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Symposium Abstracts These abstracts provide general descriptions of the objectives and content of each symposium. Please click on the title of the symposium to view abstracts for individual presentations in the symposium. A new conservation continuum: connecting land and sea organized by Norm Sloan (Marine Section, SCB) and Ken Vance-Borland (Freshwater Working Group, SCB) The focus of this symposium is transitional issues in coastal conservation from tropical to temperate areas. There is an emerging appreciation of a new frontier in conservation biology—that of addressing the land-to-sea continuum. Coastal biomes are diverse and complex, having terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine, near shore, and marine ecosystems in dynamic interaction within tens of kilometers; human effects in one part of the system are likely to affect others. For place-based coastal conservation, we need to better understand connections between these systems for a more integrated conservation approach that straddles ecological realms as well as human technical and administrative cultures. This prospect has resonance in the temperate north Pacific, for example, where marine nutrients are left in coastal riparian forests by spawning salmon, whereas in the tropics conservationists are concerned over dwindling mangrove forests as strategic land-sea transitional ecosystems. On a global scale, high levels of human activity in coastal zones, where a large portion of the human population lives, underscore the need for conservation in coastal ecosystems. Sustainability of coastal communities and economies depends upon successfully integrated management across the several systems that comprise coastal biomes. Advocacy in conservation science organized by J. Michael Scott (University of Idaho), Janet Rachlow (University of Idaho), and Robert Lackey (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) Advocacy in science has been the focus of much debate in conservation biology and other natural resource disciplines. Advocacy in scientific research (i.e., stipulation of a preferred policy or management outcome and use of value laden language) has been at the heart of discussions surrounding significant conservation issues including global climate change, the conduct of research by public employees, and, more recently, reauthorization of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. We provide an overview of this topic and present results of a review of advocacy in the natural resource journals. Prominent scientists who have long histories of working at the science-policy interface in the United States will present their very different perspectives on advocacy in science. We will hear the views of science administrators, science editors, and congressional professionals on science advocacy in the policy arena. A structured discussion and question and answer period will follow the presentations. During the symposium, we will conduct a survey of attendees regarding perspectives on advocacy in conservation science and perspectives on the presentations and discussions. These results will be summarized during concluding remarks at the close of the symposium. Connectivity and reserve design: incorporating landscape and population connectivity into conservation planning for changing landscapes and seascapes organized by Carlos Carroll (Wilburforce Foundation), Reed Noss (University of Central Florida), and Gary Tabor (Wilburforce Foundation) Conservation biologists have long recognized that natural areas that are linked into networks are more effective than isolated areas at preserving certain components of biodiversity, such as wide-ranging animals. Connectivity becomes more critical as landscapes are subjected to dynamic processes such as climate change and conversion to human land-uses. Most current conservation planning tools for reserve design select sites that capture elements of biodiversity, but cannot evaluate how such sites would function as a network, an aspect especially critical for area-limited terrestrial species such as wolves. Similarly, marine reserve design is increasingly grappling with issues of dispersal, social aggregations, and other aspects that make the conservation value of a particular site dependent on the larger seascape. Recent work by researchers represented in this symposium provides a variety of new approaches for designing connected reserve systems that have improved prospects for maintaining viable populations of fragmentation-sensitive species. Although it explores novel mathematical and theoretical approaches to connectivity, the symposium is highly relevant to real-world planning, and will also include presentations by scientists from academic, government, and NGO sectors on current applications of connectivity-based conservation planning. Conservation along the United States–México border: bi-national solutions for our shared problems organized by Laura Lopez-Hoffman (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México) and Karl Flessa (University of Arizona) The United States and México share a 3100 km border, from the Gulf of México to the Pacific Ocean. The border region is beautiful; there are large deserts, numerous mountain ranges, rivers, wetlands, and estuaries. The region's varied climates give rise to great biological diversity, including many rare and native species of plants and animals. There is a rich ethnic diversity, as the border region is home to many groups of indigenous people. But, just as the countries share natural resources such as water, air, and land, they also share numerous environmental problems. Furthermore, the border region is characterized by sharp social, economic, and political contrasts. Given the paramount ecological and social importance of the border, our symposium will bring together conservation practitioners from the United States and México to discuss topics including shared ecosystem services and species corridors, the implementation of bi-national conservation and environmental programs, the ethics of bi-national conservation, and the history and future of conservation on the United States-México border. Symposium participants not only will discuss problems along the border but will propose ways that conservation practitioners from the United States and México can work to together to forge bi-national solutions to the conservation challenges of the United States–México border in the 21st century. Conservation in a changing climate organized by Rebecca Shaw (The Nature Conservancy), Christopher Pyke (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), and Joshua Lawler (Oregon State University) Ecosystem processes and biodiversity are intrinsically sensitive to climate variability and climate change. Humans are complicating these fundamental ecological relationships through ongoing changes in global climate and myriad interacting stressors such as habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and pollution. Trends in all of these factors point in the same direction: ecological systems must adapt to become more resilient to climate variability and change. The alternative is further degradation and, in many cases, local extirpation and global extinction. A growing body of research shows that it is possible to identify the vulnerabilities of ecological systems and develop practical plans for improving their resilience. This symposium will review the evidence underlying the growing sense of urgency for adaptive action and showcase a broad range of ongoing and emerging approaches to impact assessment and the development of adaptive conservation strategies. Finally, it will consider barriers to the implementation of these strategies and highlight important research needs. Speakers will address these issues with respect to terrestrial, freshwater, and marine conservation practice, emphasizing new research that supports practical tools for on-the-ground or in-the-water conservation. Ecological restoration in a changing world: case studies from California organized by Jeffrey Corbin (University of California, Berkeley) and Michael Vasey (San Francisco State University) As the footprint of human activities occupies an ever greater proportion of the earth's surface, conservation biologists must develop strategies that can protect, or even rebuild, the ecological integrity of highly altered landscapes. This symposium will consider the future of conservation and restoration efforts in California in the face of the myriad threats posed by the local and regional manifestations of several drivers of global change. The delicate balance between California's natural heritage and the pressures of human activities play out daily in terms of ongoing habitat loss, the threats posed by invasive non-native species, the consequences of airborne or waterborne pollutants, and the responses of species and ecosystems to climate change. By exploring strategies that are currently employed to conserve and restore habitats in California, we hope that these insights can be helpful to scientists and habitat managers in other regions. Specifically, presentations and discussions will focus on whether we can predict the vulnerability of different ecosystems to global change, how multiple components of global change can interact to alter biodiversity or ecosystem functioning, and how economic and land-use realities can be taken into account in the design of conservation and restoration strategies. Freshwater invasive species: a double-edged sword? organized by Jennifer Molnar (The Nature Conservancy), Carmen Revenga (The Nature Conservancy), and Mordecai Ogada (Nairobi, Kenya) Alien invasive species have had significant negative impacts on freshwater ecosystems. Once established, these species can outcompete or kill native species and alter ecosystem processes. Many times invasive species also have negative economic impacts, such as the clogging of waterways and infrastructure or the reduction of commercially important native fish stocks within a system. However, non-native introduced species can at times provide benefits to local communities; they have been promoted and introduced in much of the developing world for food security, and in both the developing and developed world to generate revenue through recreational activities such as sport fishing. Non-native species have also been introduced as biological controls for invasive species or agricultural pests. Symposium speakers will document the state of knowledge on freshwater invasive species distributions and address the following questions: Is it possible to address these positive and negative impacts and find win-win situations? Are there cases where introductions of non-native species have brought economic benefits, while the negative impacts on ecosystems have been minimized? Or have introductions been interrupted or minimized by finding ways to reap economic benefits that introductions could provide through other means? And can these issues be addressed at a larger policy scale? From political enmity to ecological cooperation: the Israeli-Jordanian experience organized by Uri Shanas (University of Haifa, Israel) The southern Arava desert ecosystem, part of the Great Rift Valley, has been politically divided in the past 58 years between Israel and Jordan. When a peace treaty was signed between the two countries in 1994, human development in this ecosystem was dichotomous. On the Israeli side, there is high-input agricultural kibbutzim whereas there are pastoral Bedouin villages in Jordan. A joint Israeli-Jordanian biodiversity study was conducted on both sides of the border, encompassing various taxonomic groups in an effort to elucidate the effect of these different land uses on diversity. We studied the diversity and community structure of beetles, spiders, antlions, reptiles, rodents, and birds during a two year study comparing different landscape units at different distances from agricultural lands at both sides of the border. Our study shows different patterns of diversity that appear to be associated with the contrasting anthropogenic activities. We show that the way diversity is affected by either modern societies or traditional societies is dependent on the taxonomic group that serves as a surrogate. Nevertheless. the general trend shows that diversity loss is associated more with modern rather than traditional society. We suggests that in addition to effects of habitats and human obvious disturbances such as modern agricultural practices, cultural differences between societies should be accounted for when conservation plans are developed for cross border ecosystems. Integrative conservation problem solving: the policy sciences as a tool to bridge the natural and social sciences organized by Richard Wallace (Ursinus College), Tim Clark (Yale University), and Murray Rutherford (Simon Fraser University) The future of successful conservation is the integration of multiple disciplines, including those concerned with biodiversity and those that address the human social and political processes that are necessary to achieve conservation strategies and goals. While much has been written about the need for interdisciplinary integration, few case studies offer systematic guides to how it can be accomplished in practice, and only a small number of these have been presented or published. This symposium will highlight the benefits to conservation of the policy sciences' interdisciplinary problem solving framework. The policy sciences are an integrative, interdisciplinary field of scholarship and practice that is, like conservation biology, explicitly problem-oriented. Practitioners of these methods use cases to illustrate how knowledge from the natural and social sciences can be integrated in practice. This integration emphasizes the interplay between the natural science that forms the basis for understanding conservation problems in a technical sense and the social processes that underlie human actions that cause conservation to succeed or fail. It allows for context-specific alternatives to flow from analysis, and provides a framework for comparing experiences across cases and drawing lessons applicable to other settings. It is the capacity of the policy sciences to disentangle this complexity that marks its particular value to conservation biology. The studies which we will use to illustrate our efforts include community-based conservation in Latin America; the integration of science, management, and policy in the implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act in the United States; and managing complexity for conservation goals across ecological and political boundaries in the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. Management for spatial and temporal complexity in ocean ecosystems in the 21st century organized by Satie Airame (University of California, Santa Barbara), Larry Crowder (Duke University), Elliott Norse (Marine Conservation Biology Institute), Gail Osherenko (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Oran Young (University of California, Santa Barbara) At many levels of government, policymakers and managers have developed and implemented numerous regulations to limit and reverse impacts of human activities on marine ecosystems. Although some regulations have been effective, many management objectives have not been realized, in part, because of mismatches between the scales of management and marine ecosystems. A potential solution to these problems is to develop a comprehensive system of ocean zoning at scales consistent with ecological processes. The symposium will explore the similarities and differences, successes and failures of, and innovative opportunities for ocean management through numerous case studies. We will review and evaluate common assumptions about property rights for submerged lands and the meaning of public trust for ocean resources. We will consider lessons learned from 30 years of spatial planning and management conducted by UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. We will engage a panel of experts in discussion about current strategies for ocean management, focusing on case studies from the United States. We will conclude with a synthesis of the opportunities for more effective ocean management through increased communication and collaboration among agencies. Moving beyond the dotted line: donor engagement with conservation science organized by Lynn Lohr (Consultative Group on Biological Diversity) This symposium will examine how deeper engagement between the donor community and conservation science can contribute to successful outcomes on the ground. Specifically, the symposium will overview the diversity of existing donor / research relationships; report on a "gap analysis" of the funding priorities by the various biodiversity donors; provide examples of how foundations and other donors use conservation science to formulate their funding strategies and evaluate progress; and explore the roles that funding new science, scientific synthesis, and the development of scientific leadership play in achieving broader conservation goals. To foster exchange among donors, scientists and practitioners, the symposium will combine four integrative presentations with an extended roundtable discussion. The goal will be to transcend the boundary between the conservation science and conservation donor communities, exposing opportunities for increased partnership—including the enhanced use of conservation science to build the effectiveness of donor planning, evaluation, and conservation funding; and the increased engagement of scientists in conservation action. New, market-based strategies for marine conservation organized by Mike Beck (The Nature Conservancy), Charles Cook (The Nature Conservancy), Craig Denisoff (Wildlands, Inc.) and Rod Fujita (Environmental Defense) Recent national reports in the United States have documented the importance and decline of marine resources. New efforts and approaches are needed to create and maintain healthy, sustainable, and resilient marine ecosystems. Traditional approaches to science, restoration, and management within the marine environment have unsuccessfully linked the needs of the environment, economy, and local communities. These traditional approaches must be supplemented by new, innovative approaches that unify environmental, economic, and social needs. This session will explore four recent innovative efforts to develop and implement market-based marine conservation strategies. Presenters will discuss their experiences and seek input from participants on broader applications and implications of four new strategies: conservation leasing and ownership of submerged lands, dedicated access privileges for fisheries, conservation buybacks of fishery permits and vessels, and marine mitigation banking. Policy and management implications of large-scale, interdisciplinary studies of the California Current large marine ecosystem organized by Mark Carr and Cinamon Vann (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans) This symposium will review current interdisciplinary scientific research within the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME) and examine how large-scale, cross-boundary research programs can inform a broad range of resource management and conservation issues. Despite increased interest in ecosystem-based management, few studies examine the ecosystem-wide patterns of change and long-term processes of the CCLME. Large marine ecosystems cross political and management divides, and we will examine two primary implications: (1) how new scientific findings from research of large geographic scales or long time periods can affect and inform major policy decisions and (2) how research from different disciplines can provide complementary insights with direct relevance to ecosystem-based management. Specific topics that will be discussed include fisheries management, the design and consequences of coastal terrestrial and marine protected areas, and assessing impacts of climate change. This symposium will provide results-based information on how approaches to conservation could be altered to better reflect large-scale ecosystem patterns and processes. Additionally, the diversity of disciplines (ecological monitoring, inter tidal, sub tidal, oceanography, genetics, microchemistry, ecophysiology) offers holistic perspectives to conservation issues in the nearhsore marine system. Regional Habitat Conservation Plans: the California experience organized by David Zippin (Jones & Stokes) and Laura Watchman (Defenders of Wildlife) Since 1982, California has led the United States in preparing and implementing large-scale conservation plans through partnerships of local, state, and federal governments and local stakeholders. Currently, 20 of 58 counties in California are developing or have developed such plans, affecting more than 4.4 million ha (approximately 11% of the state), and will create more than 200,000 ha of new protected lands. Conservation plans approved in the 1980s and 1990s are starting to have significant impacts on endangered species, as habitat is permanently destroyed and preserves are set aside and managed. This symposium will explore the challenges, successes, and failures of conservation plan implementation in California and determine how to design plans to maximize their chances of success. Conservation plan implementation touches upon multiple topics vital to 21st century conservation, from land-use planning, to invasive species management, to preserve design and management, to conservation financing. We expect that the symposium audience will come away with an understanding of the scope and purposes of California's regional habitat conservation plans, the reasons for success and failure of HCP implementation, and ways to design conservation plans to maximize their chance of success. Scaling up the assessment of bycatch: regional to global impacts of fisheries on seabirds, mammals, and turtles organized by Rebecca Lewison (San Diego State University) and Larry Crowder (Duke University) Fisheries bycatch (incidental take) of seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals has been on the conservation "radar" for nearly 25 years. However, understanding the impacts of bycatch, identifying environmental correlates or mechanisms, and preventing bycatch through mitigation measures and changes in policy continues to be a challenge. Bycatch research is hampered by the need to deal with data uncertainty and inherent variability, the widespread distribution of many large ocean-dwelling vertebrates that are vulnerable to incidental take, and the difficulties with characterizing the three-dimensional ocean habitat where these organisms and fishing vessels coexist. This symposium will focus on integrative, novel approaches and innovative techniques that are enhancing bycatch research. The great migrations: conserving migratory ungulates in a transboundary context organized by Simon Thirgood (Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen) and E.J. Milner-Gulland (Imperial College, London) The great ungulate ungulate migrations of Africa, Asia, and North America are among the world's most impressive wildlife spectacles. Few biologists can fail to be moved by thousands of wildebeest surging across the Mara River on their annual migration from the Serengeti plains in Tanzania to the Mara woodlands in Kenya. Wildebeest populations in Serengeti have increased with release from rinderpest but this conservation success is unusual for migratory ungulates elsewhere, which almost universally have suffered major declines in abundance. The conservation of migratory ungulates is problematic because of their requirements for space. As human populations expand and natural habitats are lost, migratory ungulates are isolated from critical seasonal resources. Fences, roads, and pipelines block migration routes. Many migratory ungulates are harvested thus compounding habitat loss. Migration routes often cross geopolitical borders adding a political component to ungulate management. This symposium focuses on the complexities of ungulate conservation when migratory ranges overlap geopolitical boundaries. The symposium will include presentations of cross-cutting issues and detailed case studies by researchers with field experience of migratory ungulates throughout the world. The quadrupled face of biodiversity conservation in Africa organized by Delali Dovie (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) and Norbert Cordeiro (University of Illinois at Chicago) The previously dominant biodiversity-protection paradigm in many countries in Africa has led to a scant attention presently paid to the coupled human-environment system of which biodiversity is part. This interface provides the required platform where socio-political issues, such as human access to biological resources and decisions, are paramount for achieving sustainability. A thin line exists between biodiversity and human survival in Africa and hence the need to pursue biodiversity conservation to encompass national and macro-level accounting of anthropogenic and social concerns in scientific and development planning. Several other regions are also faced by a similar divide and the need to divulge the intricacies of these issues. If the NEPAD document in Africa, for instance, has opened the doors for conservation science then we will have no reason not to talk about what has generally been termed "non-scientific" issues pertaining to biodiversity conservation. This symposium will seek to address the four major tasks of biodiversity conservation in Africa (i.e., science, policy, conservation planning, and development). The symposium will provide relevant lessons about the sharing of information and partnership development across multiple disciplines and stakeholders, as well as making conservation biology useful to the world of politics. The role of recreational fishers in conservation and management: lessons from freshwater systems for marine practitioners organized by Elise Granek (Oregon State University), J. David Allan (University of Michigan), Elizabeth Madin (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Mark Brown (U.S. Bureau of Land Management) In freshwater systems, scientists and managers successfully have engaged recreational fishers in planning, implementation, and enforcement of fishing restrictions; closure areas; and other management strategies. In the marine realm, however, recreational fishers have been much less involved in and supportive of similar processes. For example, during marine reserve design processes in the Channel Islands, Great Barrier Reef, and Florida Keys, vocal recreational fishers opposed to closing marine areas often impeded the implementation process. Meanwhile, river conservation organizations and state and federal agencies have, in many cases, successfully engaged recreational fishers in implementation and enforcement of fishery closures in rivers and lakes. Why does this discrepancy in recreational fisher support exist between freshwater and marine systems? How can it be reconciled to gain support of recreational fishers in marine conservation and management processes? We present this symposium as a forum for exploring why this "disconnect" in recreational fishers involvement exists between freshwater and marine conservation. Communicating across disciplinary (freshwater versus marine) boundaries and among sectors (scientists, managers, resource users) is essential to ensuring successful participation of stakeholder groups. Removing these borders to conservation science and management will facilitate resolution of the discrepancy between freshwater and marine recreational fishers in conservation. | |||||||||||||||||
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