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The need to establish and maintain protected areas is internationally recognised. Of a potential 195 countries, 194 are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of which Article 8 (a) states:

“Each Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate:

(a) Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity” (United Nations, 1992)

In 2010 the Conference of the Parties to the CBD agreed to targets of at least 17 per cent of the world’s terrestrial areas and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas be protected by 2020 (United Nations, 2010 Target 11). Yet, simply declaring an area as ‘protected’ is no guarantee to reducing biodiversity loss (United Nations, 2011 p. 51). ‘Effective management’ is considered essential for the future of protected areas and to maintaining biodiversity (Lockwood et al, 2012 location 5221; United Nations, 2013 p.45).

Notwithstanding the recognition that effective management is considered essential, current management of nature reserves:

• Is inadequate in maintaining biodiversity (Dudley et al, 2010 p.84; United Nations, 2011 p.51);

• fails to optimise services provided by nature reserves, such as contribution to climate change (Dudley et al, 2010 p.72) and human health and well- being (Stolton & Dudley, 2010 p.7);

• needs to take into account global influences on ecosystems and livelihoods (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005)

• reflects decisions made in isolation of scientific information (Thomas, undated);

• is viewed as a public policy issue that is a ‘wicked problem’ (Australian Government, 2007, p.21);

• is no longer the preserve of governments (Australian Government, 2012); and

• is being undertaken by people without the necessary specialist and management skills (The Management Standards Consultancy, 2011, p.2).

Each of these nature reserve management related issues is examined further in the following subsections 2.3.1 to 2.3.8.

2.3.1

Maintaining diversity via protected areas

At the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit, 189 Heads of State and Governments signed onto the ‘Millennium Declaration’ (United Nations, 2000). While the primary objective of the Millennium Declaration is to rid the world of extreme poverty by 2015, Section IV of the declaration addresses protecting ‘our common environment’ with reference to a new ethic of conservation and stewardship, including i) the “management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests”, and ii) stopping the “unsustainable exploitation of water resources by developing water management strategies at the regional, national, and local levels” (United Nations, 2000). Pointedly, management is identified as separate to conservation and sustainability.

Further, Goal 7B of the Millennium Declaration is to reduce biodiversity loss, with the target of achieving by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate of loss. The world missed the 2010 target for biodiversity conservation, even though the proportion of protected terrestrial and coastal waters increased, reaching 12.7 and 7.2 per cent respectively in 2010. For comparison, total protected area was 7.5% in 1990 and 9.5% in 2000 (United Nations 2002, p.30). While the continuing increase over the 20-year period in the proportion of protected area is viewed by the United Nations as ‘encouraging’, the United Nations claims that an expansion of protected areas “will only deliver benefits for biodiversity, if they are well managed and supported” and “despite the overall increase in protected ecosystems, biodiversity is still in decline, owing to inadequate management of existing sites and gaps in the protection of areas deemed priorities for conservation” (United Nations, 2011 p.51) (emphasis added).

The 2013 report on the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2013, pp.45-46) while citing further increases in the percentages of protected area – to 14.7% for terrestrial and 9.7% for coastal waters, also cites the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1992) as seeking to conserve at least 17 per cent of the world’s terrestrial areas and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas by 2020 through a global protected area network that is effectively and equitably managed.

While management of protected areas is assessed as being inadequate at the international level (United Nations, 2011) or needing to be effectively and equitably managed (United Nations, 2013), neither of the reports cited details how or what was or should be measured or assessed in terms of management to determine a conclusion of ‘inadequate’ or ‘ineffectively’ managed. Lockwood et al (2012, location 2942 in Chapter 2,) in the context of managing protected areas, use the expression “ineffective management (objectives not being achieved)” suggesting that ineffective managementcan be interpreted as the objectives of a protected area not being achieved.

2.3.2

Protected areas and climate change

Dudley et al (2010, p.19) report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as identifying protected areas as essential in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The IUCN Protect Areas and Climate Change Turnaround project – PACT 2020 has the aim to “Ensure that protected areas and protected area systems are recognised as an important contribution to climate change adaptation/mitigation strategies for biodiversity and human livelihoods” (IUCN-WCPA, undated). PACT 2020 involves a number of research activities demonstrating how protected areas are a proven tool for maintaining essential natural resources and services. More specifically, one of the six ways in which the role of protected areas in climate response strategies can be increased has been identified as “increasing protected area management effectiveness” (Dudley et al 2010, p.72).

A range of issues has been identified as needing to be considered in relation to managingprotected areas under climate change, including:

i) implementing management effectively to minimise existing stresses on protected areas and thus strengthen their resilience to climate change, and

ii) changing management to build the skills and knowledge needed to manage protected areas under conditions of climate change and to integrate protected areas into wider efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change (Dudley et al 2010, p.93; Hyder Consulting, 2008, p.xvi). Hyder Consulting (2008, pp. xviii and xxii) specifically refers to management activities in relation to climate change being limited to managing to minimise non- climate related pressures, such as human disturbance, and invasive species and

pollution in marine parks, and fire, weeds, and introduced pest animals in terrestrial parks.

Hence, both ‘changing management’ and ‘achieving effective management’ have been identified as important elements to maximising the contribution that protected areas can make to climate change mitigation strategies.

2.3.3

Protected areas and health benefits

Stolton & Dudley (2010) set out the case for establishing that protected areas contribute positively to human health and well-being. Specifically, they identify two management-related aspects to sustaining the health benefits derived from protected areas:

i) direct benefits that come from the conscious management of ecosystems to reduce the risk of disease, and

ii) indirect benefits related to management activities within protected areas that contribute to better health. For example, such management activities could encompass support for recreational pursuits within a protected area.

Use of the expression ‘management of ecosystems’ is considered in section 3.2.

2.3.4

Natural resource management and livelihoods

Holling & Meffe (1996, p.334) propose a ‘Golden Rule’ of natural resource management as follows: “Natural resource management should strive to retain critical types and ranges of natural variation in ecosystems. That is, management should facilitate existing processes and variabilities rather than changing or controlling them.”

As the human population on Earth grows, so too does the demand for natural resources to sustain the increasing human population. Drawing on the results of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), Fischer et al (2007, p.621) state “For the first time in human history, our activities are so pervasively modifying our own life- support system that the ability of the Earth to provide conditions suitable for our species [i.e. humans] to thrive can no longer be taken for granted.” Given this conclusion, Fischer et al (2007, p.624) propose constructing conceptual frameworks that foster deeper understanding of the dynamics of our complex world, and acknowledging sustainability demands that “modern consumer culture shift from the paradigms of conquest to paradigms of connectivity”. The latter reflects the

dissonance between the ideas of humanity as the conqueror of nature, and humanity as part of the wider biotic community (Leopold, 1966).

One year after Fischer et al (2007), Foley (2008, p.1)) refers to every corner of the globe having been mapped with ‘man’ seeking to use all of it, and the need to use systems thinking to find solutions if man and the rest of planet Earth is to survive. Pointedly he notes that there is no waste in ecosystems, and that global effects are not tied down to any community or particular problem.

Dovers (2009, p.5) refers to improved livelihoods, community resilience, human safety, resource efficiency and ecological conservation as “Things we should already have done or should be doing, and where there are serious implementation deficits.”

Considered from a global perspective as identified by Foley (2008), Fischer et al (2007) and Dovers (2009), adoption and implementation of the ‘Golden Rule’ for natural resource management (that is, management should facilitate existing processes and variabilities rather than changing or controlling them) appears even more important than in 1996, with conceptual frameworks (Fischer et al, 2007) and systems thinking (Foley, 2008) offering suitable approaches to understand what has to be managed.

2.3.5

Disjoint between management and research

A conceptual model of the interface between ecological research and management (Figure 2.1) comes from Thomas (undated) who gave it the label a ‘cynic’s conceptual model’. From her experience management decisions (highlighted) were being made in isolation of the information available from ecological research. Also, that ecological research was being undertaken for the purposes of publication rather than for the benefit of improving management of the ecosystems being researched. In the Preface to Boyce & Haney (1997), Jack Ward Thomas reflects similarly with the comment “All too often we see science divorced from management.” Management within software engineering displays similar disconnections (Boehm, 2006 p.12; Royce, 2005; and Zavala-Ruiz, 2008 p.19).

Figure 2.1 also illustrates many of the uncertainties that environment managers have to take into account in their decision making: insufficient data, unknown accuracy/reliability of the data, incomplete theory for understanding the data, simulations based on unrealistic assumptions, and poor diagnostic tools. Although not part of the original diagram from Thomas, potentially there is feedback from

‘Further misunderstanding’ to ‘Theoretical misunderstanding’ and this is represented as a dotted line in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 – Conceptual model of the interface between ecological research and management, after Thomas (undated)

2.3.6

A ‘Wicked Problem’

Nature reserve management is seen as a public policy issue and recognised as a ‘wicked problem’, that is, extremely complex and not easily solvable (Australian Government, 2007). In Head’s (2008, p.102) interpretation of the original Rittel and Webber (1973, p.160) definition, a wicked problem is “inherently resistant to a clear statement of the problem and resistant to a clear and agreed solution”. Horn & Webber (2007, p.5) warn of two dangers associated with wicked problems:

• ‘Complexity’: not being well enough understood deters progress in resolving problems, and

• ‘It’s politics’: complex problems resist resolution because stakeholders “believe that they have rights not only to strongly held opinions about

proposed solutions, but also about the methods, motivation and meaning of any serious effort to address the problems.”

In contrast, Balint et al (2011, p.6) view the identification of natural resource management as a ‘wicked problem’ as positive. With no optimal solution to a wicked problem, the manager “is released from the impossible task of finding the one correct response”. In an earlier publication, Balint et al (2006) conclude that then current practices used to address wicked problems - the precautionary principle (section 2.3.6.1; and Harding & Fisher, 1994), adaptive management (section 3.4.3) and public participation (Marris & Rose, 2010), are insufficient in themselves to produce acceptable decision processes, primarily because they are insufficient for resolving issues of scientific uncertainty and differing stakeholder values (i.e. what defines a wicked problem). This conclusion is reaffirmed in Balint et al (2011).

2.3.6.1 The Precautionary Principle

The 1998 Wingspread Conference (SEHN, 1998) released a consensus statement defining the Precautionary Principle: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.” Notably, the Precautionary Principle includes reference to ‘harm to … the environment’.

Applying the Precautionary Principle to the current research of protected area management, leads to the proposition to consider all organisms within such an environment, not just humans, who could be affected by a decision. In other words, the stakeholders of the protected area are not just humans but all living organisms impacted upon by management of the area (refer stakeholders in section 5.6 (i)).

2.3.7

Privately managed reserves

In addition to public participation, management also needs to take into account that a significant proportion of nature reserves are privately owned. Where once nature reserves were almost entirely within the control of governments, this is no longer the situation. For example, 25% of Australia’s reserve area is privately owned and managed, including those owned and managed by indigenous people (Australian Government, 2012).

2.3.8

Inadequate management skills

Environmental managers are now recognised as requiring two different skill sets: engineer/scientist and business manager (American College of Management and Technology, 2008, p.1). The latter, business manager skills, are essential if protected area managers are to meet the following needs (as identified by Kopylova & Danilina, 2011, p.1):

- understand economy, financial management, strategic and financial planning, marketing and legal issues,

- be quite skilled in communications, public relations and government relations,

- be competent in visitor management, public relations and marketing, sales, infrastructure management,

- have fund raising skills, and

- have skills in project management and reporting, plus

- be representative of all stakeholders, given the conclusion of section 2.3.6.1. Based on research into actual levels of knowledge and skills of environmental managers in the United Kingdom, 20 skills/knowledge gaps across both specialist and management skills were identified. Specifically, the gaps in management skills are: written communication, project and contract management, management and accessibility of data, influencing and stakeholder engagement, financial management, and risk analysis and management (The Management Standards Consultancy, 2011, p.5).

From a practical perspective, Dudley et al (2010, p. 93) identify a number of issues having implications for planning and management of protected areas, of which two management-related issues are pertinent:

• ‘effective management’ – to minimise stresses on protected areas; and

• ‘changing management’ - to build the skills and knowledge needed to effectively manage protected areas.

Lacking appropriate management skills is clearly an issue for protected area managers, and potentially a significant factor in the assessment that protected areas are being inadequately managed (section 2.3.1). Understanding what is required of management involves not only having the necessary management skills but also comprehending the context in which those skills are to be applied. In this case, that means understanding the system in which the management of a nature reserve is undertaken.

2.3.9

Finding a way forward

The natural environment is under increasing pressure. The 2010 targets to halt biodiversity loss have been missed and climate change is impacting on species distribution and survival, as well as the availability of natural resources. In this context, the management of protected areas is critical to the ongoing health of all organisms on planet Earth, yet recent assessments continue to show that current management is inadequate or ineffective (United Nations, 2011, 2013). In addition, managing in today’s environment involves a range of management activities and associated skills not previously recognised as essential for effective management of protected areas.

In the first decade of the 21st _{Century the use of systems and systems thinking were} suggested as approaches to improving the management of protected areas (section 2.3.4), but there is evidence of only limited application of them in this context. On this basis the question to be answered is: Can systems modelling (as expounded in section 2.4 and Chapter 4) provide a way forward to better management of nature reserves?

2.4

Management of nature reserves – a systems modelling approach