning. In the Philippines, the primary stakeholders relevant to conservation efforts in coastal waters are small-scale fishers. Unlike commercial fisheries, no logbook data are kept to record fishers’ spatial effort and usage patterns. We investigated the effects of including different surrogates for small-scale fishing effort in the systematic design of an MPA network for Siquijor Province. We compared a reserve selection scenario in which socioeconomic data were not considered with four different surrogates for fishing effort and with empirical data on the spatial distribution of fishing effort collected through interviews. We assumed that minimising opportunity costs to fishers would increase the likelihood that they would support and comply with MPA implementation, resulting in more effective conservation. Surrogates modelled on the number of fishers or boats in each community consistently outperformed those based on population census data. However, none of the surrogates we tested were able to accurately predict fine-scale resource use patterns. Whilst socioeconomic surrogates may be able to assist conservation planners to identify regional-scale opportunities where conservation objectives may be met more easily, they cannot act as a shortcut for comprehensive consultation with communities, which will be required to identify actual sites for MPA implementation.     

关于黑吉两省水土保持生态建设进展情况的调查

黑龙江、吉林两省 ,水土保持生态建设抓得好、抓得实 ,以小流域为重点的综合治理坚持高标准、高效益。两省明确了水土保持宣传周、宣传月 ,利用各种形式宣传水土保持法律法规、治理成果 ,使水保政策法规深入人心。把查处违法案件作为加强水土保持工作的突破口来抓 ,收到了处理一起、教育一片、带动一片的良好效果。加大水保科研投入 ,不断提高水保科技含量。以鸡西市、通化市为代表的水保城市试点 ,推进了城市水土保持生态环境建设。对中央财政专项项目实行动态管理 ,确保资金用在“刀刃”上。介绍了具体的做法和经验     

土工织物在水土保持工程中应用的探讨

土工织物作为一种新型的建筑材料，有很强的透水性，可用于水土保持工程中反滤水。如果能够满足一定的条件，选择合适的材料，将发挥土工织物的透水、挡土、拦砂功能，工程应用中施工简单，节省投资，经济效益明显，是一种值得推广的建筑材料。     

Estimating habitat suitability and potential population size for brown bears in the Eastern Alps

According to the Habitats Directive of the European Union, a favorable conservation status for the brown bear (Ursus arctos) should be targeted at the population level in large contiguous habitats such as the Alps, the largest mountain range in Europe. However, in most of the Alps brown bears are extinct and habitat suitability in these areas is often questionable. For this paper, radio-tracking data from four projects with 42 individual bears was compiled to assess habitat suitability. Discrete-choice models with random bear effects were fitted and compared to results obtained from compositional analysis and logistic regression. Sound definition of the available area in the discrete-choice model turned out to be essential. Brown bears showed a preference for forested and steep habitats and an avoidance of roads.Results from the three approaches were used to predict habitat suitability across the entire range of the Eastern Alps. Minimum potential population size was projected based on observed densities in Trentino and Central Austria, and ranged from 1228 to 1625 individuals, with 518–686 mature bears. This would satisfy a favorable conservation status. The developed methodology also has wide applicability to quantification of habitat suitability and potential population size in other cases where species are at risk.     

建设类与建设生产类开发建设项目水土保持方案的异同分析

20世纪末,开发建设项目水土保持方案的编报工作已经实现了规范化和制度化,但有不少的编制者在编制建设类和建设生产类项目的水土保持方案时往往出现失误.建设类和建设生产类项目的水土保持方案在很多方面都存在很大区别.根据多年编制两类水土保持方案的实践经验,总结出了这两类项目水土保持方案的编报工作在水土保持要求、服务年限、预测时段划分、防治目标等方面的异同,以防止在编报过程中出现水土流失量预测、水土保持措施体系以及水土保持监测等方面产生较大的偏差.     

Selecting in situ conservation sites for grape genetic resources in the USA

Previously, there has not been any in situ conservation sites for crop germplasm within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). Using morphologic and molecular (SSR markers) techniques, we assessed the genetic variation present in populations of rock grape (Vitis rupestris Scheele), a native American grape species, throughout its range. We identified seven in situ conservation sites for rock grape using a strategy based on morphologic and molecular data, taxonomic information, population size and integrity, and landholder commitment. In collaboration with federal and state landholding agencies, we have established the first NPGS in situ conservation sites for American wild relatives of a crop.     

Tephra-mulched soils irrigated with reclaimed urban wastewater in former dry-farming systems of Lanzarote (Spain)

On the island of Lanzarote, under extreme conditions of aridity and water scarcity, a certain amount of rainfed agriculture has been possible due to the use of tephra mulching, a system known locally as arenados, which is a very effective water and soil conservation system. The natural arenados are associated to already present tephra from recent volcanic eruptions. In artificial arenados a 5 to 20 cm layer of pyroclasts is placed over the soil. Over the last decade, the availability of urban reclaimed water (RW) has allowed irrigation networks to be established in artificial arenados with significant increases in crop yields. In this work, a preliminary evaluation of the sustainability of this new form of management was performed. Field plots irrigated with tertiary effluent for almost a decade were studied and compared with adjacent dry-farming fields, both cropped with sweet potatoes. In both cases, the soils had a covering of basaltic tephra mulch. The irrigation lines are placed on top of the mulch. Although this was not a controlled field experiment, since water and soil management was not exactly the same in the studied plots, some significant effects of RW irrigation on soil chemical properties were identified. Crop yields in the irrigated fields can be up to three times the yields obtained under rainfed conditions. The RW quality posed some restrictions for irrigation, particularly as regards salinity, sodicity and boron, although their buildup in soils appears to have been reduced by the mulch effect. In some field plots, crop critical threshold values of soil salinity and boron were reached with no harmful consequences. This developing soil degradation suggests that the sustainability of arenados systems under RW irrigation would appear to be under threat in the mid- to long-term based on current management practices. Further research is required on the salt and boron dynamics in this system, which is an example of conservation agriculture that also helps combat desertification.     

水利水电工程水土保持方案编制中几个问题的探讨

水利水电工程建设项目剥离表土多,施工占地面积大,对其进行水土保持方案编制和实施,是防治人为活动造成水土流失的重要措施。该建设项目水保方案应与工程建设阶段相吻合,在工程实施、验收、运行等阶段均应开展相应的水保工作。水保方案的主要内容,包括编制的目的与意义、编制依据、工程施工简况、工程建设过程中水土流失预测、水土流失防治方案、投资概算及效益分析。水保措施布设的重点区域,须通过多因素比较才能确定。工程建成投入运行后,水土流失监测的重点是库区的滑坡、塌岸。     

依法防治水土流失 促进长江流域可持续发展

水土保持法颁布实施 10年来 ,以“长治”工程为骨干的长江流域水土流失重点治理快速推进。截至 2 0 0 0年底 ,累计完成水土流失初步治理面积 2 1万km2 ,其中“长江”工程 12年初步治理水土流失面积 6 8万km2 ;水土保持监督执法不断加强 ,建立了一支有 70 0 0名专职监督人员的执法队伍 ,初步建立健全了贯彻实施水土保持法的配套法规体系 ,累计对 6 80 0多起开发建设项目造成的人为水土流失违法案件进行了立案查处 ,审批水土保持方案超过 4 1万个 ,开发建设单位交纳水土流失防治费 35 0 0多万元 ,补偿费 370 0多万元 ,自行投入水土流失防治费累计超过 6 7亿元 ,取得了许多值得推广的好经验。