Efficiently targeting resources to deter illegal activities in protected areas

Abstract

Summary1. In many countries, areas delineated for conservation purposes can only achieve their objectives if effective law enforcement occurs within them. However, there is no method currently available to allocate law enforcement effort in a way that protects species and habitats in a cost-effective manner. Law enforcement is expensive and effort is usually concentrated near the locations of patrol stations where rangers are based. This hampers effective conservation, particularly in large protected areas, or regions with limited enforcement capacity. 2. Using the spatial planning tool Marxan, we demonstrate a method for prioritizing law enforcement in a globally important conservation landscape (the Greater Virunga Landscape, GVL, in central Africa) using data on the spatial distribution of illegal activities and conservation features within the landscape. 3. Our analysis of current patrol data shows that law enforcement activity is inadequate with only 22% of the landscape being effectively patrolled and most of this activity occurring within 3 km of a patrol post. We show that the current patrol effort does not deter illegal activities beyond this distance. 4. We discover that when we account for the costs of effective patrolling and set targets for covering key species populations and habitats, we can reduce the costs of meeting all conservation targets in the landscape by 63%, to $2Á2-3Á0 million USD, relative to the cost of patrolling the entire landscape. This cost is well within the current expenditure of approximately $5Á9 million USD for the GVL but would better target effort from both patrol posts and mobile patrol units in the landscape. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results demonstrate a method that can be used to plan enforcement patrolling, resulting in more cost-efficient prevention of illegal activities in a way that is targeted at halting declines in species of conservation concern.

Clear consideration of costs, condition and conservation benefits yields better planning outcomes

“…This includes targeting control of invasive species (Auerbach et al, 2014;Evans et al, 2011), reduction of poaching (Plumptre et al, 2014), or management of fire (Richards et al, 1999;Wilson et al, 2007). In many cases, the objective may be not only to protect existing values, but also to restore lost values through improving the condition of the system (Law et al, 2015;Possingham et al, 2015).…”

Threats to migratory birds, and actions for their conservation

“…My thesis has made a contribution toward resolving this, in part by reducing uncertainty through new empirical data and analysis (Chapters 2 and 3), and in part by developing models that make the best use of the data that are available to find efficient planning solutions given the uncertainty (Chapters 4 and 5). This extends an emerging body of literature in conservation science that focuses on making the most efficient use of information we already have (Ferraro & Simpson, 2002;Naidoo et al, 2006;Arponen et al, 2010;Urban et al, 2012;Shwiff et al, 2013;Plumptre et al, 2014), carefully assessing the value of collecting new information (Oostenbrink et al, 2008;Runge et al, 2011;Williams et al, 2011;Maxwell et al, 2015), and conservation decision-making under uncertainty (McDonald-Madden et al, 2008;Wilson et al, 2009;Carwardine et al, 2010;Wintle et al, 2010;Keith et al, 2011;McDonald-Madden et al, 2011;Nicol et al, 2015).…”

“…Within protected areas, one of the most effective tools available to managers is enforcement (Rowcliffe et al, 2004;Gibson et al, 2005;Keane et al, 2008;Plumptre et al, 2014)..…”

“…Effective enforcement is often needed to ensure that protected areas achieve successful conservation outcomes (Rowcliffe et al, 2004;Gibson et al, 2005;Keane et al, 2008;Plumptre et al, 2014). Reductions in enforcement levels have repeatedly been shown to result in increases in illegal activities harmful to wildlife, both in marine (Walmsley & White, 2003;Floeter et al, 2006) and terrestrial environments (Jachmann & Billiouw, 1997;Hilborn et al, 2006;de Merode et al, 2007).…”

“…However, there have been few attempts to determine how enforcement effort might be optimally allocated over both time and space. When optimized, targeted enforcement actions reduce patrol effort and hence cost, while continuing to achieve conservation targets (Hofer et al, 2000;Linkie et al, 2010;Plumptre et al, 2014), or deliver greater conservation outcomes for the same budget. However, many optimization methods are data hungry or require complex models (Hofer et al, 2000;Linkie et al, 2010;Plumptre et al, 2014), meaning that easily accessible and reproducible methods to prioritize enforcement based on limited data are not yet easily reproducible or accessible to managers.…”