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Organized
Discussions
The
Use of Reserve Selection Algorithm Modeling as a Tool for Preserve
Design in San Diego County
When: Monday, 30 June 2003, 12:00 Noon
Organizers and Contacts: Robert Asher, County of San Diego
(robert.asher@sdcounty.ca.gov);
Thomas Oberbauer, County of San Diego;Scott Fleury, Technology
Associates International Corporation
Goal:
The goal of this discussion is to present a case study in the
use of RSA modeling in NCCP/HCP conservation planning projects
for selecting potential preserve areas. The discussion focuses
on many aspects of applied conservation biology with direct relevance
to the work of many of the members of the Society for Conservation
Biology.
Justification:
San Diego County is known nationwide for the tremendous diversity
of its plants and animals and the number of species that would
be considered rare or endangered. A study in the January 1997
issue of Science magazine listed San Diego County as one of two
counties in the United States that are considered "hot spots"
for containing unique and unusual species. San Diego County has
also experienced tremendous population growth. Unfortunately,
the increased growth rate and the number of sensitive species
was leading this region toward what former Secretary of Interior
Bruce Babbitt described as a "train wreck." In California,
landscape scale conservation planning and endangered species take
permitting programs were initiated though the combination of the
federal Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) process and the state
Natural Communities Conservation Planning (NCCP) program. This
innovative conservation planning process was developed to allow
landowners, local governments, and other stakeholders to prepare
plans that streamline appropriate development while conserving
large, intact areas of high biologic value. The Multiple Species
Conservation Program (MSCP), established in 1997, was the first
large-scale NCCP/HCP to be developed and included the South County
Subarea Plan.
The
North County Subarea Plan is currently under development and has
included substantial change to the process, including unprecedented
independent scientific input (a primary area of criticism in the
South County Subarea Plan). The County sought input from a diverse
group of recognized Independent Scientific Advisors (ISA) that
resulted in several improvements to the science-based approach,
including the implementation of Reserve Selection Algorithm (RSA)
modeling. RSA modeling optimizes the efficiency (minimum area
to accomplish preserve design goals) and complementariness (representation
of target conservation elements) of the preserve system based
on preserve design criteria and conservation goals. The previous
approach used the results of a Habitat Evaluation Model (HEM)
and gap analysis along with expert opinion of the project team,
wildlife agencies, and local biologists to draw preserve area
boundaries by hand. In contrast, the RSA modeling approach is
an objective and repeatable method that provides a basis for refinement
by the project team. As recommended by the ISA, an RSA model named
SITES (Andelman, et al., 1999) was selected that allows substantial
parameterization and customization to tailor specifically for
a given study area.
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The
Conflict Between Political Unilateralism and Global Cooperation
Necessary to Conserve the Biodiversity of Earth
When: Monday, 30 June 2003, 12:00 Noon
Organizers and Contacts: Society for Conservation Biology
Board of Governors (info@conbio.org)
Goal
and Justification : At its recent winter meeting, the Board
of
Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology discussed the
growing
trend of unilateralist that has led to the conflict in Iraq. The
board
agreed in principle that this trend undermines the global cooperation
necessary to conserve the biodiversity of Earth and provide a
sustainable future for its human inhabitants. The Iraq war, while
extremely troubling, is but one of several recent, prominent unilateral
policy decisions with global consequences, including failure of
all
nations to ratify the Convention on Biodiversity and the Kyoto
Protocol, and lack of collaboration on the CITES Convention. The
United
States is not the sole country responsible for this problem --
many
other nations have acted selfishly when it comes to conserving
the
planet's biological heritage and resources. But as a global leader
in
technology, power and influence, the U.S. has a disproportionate
responsibility to set a strong example and should be among the
first to
agree to cooperate in protecting Earth's ecological health. The
Society
is considering a statement to be issued from the Annual Meeting
in
Duluth in July 2003, urging the U.S. to be the first country to
stop
the trend of unilateral action and to lead the nations of the
world in
working together to conserve global biodiversity. This discussion
will
provide the opportunity for meeting participants to engage in
dialog
with representatives from the SCB Policy Committee and each other
about this issue.
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A
Round-Table for Local SCB Chapters: Our Most Active Chapters Share
their Lessons on Maintaining Vision and Vigor
When:
Monday, 30 June 2003, 12:00 Noon
Organizer:
Lisa J. Delissio, Salem State College (lisa.delissio@salemstate.edu)
Goal
and Justification: This program is for chapter organizers,
and people interested in starting or reinvigorating a local chapter.
Paul Beier (chapter liaison to the Board of Governors) will provide
a history of SCB Chapter activity, describe services offered by
the Washington office to local chapters, explain the minor paperwork
needed to start a chapter, and affirm the autonomy of local chapters.
Representatives from our most active chapters (e.g., Lisa Delissio
of New England Chapter) will share lessons learned from their
successes and setbacks, emphasizing the importance of vision (your
Mission Statement) to your chapter's vigor. A round-table discussion
will cover topics such as: Your chapter website (why your webmaster
is as important as your president), relationships between chapters
and local host institutions, and issues regarding dues, tax status,
and handling money.
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Development
of a Herptile Monitoring Program for the Lake Superior Basin
When:
Monday, 30 June 2003, 1:30 PM (workshop) and 7:00 PM (discussion)
See
description under Workshops.
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The
Role of Foresters and Working Forests in Conserving Biodiversity
When:
Monday, 30 June 2003, 7:00 PM
Organizer:
Steve Harrington, Forest Stewards Guild (info@foreststewardsguild.org)
Goal:
The Forest Stewards Guild proposes a discussion session to: 1)
clarify different concepts of biodiversity and working forests;
and 2) to identify ways to build better connections between conservation
biologists and progressive foresters in achieving stand- and landscape-level
biodiversity conservation.
Justification:
Professional: The professions of forestry and conservation biology
are closely linked. Both are responsible for examining stand conditions
and landscape contexts, and developing strategies to maintain
and restore the health of each. Among Forest Stewards Guild members
there is increasing recognition of the need to integrate conservation
biology principles with on-the-ground practices to achieve stand
and landscape scale biodiversity conservation. To that end, the
Guild's 2003 annual meeting theme is "Conserving Biodiversity
in Working Forests" to expand members' knowledge and awareness
of theory and methods.
Current
conservation issues: In recent years, industrial forestland
divestitures have provided large-scale conservation acquisition
opportunities. Initially these acquisitions focused primarily
on gaining control of unique sites and halting land conversion
to non-forest uses. Following considerable success in these efforts,
the maturing conservation land movement is expanding attention
to the issue of proper stewardship of the assets that have been
acquired, both on individual tracts and in connection with each
other. For example, working forest conservation easements have
achieved growing popularity. Initially applied to relatively small
forest ownerships, these easements are increasingly used as part
of much larger land transfers. While transferring development
rights may protect the land as open space, even a working forest
conservation easement does not assure improvements in the quality
of forest management practiced, due to the potential impacts of
the financial structure of these deals and uncertainty about the
philosophy and approach of forestry practiced on these new conservation
lands. It is also clear that land ownership patterns in most landscapes
will remain a mixture of private and public holdings. Therefore
technical assistance and education efforts from credible professionals
will be key to planning and implementing appropriate land management
activities on land across a range of ownerships to achieve biodiversity
conservation at both the stand and landscape scales. Clearly,
a different vision of forest management than that drawn from industrial
forestry is required to optimize the conservation values of the
protected lands, as well as on the 60% of US forestland remaining
under the control of non-industrial private forest landowners.
The Forest Stewards Guild is uniquely positioned to address these
issues. The organization's over 500 member foresters and natural
resource professionals across the US and Canada are committed
to the principle that the forester's first duty is to the forest
and its future. Many Guild members practice a form of forestry
that has been widely recognized as meeting high standards for
conservation.
Format: We envision a moderated 3-person panel of progressive
foresters who have worked to implement conservation biology principles
in their land management activities on private lands, as well
as in conjunction with conservation organizations. They will give
brief (10-15 minute) presentations on their experiences with land
management planning, implementation, and monitoring. Then discussion
would be opened with panelists and participants identifying information
and technical needs to improve their practices to establish and
achieve stand and landscape biodiversity conservation goals. Projected
outcomes may include joint monitoring projects and technical workshops
to address these needs.
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Special
Area Management Plans (SAMP) / Watershed Planning as Integrated
Tools in San Diego County
When:
Tuesday, 1 July 2003, 12:00 Noon
Organizers
and Contacts: Robert Copper, County of San Diego; Robert Asher,
County of San Diego (robert.asher@sdcounty.ca.gov)
Goals:
The Goal of this discussion will be to provide information on
how early coordination between local, state and federal regulatory
agencies can result in better protection of resources while maintaining
reasonable economic growth. This will be highlighted through:
Coordination is necessary between Regulatory Agencies and overlapping
jurisdictions to result in appropriate open space designations
and economic development.
Discussing existing avenues to provide potential solutions - MSCP
and SAMPs as innovative ways to allow coordination amongst agencies.
Concluding remarks on the how projects are working.
Justification:
There is a delicate balance between the protection of natural
resources and economic development. One method to achieve this
balance and to maintain an on-going support of a vast array of
stakeholders is to provide a surety of process. San Diego County
has sought to achieve this balance through development of several
regional planning programs (MSCP and SAMP). The goal of these
programs will be to provide protection to the biological diversity
of the County while maintaining reasonable economic development.
This is to be accomplished through early coordination with several
resource agencies (USFWS, ACOE) to obtain regulatory permits on
a regional level. This allows the local land use authorities to
streamline the local permitting process. For the MSCP the process
resulted in the County obtaining "Take Authorization"
under the Endangered Species Act for 85 species of plants and
animals while the SAMP is expected to result in a "General
Permit" which allows the ACOE to streamline the approval
process for wetland projects that are considered to conform to
the General Permit. On the environmental side these permits provide
mechanisms to obtain, monitor and manage large areas of land including
the identification of funding mechanisms to support these efforts.
Wetland
regulation and Watershed Planning for water quality protection
are two important environmental issues that were not directly
addressed in our existing Multiple Species Conservation Program
(MSCP), the San Diego County's efforts to maintain and enhance
biological diversity in the region and maintain viable populations
of endangered, threatened, and key sensitive species and their
habitats while streamlining the permitting process for certain
land development projects. The County is using the Otay River
Watershed, a major drainage basin connecting the mountains to
the San Diego Bay, as a pilot project to integrate these issues
into the implementation of the MSCP. The County, in concert with
the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, and Imperial Beach are currently
working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other state
and federal agencies to develop a Special Area Management Plan
(SAMP) for the aquatic resources in the Otay River Watershed.
A
SAMP is a comprehensive plan that provides for natural resource
protection and reasonable economic growth within geographic areas
of special sensitivity. This comprehensive planning effort is
to be used to assist the federal, state and local regulatory agencies
with their decision making and permitting authority to protect
aquatic resources. The general objectives of the study are:
Protect and enhance aquatic resources.
Develop a comprehensive aquatic resource preservation, enhancement,
and restoration plan.
Accommodate development activities while meeting goals of the
study through issuance of a General Permit under the 404(e) Guidelines.
Identification of potential funding sources and mechanisms for
land acquisition, conservation easements, development of initial
restoration plans, and operation and long-term management plans.
Improve regulatory and resource agency coordination.
The
County has also been awarded a Watershed Planning grant under
California's Proposition 13 to develop a watershed plan for the
Otay River (ORWMP). The ORWMP will be created through the exercise
of a Joint Executive Powers Agreement (JEPA) between the County
of San Diego, the Cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and San
Diego and the San Diego Unified Port District. The overriding
goal of this plan is provide a mechanism in which all the existing
plans and programs (including the MSCP and the SAMP) that affect
the watershed can be coordinated and focused to more clearly identify
critical areas and practices that need to be targeted for pollution
prevention and corrective actions.
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Cross-Border
Education in Conservation Biology
When:
Tuesday, 1 July 2003, 7:00 PM
Organizer:
Lisa J. Delissio, Salem State College (lisa.delissio@salemstate.edu)
Goals
and Justification: Conservation Biology courses introduce students
to local, regional, and global issues, all with local impacts.
Local case-studies are an important component of these courses;
they teach the relevance of conservation, and lead students to
understand that they have an investment in the conservation of
biodiversity in their own communities. These courses could be
dramatically enhanced, however, by building cross-border connections
for our students. Through information technology and the techniques
of distance learning, we can unite our Conservation Biology students
with their counterparts around the world. They can examine global
forces from different points of view, compare and contrast local
examples, find parallels and points of divergence, and encounter
novel solutions to problems.
Students
will become engaged in the excitement of international collaboration.
Through modern communication technology they will gain an appreciation
for the global scope of the effort to move forward in this crisis
science. Moreover, they will build professional connections and
friendships that will improve their prospects as future Conservation
Biologists with an international perspective.
The
development of such courses will position faculty members, and
their institutions, as leaders in science education. It will also
produce new relationships between faculty members, which may in
addition serve to promote collaborations in research. This workshop
will contribute to the efforts of SCB to become a truly international
organization.
The
workshop will address topics of concern to faculty members who
teach Conservation Biology, and will result in partnerships between
faculty members and outlines for course development. The topics
addressed will include:
the current availability, ease-of-use, and costs for email, chat,
websites, streaming audio/video, and teleconferencing,
ideas for cross-border (or cross-hemisphere, cross-biome) themes
and collaborative activities for students,
challenges and opportunities that arise from differences in language,
culture, and time-zone,
the process of planning parallel courses,
funding sources and other resources,
matching faculty from different countries for the purpose of course
development, and
development of a Web page on the SCB website to coordinate our
efforts.
Format:
This workshop will begin in a roundtable format. I will provide
the introduction. The participants will each then introduce themselves,
and their interest in cross-border Conservation Biology education.
A list of suggested topics will be distributed to the participants.
I will lead the group through these topics and any others that
are appropriate. In the final 30 minutes, we will break up into
pairs and small groups to collaborate on plans for international
exchange between our classrooms. A summary of the proceedings
and a list of participants' contact information will be distributed
by email as a follow-up to the workshop.
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Freshwater
and SCB: An Idea-Sharing Session
When:
Tuesday, 1 July 2003, 7:00 PM
Organizers:
Jonathan Higgins, The Nature Conservancy (jhiggins@tnc.org);
Robin Abell, World Wildlife Fund (robin.abell@wwfus.org)
Goals
and Justification: The Society for Conservation Biology is
one of the few international professional societies focused on
applying science to biodiversity conservation, and it has growing
potential to influence decision makers through its publications
and advocacy work. With its important mandate, SCB's membership,
publications, and activities should be representative of the range
of biodiversity and the critical conservation issues around the
world. However, there has been a significant lack of freshwater
experts participating in SCB's annual meetings, of freshwater-focused
symposia at those meetings, and of papers on freshwater topics
published in Conservation Biology. These gaps are of particular
concern given that freshwater species and habitats are on average
the most imperiled around the world. SCB's direction is governed
by its members, and in this evening session we hope to stimulate
the first of many discussions about how to enlarge the profile
of freshwater conservation biology within SCB. We also hope to
initiate an exchange of information among participants.
The
goals of this evening session are to provide a forum for participants
both to share ideas about increasing the profile of freshwater
science within SCB, and to share information about current and
planned freshwater conservation work. This session will be open
to anyone at the annual meeting with an interest in or curiosity
about freshwater conservation biology; attendees can come to share
ideas or simply to listen. Given the annual meeting's theme of
"Conservation of Land and Water Interactions," this
session should be particularly relevant to many people attending
the meeting. The primary topic we hope to discuss is the potential
establishment of a freshwater section of SCB; we will begin to
gauge interest within the SCB community for such a section, and
solicit ideas about possible section functions. We also intend
to reserve time for representatives of conservation organizations
and research institutions to make short presentations on current
or planned initiatives or projects that would be of interest to
the assembled group. Remaining time will be available for an open
discussion about raising the profile of freshwater concerns within
SCB. This session will be co-sponsored by WWF and TNC, and refreshments
will be served.
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Ecological
Monitoring of Eastern National Forest Lands: Searching for Efficiency
and Effectiveness in a Multiply Stochastic Setting
When:
Tuesday, 1 July 2003, 7:00 PM
Organizer:
John Curnutt, USDA - Forest Service (R9) (jcurnutt@fs.fed.us)
Goal:
A brainstorming session with the goal of defining, or at least
delimiting, a monitoring strategy for National Forests that: 1)
fulfills legal requirements under the National Forest Management
Act; 2) provides timely data and analyses for adaptive management;
and 3) allows for multi-scale assessments of the impacts of active
forest management on species, communities, and ecosystems.
Justification:
The Eastern Region of the U.S. Forest Service contains 15 administrative
units. Fourteen of these are currently undergoing Forest Plan
revisions that will determine management practices and monitoring
goals for up to 15 years into the future. Most of the original
Forest Plans date back to the mid-1980s and pre-date the widespread
acceptance of ecosystem management and adaptive management. Additionally,
monitoring in these plans is focused on determining population
trends of a large number of "management indicator species"(MIS).
Changes in these populations are supposed to indicate the ecological
effects of forest management on the system. Currently, MIS are
required under federal forest planning regulations, however, there
remains a number of questions as to how best to design an MIS
monitoring plan. Questions such as: What is the least number of
species needed for monitoring an ecosystem? Should monitoring
be systematic? Multiscale?; and What role does research play in
monitoring design?
Format:
The format is a 20-30 minute Forest Service presentation to describe
past and current monitoring situation followed by an open discussion
with the audience on pre-defined questions.
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