Using structured decision making to set restoration objectives when multiple values and preferences exist

Clear objectives are a necessary prerequisite for efficient restoration, but restoration projects often concern numerous and diverse stakeholders with different objectives and different values. A  recent publication led by CEED researcher Angela Guerrero demonstrates how restoration projects can integrate the values and preferences of multiple stakeholders. Using a case of restoration decision-making in southeast Queensland,…

Editor’s pick for the September issue of Restoration Ecology

An article by Valerie Hagger, John Dwyer and Kerrie Wilson ‘What motivates ecological restoration’ has been featured in Editor’s Picks for the September 2017 issue of Restoration Ecology. Hagger et al. surveyed 307 people involved in the restoration of native vegetation across Australia to identify their underlying motivations. The study found that biodiversity enhancement is the…

Assisted natural regeneration accelerates recovery of highly disturbed rainforest

A recent publication led by PhD student Konrad Uebel demonstrates the additional ecological benefits arising from assisted regeneration and its potential as a cost-effective tool for accelerating forest recovery. By comparing two different levels of management intervention on abandoned agro-pastoral land, using a combination of field data and historical aerial imagery, the study reveals the differences in forest structure and…

Using the past to predict the future

Successful decision-making needs to predict the future. How can we do this best? In most cases, this is not easy: in biodiversity conservation, predicting future outcomes is complicated by complex ecological, economic, and social contexts. But these challenges do not negate the need for us to make these predictions when deciding what conservation interventions to…

Not more, but strategic collaboration needed to save Borneo’s Orangutan

A recent report led by PhD student Courtney Morgans highlights the importance of strategic partnerships between Non-Government conservation organizations.  By combining quantitative network analysis methodologies with qualitative perception assessments, the study reveals frequent collaboration and knowledge sharing between the 61 organizations identified. However, many of these collaborative endeavors are failing to achieve desired outcomes and…

First integrative trend analysis for a great ape species in Borneo

A first population trend analysis of Critically Endangered Bornean orangutans reveals that despite decades of conservation work, the species is declining. This is the first study to bring together data from a combination of different survey methods, including helicopter surveys, traditional ground surveys, and interviews with local communities and involved over 50 Indonesian, Malaysian and…

Valerie Hagger awarded the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment

Valerie was recently awarded the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment from the Ecological Society of Australia to investigate carbon storage and biodiversity potential of environmental planting sites across Australia. The grant will be used to elicit information on the fauna habitat values of planted species for woodland dependent birds to estimate biodiversity potential. Existing estimates of…

Angela Guerrero’s work profiled by the government-funded Threatened Species Recovery Hub

Angela Guerrero’s research focuses on the people side of conservation: how governance systems and the decision-making processes can be designed to enable effective management. Last year Angela worked with the National Environmental Science Programme’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub (TSR) to examine recovery efforts across Australia in an effort to identify the barriers and enablers of successful recovery efforts.…

Ethics of Conservation Triage

Conservation triage is hard. The fact conservation decisions are made everyday doesn’t make it easier to face decisions to potentially sacrifice hope for highly threatened species in order to better protect the ‘greater good’. In our new paper, “Ethics of conservation triage”, we argue that triage should be hard: conservation triage is far from ‘just’…