DECIDING WHICH ACTIONS BEST HELP NATURE Decision-support tools to help biodiversity managers protect Victoria’s environment
Which actions are the most important for conservation in my park, council, farm, region or state? Strategic Management Prospects maps and data show where species improve the most when threats are controlled and thus which actions are most important. Such information could become the basis of management plans.
Which actions at which locations give us the best return on investment? We can use Strategic Management Prospects to equitably compare investment options. This data can help us make better decisions for conserving biodiversity.
Use the icons to find the information that can help to answer these questions.
Where would we concentrate our efforts to control a threat for the greatest benefit to biodiversity? And which species would benefit the most? The threat extent and intensity maps show the locations of threats. The benefit maps illustrate where we get the greatest benefit from controlling threats. Graphs show the magnitude of benefit each species gets when a threat is controlled. This information can help design weeds, pests or other threat control programs.
Which species do we need to look after in our region? Strategic Biodiversity Values illustrates the proportion of the species’ total habitat for which we are responsible in our area. This information could be used in planning how our region makes its best contribution to biodiversity conservation.
How do we prioritise actions to help a species? The benefit maps and graphs show the benefit to the species from controlling threats. This information can be used to plan the recovery of species, to prepare a bid in a grant process and demonstrate value for money to an investor.
Where should we put our major development projects to minimise impacts on biodiversity? The Strategic Biodiversity Values map identifies where we could design development projects to have the least impact on biodiversity assets. It could be used early in major infrastructure and development planning processes.
We need the best information possible and decision-support tools to help us navigate and solve complex problems.
The information in the Strategic Management Prospects approach includes:
Distribution of habitat for plants and animals (e.g. modelled likelihood of habitat for the Brush-tailed Phascogale)
Victoria has a diverse and unique array of species and ecosystems that we value and need to protect for future generations. We need a revolution in our thinking about how to best conserve nature and give plants and animals the best opportunity to adapt. The Victorian Government’s draft plan, Protecting Victoria’s Environment – Biodiversity 2036 recognises this challenge and proposes the use of strategic decision-support tools to prioritise action (Chapters 3 and 8). NaturePrint is a suite of decision-support tools designed to help us make choices about what actions we take to conserve Victoria’s biodiversity and plan for future scenarios. NaturePrint tools make it easier to do business by providing the community, government, agencies and other users with information early in the process. The tools are designed to provide a commonly-shared, readily available view that avoids unnecessary surprises. The tools support choices such as where we protect nature on private land or selecting the most beneficial actions for threatened species.
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Decision-support tools are typically computer-based information products that inform choices at the management, operations, planning or policy level of an organisation. They are enablers, designed to inform decisions, not dictate the answer. Local or regional information, raw data, anecdotal or more specific knowledge can easily be added to further inform specific questions and decisions.
Strategic Management Prospects One of the NaturePrint decision-support tools, Strategic Management Prospects, is a method for integrating information on expected biodiversity benefits and costs to help compare and select options for management. It can support conservation decision-making across Victoria, including both investment in actions to strengthen biodiversity, and guidance in the application of statutory responsibilities and regulatory controls. Regional investment processes might use Strategic Management Prospects to identify priorities for action in their area. These investment processes could then add extra information about feasibility and capacity, or refined information about costs before choosing priority actions for investment. Strategic Management Prospects can also be used to analyse the effects of increasing or decreasing investment in biodiversity conservation. Further, Strategic Management Prospects can be used to test scenarios. Natural resource managers could bring their own information to the analysis to investigate various strategies.
Extent and intensity of landscapescale threats (e.g. modelled extent and intensity of rabbit warrens)
Strategic Management Prospects also includes the relative cost of implementing actions. The analysis of this huge amount of complex spatial information allows us to consider the effects of threats, and actions to control those threats, on plants and animals from a range of perspectives including state-wide and landscape scales. This new decision-support tool is a significant step forward in our strategic approach to investment decisions.
Benefits to individual species from controlling these threats (e.g. benefits to Horned hop-bush from controlling rabbits)
The two Strategic Management Prospects maps (best management regime and relative spatial priority for action) are an example output from this decision-support tool. They should be considered together to understand the priority of doing a particular action in a location. For example, implementing fox and cat control (blue on the best management regime map) in high priority areas in East Gippsland (red on the spatial priority map) would be the most cost-effective management regime for that area. The current version of Strategic Management Prospects has a landscape-scale, terrestrial focus. It will be progressively complemented by site-specific information from Action Statements and the Actions for Biodiversity Conservation information system and incorporation of other priority ecosystems such as instream and wetlands.
Benefits to all species from controlling threats (e.g. benefits to all species when rabbits are controlled)
Best management regime
Cost-efficient Actions Revegetate
Control Grazing and Weeds
Control Noisy Miners
Control Foxes and Cats
Control Feral Horses
Control Stock Grazing
Control Feral Goats
Control Rabbits
Control Deer
Control Weeds
Control All Threats
Cost-
Re
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
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Relative spatial priority for action
Spatial Priority Spatial Priority
High
High Low
Low
We might investigate the detailed information in Strategic Management Prospects to understand the magnitude of the estimated benefit of different management options for individual species in our geographic area (see graph) and use this to inform investment or management planning.
Estimated benefit of each action to individual species (e.g. an area in north-east Victoria)
Strategic Biodiversity Values Another complementary decision-support tool, Strategic Biodiversity Values, identifies the priority areas for protection based on the importance of the natural values in that location. It could be used to help inform priorities for adding to the reserve system during investigations such as those by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council, or inform where organisations such as Trust for Nature or Bush Heritage could direct their attention when purchasing and conserving land. It can be used for prioritising areas for regulatory controls.
Draft Strategic Biodiversity Values (v4)
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This information will be available for download or through DELWP applications later this year. We are committed to continuous improvement. These models can be tested and improved with the collection of new field data. The models can help identify areas of highest uncertainty and help target effort towards areas where the new information is of highest value. Feedback on these decision-support tools received during the consultation period for the draft plan will influence the next version of the tools.
PHOTO CREDITS NO.
DESCRIPTION
PHOTOGRAPHER / CREDIT
Cover
Landcare volunteers
Landcare Australia
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Brush-tailed Phascogale
Jerry Alexander
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Rabbit
Steve McPhee
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Bush Stone-curlew
Mel Mitchell
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Toolangi State Forest
DELWP
Š The State of Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning 2016 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You are free to re-use the work under that licence, on the condition that you credit the State of Victoria as author. The licence does not apply to any images, photographs or branding, including the Victorian Coat of Arms, the Victorian Government logo and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) logo. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN 978-1-76047-057-9 (pdf/online) Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. Accessibility If you would like to receive this publication in an alternative format, please telephone the DELWP Customer Service Centre on 136186, email customer.service@delwp.vic.gov.au or via the National Relay Service on 133 677 www.relayservice.com.au. This document is also available on the internet at www.delwp.vic.gov.au