OuTrop ecological monitoring concepts report-FINAL · monitoring programme is purposeful with...

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The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project Ecological Monitoring Project

ECOLOGICAL MONITORING TO SUPPORT

CONSERVATION IN KALIMANTAN’S FORESTS:

CONCEPTS AND DESIGN

THE ORANGUTAN TROPICAL PEATLAND PROJECT

Position Paper

July 2012

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© 2012, The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project.

All rights reserved.

Email [email protected]

Website www.outrop.com

Blog www.outrop.blogspot.com

Citation: Harrison, M. E., Marchant, N. C., and Husson, S. J. (2012) Ecological Monitoring to Support

Conservation in Kalimantan’s Forests: Concepts and Design. Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project Report,

Palangka Raya, Indonesia.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of OuTrop,

their partners or sponsors.

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Summary

Ecological monitoring is vital for effective conservation management, as it helps steer projects

towards implementing management interventions (activities) in such a way to successfully achieve

long-term conservation goals. Many different types of ecological monitoring and indicators for

monitoring exist, but, to be meaningful and practically feasible, any ecological monitoring

programme should be:

1) Purposeful with respect to conservation objectives;

2) Effective in demonstrating links between the ecological variable(s) of interest and human

activities; and

3) Realistic within a project’s financial and other constraints.

This is facilitated through matching of monitoring research to specific project conservation goals and

gaps in knowledge; careful selection of indicators for monitoring, based on both their utility in

detecting meaningful change in the ecosystem and the associated costs of monitoring; establishing

baseline reference conditions against which progress towards a more desirable state can be

measured; consideration of habitat-specific ecosystem characteristics; and adaptive management

and monitoring, wherein management activities and monitoring are continually developed and

adapted based on input from the other.

OuTrop’s ecological monitoring programme is being developed to assess the effectiveness of

conservation interventions being implemented in our core Sabangau research site; and to establish

frameworks, methods and baselines for ecological monitoring studies to support conservation

management in other areas of forest in the region. This involves the generation of scientifically-

tractable, policy-relevant research questions based around conservation objectives; assessing the

utility and cost effectiveness of a variety of indicators at different spatio-temporal levels; establishing

baseline reference levels for these indicators; and consideration of how protocols can be simplified

to reduce cost, without reducing the quality of data or its utility for informing management decisions.

These indicators cover a range of spatio-temporal scales, and include information from flora and

fauna surveys, forest cover/area assessments, forest loss and land use change.

Our monitoring programme thus involves intensive research into indicators of forest condition,

including forest area, structure and productivity; rapid-response ecological disturbance indicators,

such as birds, butterflies and ants; and monitoring of our flagship conservation primate and other

mammal species, including felids, sun bears and a variety of smaller mammal species. We

anticipate that this knowledge and capacity building will provide important benefits for biodiversity

conservation in both Sabangau and other forest areas in Kalimantan.

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Acknowledgements

The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project is a research and conservation organisation that works in

Indonesia in partnership with the Centre for International Cooperation in Sustainable Management of

Tropical Peatlands at the University of Palangka Raya. We are supported by the Orangutan Tropical

Peatland Trust (Registered UK Charity No.1142870), and linked to the Wildlife Conservation

Research Unit (WildCRU) in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, the Wildlife

Research Group in the Anatomy School of the University of Cambridge, the College of Life and

Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter, and the Department of Geography at the

University of Leicester.

The research described in this report was undertaken in the Natural Laboratory for the Study of

Peat-swamp Forest (NLPSF) by the researchers, staff and volunteers of OuTrop and CIMTROP,

whom we thank for their hard work and dedication. We would like to thank the people and

administrations of Kereng Bangkerai, Kecamatan Sabangau and Kotamadya Palangka Raya for

ongoing support; the University of Palangka Raya for supporting our research in the NLPSF; the

State Ministry of Research and Technology for providing permission to undertake research in

Indonesia; and the Arcus Foundation, the Australian Orangutan Project, the Rufford Small Grants

For Nature, the US Fish and Wildlife Service Great Apes Conservation Fund, the Wallace Global

Fund and the Orangutan Appeal UK for financial support of our programmes.

We thank all colleagues who have engaged in discussion and debate with us over the years that has

helped us in developing our ecological monitoring strategy, in particular Dr Helen Morrogh-Bernard,

Dr Susan Cheyne, Laura D’Arcy, Dr Suwido Limin, David Ehlers Smith, Marc Dragiewicz, Peter

Houlihan, Laura Graham, Prof. Jack Rieley, Dr Susan Page, Megan Cattau, Nicholas Boyd, Eric

Perlett, Dr Matt Struebig and Dr Toby Gardner.

Field data collection in this project has been aided by the assistance of Fransiskus Agus Harsanto,

Ari Purwanto, Santiano, Salahudin, Hendri, Marc Dragiewicz, Chariklia Kapsali, Aman, Adul, Azis

and Sis, to whom we are very grateful.

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Contents

Summary _______________________________________________________________________ ii

Acknowledgements _______________________________________________________________iii

Contents ________________________________________________________________________ iv

Introduction _____________________________________________________________________ 1

What is ecological monitoring and why is it important? _______________________________________ 1

Who uses ecological monitoring? _________________________________________________________ 1

Essential elements for ecological monitoring___________________________________________ 2

Types of ecological monitoring ______________________________________________________ 3

Implementation monitoring _____________________________________________________________ 3

Effectiveness (or trend) monitoring________________________________________________________ 3

Validation monitoring __________________________________________________________________ 3

Biological indicators ______________________________________________________________ 4

Forest structure (or habitat) indicators _____________________________________________________ 4

Environmental indicators________________________________________________________________ 4

Biodiversity indicators (surrogate species) __________________________________________________ 4

Focal species __________________________________________________________________________ 5

Threatened species and flagship conservation species ________________________________________ 5

Ecological disturbance indicators _________________________________________________________ 5

Baseline levels and controls ________________________________________________________ 6

Establishing baselines and reference levels _________________________________________________ 6

Use of control sites_____________________________________________________________________ 6

Ensuring cost efficiency and feasibility of monitoring ____________________________________ 7

Identifying cost-efficient indicators________________________________________________________ 7

Simplifying methods to reduce salary costs _________________________________________________ 7

The need for adaptive monitoring and management ____________________________________ 8

Habitat-specific considerations and peat-swamp forests _________________________________ 9

OuTrop’s ecological monitoring programme __________________________________________ 11

Programme goals and design____________________________________________________________ 11

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Ecological variables monitored __________________________________________________________ 12

References _____________________________________________________________________ 14

Further Reading ______________________________________________________________________ 16

1


Introduction

What is ecological monitoring and why is it important?

Ecological monitoring is vital for effective conservation management, as it helps steer projects

towards implementing management interventions (activities) in such a way to successfully achieve

long-term conservation goals. In other words, it helps ensure that projects “do what they say on the

tin”. Ecological monitoring involves the repeated measurement of ecological and other variables, to

detect changes in the environment over time. This can be as simple as illustrating that, for example,

the total area of peat-swamp forest in Central Kalimantan has changed over time. Such an approach

is limited in its utility, however, as it only tells us that a change has occurred, without telling us why

that change occurred or how conservation managers might be able to act upon this change.

A well-designed ecological monitoring programme provides feedback on the impacts of human

activities – both positive (management interventions) and negative (e.g., logging, hunting, fire) – on

biodiversity. This helps conservation managers assess whether their management interventions are

helping them to achieve their stated conservation aims. Combined with information on the cost of

intervention implementation, this helps managers to consider whether they should continue with

their existing intervention programme, adapt it in any way and/or consider introducing new

management interventions. In this way, ecological monitoring helps ensure that the management

interventions being implemented are effective and cost efficient, thereby enabling conservation

projects to achieve maximum impact at minimum cost.

Who uses ecological monitoring?

The answer to this question is simple: any area manager/s with biodiversity conservation as a

project objective should employ an ecological monitoring programme, to ensure that their

management programme is effective and cost efficient. Users of ecological monitoring may therefore

include national park authorities, managers in charge of other types of protected areas for

biodiversity conservation, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+)

projects, and businesses that may have an influence on biodiversity and are adopting good

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards to maintain High Conservation Value Forest

(HCVF) areas. Such businesses may include oil-palm, mining, or logging companies; food

agriculture; fisheries; and even tourism operators. Projects may be obliged to adopt ecological

monitoring by law, or to achieve authentication to voluntary industry standards to demonstrate that

the project is doing all it can to help conserve biodiversity (helping them to sell their product). For

example, ecological monitoring is a key element of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance

Project Design Standards for REDD+ [1].

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Essential elements for ecological monitoring

To be meaningful and practically feasible, any ecological monitoring should be [2, 3]:

1) Purposeful with respect to conservation objectives;

2) Effective in demonstrating links between the ecological variable(s) of interest and human

activities; and

3) Realistic within a project’s financial and other constraints.

Unawareness of, and/or inability to meet, these criteria has led to a frequent lack of implementation

of (suitable) ecological programmes by conservation projects, with the result that the considerable

benefits of ecological monitoring are often not obtained [2, 4]. This is unfortunate, as it means that

much conservation funding will have been squandered on ineffective management interventions

and, hence, that many biodiversity conservation opportunities will not have been claimed.

Meeting the first of these criteria is only possible if clear conservation goals exist against which

progress can be assessed. Conservation goals will vary from project to project, depending on the

underlying aims of the project (e.g., ecosystem services vs. single species conservation), ecology of

the area (e.g., which species are present), the past history of disturbance (i.e., the starting point),

previous conservation experience in the area and the resources available. Consequently, ecological

monitoring programmes should also vary from project

to project, being tailored to the specific goals of that

project.

Clearly, this requires effective dialogue between

conservation managers and the scientific

staff/consultants conducting ecological monitoring

research. This is not only important in ensuring that the

monitoring programme is purposeful with respect to

conservation goals, but also to facilitate adaptive

management, in which the results of ecological

monitoring research feed back into the management

process, leading to improvements in the management

intervention regime.

The next six sections of this report deal with how to

design an ecological monitoring programme to meet

the criteria of effectiveness and realism.

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Types of ecological monitoring

Ecological monitoring programmes come in all shapes and sizes, depending on the aims of the

project, management interventions being implemented, financial and other resources available for

monitoring, and the area’s underlying ecology and disturbance history. In essence, there are three

main types of monitoring that are relevant to managed forests: implementation, effectiveness and

validation monitoring [2, 5, 6].

Implementation monitoring

This consists of simply monitoring the

management interventions implemented (e.g.,

number of illegal logging patrols conducted) to

assess whether minimum standards have been

met. Because this does not include monitoring

of biodiversity, it can say nothing about whether

these interventions have had the desired

impact(s) on biodiversity. Indeed, it is possible

that the interventions employed might be

entirely unsuccessful in achieving the

anticipated biodiversity impact.

Effectiveness (or trend) monitoring

This involves the monitoring of ecological variables within the ecosystem. Many ecological

monitoring programmes are of this nature; however, this only questions if a change has occurred,

without attempting to assess why the change has occurred (change can happen for reasons entirely

unrelated to management). Such an approach is therefore also of limited utility, because without

understanding why a change has occurred, it is impossible to effectively manage the direction and

pace of this change, say which of the management interventions deployed are effective and which

are not, predict intervention performance in other areas, or identify opportunities for improvement.

Validation monitoring

This type of monitoring is most useful, as it enables changes in management interventions to be

linked to changes in the ecological variables of interest, and consequent assessment of whether

management is having the desired impact. Effective management interventions can be identified

and potentially increased to improve results, and ineffective interventions can be identified and

improved or discontinued, enabling streamlining of management to achieve maximum results with

minimum resources. Central to this is the use of testable, scientifically-tractable and policy-relevant

hypotheses regarding the impact of management interventions on biodiversity, and well-designed

sampling regimes to help identify causal relationships.

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Biological indicators

Borneo’s forests are among the most biodiverse terrestrial ecosystems on earth [7]. Consequently, it

is impossible to monitor every aspect of them, necessitating the identification of appropriate

“indicators” through which changes in the ecosystem components of interest can be assessed [8].

Careful indicator selection is crucial if the impacts of human activities on the ecosystem are to be

identified accurately. Certain indicators may also serve as an early-warning signal, providing early

indications of ecosystem changes that are likely to have a large impact on biodiversity [8, 9].

A huge variety of different potential biological indicators exists, and the indicators chosen for use in

a project will depend on the conservation goals, ecology of the area and biodiversity present, and

resources available for monitoring. All indicators must, however, satisfy two essential criteria [2]:

1) They accurately reflect something that cannot be measured directly, while also providing

more information than that relating only to themselves; and

2) Their field measurement is logistically and financially feasible.

A typology of different indicator types is given below (see

also [2]).

Forest structure (or habitat) indicators

Monitoring forest structure provides a link between

management interventions and biodiversity impacts, which is

essential for validation monitoring. Put simply, management

influences the forest, which influences biodiversity. For

example, a reduction in forest area would be expected to

lead to a negative impact on populations of forest-dependent

species, such as orangutans or gibbons. Habitat condition is

generally monitored at either a landscape (e.g., measures of

forest extent derived from remote images) and/or a stand

level (e.g., tree height, canopy and ground vegetation cover).

Environmental indicators

Environmental indicators provide a mechanism through which a physical/non-biological

characteristic of the environment that is otherwise difficult to measure can be assessed; e.g.,

pollution levels in a stream. This type of indicator may be useful for monitoring in mining areas.

Biodiversity indicators (surrogate species)

Biodiversity indicators are ‘surrogates’ of biodiversity; i.e., differences in their abundance and/or

distribution provide an indication of the level of diversity of other taxa. This concept actually receives

relatively weak theoretical and empirical support [10].

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Focal species

These species effectively represent partial surrogates for biodiversity. They are characterised as

species that have specific ecological requirements, the protection of which may help ensure the

conservation of other species. Focal species are used to identify specific threats and the minimum

acceptable level of that threat is then identified using the species most susceptible to that threat.

This incorporates the concepts of area-limited, dispersal-limited, resource-limited, process-limited,

umbrella and keystone species [11, 12]. The main disadvantage of this approach is that we currently

lack adequate knowledge on species characteristics to implement such an approach in most

situations, leading to frequently subjective choices of focal species.

Threatened species and flagship conservation species

Conservation of threatened ‘flagship’

species frequently represents the main goal

of biodiversity conservation projects and,

consequently, such species commonly

feature in ecological monitoring

programmes. Monitoring threatened species

alone will rarely be adequate, however, as

this approach fails to consider the underlying

integrity of the ecosystem, upon which all

species in the ecosystem rely. Thus,

increases in populations of threatened

species could be accompanied by

undesirable decreases in populations of

other species. Many threatened species are also threatened by species-specific stressors, such as

hunting or disease, and/or have very specific resource requirements, to the extent that trends in

populations of these species are unlikely to reflect changes in the wider biological community.

Ecological disturbance indicators

This is potentially the most useful type of indicator, as changes in their populations illustrate the links

between management interventions and underlying “ecological integrity” [2, 13-15]; i.e., “the quality

of an ecosystem in which its constituent species and natural ecosystem processes are sustained”

[16]. In essence, this refers to ‘natural’ forests, with the tacit assumption that conserving this

naturalness will protect the species found within the forest and its ecosystem services. Ecological

disturbance indicators are identified through field tests, comparing species or groups of species

between sites of differing disturbance levels. Multi-taxa comparisons are needed to assess which

indicators are the optimum performers [8, 15].

6


Baseline levels and controls

In assessing the impacts of human activities on an ecosystem and its biodiversity, it is important to

establish: (i) that any change in the ecosystem is indeed a ‘true’ change and lies outside of natural

levels of variation; (ii) whether any confirmed changes in the ecosystem represent a change towards

a desired natural/less disturbed state; and (iii) that any change is, in fact, a result of the

management interventions and would not have occurred in their absence. This is achieved through

establishing baseline levels for the variable(s) of interest, particularly in minimally disturbed forests,

and establishing control sites not subjected to the management intervention/s under investigation.

Establishing baselines and reference levels

Spatio-temporal variations will naturally occur in any variable measured in any ecosystem. If a

change detected through ecological monitoring lies within natural variability levels, we cannot be

confident that it represents a real effect of human activities. Furthermore, in the absence of data

collected from areas of no or minimal disturbance, it is impossible to objectively assess whether any

confirmed changes resulting from management interventions are occurring in the desired direction;

i.e., if the forest is approaching a more ‘natural state’. To maintain scientific integrity, this natural

state should be defined using objective field measurements. Thus, ecosystem changes and

management impact are evaluated against established baselines and reference points, which

indicate the average condition of the indicator and the variability around this [2, 8, 17, 18].

Use of control sites

Scientists use a combination of experimental and control conditions to assess the impact of

experimental procedures on the variable/s under investigation. In the case of a managed forest, the

experimental condition would be the managed area of forest and the control would be an

ecologically-similar area not subjected to management. While this may not always be feasible, it is

desirable to increase the confidence in assertions regarding the impacts of management

interventions in the forest of interest. It is important to select control sites carefully, so that they

mirror as closely as possible the characteristics of the managed forest and have a similar probability

of being disturbed in the absence of forest management (e.g., forests in very remote/rugged areas

are likely to be at relatively low risk of disturbance, even in the absence of protection). This is

achieved through the use of “matching techniques”, which control for factors influencing the

likelihood of disturbance in the absence of protection, thereby matching like forests to like [19, 20].

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Ensuring cost efficiency and feasibility of monitoring

Given the highly restricted funding of most conservation projects, it is clearly crucial to ensure that

ecological monitoring is cost effective and, ideally, enables refinement of management intervention

regimes to reduce overall project costs. Two key approaches to achieve this are highlighted below.

Identifying cost-efficient indicators

The aim here is to acquire the required amount of indicator information to conduct the necessary

assessments of management intervention effectiveness at the minimum cost. Surprisingly few

examples of such research exist. The best available example of such an indicator assessment is

that of Gardner et al. [15], who adopted the following four-stage approach:

1) Assess the relative usefulness of each potential indicator in documenting the response of

interest, as discussed above.

2) Conduct a detailed audit of the cost of collecting, analysing and interpreting data for each

indicator, including salary costs at the minimum level of expertise required to obtain results.

3) Standardise survey costs, based on differences in sample effort between different taxa, to

enable direct comparisons.

4) Compare the information gained/unit cost across taxa, to identify “high-performance”

indicators (i.e., those that yield high amounts of information at low cost).

Simplifying methods to reduce salary costs

Opportunities exist to reduce the cost of ecological monitoring if the level of expertise needed to

reliably collect, analyse and interpret data can be reduced. Frequently, the chief obstacle faced will

be the identification skills needed to accurately conduct surveys of some taxa, such as birds and

invertebrates. Potential ways in which this obstacle can be overcome include training of local

villagers, students and scientists; reducing the depth of identification conducted (e.g., from species,

to genus or family); focusing on only a restricted sub-set of easily identifiable species; using morpho-

species, as opposed to formal taxonomic identifications [21]; or, better still, eliminating the need for

specialist identification skills through focusing on assessment of “functional traits” in target indicator

groups, such as body or wing length [22]. When considering such an approach, it is essential to

compare the utility of any such methodological simplification for informing management with results

from in-depth taxonomic analyses.

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The need for adaptive monitoring and management

Our knowledge of the natural world, and the impacts of human threats and management on this, is

very incomplete. Consequently, any rigid management programme unable to adjust in light of new

knowledge will never be capable of meeting its true potential for biodiversity conservation. Similarly,

any ecological monitoring programme that is unable to evolve as new scientific information emerges

and research questions change (due to changes in the ecosystem, threats faced, management

interventions implemented or project aims) will also be of very limited use to management. Thus, to

ensure effective management and useful, relevant ecological monitoring, it is essential that both

management and monitoring can adapt based on input from the other [2, 23, 24].

Adaptive management and monitoring is more than just simple trial and error, or a willingness to be

flexible. It involves a continuous, integrated cycle of design, management and monitoring, to test key

assumptions regarding the impacts of human activities and reduce our uncertainty surrounding

these, which, in turn, enables both sides to adapt and learn [3, 24].

Important criteria of effective adaptive monitoring include [23]:

1) That monitoring is driven by scientifically-tractable, policy-relevant questions/hypotheses

regarding the impacts of management interventions on the ecosystem. Thus, if these

questions change, monitoring will likely also need to change in reflection of this.

2) That a conceptual model of the present understanding of how the ecosystem in question

functions, and the impacts of human activities on this, is developed and continually updated.

This provides the framework around which the above questions are constructed.

3) That rigorous statistical design is established at the outset.

4) That developing and refining questions occurs through a partnership between scientists

carrying out the monitoring, statisticians, policy makers and conservation managers.

Institutional and political barriers can make this criterion difficult to achieve.

5) That the integrity of long-term datasets on core ecological variables of high relevance is not

breached or compromised by the introduction of new sampling or analytical methods (e.g.,

by ‘improving’ the method half way through, so that a higher proportion of individuals in the

population are detected in one half of the data set than the other).

Management interventions –

e.g., logging patrols, fire fighting,

canal damming

Ecological monitoring – e.g.,

intervention implementation,

forest structure, ecological

disturbance indicators

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Habitat-specific considerations and peat-swamp forests

Different forests can vary enormously in their species composition, ecology, specific threats faced

and appropriate management solutions to mitigate these threats. Consequently, no single

management or ecological monitoring programme will be applicable for use in all forests [25].

For example, although South-east Asia’s peat-swamp forests have received relatively little scientific

attention compared to dryland forests in the region, it is clear that there are important ecological

differences between these forests that must be taken into account by both conservation managers

and ecologists. Most important among these is near-permanent water-logging in peat-swamp

forests, where the water level may be at or above the surface for much of the year [26]. This results

in (i) a very important role of water in nutrient cycling in peat-swamp forests, e.g., [27]; (ii) habitat-

specific threats, most notably the construction of drainage channels for timber extraction by illegal

loggers and agricultural conversion, leading to lowering of water tables, peat degradation and

increased risk of fire [26]; and (iii) habitat-specific management solutions to these threats, such as

the construction of dams to block these channels and restore natural hydrology [28].

Such habitat-specific considerations have

clear relevance when considering the

research questions to be investigated and,

hence, the indicators and methods needed

to answer these questions. Bearing this in

mind, and considering the importance of

sound conceptual models of how forests

might work for developing research

questions for adaptive monitoring (see

previous section), we have developed a

habitat-specific conceptual model of peat-

swamp forest ecosystem function, adapted

from previous models developed for dryland

forests [29-31]. This model is presented in Figure 1 and discussed in detail elsewhere [32].

10


Figure 1. A conceptual model of peat-swamp forest ecosystem processes and functions. Management interventions (dashed line) can be targeted towards mitigating anthropogenic disturbances (stochastic factors, red circle) to maintain ecosystem function and services.

ST

OC

HA

ST

IC

FA

CT

OR

S

NATURAL

•

Extreme climatic events

•

Eruptions of native biota

•

Lightning fires

•

Natural colonisation by ‘new’ species

•

Geological events

ANTHROPOGENIC

•

Human-accelerated climate change

•

Manipulation of species (e.g., logging, hunting, invasive alien species)

•

Alteration of nutrient cycles (e.g., timber removal, agriculture)

•

Ecosystem restoration

•

Human-induced disturbance to hydrological cycles (e.g., drainage)

•

Fire subsequent to lowered water tables

•

Pollution and addition of novel chemicals (e.g., fertilisers, lime)

ATMOSPHERE

ORGANIC

MATTER

WATER

PEAT + MINERAL SOIL

AVAILABLE

NUTRIENTS

Live plants

Live consumers

Dead organisms

Water

Peat

EC

OS

YS

TE

M

ST

AT

E F

AC

TO

RS

•

Time

•

Topography

•

Parent material (peat)

•

Climate

•

Biota*

EC

OS

YS

TE

M F

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CT

IO

�S

A�

D S

ER

VIC

ES

•

Wood production (including for local

housing needs)

•

Water quality

•

Water quantity (slowing wet-season

floodwaters and maintaining dry-season

base flows)

•

Air quality (gas exchange)

•

Storage of elements (e.g., C, N, metals)

•

Maintenance of biodiversity, including

fish and NTFPs (local food and

medicine)

•

Fire prevention

•

Maintenance of local climate (e.g., rain)

•

Crop pollination and seed dispersal

•

Pest control

•

Genetic resources

•

Cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values

X

ECOSYSTEM

MANAGEMENT

INTRA-SYSTEM CYCLING

11


OuTrop’s ecological monitoring programme

Programme goals and design

Our ecological monitoring programme is being developed in collaboration with the Centre for the

International Cooperation in Sustainable Management of Tropical Peatlands (CIMTROP) to achieve

two main goals:

1) To evaluate and improve the effectiveness of CIMTROP’s management interventions for

conservation of ecological integrity and threatened flagship species in the Natural Laboratory

of Peat-Swamp Forest (NLPSF) and Kalampangan Research Stations, in Sabangau, Central

Kalimantan, Indonesia; and

2) To establish frameworks, methods and baselines for ecological monitoring studies in other

areas of forest, and particularly peat-swamp forest, in the region.

In light of these goals, our ecological monitoring programme is purposeful in relation to CIMTROP’s

management goals, validatory and has a broad focus. It includes conceptual model and research

question generation, and assessing the effectiveness and feasibility of a variety of types of indicator

at different spatio-temporal levels. This process of conceptual model and research question

generation is ongoing, such that research questions and methods can be adapted in light of

improvements in our knowledge, or changes in threat status, conservation aims and/or management

interventions.

As described in the following sub-section, we are collecting and analysing data on forest

structure/habitat condition, a variety of potentially useful ecological disturbance indicator taxa and

the area’s threatened flagship conservation species. Collection of data on forest structure/habitat

condition will facilitate interpretation of the links between human disturbance and changes in

biodiversity. Data are being collected from relatively pristine, highly-degraded and burnt areas of

forest in Sabangau, to (i) establish natural spatio-temporal variations in indicators, including

seasonal variations in abundance that may confound assessments; (ii) establish baseline reference

levels for minimally disturbed forests; and (iii) assess the responses of different potential indicators

to human disturbance. In this way, we aim to ensure that our monitoring programme is effective in

documenting ecological changes with respect to differences in human disturbance.

This data collection will be supplemented by an analysis of associated costs, to assess the cost-

effectiveness of the different indicators and identify “high-performance” indicators. Furthermore, our

data collection protocols are being developed with the future potential for method simplification in

mind. That is, data are being collected in as much (taxonomic) depth as possible initially and

includes documentation of functional traits that are simple to measure, so that, upon analysis, the

simplest level of data collection (and, hence, observer expertise) necessary to retain the utility of the

indicator for assessing ecological disturbance can be identified. In this way, we aim to minimise the

financial resources needed for effective ecological monitoring in peat-swamp forests, helping to

ensure the feasibility of the programme.

12


Ecological variables monitored

A brief overview of the different indicators that we are studying in our monitoring programme is given

below. Detailed descriptions of methods and results will be provided in subsequent OuTrop reports

and/or can be found in the References section.

Ecological Disturbance Indicators

We are evaluating the utility of a number of

potential indicators of ecological

disturbance, and establishing monitoring

protocols and baseline reference levels for

these. Faunal indicators that have shown

high promise in trials and are currently the

topic of detailed investigation include birds,

frugivorous butterflies and ants.

Photo: Eric Perlett

Forest Structure – Habitat Condition

Habitat condition is monitored through (i)

assessments of forest area and loss; (ii)

vegetation plots to detect changes in forest

structure (e.g., tree size) and tree

recruitment/mortality; and (iii) assessments

of forest productivity through litter-fall

surveys and monitoring of primate

fruit/flower/leaf flush availability in tree plots.

Photo: Bernat Ripoll

13


Felids – Flagship Species

We conduct monitoring of cats and their prey

using camera traps to obtain population

density estimates. Focal species include the

clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), marbled

cat (Pardofelis marmorata) and flat-headed

cat (Prionailurus planiceps).

All photos: OuTrop/WildCRU, University of Oxford

Primates – Flagship Species

We conduct detailed long-term population

assessments and behavioural studies on

three of the flagship primate species in this

habitat: orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus

wurmbii), gibbons (Hylobates albibarbis)

and red langurs (Presbytis rubicunda).

Photo: David Ehlers Smith

14


References

1. CCBA (2008) Climate, Community & Biodiversity Project Design Standards Second Edition.

Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), Arlington, VA.

2. Gardner (2010) Monitoring Forest Biodiversity: Improving Conservation Through Ecologically-

Responsible Management. Earthscan, London.

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management. Conservation Biology 14: 941-950.

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15. Gardner, et al. (2008) The cost-effectiveness of biodiversity surveys in tropical forests. Ecology

Letters 11: 139-150.

16. Hunter and Gibbs (2007) Fundamentals of Conservation Biology: 3rd edition. Blackwell, Oxford.

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17. Carignan and Villard (2001) Selecting indicator species to monitor ecological integrity: a review.

Environmental Management and Assessment 78: 45-61.

18. Stoddard, et al. (2006) Setting expectations for the ecological condition of streams: the concept

of reference condition. Ecological Applications 16: 1267-1276.

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deforestation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105: 16089-16094.

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rapid assessment of biodiversity. Ecological Applications 6: 594-607.

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via functional traits. Biodiversity and Conservation 19: 2873-2893.

23. Lindenmayer and Likens (2009) Adaptive monitoring: a new paradigm for long-term research

and monitoring. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24: 482-486.

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Conservation and Development Projects. Island Press, Washington DC.

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approach really work? Tropical Conservation Science 5: 1-11.

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Southeast Asia. Catena 73: 212-224.

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32. Harrison (submitted) Using conceptual models to understand ecosystem function and impacts of

human activities in tropical peat-swamp forests.

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Further Reading

The following articles by OuTrop scientists provide further background and information relevant to

this report:

Cheyne, et al. (2008). Density and population estimate of gibbons (Hylobates albibarbis) in the

Sabangau catchment, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Primates 49: 50-56.

Cheyne (2010). Behavioural ecology of gibbons (Hylobates albibarbis) in a degraded peat-swamp

forest. In: J. Supriatna and S. L. Gursky (Eds). Indonesian Primates. Springer, New York. pp.

121-156.

Harrison, et al. (2007a). What can apes tell us about the health of their environment? A review of the

use of orang-utans and gibbons as indicators of changes in habitat quality in tropical peat

swamp forests. In: J. O. Rieley et al. (Eds). Restoration and Wise Use of Tropical Peatland:

Problems of Biodiversity, Fire, Poverty and Water Management. Proceedings of the

International Symposium and Workshop on Tropical Peatland, Palangka Raya, 20-24

September 2005. EU RESTORPEAT Partnership, University of Palangka Raya, Indonesia and

Wageningen University and Research Institute, The Netherlands. pp. 104-109.

Harrison, et al. (2007b). Biological effects of smoke from dry-season fires in non-burnt areas of the

Sabangau peat-swamp forest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. In: J. O. Rieley et al. (Eds).

Carbon-Climate-Human Interaction on Tropical Peatland. Proceedings of The International

Symposium and Workshop on Tropical Peatland, Yogyakarta, 27-29 August 2007, EU

CARBOPEAT and RESTORPEAT Partnership, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia and

University of Leicester, United Kingdom. www.geog.le.ac.uk/carbopeat/yogyaproc.html.

Harrison, et al. (2010). Orangutan energetics and the influence of fruit availability in the non-masting

peat-swamp forest of Sabangau, Indonesian Borneo. International Journal of Primatology 31:

585-607.

Harrison and Husson (2011). The relevance of biodiversity studies for climate change adaptation

and mitigation in Indonesian peat-swamp forests. In: D. Murdiyarso (Ed). Tropical Wetland

Ecosystems of Indonesia: Science Needs to Address Climate Change Adaptation and

Mitigation. Centre for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.

http://www.forestsclimatechange.org/fileadmin/tropical-workshop/Plenary-

2/9A_HarrisonM_Relevance%20of%20ecological.pdf.

Husson, et al. (2007). The importance of ecological monitoring for habitat management - A case

study in the Sabangau forest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. In: J. O. Rieley et al. (Eds).

Carbon-Climate-Human Interaction on Tropical Peatland. Proceedings of The International

Symposium and Workshop on Tropical Peatland, Yogyakarta, 27-29 August 2007, EU

CARBOPEAT and RESTORPEAT Partnership, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia and

University of Leicester, United Kingdom. www.geog.le.ac.uk/carbopeat/yogyaproc.html.

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Morrogh-Bernard, et al. (2003). Population status of the Bornean orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) in

the Sebangau peat swamp forest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biological Conservation 110:

141-52.

Morrogh-Bernard, et al. (2009). Orangutan activity budgets and diet: A comparison between

species, populations and habitats. In: S. A. Wich, et al. (Eds). Orangutans: Geographic

Variation in Behavioral Ecology and Conservation. Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp. 119-

133.

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www.outrop.com

www.outrop.blogspot.com

[email protected]

Contact Details The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, 91 Jalan Semeru, Bukit Raya, Palangka Raya 73112, Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia. The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Trust, (registered UK Charity no.1142870), Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Abingdon Road, Tubney, Oxfordshire OX13 5QL, United Kingdom.

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