MONITORING HIGH VALUE PLANT SPECIES Lessons from the past &

1. MONITORING HIGH VALUE PLANT SPECIES Lessons from the past & looking to the future. Tony Cunningham l

2. OVERVIEW • Why manage & monitor plant resources? • Important needs: questions before we start.. • Strategic choices & sustaining harvest: resilience vs. vulnerability; • 9 lessons: HVPS monitoring • Thinking about the future…

3. WHY MANAGE RESOURCES? • Livelihoods:avoid undermining local self sufficiency; • Market reasons: gain market share when the market cares & back-up to claims of sustainability; • Ecological & conservation reasons:avoid population crashes or extinctions & provide an incentive for maintaining habitat; • Cultural reasons:maintain “cultural keystone species”

4. FOCAL “INDICATOR” SPECIES

5. SUSTAINABLE?: MONITORING IS NEEDED TO BACK UP CLAIMS….

6. BEFORE WE START... • What is the overall objective (eg: biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, heterogenity within landscapes)? • What question(s) are we trying to answer? • How precise do we want to be? • Who will do the work? • What training needs before we can start (& how often)? • What is the control (ie: compared to what)? • Who will analyse the data?

7. WE ALSO TO ASK OURSELVES… • Who will act on the results (& who will translate these into a suitable format for decision makers)? • What is the spatial & time scale (rate of change; how big & where)? • What other factors are also affecting the same resource? (& how can these be distinguished from what you are monitoring)? • How long will it be before decisions regarding management options can be made?

8. WHAT OBJECTIVES FOR BAIKIAEA FOREST? Regener-ation Baikiaea forest Increased human activity (clearing, logging etc) Light and/or less frequent fire Hot and/or frequent fire Kalahari woodland & thicket Invasive trees & thicket Scrub/thicket Continuing fire Continuing fire Fire Grassland

9. IMPORTANT NEEDS: • Affordable in terms of time and money; • Focused on priority species & at the right scale; • Reliable & sufficiently accurate: no point if not reliable; • Starts with an initial assessment of existing resource management practices (if any).

10. DO THE JOB PROPERLY…or risk disempowerment “The results of inadequate monitoring can be both misleading and dangerous not only because of their inability to detect ecologically significant changes, but also because they create the illusion that something useful has been done” Legg, C J & L Nagy. 2006. Why most conservation monitoring is, but need not be, a waste of time. Journal of Environmental Management 78:194–199

11. LESSON 1: LOCAL PEOPLE ARE KEEN TO MONITOR THEIR HIGH VALUE PLANTS ….may be too keen…so priority setting is crucial!!

12. MAKE STRATEGIC CHOICES FOR MANAGEMENT & MONITORING High potential for sustainable harvest Low potential for sustainable harvest • resilient species • abundant, high value • lower input M&M • vulnerable species • costly & complex M&M • high precision required Potential for sustainable use influences how much input needs to put into management & monitoring.

13. ECOLOGICAL KEYSTONE SPECIES Do they need special attention?

14. PRIORITISE SPECIES BY ABUNDANCE OR RARITY

15. LESSON 2: THERE ARE SUCCESSES: Commiphora& linking different scales for management, monitoring & business

16. DEVIL’S CLAW & “AFTER SALES SERVICE”

17. LESSON 3: CRUCIAL TO TAKE AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO HVPS MANGEMENT & MONITORING HVPS ELEPHANT DAMAGE TIMBER EXTRACTION Focal areas & species FIRE GRAZERS

18. WHY IS PROTEA GAGUEDI EXTINCT IN NAMIBIA? Namibia 1966 Zambia 2010 • “life on the edge”; • traditional use for roots; • Proteceae very suscepitible to fungal infection; • Possible elephant damage; • habitat disturbance, high (grass) fuel loads after high rainfall; • inappropriate management response (cement around roots). (

19. LESSON 4: SEVERAL HVPS NEED A SERIOUS RETHINK • 1991 – WWF-US/pre-LIFE; • Event books (4 years, Kwando conservancy); • Cybertracker, Mark 1…what about new version?; • Links & lessons from game monitoring. • Local capacity; • National capacity; • Integrating different scales.

20. BERCHEMIA – a 4-17 year test Why continue?

21. LESSON 5: LIMITS TO LOCAL CAPACITY – EVEN WITH TECHNICAL SUPPORT But with small modifications, training & cross-checking there is great potential

22. REGULAR SUPPORT IS NEEDED TO GET RELIABLE DATA When entered into a computer database in Windhoek, it gets its own reality…or may not yield anything useful at all.

23. LESSON 6: BENEFITS FROM LEARNING FROM CONSERVANCY APPROACHES TO VALUE FROM WILDLIFE. • Incentives through getting best value are crucial to Game counts linked to Event Books & quotas; • Hunting quotas are advertized in an “auction system” to get best value; • Why should there be a monopoly on commercial timber logging (eg: Kwando CF)?

24. LESSON 7: NEED TO HARMONIZE NATIONAL& LOCAL RULES WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING IN PRACTICE

25. STAMPS? MGMT PLAN? MONITORING? What basis for an annual allowable cut (if the objective is sustainable harvest of a protected species?)

26. LESSON 8: OPPORTUNITIES TO GET TIME DEPTH: FIXED POINT PHOTOS BNP, 1966 Near Popa falls, 1966 KLT, 1966

27. 1950 FIXED POINT PHOTOS • Cost effective; • Slow, subtle changes visible; • Finding historical photos & relocation can give time depth; • Scale, measurements & “digital calipers” 1995 2004

28. LESSON 9: LONG TIME-LAGS ARE COMMON …and local “champion’s” & partnerships are crucial.

29. FUTURE OPTIONS: THERE ARE BENEFITS FROM BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Technology: Links to landscapes, links to cost effective data analysis & illegal activity monitoring

30. Cost effective tool for HVPS with scattered distributions?

31. CONCLUSIONS • This is a good time for an assessment of HVPS monitoring; • There would be real benefits for linking MET, NGO & Forestry efforts & common interests; • Effective links could spread the load; • Invest in field-based training & regular “refresher courses & cross-checks” (in 3-4 day courses, not a few hours). • Carefully select priority species; • Think about the benefits of CONINFO.

32. THANK YOU THANK YOU