Institutions and incentives for biodiversity conservation

Incentive measures for biodiversity conservation cannot be evaluated and compared outside the context of institutional performance and relationships. The institutional framework for biodiversity incentives includes a variety of organizations operating on different spatial scales. The institutional actors with an impact on biodiversity include community groups, local and national governmental structures, NGOs, business enterprises and international organizations. But the positve influence of conservation-oriented organizations is often significantly outweighed by the negative influence of other sets of institutional actors who are largely unaware of biodiversity as a concept and not unduly concerned with its conservation. There are several options for improving the institutional framework for biodiversity incentives: (1) decentralization of resource management decision making to local levels; (2) engaging and reorienting government institutions; (3) establishing new national and international institutions; and (4) establishing functional linkages between key institutional actors. The role of local, national and international institutions in designing and implementing effective incentive measures for biodiversity conservation will be critical. But the dynamics within and between institutional actors influencing biodiversity conservation are complex, variable and insufficiently understood, somewhat like biodiversity itself.     

Patches and pulses as fundamental characteristics for matching ecological and cultural diversity: the Baltic Sea archipelago

Focusing on the Baltic archipelago, we address the questions: to what extent are the rhythms of natural and social systems compatible and under which criteria can we make them coincide? Existing mismatches between resource availability and human demand are identified as well as human attempts to dampen ecosystem fluctuations. By means of examples from forestry and fisheries, we illustrate how changes in property rights and technology have altered the diversity and resilience of the archipelago system. Our results suggest that intermediate scale processes of years up to a century are most critical for bringing natural and cultural systems in concordance. The time frame relevant to management and policy in the archipelago seems to correlate with eutrophication processes and the regrowth of forests. In fisheries, a shift from traditional to recreational fisheries has created fishery patterns badly adapted to the dynamics of the coastal ecosystem in disregard of traditional ecological knowledge. A multipurpose and adaptive management of natural resources is advocated as the most appropriate approach for promoting ecological and cultural diversity in the Baltic archipelago. Existing mismatches between the two have to be addressed by governing institutions at many hierarchical levels.     

Coping with Complexity and Organizational Interests in Natural Resource Management

To cope with the daunting challenges posed by system complexity while maximizing their organizational interests, resource management institutions must implement strategies aimed at reducing some of the particular dimensions of complexity. Virtually all of the recent initiatives to improve resource management—ecosystem management, adaptive management, stakeholder negotiation, disturbance prevention, multiple mandates for resource management agencies, resource homogenization, restoration ecology, the creation of protected areas, the restoration of local-user rights, and algorithmic resource exploitation rules—are vulnerable to inappropriate interest-driven simplifications, many of which result from patterns of perverse learning. A research agenda designed to identify better means of coping with complexity and the effects of organizational interests could help to improve resource and environmental management. Received 4 October 2000; accepted 15 June 2001.     

Customary management as precautionary and adaptive principles for protecting coral reefs in Oceania

Marine conservation programs in Oceania are increasingly turning to precautionary and adaptive management, particularly approaches which emphasize local participation and customary management. Although the application of community-based natural resource management is widespread in the region, the full integration of local knowledge and practices into the design, implementation, and monitoring of community-based conservation programs has been limited. There is also little empirical data to show whether or not community-based conservation projects are meeting their stated objectives. This paper summarizes an integrated method for selecting Marine Protected Area (MPA) sites and presents empirical evidence that illustrates how an MPA that was largely conceived using indigenous ecological knowledge and existing sea tenure governance (i.e., customary management practices), as part of a regional precautionary and adaptive community-based management plan, is showing signs of biological and social success. More generally, the paper shows how hybrid natural and social research approaches in tandem with customary management for designing MPAs can protect coral reefs in Oceania.     

Lessons from community-based payment for ecosystem service schemes: from forests to rangelands

Climate finance investments and international policy are driving new community-based projects incorporating payments for ecosystem services (PES) to simultaneously store carbon and generate livelihood benefits. Most community-based PES (CB-PES) research focuses on forest areas. Rangelands, which store globally significant quantities of carbon and support many of the world''s poor, have seen little CB-PES research attention, despite benefitting from several decades of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) projects. Lessons from CBNRM suggest institutional considerations are vital in underpinning the design and implementation of successful community projects. This study uses documentary analysis to explore the institutional characteristics of three African community-based forest projects that seek to deliver carbon-storage and poverty-reduction benefits. Strong existing local institutions, clear land tenure, community control over land management decision-making and up-front, flexible payment schemes are found to be vital. Additionally, we undertake a global review of rangeland CBNRM literature and identify that alongside the lessons learned from forest projects, rangeland CB-PES project design requires specific consideration of project boundaries, benefit distribution, capacity building for community monitoring of carbon storage together with awareness-raising using decision-support tools to display the benefits of carbon-friendly land management. We highlight that institutional analyses must be undertaken alongside improved scientific studies of the carbon cycle to enable links to payment schemes, and for them to contribute to poverty alleviation in rangelands.     

Ecosystem Services and Emergent Vulnerability in Managed Ecosystems: A Geospatial Decision-Support Tool

Managed ecosystems experience vulnerabilities when ecological resilience declines and key flows of ecosystem services become depleted or lost. Drivers of vulnerability often include local management actions in conjunction with other external, larger-scale factors. To translate these concepts to management applications, we developed a conceptual model of feedbacks linking the provision of ecosystem services, their use by society, and anthropogenic change. From this model we derived a method to integrate existing geodata at relevant scales and in locally meaningful ways to provide decision-support for adaptive management efforts. To demonstrate our approach, we conducted a case study assessment of southeast Alaska, where managers are concerned with sustaining fish and wildlife resources in areas where intensive logging disturbance has occurred. Individual datasets were measured as indicators of one of three criteria: ecological capacity to support fish/wildlife populations (provision); human acquisition of fish/wildlife resources (use); and intensity of logging and related land-use change (disturbance). Relationships among these processes were analyzed using two methods—a watershed approach and a high-resolution raster—to identify where provision, use and disturbance were spatially coupled across the landscape. Our results identified very small focal areas of social-ecological coupling that, based on post-logging dynamics and other converging drivers of change, may indicate vulnerability resulting from depletion of ecosystem services. We envision our approach can be used to narrow down where adaptive management might be most beneficial, allowing practitioners with limited funds to prioritize efforts needed to address uncertainty and mitigate vulnerability in managed ecosystems.     

Institutional Development in the Face of Complexity: Developing Rules for Managing Forest Resources

The ability to develop institutions is constrained by human capacity to cope with complexity. But complexity is multidimensional and it is not clear which forms of complexity present the greatest challenges for institutional development. In the context of natural resources, the predictability of resource availability affects expectations that an individual or group will be able to capture the benefits of management. In addition, incomplete understanding of cause-and-effect relationships creates uncertainty about the consequences of alternative management options. These features influence calculations about resource management. The importance of resource complexity relative to various social, political, and institutional factors known to influence collective choice remains an open question. We evaluate the relative importance of several forms of resource complexity and characteristics of resource users for the development of rules for management for forest products in Indiana.     

Lessons Learned from Reconstructing Interactions Between Local Ecological Knowledge, Fisheries Science, and Fisheries Management in the Commercial Fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Questions centered on the development of local and traditional ecological knowledge and the relationship of that knowledge to the development of conservation and management practices have recently attracted critical attention. We examine these questions with respect to the dynamic commercial fisheries of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The knowledge of fish harvesters coevolves with fishing practices and is embedded in a dynamic socioecological network that extends into and beyond the fisher, fishery households, and communities to include management, technologies, markets, and marine ecological conditions. Changes in these networks have moved knowledge and practices related to fishing in directions defined by policy, science, economic rationality, and new ecological realities. We characterize this movement as a shift along a continuum from local ecological knowledge (LEK) towards globalized harvesting knowledge (GHK) as harvesters become increasingly disconnected from socioecological relationships associated with traditional species and stocks. We conclude with a discussion of how LEK/GHK have interacted over time and space with other knowledge systems (particularly science) to influence management, and suggest that contingent, empirical evaluations of these interactions will provide a fruitful avenue for future interdisciplinary research.

Declining reliance on marine resources in remote South Pacific societies: ecological versus socio-economic drivers

Degraded coral reef ecosystems yield limited goods and services, which is expected to have significant socio-economic impacts on isolated tropical island communities with strong reliance on coral reefs. This study investigates socio-economic changes, specifically in fresh fish consumption and fishing activities, associated with environmental degradation at five fishing grounds (qoliqoli) in the Lau Islands (Fiji). Semi-structured interviews with fishers and senior household members revealed that the importance of fishing was low relative to other occupations, and consumption of fresh fish has declined over the last decade. Reduced fishing and choice of fresh fish is largely attributable to an increased need to derive income as well as new income-generating opportunities. A possible consequence of reduced reliance on marine resources was limited awareness of recent environmental degradation caused by climate-induced coral bleaching and outbreaks of coral-feeding crown-of-thorns starfish. Limited use and reduced awareness of the local marine environment in the short term may erode social memory and local ecological knowledge, reducing opportunities to fall back on marine resources. This may also compromise long-term economic and social stability. Conversely, low reliance on marine resources may confer greater flexibility to adapt to future ecological change in the marine environment. Importantly, changes in fish consumption and exploitation of marine resources were linked to socio-economic factors rather than a consequence of recent degradation of marine environments. Greater knowledge of the dynamics driving change in marine resource use is necessary to understand how societies respond to ecological and socio-economic change, and to identify opportunities for adaptive sustainable ecosystem management.     

雄安新区多尺度生态安全格局构建框架

维持城市所处的生态系统格局与过程,使得城市生存和发展所依赖的关键生态系统服务实现供需平衡是保障城市生态安全的根本要求和基本前提。因此,城市生态安全不仅是城市本身的问题,还涉及到城市所处的流域、区域、国家等多个不同的空间尺度,具体由支撑城市及其发展的关键生态系统服务所涉及的生态过程所决定。对生态安全概念及研究进展进行了梳理和分析,在此基础上,提出了一个城市生态安全保障的生态系统服务研究框架,将维持城市生态安全的关键生态系统服务需求分为3个层次：一是水资源供给、食物生产、水质净化等城市生存所依赖的基础资源与基本环境维持相关的服务,二是土壤保持、水源涵养、防风固沙、固碳释氧、生物多样性等生态系统稳定和可持续性维持相关的生态系统稳定和调节类服务,三是生态休闲、微气候调节、降尘减噪、文化审美等人居环境与文化类服务。进而利用该框架,从不同需求层次分别对雄安新区生态安全保障的生态系统服务需求进行了分析,结合其自然地理特征和新区建设的社会经济发展情景,从新区城市、大清河流域和京津冀区域三个尺度提出了雄安新区生态安全格局构建框架,以及相应的保障对策和建议,包括从多尺度进行生态环境调控和管理,打破行政和地域边界限制;关注各尺度各关键生态系统服务的过程,加强生态环境要素的监测和预警;重视新区在人居环境改善层次的生态系统服务需求等。     

Indigenous Knowledge of Ecological Variability and Commons Management: A Case Study on Berry Harvesting from Northern Canada

Common property arrangements govern the subsistence harvest of berries in the Gwich’in region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Some of these arrangements, including rules for resource access, sharing information and harvest sharing, enable the Gwich’in to deal with ecological variability. The rules change in response to year-to-year variations in the abundance and distribution of the species, spatially and temporally across the region. This paper illustrates the interrelationships between ecosystem dynamics and local institutions, a neglected area of commons research.An erratum to this article can be found at     

综述地方知识的生态应用价值

地方知识在解决生态问题上的价值在国外已经受到相当的重视,但在中国尚刚刚起步。通过综述国内外地方知识的相关文献,发现有关地方知识的研究最近几年呈逐渐上升的趋势,国外研究明显多于国内且比国内深入。整体而言,地方知识在生态应用中的价值可以体现在4个方面:作为背景知识、提供基础数据、提供未来方案以及参与生态管理。国内有关地方知识的研究还流于描述层面,大多在描述背景知识。而国外的研究则更多得聚焦于怎样利用地方知识来提供数据、提供新的规划及技术方法,并强化地方知识在生态管理中的作用。结合文献归纳了地方知识在生态应用梯度各等级中的具体作用,提出了一个地方知识的生态应用框架,以期指导中国的相关科研和实践工作。以国外的研究为鉴,地方知识在中国的生态应用未来具有很大空间,地方知识作为普遍知识的有效补充,应该充分参与数据、决策以及管理的全过程,提出地方知识在中国未来应用发展的几个重点突破的难点,期望地方知识在科学规划、资源管理中发挥其应有的价值。     

Food‐web structure and ecosystem function in the Laurentian Great Lakes—Toward a conceptual model

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A multi-indicator framework for mapping cultural ecosystem services: The case of freshwater recreational fishing

Despite recent interest, ecosystem services are not yet fully incorporated into private and public decisions about natural resource management. Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are among the most challenging of services to include because they comprise complex ecological and social properties and processes that make them difficult to measure, map or monetize. Like others, CES are vulnerable to landscape changes and unsustainable use. To date, the sustainability of services has not been adequately addressed and few studies have considered measures of service capacity and demand simultaneously. To facilitate sustainability assessments and management of CES, our study objectives were to (1) develop a spatially explicit framework for mapping the capacity of ecosystems to provide freshwater recreational fishing, an important cultural service, (2) map societal demand for freshwater recreational fishing based on license data and identify areas of potential overuse, and (3) demonstrate how maps of relative capacity and relative demand could be interfaced to estimate sustainability of a CES. We mapped freshwater recreational fishing capacity at the 12-digit hydrologic unit-scale in North Carolina and Virginia using a multi-indicator service framework incorporating biophysical and social landscape metrics and mapped demand based on fishing license data. Mapping of capacity revealed a gradual decrease in capacity eastward from the mountains to the coastal plain and that fishing demand was greatest in urban areas. When comparing standardized relative measures of capacity and demand for freshwater recreational fishing, we found that ranks of capacity exceeded ranks of demand in most hydrologic units, except in 17% of North Carolina and 5% of Virginia. Our GIS-based approach to view freshwater recreational fishing through an ecosystem service lens will enable scientists and managers to examine (1) biophysical and social factors that foster or diminish cultural ecosystem services delivery, (2) demand for cultural ecosystem services relative to their capacity, and (3) ecological pressures like potential overuse that affect service sustainability. Ultimately, we expect such analyses to inform decision-making for freshwater recreational fisheries and other cultural ecosystem services.     

基于保护地役权的自然保护地适应性管理方法探讨: 以钱江源国家公园体制试点区为例

我国的自然保护地普遍存在着科学管控难、统一管理难和资金供给难等问题, 即便是国家公园体制试点区也不例外。本文以钱江源国家公园体制试点区为例, 设计了基于细化保护需求的保护地役权制度, 以探索一种能解决上述问题并能体现生态补偿的适应性管理方法, 包括: 细化主要保护对象的管理需求, 结合土地利用类型, 确定实施保护地役权的空间范围; 辨析保护需求和原住民生产、生活之间的关系, 形成正负行为的准则并以行为清单的形式体现; 从生态系统监测指标改善情况、正负行为遵守情况和社区能力建设三个维度制定地役权制度的评价方法; 据此形成地役权合同, 明确供役地人和需役地人的权责利, 形成考虑保护绩效的生态补偿方案。这种方法可以解决自然保护地因为权属不一致造成的生态系统和景观破碎化问题, 缓解社区发展和生态保护之间的矛盾, 在我国南方集体林地占比较高的自然保护地具有适用性。     

Bioenergy harvest,climate change,and forest carbon in the Oregon Coast Range

Forests provide important ecological, economic, and social services, and recent interest has emerged in the potential for using residue from timber harvest as a source of renewable woody bioenergy. The long‐term consequences of such intensive harvest are unclear, particularly as forests face novel climatic conditions over the next century. We used a simulation model to project the long‐term effects of management and climate change on above‐ and belowground forest carbon storage in a watershed in northwestern Oregon. The multi‐ownership watershed has a diverse range of current management practices, including little‐to‐no harvesting on federal lands, short‐rotation clear‐cutting on industrial land, and a mix of practices on private nonindustrial land. We simulated multiple management scenarios, varying the rate and intensity of harvest, combined with projections of climate change. Our simulations project a wide range of total ecosystem carbon storage with varying harvest rate, ranging from a 45% increase to a 16% decrease in carbon compared to current levels. Increasing the intensity of harvest for bioenergy caused a 2–3% decrease in ecosystem carbon relative to conventional harvest practices. Soil carbon was relatively insensitive to harvest rotation and intensity, and accumulated slowly regardless of harvest regime. Climate change reduced carbon accumulation in soil and detrital pools due to increasing heterotrophic respiration, and had small but variable effects on aboveground live carbon and total ecosystem carbon. Overall, we conclude that current levels of ecosystem carbon storage are maintained in part due to substantial portions of the landscape (federal and some private lands) remaining unharvested or lightly managed. Increasing the intensity of harvest for bioenergy on currently harvested land, however, led to a relatively small reduction in the ability of forests to store carbon. Climate change is unlikely to substantially alter carbon storage in these forests, absent shifts in disturbance regimes.     

三峡水库生态渔业发展策略与关键技术研究分析

针对三峡水库蓄水后水体资源丰富、水生态系统发育尚不完善、支流库湾藻类水华问题较严重、鱼类群落结构有待调控、水生生物资源未有效利用和转化的现状, 阐述了三峡水库生态渔业作为生态系统保护途径和绿色产业的必要性与重要性, 提出了三峡水库生态渔业发展的总体目标与基本原则, 认为三峡水库发展生态渔业应以生态安全保障和水质养护为首要任务, 严格控制外来物种的引种移植, 以土著鱼类自然繁殖保护和捕捞管理为主, 动态调控放流增殖的鱼类种类和数量为辅, 建立以鱼类群落合理配置和食物网结构优化为手段的水库生态系统调控技术体系, 促进高效的物质循环和能量流动, 实现环境保护和渔业增效的双赢。作者围绕渔业放流增殖、野生鱼类资源保护、捕捞管理、局部库区渔业调控、渔业生物控藻、社区渔业协调管理、生态渔业总体规划等方面, 分析了现阶段三峡水库生态渔业的重点研究任务与关键技术,同时建议加强相关生态学理论与方法研究、技术示范和成果应用, 为三峡水库以渔养水、渔-水和谐的综合管理提供决策依据。       

基于管理目标的湖泊生态系统动力学

基于生态系统管理的目标,在对相关研究分析的基础上,依据生态系统生态学、淡水生态学的理论,提出了湖泊生态系统动力学研究的2个理论基础：生态系统管理和生态系统特征.在此基础上,分析得到湖泊生态系统动力学的研究方法体系,主要包括研究内容与技术路线、关键问题识别和动力学模拟、湖泊生态系统的适应性管理决策等部分.其中,湖泊生态系统结构和过程、湖泊中食物网营养动力学研究、生源要素循环、湖泊中关键过程的生态作用以及湖泊生态系统动力学模拟是研究的核心问题.此后,以P为主要的生源要素,将生态系统分为3个子过程：入流、出流和内部反馈,并以此建立了湖泊生态系统动力学的模型框架,以辅助于湖泊的生态系统管理.     

Management Strategy Evaluation Applied to Coral Reef Ecosystems in Support of Ecosystem-Based Management

Ecosystem modelling is increasingly used to explore ecosystem-level effects of changing environmental conditions and management actions. For coral reefs there has been increasing interest in recent decades in the use of ecosystem models for evaluating the effects of fishing and the efficacy of marine protected areas. However, ecosystem models that integrate physical forcings, biogeochemical and ecological dynamics, and human induced perturbations are still underdeveloped. We applied an ecosystem model (Atlantis) to the coral reef ecosystem of Guam using a suite of management scenarios prioritized in consultation with local resource managers to review the effects of each scenario on performance measures related to the ecosystem, the reef-fish fishery (e.g., fish landings) and coral habitat. Comparing tradeoffs across the selected scenarios showed that each scenario performed best for at least one of the selected performance indicators. The integrated ‘full regulation’ scenario outperformed other scenarios with four out of the six performance metrics at the cost of reef-fish landings. This model application quantifies the socio-ecological costs and benefits of alternative management scenarios. When the effects of climate change were taken into account, several scenarios performed equally well, but none prevented a collapse in coral biomass over the next few decades assuming a business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions scenario.