Monitoring challenges landscape monitoring the need integration indicators

Monitoring challenges landscape monitoring the need integration indicators Gary Fry Norwegian Institute for Nature and Cultural Heritage Research 1

Keynote thoughts This presentation will provide: • questions not answers • larger scale issues of monitoring not research reports • discuss which rural resources to monitor • accept that priorities have been and always will be changing • discuss what can be monitored and not (today) • question the appropriate objectives for landscape monitoring 2

Management units • Ownership or administrative boundaries are often not suited to landscape ecological planning • can landscape character assessments be a suitable way forward • if so what are the basic steps? national - regional - landscape 3

Countryside character 4

Landscape: a hierarchical system • regional level • of significance to areal planning (100 km 2) • landscape level • of interest to local plans, (10 km 2) • site level • planning within individual ownerships (1 km 2) 5

Changing priorities USA Nature conservation pressure (USA) 160 articles per quarter 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 6

Some emerging issues • what are trends in priorities for countryside issues? • what can opinion polls and market surveys show? 7

biodiversity monitoring problems • communicating the deliverables from monitoring • why it matters - doom & gloom since the 1960 s • education - schools do a bad job by providing negative associations instead of solution oriented • biodiversity has never been well-understood by the public, losses have not affected people directly • biodiversity has been taken care of. . . • has not always integrated well with other interests, as it is not always possible to compromise (win-win is rare) 8

Devolution of power • local involvement • stewardship • participatory planning • but increases damage to • • rural resources NIMBY looking at the evidence • wolves & sheep • conifer forests • snow scooters / wilderness 9

why integrate rural interests? • the countryside is currently a mess of interests often providing conflicting advice & grant aid • both academic institutions and policy have supported or made worse this trend • policy is now in favour of integrated approaches to landscape: approaches which demand new <<knowledge>> from research environments • international agreements on biodiversity and landscape conservation increase this demand for national reporting on landscape quality 1 0

Loss of cultural heritage potential for historical interpretation 100 % 75 50 25 0 % 100 75 50 25 0 % cultural heritage sites remaining in a region 1 1

what integration will NOT achieve • it will NOT remove all conflict • it will NOT prevent power struggles • it will NOT tell us what we SHOULD do • it will NOT make monitoring any easier • • • integrated monitoring methods coupling data from environmental & social sciences hierarchies of scale demand for quantitative indicators across interests qualitative vs quantitative approaches 1 2

The role of indicators • to simplify • to communicate • to quantify • to summarise • needed to compare landscapes or the same landscape over time • needed for environmental reporting • needed for detecting problems before they are acute 1 3

Indices of patch characteristics pattern matrix shape edge contrast linkages size 1 4

Monitoring challenges • deciding the classification - retain primary data 1 5

Monitoring challenges • the grassy bits - big errors + need to capture quality 1 6

Monitoring challenges • monitoring edges, corridors and boundaries types gaps quality functions 1 7

Indicator frustrations • monitoring has to accept operational limitations BE HONEST • what we DO know (the +/- aspects of the tools we use) • what we DON’T know (no data or ability to interpret) • what we COULD know (if given time and more resources) • what we SHOULD know (to answer the questions asked) • clear objectives for monitoring (verifiable objectives, e. g ability to detect 1% change in cover of deciduous woodland over 5 years) • meta-studies of monitoring projects (what works) 1 8

Monitoring success · Standard recording schemes and methods. Training is important. · Scale of recording appropriate to the process/animal being monitored · Central monitoring co-ordinator / organisation to organise and oversee monitoring programme and to control quality and manage data. • Monitoring records must be stored safely and be accessible to all stakeholders. · Change can only be verified if sites are geo-referenced and can be relocated. · Monitoring means repeated records, ensure monitoring work continues beyond the baseline survey phase. · Use monitoring results in policy & management, many past schemes have never been used, this reduces commitment and motivation. · Clear objectives for monitoring are necessary - what information will be provided and the detail necessary. Accept it will not be possible to monitor everything. · Indicators can be a useful tool. Linking to processes of interest essential. • Monitoring cannot tell us what targets to aim for when setting standards, these are value judgements, what it can do is inform whether we are achieving these targets. 1 9