So you want to restore habitat….but where do you start?? Part I: the “Big questions”
Several of our Landcares have identified biolinks as being an important focus for their future. Biolinks involve habitat creation in a strategic manner, to connect fragmented patched of habitat with new habitat “stepping stones”. Of course, that means successful biolinks projects require careful planning between our groups, including the strategic selection of sites and the development of methodical project plans to ensure long term success. These projects must also appeal to the wider community, particularly to landholders who live along key biolink paths.
In this article, I want to pose some questions that might stimulate thinking about what our local Landcare community would like to achieve next, and how best to start. I’ll use a new project running under the care of one of our Concongella Landcarers, Huib Ottow, as a case study. Huib has recently launched a plan for restoring a degraded bend of the Astons Scour creek. I visited his site in November and he gave me the grand tour of the site and project! I admired the methodical way he was approaching the project and thought it would make for a great case study, illustrating many of the steps I’d like to cover.
Huib Ottow, president of Concongella Landcare
The site of Huib’s habitat creation project at Aston’s Scour in Concongella
This shaped up to be a set of three articles over the next newsletters. We start with Part I: the “Big questions”, followed next time by Part II: Building the plan, and then Part III: On-the-ground work.
Part I: The “Big questions”
Step 1: Consider your values (WHY)
Why do you want to begin a conservation project? I actually find this a surprisingly hard question sometimes! If you are reading this article, you probably support the idea of environmental “conservation”. But what are we actually conserving? And why are there differences of opinion among people who consider themselves “conservationists?”
For example, you might meet a recreational fisherman and a pharmaceutical scientist, who both happily support the notion of conservation. If you dig deeper, you might find that a recreational fisherman is motivated because they value their ability to fish in the beautiful fishing spots with diverse types of fish on offer, while the pharmaceutical scientist values the ability to study chemicals found in rare plants that might lead to breakthroughs in modern medicines. You might also meet someone who supports conservation out of spiritual beliefs. It certainly isn’t a stretch to say the fisherman, the scientist, and the spiritually motivated conservationist might not always agree on how to do conservation, or where is the best place to spend our time and/or resources. The fisherman might primarily be concerned with protecting local waterways through methods such as catch limits and waterway erosion and weed control. The pharmaceutical scientist might prioritise directing funding towards the highest biodiversity sites globally, such as tropical rainforests. The spiritual individual might prioritise the creation of site-specific reserves where human activity is minimised or restricted entirely. Differences in personal values can still lead to plenty of disagreements among “conservationists”, as we try to reconcile our different values, perspectives, and goals. But at the end of the day, we are all here because we each value and want to conserve some part of the environment.
So what do you value, and WHY? You might be motivated by a desire to protect iconic or endangered species. You might be concerned with preserving natural beauty. You might be motivated by spiritual or cultural reasons, or by the protection of the health and wellbeing of human communities. This is what forms your personal “environmental ethic”. We all have one, even if we have never really thought about it! Your “ethic” is just the system of principles that guides your actions – based on what you consider “right” and “wrong” and what you value in life.
Clearly asking WHY at the start can help you:
- prioritise your actions (which is extremely important when time and resources are limited, as they often are when it comes to conservation!);
- succinctly express your mission and attract similarly valued volunteers, who are most likely to find participation rewarding and continue to offer their support ;
- recognise the validity of values different from your own to build a more diverse team;
- communicate effectively with people of diverse interests to improve partnerships and secure necessary local support; and
- avoid misunderstandings and disagreements arising from poor understanding of your teammates’ motivations that might cause slowdowns.
|
So consider your values, make sure your project will be fulfilling to you and likely to gain support where you need it, but, as Huib put it, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!”
So with that, let’s move on to the next two steps: WHERE and WHAT
Step 2: Identify a site (WHERE)*
*Feel free to swap the order of steps 2 and 3
After you have considered WHY you want to embark on your conservation project, you can ask WHERE will your project take place? You might already have a site in mind, but even then, consider why you were drawn to it.
What factors might be important when choosing a site? You might choose a site based on its ecological significance. These may include areas that are home to endangered species, important habitats for migratory birds, or areas that serve as critical linkages between larger conservation areas. You might also consider how this site ties in to the larger landscape (this is key if you’re goal is establishing biolinks for example!). You might choose a site based on the imminent nature of encroaching threats, such as a new housing development or the spread of a new noxious weed. You might have a personal connection to the location itself. Perhaps it is a natural space close to your home, or you have memories there as a child. It could hold a deep cultural or spiritual significance to you. It might have recreational value to you – such as your favourite walking or horse-riding track. Or it could have aesthetic value to you in that it contains your favourite flower or animal species.
You might also consider whether there is local interest in the site. A site that is also important to other local organisations, such as traditional owners, land trusts or conservation groups, can help to ensure that the restoration efforts are sustainable in the long-term. And similarly, it is always important to consider the feasibility of your preferred site. Some sites may be harder to restore than others, due to the complexity of the habitat and the presence of human activities or development, the availability of resources, the condition of the site, and the type of restoration required.
|
Step 3: Identify your goals (WHAT)*
*Feel free to swap the order of steps 2 and 3
Well, our goal is “conservation”, right? But what does that mean?? Now it is time to consider the WHAT.
WHAT are you actually working to “conserve”? The fisherman was working to conserve an abundance of tasty fish and the aesthetic beauty of their favourite fishing sites. The scientist was working to conserve species diversity within sites in faraway places that contain rare and unique species that may hold exciting pharmaceutical discoveries. And the spiritual individual was working to conserve sacred sites with spiritually significant animals.
Do you want to conserve ecosystem diversity (the variety of different ecosystem types in your local area)? Functional diversity (the variety of different roles that species can play)? Species diversity (the number of different types of species)? Are you mostly concerned with preventing extinctions and thus conserving threatened species? Or are you mostly concerned with conserving iconic species (that are widely recognised and are important to building public awareness and enthusiasm for conservation work)?
Creating large reserves out of a desire to conserve ecosystem or landscape scale diversity is a very different activity from establishing captive breeding programs out of a desire to conserve rare or endangered species. And that is not to say one is better than the other, but rather that they require very different uses of time and resources and create different types of change in the world.
|
We have now identified what is motivating us, where we’d like to focus our efforts and what we want to do. Now we can start to move on from those “big questions” and start looking at the logistics of planning our project. But we will save that for next time!