BRUNCKHORST, D.J. & P. Bridgewater. (1996). Identifying Core Reserve Networks in Coastal Bioregions: A Novel Implementation Framework for Coastal Marine Biosphere Reserves. Proceedings of 2nd UNESCO International Conference on Biosphere Reserves, Seville, Spain, 20-25 March 1995.

Ecologists are, correctly, being increasingly asked to contribute to the management of impacted and disappearing landscapes. This is no less true for marine ecologists and indeed coastal waters, estuaries and intertidal areas that fringe terrestrial systems are especially threatened with degradation, fragmentation and impacts from human activity. The effects on physical habitats of all kinds of dramatic declines in adjacent systems (e.g., seagrass beds) are potentially large. Coastal marine degradation is a critical human management concern. Yet, the social and cultural identity with coastal land and sea must be factored into planning and will require the facilitation of cultural and institutional change.

A novel approach for coastal-marine bioregional assessment and planning is distilled. Coastal marine bioregional frameworks provide an integrative context for complementary (off-reserve) bioregional planning, monitoring, sustainable resource use and management. We describe an explicit scientific process to distinguish culturally meaningful bioregions and identify representative bioregional networks of core protected areas that are efficient and defensible.

The bioregional approach we propose reflects and extends UNESCO Biosphere Reserve principles. We encourage the further adaptation and innovative application of bioregional frameworks and development of coastal-marine Biosphere Reserve models.

Landscapes and seascapes are not just visual symbols of natural or human environments, they are agents of cultural power by which social and subjective identities evolve.

In attempting to address the environmental crisis it is not simply a matter of using data and providing technical input. It is necesary to build a culture of respect for the environment which is sustainable for its local people (community) while maintaining ecological processes.

Most coastal and inshore marine areas of Australia - indeed the world - face urgent and ever growing problems of environmental degradation. Increasingly, human development, planning and management on the coastal zone is unsustainable - there have been innumerable government inquiries that have concluded that coastal zone degradation is a critical problem - but little occurs in the way of on-ground implementation or engagement of local communities in dealing with these problems. Meanwhile decision making on land-sea use remains fragmented with little consideration of the effects on other sectors. For example, estuarine or inshore fisheries cannot be adequately protected if decisions are made to allow the dumping of toxic waste in the river catchment. Odum (1982) referred to such as the Tyranny of Small Decisions.

Hence, novel approaches to achieve sustainable societies are needed.

Ecosystem approaches have various advantages and disadvantages (Slocombe 1993), but ultimately a synthesis of desirable and culturally meaningful characteristics are required in a bioregional planning framework to integrate environmental and sustainable development objectives - see Figure 1 (Slocombe 1993, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994). The developing landscape ecology discipline attempts to couple biodiversity, ecosystem function and larger scale processes (Noss 1983, Forman & Godron 1986).

An important element of any strategy to maintain biodiversity is a system of protected areas, which should be designed and managed to represent and protect the diversity of ecological processes, communities, species and gene pools (Courrier ed. 1992, Ray & McCormick-Ray 1992). However, most systems of protected areas whether terrestrial, coastal or marine do not represent the diversity of ecosystems and species assemblages adequately and it is unclear how individual reserves, large or small, contribute to the maintenance of ecological process and function at regional and larger scales. Future proposals for new reserves will need to be efficient and scientifically defensible.

Roles of marine and coastal protected areas (MACPAs), should go far beyond the usual perception of the word "protection". They are valuable, beyond their boundaries, in providing for the rehabilitation of coastal-marine environments and, in particular, the replenishment of fisheries or the protection of fisheries natural resource bases such as breeding, nursery and recruitment areas (Fairweather 1991). In highly populated coastal areas a principle objective of a protected area may be as much to restore ecosystems and their functions as to protect them. The role of habitat restoration and recombinant ecology for enlarging, redesigning and linking protected areas will become increasingly important.

Networks of reserves need to be better managed in concert with entire regional land-seascapes. Accordingly, the recognition of ecological linkages across coastal terrestrial, estuarine and marine environments is a critical issue in the establishment of reserves, conservation efforts outside reserves, and sustainable resource use. These connectivities already exist in nature - we need human management systems which reflect these natural processes. We propose a coastal-marine bioregional planning framework to achieve these common goals (see Brunckhorst 1994, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994).

Bioregions may be considered to equate to a fully implemented Biosphere Reserve or coupled Biosphere Reserves in a regional environmental context. Bioregions are defined both, by cultural and environmental attributes (Figure 1,2). These are "practical" bioregions for planning and management purposes (Brunckhorst 1994). Bioregions need to be 'recognisable' environmentally and to the people that live within and identify with them. Within a bioregional framework for planning and management, uncertainty (or lack of knowledge) about the status and function of marine ecosystems can be incorporated into an adaptive management strategy - an approach that relies on continual assessment and adjustment. Hence, bioregions should be the ultimate management units for sustainable societies (Slocombe 1993, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994, 1995).

Ecologically sustainable use, supported strongly by research and monitoring, core protected areas, rehabilitation, and reduction and management of human impacts becomes the management paradigm (Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994).

To develop and use a strategic coastal-marine bioregional framework, we recommend a process involving explicit environmental or biophysical regionalisation, followed by explicit iterative reserve identification and selection within bioregions. This scientifically based procedure is designed to maximise the likelihood that protected area systems will collectively sample most biodiversity. It will also provide a flexible decision support framework for assessing the best solution to resolve inter-sectoral conflicts over land-sea use, as well as guidance for integrative local government planning and community group projects.

The first step requires broadscale biophysical regionalisation to identify relatively homogenous environmental units (Ray & McCormick-Ray 1992, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994, 1995). This should be followed by pragmatic adjustment of delineated regions to ensure cultural and community identity is maintained with the bioregions - an essential requirement if bioregions are to be socio-politically useful tools for ecological sustainability goals (Figure 3). Where data are available, finer scale mapping of species assemblages / communities is, of course, highly desirable.

It is unlikely that nationally comprehensive biological data sets will ever be available - certainly not for some time. Key environmental and physical attributes appear to drive biological systems, hence such attributes as indicators of environmental and biological diversity together with available biological data are useful surrogates for primary data (Laut et al. 1975). Various analytical and presentation tools such as GIS can enhance analytical and decision support in bioregional assessment and planning. Existing core data on basic marine environmental and ecological processes must be identified continent wide and made available on a distributed network (Brunckhorst et al. 1994).

As new knowledge becomes available and socio-cultural needs are addressed, temporal and spatial flexibility is required in the design and use of regionalisation methodologies. This flexibility may be of increasing importance, as are the ecotonal gradients, in the light of climate change scenarios. Numerically derived regionalisations have the advantage that relationships among the regions and the internal heterogeneity within each region are quantified and described explicitly (Thackway & Cresswell 1992).

The recognition and identification of cultural bioregions - those that communities of people identify with - are less advanced. The potential advantages of a bioregional planning framework for conservation and sustainable living purposes are considerable (Brunckhorst ed. 1993, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994).

Identification and representation of species assemblages / communities / ecosystems in networks of protected areas within bioregions can then proceed (Figure 3). Clearly, it is likely that more than one MACPA will be required per bioregion and it is important that core reserve networks are efficient, defensible and incorporate most if not all the functional elements of ecosystems of regions. Mapping the ranges of species, particularly endemic, threatened, commercial or otherwise important species would also be useful.

An explicit target of a particular level of ecological or biological representation in protected areas across bioregions is a valid and more defensible approach to conserving biodiversity than the rather over-simplistic approach of reserving a percentage of the land or sea area. Such explicit targets, coupled with bioregional planning, can also aim for a practical level of representation in MACPAs of bioregional ecosystems, habitats or species assemblages (Brunckhorst ed. 1993). Action to maximise size and viability of protected areas and to develop efficient MACPA networks across fragmented coastal-marine land-seascapes can be implemented in concert with measures outside reserves to more effectively maintain all components of biodiversity within and across cultural bioregions (Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994).

Any approach to the question - where should marine reserves be situated? - requires information and a rationale for using it. There is an enormous need for biological inventory data of a quality and form that is appropriate for various analytical approaches. There is also an urgent need to make a "first cut" at developing more meaningful, representative networks (or sets) of reserves using available data. The rationale, generally referred to as conservation evaluation, should include co-evaluation of existing MACPAs to develop the most efficient and complementary reserve network at a regional level.

Ideally, sets of protected areas should aim to represent all ecological communities and environments, including viable populations of their constituent species. Both theoretically and in practice, the use of multivariate entities (i.e., 'communities') can be problematical, and it is not currently possible to assess what a viable population is. In reality, the portion to be reserved will be selected by assessing human community needs - how much a given, relatively undisturbed, ecological community still exists and how much might be available for reservation or restoration.

Various methods are available for identifying and assessing regional reserve networks designed to capture an explicit level or target of representation of regional ecosystems or species assemblages. Explicit, iterative methodologies provide defensible, yet flexible decision support (Pressey et al. 1993, Nicholls & Margules 1993). They enable identification of reserve networks to maximise efficiency and representation, while allowing some flexibility in selection of sites. Iterative, or minimum set, methodologies select sets of sites of best/maximum representation while attempting to minimise the total area/number of all sites (Pressey et al. 1993, Nicholls & Margules 1993). The aim is to sample all species or to have a high probability of sampling a high (explicit) percentage of species assemblages.

Iterative reserve selection methodologies are adaptable for application to the identification of networks of marine protected areas within a holistic bioregional planning framework and across the inter-linked coastal-marine realm. Such methodologies also have considerable potential to minimise development uncertainty and therefore reduce investment risk, and to provide a valuable base for ecologically sustainable development initiatives (Brunckhorst ed. 1993, Brunckhorst 1994). The starting point is a clear goal for what is required in the reserve system at a particular scale.

Given an explicit target, three key principles common to all these methodologies have been recognised (Pressey et al. 1993). The principles are concerned with the ways in which individual sites/ or potential reserves relate to one another as components of a regional protected area network.

• Complementarity or efficiency - identification of potential sites proceeds in a step wise fashion such that at each step the new area is the most complementary site to existing areas or previous choices in terms of representing features not included elsewhere. It provides for the most efficient representation of natural features, ecosystems, habitats or species.
• Flexibility - recognises that, within a bioregion, several different combinations of sites may be available to collectively form a representative protected area network. For the design of an efficient bioregional network, the larger the number of alternative networks that can be assessed, the more likely it is one will be found that is: representative; maximises values of design / area suitability; maximises linkages or contiguity (and therefore viability); and/or minimises costs; and, reflects the aspirations of human communities within bioregions.
• Irreplaceability - refers to the potential contribution of a site to a preservation or representation goal. It is a fundamental way of measuring the conservation value of any site. An irreplaceable site will appear in every analysis of alternative combinations of sites. In other words, it is one which must be included because significant options for preservation are lost if the site is excluded.

The principles can be applied at different scales or hierarchies. At a national scale, they can identify priority regions for conservation efforts; within bioregions or at a local level they can be used to identify core protected area networks which sample a very high proportion of the ecological and biological diversity that exists there (Nicholls & Margules 1993, Brunckhorst and Jacoby, in prep.). When a core network of sites has been identified, those immediately threatened might be given priority for selection and 'outside' threatening processes minimised through bioregional planning and management. If selection can maintain a strictly scientific approach, priority should be given to ecological features such as phenological variation and functional role.

Iterative methods are an efficient conservation assessment tool in showing the contribution a protected area network makes to sampling the biological or environmental diversity of a bioregion. In the final analysis, the actual selection of sites for proclamation as components of a regional network of marine protected areas will, of necessity, require application of the flexibility principle to address the needs of human communities and ecologically sustainable development.

Finally, existing MACPA selection procedures have been so inefficient that there is a real, and increasing, danger that large areas of coast or sea set aside for protection may sample only a small proportion of biological and environmental diversity, or contribute little to maintaining ecological processes.

Biosphere reserves have three main roles (development, conservation, and logistic) through the association of environment with development, conservation of genetic material and ecosystems and an international network for research and monitoring (Batisse 1990). The multiple functions of coveted, but fragile, coastal areas around the world are in critical need of integrated land, coastal and water-use planning to reconcile and sustain their use and resources. The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Program and Action Plan refocused and implemented for the coastal-marine realm would provide a very useful tool to meet these goals.

The objectives of biodiversity and environmental management at the land-seascape scale should be to maintain ecological processes. The longevity of coastal dwelling societies and the resources on which they depend is reliant on the continuation and health of these functions. The identity which human communities have with their environment provides an important underpinning to the framework.

Bioregions are defined both, by cultural and environmental attributes (Figure 1,2). The bioregional context provides an integrative setting for local government planning and amelioration of impacts. It provides a framework for community-based programs and public-private cooperation for complementary initiatives to minimise external impacts on reserves (Figure 3). Therefore bioregional frameworks integrate and maximise sectoral and cultural benefits from the region (including its core protected areas) and protect biological diversity and ecological function outside of reserves.

Within a coastal-marine bioregional framework, uncertainty (or lack of knowledge) about the status and function of marine ecosystems can be incorporated into an adaptive management strategy - an approach that relies on continual assessment and adjustment. Adaptive management methods which include local governments, can contribute enormously to achieving these objectives.

Adaptive management incorporates long-term monitoring as a way to assess the success or failure of existing management policies in the bioregional context, and as a guide to making adjustments. Continued research is necessary to increase insights into ecological processes and management strategies. Repeated revision of management decisions is at the core of adaptive management approaches, but this does not necessarily threaten resource security. Rather it provides for sustainability of resource use. Threats to resource security can be minimised if management objectives are set clearly. In addition, adaptive management will reduce the sort of pressure that stymies action because initial choices are not viewed as final choices. Ecologically sustainable use, supported strongly by research and monitoring, core protected areas, rehabilitation, and reduction and management of human impacts becomes the management paradigm (Figure 3).

Coastal-marine bioregions provide a unifying instrument for sustaining biodiversity and human society. The framework would be useful for the practical implementation of biosphere reserve principles, identifying and selecting core reserve areas and prioritising cultural needs and aspirations. Environmental audit of human activity and sustainability of socio-economic proposals is possible through explicit and defensible criteria.

The proposed approach reflects and extends UNESCO Biosphere Reserve principles (Batisse 1990, Ray & Greg 1991, Brunckhorst & Bridgewater 1994). There are also several implications for reorientation of the Biosphere Reserve Action Plan to the coastal-marine realm.

Through engagement of the community in all aspects of the process and in decision making relating to difficult sustainability issues, cultural shifts towards an ethic of environmental and social sustainability will inevitably occur.

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