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Stresses & Sources
The Search for Critical Threats
Conservation Coaches NetworkCoach Training
Key Points to Introduce This Step
• Why it’s not just “threats”
• Stresses = the inverse of key ecological attributes. An observable change in the “health” of the target
• Sources are tangible, direct causes
• Keep your source names consistent
• Scoring algorithm - Stress rank is both ceiling and driver
• Iterative approach - continue to refine
• “Sins of the past” = lower viability
“Sins of the future” = threats
Sources Stresses Systems
Critical Questions
• Have they considered all key attributes?
• Probe for over-rankings
– Especially stress ranks and any “Very High” stresses
• Look for “double-counting” of High-ranked stresses
– e.g. altered fire regime + lack of fire
• Probe for specificity of High-ranked sources -- sooner or later the devil will be in the details
Common Issues & Recommendations
• What about the 10 year guideline for ranking threats?– Works for everything except some invasive species &
long-term/persistent/insidious sources like climate change
• Lumping vs. splitting threats?– If in doubt, better to split initially – And then use “common threat taxonomy to give the
perspective that lumping can provide • What about catastrophic threats of unknown odds?
– “User Override” works here -- team’s best guess
Common Issues & Recommendations
(cont.)• Are natural disturbances (e.g. hurricanes) stresses?
– No, unless they’ve been exacerbated by a known source
• What about cumulative impacts?– The Workbook scoring algorithm addresses a source that causes
multiple stresses, but not multiple sources to multiple stresses that may have a cumulative impact
• Generally don’t spend much time on Medium threats, unless you think one is under-ranked or it is something that will be very difficult to deal with if it left unattended (i.e. invasive exotic plant.)
Helpful Hints
• Teams often over-rank future threat by letting current condition creep into their consciousness; this is already accounted for in a “Poor” or “Fair” Viability rank
• Another test to consider for threat rankings...– A “Very High” stress should reduce a key attribute to
“Poor”– A “High” stress should reduce a key attribute to “Fair”
Helpful Hints (continued…)
• Consider using maps (even hand drawn “cartoon” maps) to get a sense of the scope of the threat.
• As much as possible, pose threats related to global climate change in terms that explicitly describe how climate change might impact the targets.
• Roll up threats by targets, not by sites, to get useful information for multi-area strategies