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Biodiversity Benefits Framework — The Steps

• Step 1. Identify the most immediate threats to biodiversity and decide on actions that could best reduce these threats
• Step 2. Describe the benefits to biodiversity that are expected to result from the chosen on-ground actions
• Step 3. Choose methods for monitoring the benefits to biodiversity that are expected
• Step 4. Monitor the actual changes that followed the actions, and compare them to the expected benefits to biodiversity

Step 1. Identify the most immediate threats to biodiversity and decide on actions that could best reduce these threats.

The table (a) shows the various aspects of Step 1. The status is seen to be an expression of the effects of 'threatening processes' on the attributes chosen to indicate biodiversity status in the area. Threatening processes are simply management practices that have a negative effect on a desired characteristic of biodiversity. Any management practice creates both 'winners' and 'losers'. Wheat, galahs and people are 'winners' from clearing of woodlands for agriculture, whereas native orchids and robins, for example, are 'losers': they are threatened by large-scale clearing.

The status columns in the Step 1 table are for those elements of biodiversity that you value and do not want to lose. Other examples of biodiversity status are shown in the filled-in table (b).

The next thing to consider within the status columns is the scale of concern. Are native orchids threatened or missing only from the particular patch of vegetation being considered for enhancement, or are orchids missing from almost all the neighbouring patches? (If the orchids are missing from the entire catchment, then re-introductions may be needed, once the threatening processes have been sufficiently controlled.)

Step 1 table (a)

Scale	Status			Threatening processes causing the status		Management action(s)
	Composition	Structure	Function	Modification	Removal	Vegetation enhancement	(Other)*
Patch
Landscape (subcatchment)
Region (catchment)

*The 'other' column is a reminder that management actions other than vegetation enhancement can also change biodiversity status

Moving across to the right of the Step 1 table, try and identify the most important threatening processes affecting the biodiversity attribute of greatest concern. This is rarely easy. Consider your chosen biodiversity attributes: are they being disadvantaged by modification of the environment-perhaps by grazing, fire, feral predators or competition from superabundant species-or is their status a consequence of the removal of habitat, say by historical or recent tree clearing?

Finally, think about the management actions that can reduce the key threats identified in the previous columns. Fencing of remnant vegetation may potentially reduce habitat modifications caused by intensive grazing by livestock. In contrast, revegetation activities may reduce some of the threats due to habitat removal. Remember that vegetation enhancement actions may only be part of the solution: feral predators may need to be controlled, for example, or contour banks may be needed to reduce severe erosion.

A single management action is likely to reduce threats and improve the status of many different attributes of biodiversity at a range of scales. For example, revegetation in the form of strips (such as shelter-belts) should also improve a functional attribute of biodiversity such as soil stability or crop productivity. The same revegetation activity can reduce the isolation of remnant patches of bush (a structural attribute) where these are few and far between. In this second situation, the underlying threatening process is assumed to be a loss of living space for birds or other animals, leading to reduced viability or sustainability for that population of that species. If this same strip of revegetation is part of a much larger project to link up widely distributed remnants, then at a regional scale it could reduce some chosen measure of fragmentation of biodiversity.

Table (b) above is a fictional example of a filled-in table for Step 1. It uses birds to show the status of composition, and other examples for the status of structure and function. A project doesn't need to address each and every cell of the table. Some projects may only be trying to improve a functional attribute such as dryland salinity; however, there may also be some benefits to wildlife and habitat structure from directly modifying salinity.

Step 2. Describe the benefits to biodiversity that are expected to result from the chosen on-ground actions.

We do not know for certain that vegetation enhancement activities can reduce threatening processes and improve the status of some attributes of biodiversity. We have only been trying to rehabilitate landscapes for a few decades. The best we can do, as scientists or land managers, is to predict what vegetation enhancement might do for some attributes of biodiversity, biased by our preference for managing and researching at the patch scale.

We expect some good outcome from vegetation enhancement (or we wouldn't do it), and our expectation is usually based on some sort of model. These models are often nothing more than wishful thinking, but even that is usually based on some sort of conceptual understanding of how a vegetation system might work. In the models column of Step 2 table (a) (below) we can identify our conceptual model(s) instead of suppressing them. Models are a useful and essential means of simplifying the complexity of ecosystem processes across time and space. An assessment of the benefits of vegetation enhancement activities needs to be based on available models (such as the State and Transition concept or model) and should aim to improve these models.

The Step 2 table links your management actions to your predicted responses via the model. It may be easiest to use this table one row at a time and one management action at a time. The management actions are the same as those identified in Step 1. The attributes for the composition, structure and function columns should also have been identified in Step 1. To complete this Step 2 table you need to identify the expected benefit of each management action for each attribute of biodiversity considered in Step 1. Step 2 table (b) shows some examples of ways of thinking about each row and column.

When filled in, the cells in Step 2 table (a) above ought to show attributes of the preferred state we are aiming for. For many people, these attributes include healthy trees with rich canopies, trees with hollows, densely vegetated riverbanks, woodlands with diverse understorey structures, and landscapes that leak less water and nutrients. If better water use (less water percolating to the watertable) and profitable farm enterprises are the only major attributes of a stakeholder's preferred state, then expanding the cover of a deep-rooted perennial pasture plant such as lucerne may be the only vegetation management technique required for the transition to that preferred state. However, if stakeholders also want to have diverse native wildlife within the landscape of concern, then transition to the preferred state may require fencing of remnant vegetation and replanting of a number of native species to recreate a complex habitat structure.

Step 3. Choose methods for monitoring the benefits to biodiversity that are expected.

The next step is to monitor the results of the vegetation work and see if there are signs of the expected changes. In the Step 3 table, the choice of monitoring method depends on the assessments in all the other columns and rows:

• scale,
• biodiversity attributes of interest,
• type of management action(s),
• the expected response to the action, and
• the model that underlies the desired response.

Note that this table is based on the scale and biodiversity attributes chosen in Steps 1 and 2.

There are many methods for monitoring biodiversity benefits, particularly at a patch scale. They can include wildlife surveys, if wildlife is one of your attributes of composition. As another example, piezometers that detect changes in the shallow watertables may be all the technology required for assessing the effects of an agroforestry block on reducing drainage of water below the rooting zone. Several state government environment agencies are developing specific monitoring systems of their own for biodiversity benefits; for instance, the Dept of Sustainability and Environment (Victoria) has developed a 'habitat-hectares' scoring system¹.

The four-step process here is a framework to give context to those and any other suitable methods.

Moving to the right of the Step 3 table, consider the time intervals over which the monitoring needs to take place. At the patch scale, bird and vegetation surveys will be needed at least twice a year to tease out the differences between seasonal changes and changes due to vegetation enhancement activities. At the landscape scale, repeat aerial surveys once every five years should detect increases in the patch sizes of remnant woodland and the density of riparian vegetation, if these are the expected responses to fencing at the scale of a subcatchment. An analysis of relatively inexpensive Landsat TM satellite data over a ten-year time series can be used to assess cumulative changes in woody vegetative cover at a catchment scale, if woody cover is the structural attribute of interest.

The last column in the Step 3 table (spatial replication) is just as important as deciding about time intervals. At the patch scale, ask yourself if only one patch is going to be monitored, or a sub-sample of patches that have been fenced off or replanted, instead? If you plan to monitor a sub-sample of patches, think about whether you will monitor only one type of vegetation patch-say woodlands-or if you will check grasslands and creeklines as well. Whatever you decide, you need to write a monitoring plan, and develop a recording system for your observations and measurements.

Monitoring at the landscape scale requires the same sort of considerations, but it is more appropriate for a group to monitor at regional and landscape scale. With your team, will you monitor only one subcatchment or multiple subcatchments? Monitoring more than one landscape or subcatchment is more expensive, but provides much more information. The results from monitoring only one subcatchment cannot be assumed to be relevant to any other catchment-you cannot generalise from only one replicate. Monitoring three or more subcatchments may allow you not only to make some general statements about landscape responses to a vegetation enhancement action, but also to note how each catchment responds differently in other ways.

Once you have made the decisions needed to work through the three steps so far, you may then be able to tackle questions such as these:

1. Does vegetation enhancement bring back a range native wildlife and improve tree health? (patch scale consideration)
2. Do we expect vegetation enhancement activities to significantly increase the sizes of mean remnant patches of woodlands, forests or grasslands? (patch and landscape scales)
3. Will vegetation enhancement link fragments of native bushland or grassland? (landscape scale)
4. Is significant progress being made towards achieving catchment targets for water quality and cover of native vegetation? (regional scale)

You should not underestimate the technical skills needed to apply relatively simple monitoring methods. Even something as apparently simple as a survey of woodland birds is full of assumptions, errors and compromises. Analysis of remotely sensed data requires careful refinement of the scene, well-targeted checking on the ground and sophisticated mathematical statistics to make an accurate interpretation over a time-sequence of many satellite images.

If nothing else, the draft four-step process is a useful starting point from which to engage community stakeholders, ecologists and statisticians in developing detailed monitoring procedures and methods, once the other elements of this framework have been addressed: scale, attribute, threat, intervention, response and model.

Step 3 table (b) below is filled in with examples for each row and column.

Step 4. Monitor the actual changes that followed the actions, and compare them to the expected benefits to biodiversity.

In the final step of the assessment process you apply the monitoring methods of choice, focused at the critical scale of interest and on the biodiversity attributes of greatest concern. This step is for assessing measured outcomes against expectations.

You can also use the Step 4 table to assess whether inputs such as fencing and revegetation have actually been carried out as planned. This part of the matrix easily accommodates the current Bushcare Monitoring and Evaluation Program, which is assessing whether planned enhancement activities have been substantially implemented.

In tables (a) and (b) for Step 4, the 'planned activities' column comes from Step 1. The 'predicted responses' column comes from Step 2.

This part of the framework brings together the key features of the four-step process. It forces you to consider scale, and choose ideally at least three biodiversity indicators that include attributes of composition, structure and function. To fill in the cells, you need to identify the predicted or desired outcomes of the various planned and implemented enhancement activities.

For those projects that are too recent to have outcomes yet, the table also allows you to predict biodiversity benefits from inputs if they (on-ground activities) have been mapped and if appropriate models are available to predict the benefits of on-ground actions.

This table, though complicated, allows for detailed assessment across an unlimited number of attributes of biodiversity across all scales of interest. Alternatively, it can be used to assess a single vegetation enhancement activity at a single patch focusing on individuals of a single species. As with the tables for the other steps, do not feel obliged to fill in every cell of each row and column. On the other hand, the cells give you the chance to think about how actions at patch scale might affect biodiversity at larger scales.

Now that you have seen the four steps, you can place the assessment of even a single patch in a much broader context, as you consider status, threatening processes, predicted responses to management interventions and the underlying conceptual or theoretical models. If the four steps are united, they look like the Framework at the end of this report.

¹ Parkes D., Newell G. and Cheal D. (2003) Ecological Management and Restoration 4 (supplement), S29-38.
² Catling P.C. & Burt R.J. (1995) Wildlife Research 22, 271-288.
³ Tongway D.J. & Hindley N. (1995) Assessment of Soil Condition in Tropical Grasslands. CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology (now Sustainable Ecosystems), Canberra.
⁴ Land and Water Audit, www.nlwra.gov.au

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