From the Field: Representation & Replication

The Next Generation of Resources

Looking Ahead

21st Pacific Science Conference
June 13-17

Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting
July 1-5

Coastal Zone 2007
July 22-26

Coastal Institute Asia: Integrated Ecosystem Management
July 23-Aug 10

Ecological Society of America/Society for Ecological Restoration International Joint Annual Meeting
Aug 5-10

European Symposium on MPAs
September 25-28

Gulf Caribbean Fisheries Institute 60th Annual Meeting
November 5-9

Recent Publications

To Join the network or submit updates, contact:
Stephanie Wear,
Marine Protected Area Specialist
The Nature Conservancy, Global Marine Initiative
resilience@tnc.org

For more information about The Nature Conservancy's Global Marine Initiative, visit: www.nature.org/marine

This newsletter is brought to you through the generous support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

From the Field: Representation & Replication

Western Indian Ocean Resilience Workshop

Many of you that have received the R2 Toolkit or participated in a regional training workshop have gone back to your MPAs and tried to integrate what you learned about building resilience into management and design of MPAs. As this continues, we intend to maintain communication lines so that we can learn from each other about what is working and what is not.

In the past several months, two symposiums were held to better understand how TNC field practitioners were applying the principles of resilience to the design of MPAs and MPA networks. Both symposium groups reached similar conclusions, finding that some principles were easier to incorporate into design, while others posed significant challenges.

What is Working
Some resilience principles are easy to apply because the information required is available and the principles are easy to apply using marine reserve software (MARXAN). They include:

• Risk spreading through representation and replication;
• Protecting some refugia (e.g., fish spawning aggregation sites, turtle nesting areas, nursery areas, etc.); and
• Incorporating patterns of connectivity among adjacent habitat types (e.g., coral reefs, seagrasses, mangroves, etc.).

Effective management to ensure that ecosystems remain healthy and resilient to change remains one of the most important components of this model, and the one that is given a high priority by managers. Key issues include over-fishing and integrated coastal zone management.  Integral to effective management is effective stakeholder and community involvement.  Each case study highlighted specifically how they were engaging stakeholders and the local communities and the value of doing so.  Each approach was different, but addressed the unique socio-political conditions at their respective sites.

Some Challenges & Solutions
Other principles were more difficult to apply because the base level information required is difficult to acquire (the science is still developing), and MARXAN is not designed to apply these principles.  They include:

• Protecting some refugia, particularly areas that may be more resistant or resilient to climate change; and
• Incorporating patterns of connectivity within habitat types (e.g., among coral reefs), taking into account small and large scale patterns of connectivity through adult movement and larval transport.  

In the absence of the information required to implement these principles, practitioners are using:

• Rules of thumb for MPA network configuration to address connectivity. Some useful rules of thumb include taking into account the longest and shortest dispersal distances of target species by protecting a significant percentage (~20-50%) of each habitat type, and using a variety of reserve sizes (in 10s of kms) and inter-reserve distances (10-200 km).  Several sites are also aiming to include at least 30% in No-Take Areas, where over-fishing is a problem.
• Risk-spreading strategy (representation and replication) to address both connectivity and protecting areas that may be more resistant or resilient to climate change. 

Participants agreed that flexible management plans will be required to allow for adaptive management as more information becomes available for MPA network design.  If you are interested in learning more about the individual results or approaches that field staff are reporting, please contact us at resilience@tnc.org.  If you would like to share your own experiences more broadly, please contact us!!

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The Next Generation of Resources

So much has happened, changed and progressed since the first R2 Toolkit was developed and launched back in 2004!  Field staff have been working on applying the principles of resilience and scientists have been refining information about how to go about it.  In the next year we will be working to update the R2 Toolkit which is now available on the web at www.reefresilience.org. Along with updating, we will be adding some new resources and functionalities.  In order for this to be most beneficial to work on the ground, we will be looking to field practitioners to share their experiences with us about how things have gone, what they are struggling with, and what they would like others to know.  Our plan is to have a rough draft of these new resources in the middle of 2008 for review, with a more polished version to be launched towards the end of that year.  As you may know, 2008 is the International Year of the Reef and we will be sure to highlight many of the developments in coral reef resilience, but also hope to expand our resources to include other habitats such as mangroves.  Please feel free to contact us with ideas about updates, case studies to include, or ways you would like to be involved.  We will be contacting all of you with a brief survey in the new future to get a general sense of this, but specifics are always welcome!

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Looking Ahead

21st Pacific Science Conference, June 13-17
Okinawa, Japan.

Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting, July 1-5
Port Elizabeth, South Africa. REGISTER NOW for short-course on resilience.  Space is limited! Registration fee is covered for past resilience workshop participants.  Contact Stephanie Wear for more information. 

Coastal Zone 2007, July 22-26
Portland, Oregon. Early registration deadline May 31st.

Coastal Institute Asia: Integrated Ecosystem Management, July 23-August 10
Bangkok, Thailand.

Ecological Society of America/Society for Ecological Restoration International Joint Annual Meeting, August 5-10
San Jose, California.

European Symposium on MPAs , September 25-28
Murcia, Spain.

Gulf Caribbean Fisheries Institute 60th Annual Meeting, November 5-9
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Abstracts due August 15th.

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Recent Publications

Thermal Stress and Coral Cover as Drivers of Coral Disease Outbreaks
Note: This article is published in Public Library of Science and thus this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.  We hope to see more work published there so that everyone can access new developments.

Best practices for improved governance of coral reef marine protected areas
From:  Coral Reefs 2007.  Contact authors for more information:  Alan White or Patrick Christie

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