1. Conservation Action Planning Measures of Success! The Essentials

3. Measures Matter! Tell us if our actions achieving their intended results Enable adapting, learning, & sharing Provide Early Warning if things change Provide transparency and accountability Secure future funding

4. What You Want to Know Are your strategies working? Are your threats declining?? Are your targets stable or improving??? Can you correct course if you need to???? Was it all worthwhile?????

5. Measures are embedded Look to your objectives Look to your Key Ecological Attributes and indicators Look to your threats table

6. For Example 1. Objectives and work plan (effectiveness monitoring) #Objectives and Strategic Actions ObjectiveConservation management of all existing 2004 priority communities (PC / Yates / OS) >50ha by 2012 Strategic actionDemonstrate a high standard of ecological management for application across all tenures Strategic actionAcquire properties with areas of native bush >50ha Strategic actionCovenant properties with areas of native bush >50ha Strategic actionDevelop culture, infrastructure, mechanisms and practices to support private conservation management Strategic actionAcquire good information on sound ecological management ObjectiveIncrease amount of habitat for W&Ps by 10,000ha and connect all isolated habitat >50ha by 2012 Strategic actionRestore habitat on geographically and ecologically suitable properties Strategic actionAcquire good information on sound ecological management

7. 2. Target viability analyses Focal TargetCategoryKey Ecological Attribute Indicator Curre nt Status 3Tammars and black-gloved wallabies Landscape ContextDispersalDistance between suitable habitats Poor 3Tammars and black-gloved wallabies SizePopulation distributionpopulation density in suitable habitat Fair 3Tammars and black-gloved wallabies SizeRelative abundanceNumber of black- gloved wallabies recorded per km 3Tammars and black-gloved wallabies SizeRelative abundanceNumber of tammars recorded per km travelled Fair 4Mallet and moort woodlandsLandscape ContextFire frequencyFire return interval Fair 4Mallet and moort woodlandsConditionSoil and litter dynamics Soil softness and dead organic matter Good 4Mallet and moort woodlandsSizeCommunity distribution% of pre European coverage Fair

8. Status (2) How is the biodiversity we care about doing? (3) How are threats to biodiversity changing? (4) Is the capacity to improve conservation changing? Effectiveness (1) Are our conservation actions having their intended impact? Effectiveness vs. status monitoring

9. Objective: Decrease the average amount of surface water diverted from the XYX River in the Upper Watershed section in August to less than X gallons/day by 2010. –Strategic Action: Lobby for government incentives to motivate farmers to switch to low water need crops Effectiveness example

10. 1. Numbers of salmon redds or # of adults returning to spawn 1 2. Water flow measurements 2 3. Volume of water withdrawn for agricultural purposes 3 4. Hectares of farm land converted from water-intensive crops to low- water need crops 4 5. Strategic Actions and Action Steps implemented 6. Resources Spent (Staff & $$$) 56 +Socioeconomic indicators? Possible indicators

11. Periodic check-ups –Blood pressure –Cholesterol Early warning detection If problem detected… –Take action –Monitor effectiveness What about status monitoring?

12. Issues to consider: Need for action given known, serious threats Level of understanding of conservation targets, ecological processes, & likely impacts of threats Degree of certainty in effectiveness (and risks) of alternative management strategies Available resources Balancing action, effectiveness, status

13. Useful monitoring plans Tips to reduce monitoring costs Consider low-cost, qualitative options rather than no monitoring Consider less frequent monitoring visits rather than no monitoring Use partner data whenever possible Engage local people & volunteers in monitoring efforts

14. Lack of a clearly stated purpose Inefficient/ineffective indicators or methods Data gathered but never summarized Data summarized but not interpreted relative to objectives Data summarized and interpreted but not relayed to managers Data useful at the project level but lessons learned are never shared beyond the project Common monitoring pitfalls

15. Measures A small number of simple metrics designed to tell you about progress towards each of your OBJECTIVES The essential ingredient....

16. General Recommendation….. Establish objective-based effectiveness measures and monitoring protocol first Then add status indicators, as truly warranted

17. Objective-based Monitoring

18. Indicators: Acres of native ecological system burned. Number of hours between reporting and containment of fire event. Methods: Map location and extent of wildfire Notice and record events and times. Objective: By 2009, reduce the amount of burned native ecological system to zero. Target: Montane wet forest, south slope mesic forest Threat: Wildfires Follow the trail from targets to objectives

19. Indicators: Forest Cover # & length of forest openings Cubic meters of seized timber Methods: Remote Sensing Seizure records + observed shipments Objective: By ___, decrease the extraction of natural resources by ___ amount. Target: Bosques de Colinas (Hill Forests) Threat: Illegal Logging (Very High) Pacaya-Samiria example Follow the trail from targets to objectives

20. Lessons from the School of Hard Knocks! The Viability table is a place to harvest ideas for metrics but you won’t want or need to monitor everything on that table. Beware a monitoring plan you will never execute. Or worse yet, one you will apply for a year or two and then abandon. Never monitor something you can’t or won’t do anything about.

21. Critical Questions Do you have at least one indicator and monitoring protocol for your priority objective(s)? Have inconsequential, irrelevant or redundant indicators been excluded? Never monitor something you don’t intend to act on. Can the monitoring plan be feasibly implemented? Remember… Monitoring requires time and money in your work plans & budgets

22. Exercise Establish Effectiveness Measures 1.Choose one objective for which you developed strategic actions. 2.“Follow the trail” from the strategic action to the objective to the threat to the target. 3.Review the threats table and viability table information. 4.Identify/choose indicator(s) to measure progress towards your objective. 5.Articulate the method(s) you would recommend to monitor the chosen indicators. 6.Put your “trail” on a flip chart. You have one hour.

23. Objective: By 2010, Ensure reduction of at least 50% of off-road vehicle trails within the National Forest Target: Black bear, mesic flatwoods and prairies Threat: Off-road vehicles Indicators: Miles of roads and trails actively used by OHV (threat) % of wetlands scarred by OHV trails (target) Method : GPS survey for select areas of forest Aerial photographic interpretation

24. Conservation Action Plans should be guides to action They are hypotheses to be worked out in practice, to be rejected, corrected, and expanded as they fail or succeed in giving us the guidance needed to inform our present needs The Essence of Adaptive Management