Monitoring challenges

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2. Keynote thoughts • 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 This presentation will provide:

3. 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

4. Countryside character

5. Landscape: a hierarchical system • regional level • of significance to areal planning (100km2) • landscape level • of interest to local plans, (10km2) • site level • planning within individual ownerships (1km2)

6. 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 Changing priorities USA Nature conservation pressure (USA) articles per quarter

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

8. biodiversity monitoring problems • communicating the deliverables from monitoring • why it matters - doom & gloom since the 1960s • 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)

9. 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

10. 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 and for national reporting on landscape quality

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

12. 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

13. 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

14. Indices of patch characteristics pattern matrix shape edge contrast linkages size

15. Monitoring challenges • deciding the classification - retain primary data

16. Monitoring challenges • the grassy bits - big errors + need to capture quality

17. Monitoring challenges • monitoring edges, corridors and boundaries types gaps quality functions

18. 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)

19. 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.