Horribly late with this post – we read the paper already in the spring. I hope I can still remember what we actually discussed.

The paper provides a very comprehensive framework for biodiversity conservation assessment. It consists of three components: (1) Modelling future habitat state, (2) Modelling persistence of individual surrogate entities, and (3) Integrating persistence across multiple entities. Each of these components can be implemented at various levels of refinement and sophistication, ranging from e.g. considering persistence as a siple binary function of area protected to complex metapopulation modelling accounting for landscape dynamics.The application of the framework is then discussed in the context of major forms of higher-leve assessment, calssified into five classes: (1) Optimal plan generation, (2) Priority mapping, (3) Interactive scenario evaluation, (4) Site-based assessment and (5) Monitoring and reporting whole-landscape conservation status.

Probably almost all published applications of systematic conservation assessment could be placed into one of the categories within the framework. But many of the proposed combinations of components and levels of complexity have not been implemented yet. Therefore the paper also provides guidelines for future research. Another obvious contribution of such a paper is that it summarizes what has been achieved so far, and has perhaps also a unifying function regarding the concepts and terminology in the field. Often people are talking about rocks as alternatives to stones, but meaning exactly the same thing (sorry for the lame metaphor!).

The paper is incredibly comprehesive, correct and accurate in every detail. The writers take no shortcuts to simplify at the cost of losing information. On the other hand, the extreme accuracy in technical detail and terminology also makes the paper rather laborious reading. At times also the high conceptual level at which the framework is described (to cover as much as possible!) can be rather demanding for the reader. Perhaps even more of practical examples accompanying the conceptual text would have made the reading more effortless.

In sum, not an easy piece of reading, but definitely worth the trouble for anyone seriously interested in conservation assessement methodology.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2010.00657.x

Dearden et al. report on the findings from a global survey to assess changes in governance of protected area systems between 1992 and 2002. The study was a contribution towards the governance sessions at the Vth World Parks Congress in Durban 2003. The survey was distributed to over 110 national PA agencies throughout the world and resulted in 51 responses from 41 countries. The countries were grouped according to their high, medium or low human development.

Dearden et al. draw the following main conclusions:
between the years 1992 and 2002 there seem to have been increased participation of different stakeholders and greater use of formal accountability mechanisms, and also a wider range of participatory techniques. Almost 90 % of respondents felt that protected area governance had improved over the last decade and 67 % felt that this had also improved management effectiveness.

It would have been interesting to see the structure of the questionnaire and how the questions were framed. We would clearly also have been interested in knowing which specific countries that were included. In the Discussion-section the authors explain that originally they had also planned to survey national-level NGOs in each country to get an idea of their views on governance and PA management trends and then compare this to the answers by managers. This would indeed have been interesting and it’s a pity it could not be done. As the study was now designed we fear that managers might have had personal interests in rating changes as more positive that maybe was the case. Answering for the situation in both 1992 and 2002 at the same survey and at the same time is not very likely to reflect real changes. Personnel might have changed during this time and the researchers have no way of knowing whether the person answering the survey knows anything about the previous situation a decade ago. Moreover, it seems the surveys were sent to some protected area central office and even individual PA mangers might be surprised at the answers given on behalf of their PAs. Moreover, the vocabulary and terminology have also changed quite a lot during these years and might therefore not have been the same in 1992.

Another thing is that Dearden et al. seemed very eager to report on the greater speed of change and more progressive initiatives taken in the developing countries to improve governance. They do not mention much about the absolute situations in the two groups and just pinpointing change might not tell very much. We discussed for example the issue of stakeholder involvement which is a complicated issue. We think it is problematic to just assume it would always be good under all circumstances. Assessing outcomes in governance is therefore a bit problematic, if not biodiversity objectives are considered. Some of these concerns are addressed in the end of the paper.

Link to the paper:

Dearden, P., Bennett, M., Johnston, J. 2005. Trends in Global Protected Area Governance, 1992-2002. Environmental Management 36: 89-100.

doi: 10.1007/s00267-004-0131-9