Road effects

Road effects
• ~6.3 million kms of roads in USA
(2001)
• Influence zones often large:
- disrupt wildlife movements
- modify habitats
- alter water drainage patterns
- introduce exotic species
- modify microclimates
- alter chemical environment
- increase noise levels
- Increase human migration
• Roads also are precursors to future
impacts.
• How much land area is potentially
affected by roads in the US?
Road effects
16% of total land area is within 100 m of a road of any type,
22% is within 150 m, and 73% is within 810 m
Protected Areas and Reserve Design
“A protected area is defined as an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated
to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural and
associated cultural resources, managed through legal or other effective
means.”
UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Goals of reserves
• Large functioning ecosystems
• Threatened/endangered species
• Biodiversity
• Aesthetics
• Ethics
• Sustainable harvest
• Ecosystem services
Setting priorities
Species-centric approaches:
• Flagship species
• Umbrella species
• Indicator species
• Keystone species
Setting priorities
Ecosystem-centric approaches:
•‘Hotspots’ (CI)
•Conservation Risk Index (TNC)
•‘Global 200’ (WWF)
Reserve planning
1) Identify conservation targets
2) Inventory a region for the occurrence of those targets and
threats to them
Gap analysis:
Based on observations of finch distribution relative to protected
areas in Hawaii.
Almost no overlap between the two, indicating large ‘gaps’ in
protection.
3) Set conservation goals.
• Florida Forever Program: 1999 law specifying that every
vertebrate species in the state shall have a minimum of ‘10
populations of 200 breeding individuals on public land’. Land
acquisition (20,000 km2), 10-year, $3.2 billion program
initiated.
4) Design a network of conservation areas
Designing reserves for biodiversity
Key considerations:
1) Size
2) Replication
3) Complementarity
4) Connectivity
5) Zoning
Size
Size
Collections of several small islands may harbor more species than large islands of
the same or greater area.
• Big Island, Hawaii has 30 of 70 bird species native to Hawaiian archipelago.
All other islands combined have a smaller total area, but have 51 of these 70 bird
species.
• Isabela, largest island in the Galapagos, is breeding site for 20 of the 26 land birds
All other islands combined offer breeding sites for all 26 species in nearly half the
total area.
Hawaiin crow - Corvus hawaiiensis
Extinct in the wild
Replication:
• Represent key features in reserves more than once.
• Multiple representation of species or ecosystems in reserves safeguards
conservation targets from environmental change and stochastic events.
• Ex. Kemp’s Ridley turtles nesting beaches in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico
and Padre Island, Texas.
Kemp’s Ridley – Lepidochelys kempii
Complementarity:
Conserving groups of sites selected to maximize complementary species
distributions or habitats.
Measured as the extent to which a reserve advances the goal of
representing biodiversity in a network, by contributing unique elements.
• Ex. Forest reserve network planning in Uganda to maximize habitat and
species representation (96% achieved).
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
Isolation and connectivity:
• Incorporating dispersal, migration, daily, seasonal, yearly movement
patterns into reserve.
• Risks to corridors including sinks and traps, edges, disease, pests,
predators, invasive species, and fire.
• Ex. Large mammals in Tanzania – relationship between extinction rate
and park size evident.
Zoning:
• Provide effective zoning for multiple
uses.
• Zoning a site for more than one use
can result in greater geographic
coverage.
• Zoning can be year-round or seasonal,
permanent or temporary.
• Ex. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
zoning to achieve biodiversity
conservation, fishery management,
sustainable use, tourism, shipping, etc.
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
Protected from what? (what is a reserve?)
recreational use
ecotourism
extraction
Conflicting uses of resource…
Conflicting uses of resource…
Past history determines future value
Foster et al. 2003. Importance of land use
legacies to ecology and conservation.
BioScience 53:77-88
Most of our planet is alien, largely inaccessible, poorly surveyed,
with unknown impacts by humans
Attitudes…
Great Dismal Swamp, VA-NC
“it was a horrible desert, the foul damps ascend
without ceasing, corrupt the air and render it unfit for
respiration … never was rum more necessary”.
Col. Wm. Byrd, description of Great Dismal Swamp, 1700s
“Low levels, damp surroundings, and marshy localities not only
breed malaria and fevers, but are a prolific cause of colds, coughs,
and consumption….Certain brooks, boggy land, ponds, foggy
localities, too much shade, all these are favorable to the
development of disease”.
Pierce, 1895, The People’ s Common Sense Medical Adviser
‘Reclaiming’ land
‘Reclaiming’ land
Unrecoverable? When is it too late?
Bottom trawling damage
Before……
…. after
Marine Protected Areas
Executive Order 13158 (2000)
“any area of the marine environment that has been reserved by
federal, state, tribal, territorial, or local laws or regulations to
provide lasting protection for part or all of the natural and cultural
resources therein.”
Marine Protected Areas
(MPAs)
Marine: oceans, bays, intertidal, estuarine, Great Lakes
Protected: laws or regulations in place
Lasting: permanent protection, or until stock recovery
No-Take
allow human access and even some potentially harmful uses, but
that totally prohibit the extraction or significant destruction of
natural or cultural resources.
include marine reserves or ecological reserves
No Impact
allow human access, but that prohibit all activities that could harm
the site’s resources or disrupt the ecological or cultural services they
provide.
rare in U.S. waters
No Access
restrict all human access to the area to prevent potential ecological
disturbance
extremely rare in the U.S. - wilderness or marine preserves.
U.S. currently has nearly 1,700 MPAs
About 1/3 of all U.S. waters are in some form of MPA
Obstacles to creation and effectiveness of MPAs for
conservation:
• Insufficient information about life histories, movements, habitat
requirements
• Coordination among agencies (state, federal, international)
• Challenge to monitor effectiveness (data collection)
• Expense/difficulty of monitoring protection