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project summary
This working paper describes a project undertaken as part of the comprehensive regional assessments of forests in New South Wales. The comprehensive regional assessments (CRAs) provide the scientific basis on which the State and Commonwealth Governments will sign regional forest agreements (RFAs) for major forest areas of New South Wales. These agreements will determine the future of these forests, providing a balance between conservation and ecologically sustainable use of forest resources.
Project objective/s
This project deals with issues relating to the spatial design or configuration of reserves. It does not address selection issues relating to which entities (or how much of each entity) should be included in reserves, nor issues relating to the type of protection (e.g. formal versus informal reservation) to be afforded to different parts of the reserve system. The paper attempts to discuss spatial design criteria against a background of the scientific literature and the resultant debates. All relevant JANIS criteria are dealt with under the broad design principles of shape, size, connectivity and replication.
The specific aims of this discussion paper are to:
- Highlight JANIS criteria relating to reserve design (or spatial configuration) principles,
- Provide a literature review based on core reserve design principles; size, shape, connectivity and replication.
- Highlight existing spatial configuration tools or mechanisms being employed in the CRAs.
- Provide, where needed, recommendations on how reserve design principles should be further addressed in the CRA process.
Methods
JANIS specifies spatial configuration criteria for entities as well as reserve design in general. There are many reserve design issues raised in these sections of JANIS that need to be addressed in the scope of this paper. These issues were addressed under the broad design sections mentioned above.
Key results and products
Key recommendations for reserve design investigate issues of size, shape and connectivity. In particular, these issues address: boundaries with ecological integrity and boundary-area ratios; spread and location of reserves across environmental gradients and away from threatening processes; satisfying criteria for reserves; and, corridors and linkages between reserves.
19 Feb 2010