Delineation Break-out Group AWednesday, 26th July 2006

Key Biodiversity Areas: review and lessons learned workshop

James Atherton, Jerome Spaggiari, Kristen Williams, Grace Ambal, Liza Duya, Willy Marthy, Susie Ellis, David Emmit, Wang Hao, Frank Hawkins, Luciano Andrimaro, Joel Gamys,

Adriana Paese, Megan Van Fossen, Jaime Garcia-Moreno, Martin Sneary, David Knox, Penny Langhammer, John Musinsky, Marc

Steininger, Fred Boltz, Russ Mittermeier and film crewFacilitator: Chris Jameson

Note-taker: Kristen Williams Presenter: Jaime Garcia-Moreno

Aims of Delineation breakout group

Review the challenges facing KBA delineation

Categorize these challenges in a coherent way that lends itself to solving them

Recommend a process to write up a scientific paper on these challenges and

solutions

Method• Overview presentations by the following CI

programmes– Pacific, Melanesia, Indonesia, IndoBurma, China,

Philippines, Madagascar, West Africa, Mesoamerica

• Issues raised were collated onto cards during the presentations. Then placed onto the wall in order of programme and then grouped into themes.

• A subset of themes were selected for workshop discussion. Recording of main points of discussion under topics.

• Synthesis and presentation to plenary

Discussion Categories• Some outside scope, e.g. corridors • Some related to delineation, e.g. data access and

quality • Some categories feed into other sessions, e.g.

prioritization, research priorities

• Main issues for discussion– imperfect overlap between key datasets– reconciling biodiversity and management delineation

• Also discussed several of the key process challenges

Synthesis of Delineation Challenges• Data quality and accessibility

– Age and provenance of records– Access to natural history data collections– Standard methods for collecting and managing data; compatibility of

data across countries– Availability of data for delineation (e.g. species data, land tenure, etc.)

• Freshwater– How to delineate KBAs for fishes & other species that are distributed

throughout basins• Scale

– Should area-demanding threatened species be included in KBA analysis?

– Differences between site and corridor delineation

Synthesis of Delineation Challenges (cont.)

• Process issues– Pressure from partners to have specific algorithm– When to stop delineation (or when to start)– Validation needed for KBA boundaries – Candidate vs. confirmed KBAs – Delineation in context of implementation; thinking about how

results of KBA analysis will be used • Biodiversity and land management

– When to aggregate and when to split according to mgmt units– Refining KBAs with management units without compromising

species’ habitat requirements/global significance of site

Synthesis of Delineation Challenges (cont.)

Greatest number of challenges dealt with following:

• Imperfect overlap between key datasets: management units, existing KBAs (e.g. IBAs, IPAs) and habitat of species. – E.g: Existing IBA or management unit does not capture

habitat for additional KBA trigger species• Delineating KBAs in areas of contiguous habitat

with no useful land management units • Dealing with poor species data

Possible framework for organizing challenges associated with data

overlap

You have species-site occurrence data: what now?…Existing KBA (IBA, IPA, AZE)

No existing KBA

Habitat discontinuity for trigger spp (e.g. forest vs.

Land management unit

Scenario A: Imperfect overlap between existing KBA, a land management unit, and habitat for KBA trigger species

Scenario E: Existing land management unit does not adequately capture habitat of trigger species

non-forest, elevation, interfluvial)

No land management unit data

Scenario B: existing KBA (e.g. IBA) boundary does not capture habitat of other KBA trigger species

Scenario F: No existing land management unit or existing KBA (e.g. IBA boundary) to work from, but habitat information exists

No habitat discontinuity

Land management unit

Scenario C: Existing KBA (e.g. IBA) and management unit do not overlap perfectly

Scenario G: you have a land management unit but nothing else to work from (neither an existing KBA nor a habitat discontinuity)

No land management unit

Scenario D: you have an existing KBA but nothing else to work from (neither a relevant habitat discontinuity nor a land management unit)

Scenario H: no existing land management unit, no existing KBA boundary, no habitat information

Not discussed

Not discussed

Scenario B: existing KBA (e.g. IBA) boundary does not capture habitat of other KBA trigger species

• Recommend refinement of IBA boundary, in collaboration with partner organization that delineated original site; use habitat data for other species to aid refinement of the site– Philippines

• Engage additional experts to help refine site boundaries– Brazil

Scenario E: Existing land management unit does not adequately capture habitat of trigger species

• Existing management unit boundary used for first KBA, second KBA delineated to capture adjacent habitat– China, Sumatra, Liberia, Madagascar

• KBA boundary expanded beyond management unit to include adjacent habitat or species records – Philippines, IndoBurma

• Used habitat of species to delineate site– Melanesia (considers cultural units based on language groups, but cautious

about delineating management boundaries because of complexity/fine scale of land tenure)

– Brazil (where habitat of species does not correspond with protected area; in other cases mgmt units used)

Scenario E: Existing land management unit does not adequately capture habitat of trigger species (Cont.)

Decision to create two KBAs or one KBA in this situation depended on the local context, i.e. whether PAs can be expanded in the country or not

• Need to consider adequacy of management unit based on needs of species

• Important to retain habitat needs of species even if management unit boundary is used, for conservation implementation

Scenario C: Existing KBA (e.g. IBA) and management unit do not overlap perfectly, no habitat

information for species

• Used boundary of land management unit and feed data back to organization that defined site originally– China

• Field research for these sites is important for determining how to resolve boundaries – IndoBurma

Scenario A: Imperfect overlap between an existing KBA (e.g. IBA, IPA), a land management unit, and

habitat for KBA trigger species

• Used habitat to determine KBA boundary, recommending that both the original site (IBA) and protected area be modified– Philippines

• Create a new polygon capturing all three, but with a “fuzzy” boundary depicting low confidence in site delineation– China

Scenario F: No existing land management unit or existing KBA boundary to work from, but habitat

information exists• Forest cover, topography, removing obviously unsuitable habitat

– Philippines, Liberia, Sumatra, China, Brazil, New Caledonia, Madagascar• Expert estimate of species distribution around points

– Brazil, China• Used island boundaries for small islands, forest for larger islands

– Pacific, Sumatra• Habitat delineation around known localities for priority species, overlap

habitat for different species, incorporated information on current/future threat– Melanesia

• Rivers, dispersal abilities of species– Mesoamerica

• Habitat suitability models, measures of fragmentation– Andes

Scenario H: no existing land management unit, no existing KBA boundary, no habitat information

• Left KBA as a point– China

• Buffered and aggregated adjacent points– Brazil

• Aggregated points to water bodies and watersheds for freshwater species– IndoBurma

• Treated these situations as research priorities (candidate KBAs)– IndoBurma

• Used island boundary for island endemics– Pacific

Delineating KBAs outside of protected area network

• Start small and refine larger?– Might lose habitat in short term– Gives impression areas around it are not important

• Or start larger and refine smaller?– Large boundaries might scare governments– But, getting bigger chunks is better– Needs to be plausible and depends on action you’re

going to take, as well as the needs of the species

Observations• Most regions have evolved similar solutions to

similar problems, influenced by local context for achieving conservation

• Delineation is an iterative process – refine boundaries of KBA as knowledge increases

• Generally what we are doing is an educated guess • Need flexibility in how to display sites; important to

display continuum of confidence in site delineations• Need to be scientifically credible but also to take a

common-sense approach and have plausible argument for the conservation of the site

Discussion on some process questions

If and when it’s desirable to aggregate

We mean different things by the term aggregate! Important to clarify…

• Aggregation of point localities to larger manageable units or habitat blocks– Standard step in delineation process, particularly key in wilderness

• Aggregation of small nearby habitat patches– Important where species views patches effectively as a single site

• Lumping of multiple management units, where actual boundary changes– Only once the management of component sites has been harmonized

• Grouping of KBAs (“aggregation”) visually or conceptually, but not changing boundaries– May be useful for presentation, fundraising, and possibly prioritization purposes

Aggregation (cont)Considerations• Large numbers of KBAs is often a reality of site conservation

needs and not an intrinsic problem• Maintaining high resolution of data is important, particularly in

hotspots; lumping sites with different management may greatly reduce feasibility of safeguarding a KBA’s biodiversity

• Prioritization may be a better way to deal with large numbers of KBA, but very important that prioritization is iterative

• Whether communities or management authorities are willing to work together will impact decision on whether to aggregate adjacent sites

When to stop (or start) KBA delineation

• Turned into discussion of whether to delineate KBAs

• Delineation is an iterative process• Depends on resource and time constraints, size of

the area of analysis, what work has happened previously, number of trigger species, habitat heterogeneity

Arguments against delineating all KBAs

• Often overwhelming number of sites, expense, time-consuming

• CI is not working in all sites; need to prioritize which KBAs to delineate

• Boundaries might be interpreted too strictly (potential misuse of polygon data)

• Concern about precision of boundary• In some cases species information in lacking

Arguments for delineating KBAs• Difficult to prioritize KBA if not delineated

– Can’t consider site vulnerability, relative importance of site for species

• Easier to justify and explain to partners, government, corporations what exactly needs safeguarding– Difficult for most audiences comprehend a point; may be

disregarded, particularly by extractive industries• Might need initial delineation to get key habitat protected NOW even

if boundaries are not completely certain• Easier to influence national protected area planning, gap analysis,

funding mechanisms• For certain regions, there is enough information about threatened

species to make a first cut of important areas and delineate these

Is there room for intermediate step for delineation while gathering data to do it properly?common sense limit to delineation/refinement effort (region-specific)

Process for developing more detailed guidance

• Scientific paper seems like a good idea– layout the lessons learned and challenges for KBA identification and

delineation; framework and recommendations– summarise/conceptualise processes and decision trees, synthesise best-bits

of program approaches– Interested in contributing: James A., Fred B., David E., Joel G., Jaime G.,

Frank H., Roger J., Dave K., Adriana P., Jerome S., Marc S., Megan V., Kristen W

• Suggestion to identify outstanding delineation issues that that require field validation, identify where this work is going on already, get CI programs to commit to feeding results back to group

• Interest in following-up with participants of this breakout group to discuss specific issues, e.g. habitat mapping, data accessibility

Thank you!