Mairi Hilton discusses new research in which she and colleagues developed and tested a structured approach to capture the expert knowledge of recovery teams when deciding if, when and how to act to manage a decline in a threatened species.
Background
When making decisions about threatened species, managers must often use incomplete data, because the urgency of decisions means that waiting for perfect information is rarely an option.
Decision makers rely on the knowledge gained through managing species to complement the available data. This knowledge is often held by different members of the management team, who have shared and complementary expertise. Capturing the unique perspectives and knowledge of different experts in the management team can provide a more complete picture for managing threatened species.
However, we need proactive processes to consolidate this knowledge, ensuring managers are ready to respond to any declines in species as soon as they are detected.
A solution
Decision triggers can help conservation practitioners to make proactive decisions about when and how to change the approach to managing threatened species. Setting decision triggers involves identifying when to change the approach to management (trigger points), and then what management actions should be triggered at that point. Importantly, this should be decided beforehand, so practitioners are prepared to take action as soon as possible.
For example, if the managers of a threatened bird saw a decline from 1000 individuals to 750 individuals, they might initiate actions to improve habitat condition. However, if the population continued to decline to only 500 birds then managers might also conduct more intensive predator control. Having this plan in advance can ensure actions are taken early, giving them the greatest chance of success.
It has been shown that individual experts can set decision triggers for threatened species. However, having a single expert set decision triggers could miss important information that might be captured by including valuable knowledge from other members of the management team.
To address this, we developed an approach to capture the diverse knowledge that exists within management teams when setting decision triggers for threatened species management.
Our approach
We worked with conservation practitioners from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and New South Wales Saving our Species program who worked in teams of 3-4 individuals to manage a threatened species.
Our process involved discussion with experts across two workshops. It involved identifying trigger points, management actions for a hypothetical decline scenario, asking experts to describe their rationale for their choices and their confidence in the accuracy of their estimates.
First, we asked experts to give their opinions individually. They then discussed the responses as a management team. This gave experts the opportunity to talk through any differences in the responses with their colleagues, such as why these might have selected different actions or assigned them to different stages of the decline.
Afterwards, experts could decide whether they wanted to update their responses based on the discussion, in a second round of individual elicitation.
Because our approach is driven by the experts in the management team, it can be used when monitoring data are scarce. We also designed it to be applicable when species have already experienced significant declines, ensuring it is relevant to threatened species management.
What we found
Experts had on average 11 years of experience working with their species, reinforcing the value of their knowledge in scenarios where there is limited data available.
Within management teams, experts almost always started with different trigger points, and frequently assigned different actions to different stages of decline. However, after discussing these results with their colleagues, they often updated their estimates to reflect points raised by other members of the team, showing a willingness to consider different points of view.
Experts also tended to become more cautious after discussing their responses, setting additional trigger points and actions, and triggering actions sooner. Reflecting on the risks of delaying action therefore appears to have been a benefit of group discussion, encouraging experts to be more proactive in their approach to management.
Applications
Even within management teams, individuals bring different perspectives to decision-making based on their unique experiences. Capturing these diverse perspectives using our structured format helps ensure decisions are carefully considered and transparent, reducing the influence of individual biases.
Our process for setting decision triggers can help management teams to decide when and how to change the approach to managing threatened species. It can be used regardless of the availability of monitoring data, and encourages managers to be proactive about their management approach, giving threatened species the best chance for recovery.
This work was a great opportunity for science to inform government conservation policy, with guidelines for practitioners implementing the approach now available.
Read the full article “The value of capturing diverse perspectives when setting decision triggers for threatened species management” in Journal of Applied Ecology
