Bob Pressey & Stephanie Januchowski Planning from the mountains to the sea: where do freshwater protected areas fit? Bob Pressey & Stephanie Januchowski Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Integrated catchment management … we have a problem The need for difficult tradeoffs between diverse objectives and values Freshwater protected areas (in the broadest sense) have distinctive roles in integrated catchment management Freshwater protected areas are wrapped up in the tradeoff problem

Examples from the catchments of the Great Barrier Reef: Some extensive clearing still permitted Exemptions for small-scale clearing Likely cryptic clearing by chemicals Expansion of urban areas and related infrastructure Loss of terrestrial species from patches of native vegetation due to isolation, fire, invasives Soil loss under grazing Applications of fertilisers, pesticides Defining the problem … 1. Diverse, spatially uncorrelated values (contributions to multiple objectives) 2. The need for incremental investments 3. Ongoing loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services

The upshot (1 + 2 + 3) = managers must make hard choices between diverse values Values that are not protected this year have a risk of being lost or degraded Choices about what to protect are also choices about what must be lost These choices involve mixing “apples and oranges” across diverse values The consequences of the factors described in the previous three slides.

Lower floodplain: Best-practice land uses to reduce pesticides, nutrients Retention of intact wetlands Restoration of floodplain forest Middle reaches with reduced riparian vegetation: Restoration for riparian and instream biota Restoration to reduce bank erosion Fencing to exclude stock Best-practice land uses Cleared headwaters: Restoration to minimize soil loss Control of sources of aquatic weeds Best-practice land use for soil loss, chemicals, nutrients Forested headwaters: Retention of forest cover Management of logging Management of grazing, fire

Conclusions … Freshwater protection and restoration have several important roles Tradeoffs between freshwater and other activities, but also between different freshwater activities Managers need better tools to resolve these tradeoffs: explicit ways of making choices but also ways of understanding the implications of investing in different values in different ways