Strategic Habitat Conservation

The Right Stuff in the Right Places for America’s Fish and Wildlife

Understanding Strategic Habitat Conservation

• Why Now and Why This?• The SHC Functional Elements – an

Overview• Implications and Challenges of SHC• Brief example of functional elements• Relationship to: Shaping our Future/Work

Force Planning/Adaptive Management/Structured Decision Making

Strategic Habitat Conservation (SHC) is:

• A unified conservation approach for defining and pursuing landscape and population sustainability.

• At the core of SHC is a structured science-based framework founded on an adaptive, iterative process of biological planning, conservation design, conservation delivery, monitoring, and research.

Why?

• The conservation challenges we face today are different than the conservation challenges we faced yesterday– Global Climate Change– Land Conversion - Urban sprawl, energy

development, pine plantations, ...– Alteration and Degradation of Freshwater and Marine

Systems– Global, Federal, and State Policies - Farm Bill,

Carbon Sequestration, Hydroenergy, National Water Resources...

Why?• We are being challenged to be more

accountable for our outcomes:

– [33] Percent of all migratory bird species that are at healthy and sustainable levels [FWS] [FY2012: 62%]

– [34] Percent of threatened or endangered species that are stabilized or improved [FWS] [FY2012: 45%]

– [35] Percent of candidate species where listing is unnecessary as a result of conservation actions, or including actions taken through agreements [FWS] [FY2012: 1%

– Percent of North American migratory birds for which scientific information on their status and trend are available [USGS] [FY2012: 27%]

Why?

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency for conserving, protecting, and enhancing, fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.

Why?

• Advancements in conservation theory

• Advancements in Information Management Technology

– Technological advancements in geospatial information management are allowing multi-scale theory to move from the theoretical to the methodological.

– Problems, and their solutions, are increasingly being seen in a multi-scaled, interdisciplinary context.

•Biological Planning

•Conservation Design

•Conservation Delivery

•Decision-Based Monitoring

•Assumption-Driven Research

Strategic Habitat Conservation Framework

Functional Elements

The Basic SHC Framework is an Iterative, Adaptive Process

Planning – Increasingly a distinction is being drawn between three kinds or aspects of planning

• Biological Planning

• Conservation Design

• Programmatic PlanningStrategic Planning for the Partners

for Fish and Wildlife Program

Migratory Bird Program Strategic Plan

Refuge CCP’s

Biological Planning…

Use of transparent, replicable processes and procedures to derive conservation objectives expressed as measurable biological outcomes

• Identify priority species• Select subset of priority species• Determine population objectives• Assess current status of populations• Identify limiting factors• Compile and apply models of habitat relationships

Conservation Design…

The establishment of spatially explicit conservation priorities and development of spatially explicit conservation planning applications and decision support

toolsDesignateProgramPriorityAreas

FormulateHabitat

Objectives

AssessCurrent

Stateof FocalSpecies

Populations

DevelopSpecies Habitat

Spatially-ExplicitModels

CombineAppropriate Species

SEMs

Conservation Delivery…

Implementation of on-the-ground actions based on information from biological planning and conservation design• Tools to assist decision making — Identifying location and “best” actions• Targeted actions — Designed to achieve measurable biological outcomes• Partnerships — Synergistic relationships to make

actions more effective

For example:

3% Forest Core3% Forest Core 50% Forest Core50% Forest Core

Decision Based Monitoring and Assumption Driven Research…

Management

MonitoringResearch

Increase certainty

Targeted monitoring and research to help make better management decisions

Monitoring…

• The need for monitoring will move beyond tracking Program accomplishments to evaluating outcomes at multiple spatial scales

• Monitoring biological outcomes will enable stronger linkages to decision-making (adaptive and structured)

• Monitoring biological outcomes at broad spatial scales requires interagency collaboration

Site Quality

Bottomland Hardwood Establishment and Avian Colonization of Reforested Sites in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

RANDY WILSON and DAN TWEDT

 USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Vicksburg, MS

• Forest composition and structure are affecting– Rates of colonization– Breeding densities– Species composition

• Species composition and reproductive performance are varying with landscape position and wetness

ARE THE ASSUMPTIONS VALID?

Assumption-driven research…

Forest Composition & StructureForest Composition & Structure Landscape Position & WetnessLandscape Position & Wetness

The Basic SHC Framework is an Iterative, Adaptive Process

Implications and Challenges of SHC

Landscape Sustainability

Station Priorities

Program Priorities

Regional Priorities

Service Priorities

SHC provides an approach that will help to define outcomes at ecoregional scales that are necessary to achieve the Service mission. Outcomes will be achieved by integrated site scale action.

SHC help us to span the Barrier of Scale…

Puts our site scale actions in a landscape context and how the action/activity relates to

population sustainability• How does:– issuing permit X for this project– acquisition of this property – reforesting this tract – this kind of wetland management on this wetland – urban sprawl– policy decision X– climate change

affect the conservation target?

• How does:– monitoring program X – research project X

inform management decisions relevant to the conservation target?

From program-centric…

To trust resource-centric…

Sustainable trust resources are the responsibility of all programs

An Example of Functional Elements: Barrens Topminnow

Biological Planning

• Identify priority species• Select subset of priority species• Determine population objectives

• Recovery target of 15 protected sites (5 each in the Duck River, Elk River, and Caney Fork River watersheds).

• Assess current status of populations• From 1983-84, Dr. Etnier from the University of Tennessee

found BTMs at 14 new locations.• Rake’s (1996) surveys documented BTMs at only 5 locations.• In 1997, known BTM occurrences had declined from 5 sites to

only 2 sites.

• Identify limiting factors• Water quality/habitat structure

• Compile and apply models of habitat relationships

Conservation Design

• Partner network of agency and conservation organizations formed

• Conservation Strategy developed

• Measurable water quality improvements also benefiting other downstream species

• Spatial analyses

TN Department of Agriculture

Conservation Delivery

• Comparison of existing type locality data with potential restoration sites

• Partnerships with landowners developed• Best Management Practices (e.g., hardened stream

crossings, alternative water sources, fencing) installed

• Spring habitat restored with

vegetated pools• BTMs re-introduced in

restored habitat

Monitoring and Research

• USGS Cooperative Fisheries Research Unit characterized habitat and evaluated habitat modifications

• TTU Biology Department evaluated inter-species interactions, swimming behaviors, and potential mosquitofish barriers

• SEMO assessed genetic similarities between populations in the various watersheds

• ES and other partners conduct annual reproductive success monitoring

Additional Needs

• Models needed to determine multi-species benefits

• Early surveys deficient and additional monitoring for range expansion needed

• Barren Fork watershed genetic stock to be used for Duck River watershed reintroductions efforts (site proximity/similar geography)

The Basic SHC Framework is an Iterative, Adaptive Process

How do the actions/activities relate to population sustainability?

SHC Relationship to:

• Shaping our Future

• Work Force Planning

• Adaptive Management

• Structured Decision Making

National Ecological Assessment Team

• Chartered in 2004– Develop nation-wide science based

conservation strategies– The approach will enable development of

habitat conservation strategies at the ecosystem level and will support adaptive management

• July 2006 NEAT final report: Strategic Habitat Conservation

Shaping our Future- Early 2005

• Pressure on the federal budget is growing. If we don’t shape our future, someone else surely will.

• …to cement our agency’s position as the nation’s premier fish and wildlife conservation agency.

• Director Dale Hall: “The Service’s work is excellent, but we cannot afford to approach our work with a ‘business as usual’ attitude. To have the most control of our destiny and our priorities – rather than having them decided for us – we must expect change, and manage for it.”

Work Force Planning

• How we will align our work force to meet our future conservation challenges?

• What capacity and capabilities do we need to operate under an SHC business model?

Adaptive Management in DOI

• Effort began with a workshop for executives at NCTC in 2005

• Led to formation of an Adaptive Management Working Group (AMWG)

• Charge:– Define AM and describe its implementation– Develop a DOI AM Technical Guide– Identify training and communication needs

and approaches• Policy signed March 2007

Adaptive Management

• Learning through management, and adapting based on what is learned

• Setting up management actions as “experiments” for learning

Motivation for AM

• The need for credible, science-based management of natural resources

• With active involvement of stakeholders

• And a clear record of decision making

Structured Decision Making

• Is an organized approach to identifying and evaluating creative alternatives and making defensible choices in difficult decision situations.

Strategic Habitat Conservation (SHC) is:

• A unified conservation approach for defining and pursuing landscape and population sustainability.

• At the core of SHC is a structured science-based framework founded on an adaptive, iterative process of biological planning, conservation design, conservation delivery, monitoring, and research.

Motivation for SHC

• The need for a consistent Service-wide approach to setting and prioritizing conservation goals for trust species, important habitats, and other conservation targets

• That addresses the need

for landscape and population

sustainability

Summary• The nature of conservation is

changing• The Service is responding to the

changes• Functional elements applied at a

landscape scale in partnership forum with a focus on trust resource sustainability

• Science based approach• Conservation target is landscape

and population sustainability• One Service for the Resource