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Contending with uncertainty in conservation management decisions.

Michael A McCarthy¹

¹School of Botany, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

|August 21, 2014

Summary

Efficient biodiversity conservation requires addressing management uncertainties. Quantitative methods help, but their accuracy in real-world conservation decisions remains unexamined, impacting global biodiversity goals.

Keywords:

conservation biology decision theory ecology info-gap maximin probability

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Area of Science:

Conservation Science
Environmental Management
Decision Analysis

Background:

Global biodiversity spending is insufficient for conservation needs.
Conservation management decisions are significantly hindered by pervasive uncertainties.
Uncertainties span objectives, system dynamics, management options, influences, and constraints.

Purpose of the Study:

To review quantitative methods for addressing uncertainty in conservation management.
To highlight the limitations of current methods in handling ignorance and indeterminacy.
To question the sufficiency of models used in conservation decision-making under uncertainty.

Main Methods:

Review of probabilistic and nonprobabilistic quantitative methods for uncertainty management.
Analysis of approaches optimizing expected performance or minimum requirements.
Examination of the gap between theoretical uncertainty handling and practical model accuracy.

Main Results:

Existing quantitative methods primarily address epistemic uncertainties.
Methods often focus on expected outcomes or performance thresholds.
The accuracy and sufficiency of models used to approximate reality in conservation are not yet evaluated.

Conclusions:

Quantitative methods are essential for conservation decision-making under uncertainty.
Current methods may not fully capture the complexities of ignorance and indeterminacy in environmental management.
Further research is needed to validate the accuracy of models used in conservation management.