When to act? A new approach to set conservation management thresholds
Management thresholds are a useful tool to inform decision-makers when management intervention is required to address undesirable environmental changes. These tools have had widespread application in natural resource management like fisheries and water quality management, but less so in conservation.
My colleagues, Kelly de Bie and Libby Rumpff, and I found ourselves in need of an approach to develop conservation management thresholds for the following situation, where management thresholds: (1) must be set for environmental indicators in the face of multiple competing objectives; (2) need to incorporate scientific understanding and value judgments; and, (3) involve participants in the process with limited modelling experience. As no approaches existed to address our situation, we devised a new participatory modelling approach for setting management thresholds.
The approach that we devised follows the steps of structured decision-making, which is very useful in supporting multi-objective conservation decision-making. Structured decision-making also enables the incorporation of scientific knowledge and value judgments into decision-making, and promotes the involvement of decision makers, stakeholders, and experts (collectively participants) in the decision-making process. Our approach draws on a unique combination of modelling techniques within each step of structured decision-making, which have not been used to set conservation management thresholds to date (Figure 1).

In our recent Conservation Biology paper, we describe this participatory modelling approach to set management thresholds, and illustrate its application using a case study where management thresholds were set for a mat-forming brown alga, Hormosira banksii (Figure 2), in an Australian marine protected area.

Participants, including management staff and scientists, were involved in a workshop to test the approach, and set management thresholds to address the threat of trampling by visitors to an intertidal rocky reef. The approach involved trading off the environmental objective, to maintain the condition of intertidal reef communities, with social and economic objectives to ensure management intervention did not ruin visitor experience and was cost-effective.
Ecological scenarios, developed using scenario planning, were a key feature of this approach that provided the foundation for where to set management thresholds. The four scenarios developed represented the current condition, and plausible declines in percent cover of H. banksii that may occur under increased threatening processes in the future (Figure 3).

Setting management thresholds remains a challenging task in conservation. We believe this novel participatory modelling approach provides an accessible and effective method to set conservation management thresholds.
One single approach to setting management thresholds will not be suitable for all contexts, as conservation decisions often involve different circumstances that will require different modelling approaches. We propose this participatory modelling approach as one in a toolbox of available approaches to assist with setting management thresholds.
Most importantly this participatory modelling approach encourages a proactive form of conservation management, where management thresholds and associated management actions are defined a priori for ecological indictors, rather than reacting to unexpected future ecosystem changes.
Want to find out more about this research?
Please feel free to download our open access Conservation Biology paper.
For those attending the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Marseille, France, please come along to my presentation in the Adaptive Management and Monitoring session on Tuesday 4th of August, 8.30-10.00, room Sully 1.