Outline of Case Study Summary for Corridor Workshop

Milne Bay Corridor, New Guinea Wilderness

Outline of Case Study Summary for Corridor Workshop Brazil 6-10 Dec 2004

Overview of the Regional Context

The Milne Bay Corridor comprises of the easternmost sector of the island of New Guinea and the East Papuan Islands, which lie in the New Guinea Wilderness.

There are extensive areas of connectivity especially of rainforest on upper slopes both on the mainland and on the islands. The lowlands however are under increasing pressure from intensified subsistence agriculture due to population increase and conversion to cash crops for income.

The integrity and resilience of the marine coral reef ecosystem is dependent on the maintenance of source-sink flows whilst for the rainforest ecosystem it is to retain connectivity.

Threatened Species

On the islands there are many limited range endemic species. Whilst the IUCN redlisted species of East New Guinea lie mainly within the Owen Stanley Mountains and have ranges which extend along this central cordillera to the west beyond the currently defined corridor.

Ecological Processes

Within the biodiverse marine realm the effects of ocean and local currents and the integrity of their associated organisms is important. Nutrient flows are linked with runoff from the mainland often through biodiverse rich mangrove systems beyond the currently defined corridor.

Within the corridor natural resources are predominantly under the custodianship of local clans which make up a community. These communities are mainly dependent on subsistence to maintain their standard of living. With increasing population pressures and as they increasingly becoming a part of the cash economy these resources are under greater localised threat. With the country of PNG requiring macro economic income there is also pressure to allow logging, mineral exploration and oil palm development from the government.

Identification of Potential Corridors

Scale and connectivity needs of outcome species,

The Milne Bay Corridor was initially a marine-based project and was determined on biodiversity richness. The only currently targeted marine species monitored are the IUCN Red-Listed turtles which have been monitored over the last three years on their nesting beaches in two island groups. Sea turtles are known to range widely, often across open ocean and between continents. Monitoring of population and habitat will likely be extended to dugongs (IUCN Red-Listed) and other selected species in the monitoring program.

In the terrestrial component, IUCN Red-Listed species, especially mammals will be considered. Effective populations and range requirements for mammals are poorly known and will need to be estimated either through research or using proxy values for similar species that have been studied in the field. In the meantime a precautionary approach would be to overestimate ranges. What limited-range endemics especially birds and herpetiles are present within the corridor are well known

Need to mitigate the edge effects of key biodiversity areas or coordinate management,

It was recognized in Marine Protected Area establishment that the compatible use of the surrounding seas, especially the sustainable management of extractive industries such as artisanal fisheries, the sea cucumber fishery and long lining, was important to maintaining the viability of populations.

Fortunately in Papua New Guinea, in many terrestrial areas disturbance may still be compatible for a wide range of fauna because the majority of disturbance is due to do small-scale, shifting agriculture. However, in some areas with larger population densities, planning will need take place to ensure that forest ‘islands’ are not created in the landscape.

Need to maintain critical ecological processes

Consideration of the source-flow-sink of marine life over long distances on ocean currents was a recognized consideration that must be taken into account in the placement and management of Marine Protected Areas.

· Watersheds and associated cycles are a basic unit in the maintenance of ecological processes and link the terrestrial and marine.

· Strategy for combating broad-scale threats,

· Technical advice from the marine RAPs and the marine stock assessment in partnership with CSIRO led to refinement of sectors of the fisheries management plan in the province.

· The Milne Bay provincial government formally recognized the zones within which the marine project was to take place

· The provincial government also approved a trial dive tourism payment system whilst developing policy.

· Further strategies will be to offer technical advice in the development of provincial policies and in the development of local level government laws.

· Strategies for addressing human wellbeing issues would greatly improve conservation success but still need to be developed.

Currently the Milne Bay program is in the identification and mapping of these processes.

Milne Bay Corridor

Within the New Guinea Wilderness there are 3 corridors as set out in the map.

The Raja Ampat and Milne Bay Corridors are areas of high marine biodiversity richness. The Mamberamo Raya Corridor is a forest habitat corridor. These were targeted areas by conservation international in Indonesia and PNG before the formation of the CBC and before the development of recent conservation corridor planning.

The Milne Bay Corridor (Community-based Coastal & Marine Conservation Project) is vast and aims to preserve significant areas of globally important reef. A corridor approach here would enable us to maintain the intactness of the biological richness while influencing policy at a provincial level. The location and content of the Milne Bay Corridor is essentially an historical artifact of prior planning priorities, i.e. biodiversity richness.

Corridor Planning Process: biodiversity target definition

Extensive surveys to fill biological information gaps in the province have been led by the Bishop Museum with participation of expedition members from the Smithsonian, University of Florida and the South Australian Museum. The recent herpetological surveys alone yielded 55 species and one genus previously unknown to science, many with limited ranges. Milne Bay was also found to be very diverse in Heteroptera.

From this and other biological information, KBAs with high biodiversity are in the process of being collated into a dataset and mapped with GIS. Data used to define KBAs includes:

· Herpetile layer (frogs, snakes, lizards), many endemics

· Mammal layer, IUCN Red-Listed and endemic spp.

· Ornithological layer, limited range endemics

· Heteroptera layer, endemic spp

· Snail layer, endemic and limited-range spp

· Endemic fish (freshwater/marine), coral & mollusc layers

Corridor Planning Process: context analysis

Some of the threats and opportunities identified are as follows:

· Low human population density, however with a current high population growth and incidence of AIDS.

· Extensive wilderness

· Few opportunities to achieve high returns on investments (natural resource extraction is prohibitively expensive and therefore not often competitive with global markets)

· Political support

· Opportunity to integrate marine and terrestrial, terrestrial environment still ‘intact’

· Little pressure from large-scale economic activity in marine sector however local industry has decimated the giant clams and high value sea cucumbers, sharks for fins in the last decade.

· Sacred lands, alienated lands are intrinsically protected from degradation

· Cost of conservation actions is high as work is innovative and ground breaking while there are no other environmental NGOs in the area to partner with.

Once KBAs are defined, we’ll conduct an analysis to determine the best locations of additional sites, which can improve connectivity with the corridor. This analysis will entail assessing the complementarity of sites and the costs of including each. Ideally, the full complement of biodiversity will be achieved at a minimum social and economic cost. Indeed, the selection of sites and KBAs should entail greater social and economic benefits than costs.

Behavioral changes will be identified through a threats analysis. By identifying the root causes of threats we will be able to focus on key behaviors (or policies) which can be altered to lessen their impact.

Behavior change –Change of attitude from resource use to custodian use.

Corridor Planning Process: selecting responses

Relieving stresses/threats

· Logging & plantations –conservation incentive agreements through education scholarships in environmental science all grades a possible option.

· Over-fishing of target taxa (sessile organisms) & commercial fish – MPAs, seeded areas in MPA, community education/management plans

· Coral extraction for lime – alternatives to lime being researched, community education (health awareness of cancer)

· Regulating development – environmental & social impact assessments, improvement of appraisal & public comment system, introduction of development plans from bottom up

· Intensive work on subsistence agriculture alternatives/methods i.e. alley cropping SALT.

New protected areas

· Community engagement, co-management – new ideas in resource management, ward development plans, LLG plan, laws on flora/fauna conservation, landowner associations, use existing government frameworks, financing mechanisms for management.

Corridor Planning Process: integration of analysis and the process of corridor design

Process for integrating different types of information

· Trade-off analysis

· ID ‘irreplaceable’ areas (those areas required to meet the conservation target)

· Because it’s a wilderness there are many areas to choose from, many areas may be substitutable, flexibility to place KBAs in areas that are compatible with community use/development aspirations.

· At the corridor level, the conservation plans have to be compatible with government development aspirations.

Principles for engaging stakeholders

· Milne Bay “seven steps to community engagement”.

· Links with government – wards, local level & national.

· Engage private sector – benefits of improved management of resources, ideas for management. Dive fees set by government, implemented by private sector.

Role for CI in the planning and implementation of this corridor

· Building upon current CI role in Milne Bay – UNDP program. (Community engagement, policy proposals, biodiversity assessments, creating partnerships to complement expertise and experience in ecology and conservation planning)

Currently the Milne Bay program is in the initial phase of corridor planning, i.e. collecting data and defining the approach.

Research needs and decision tools

From your experience of planning this corridor, please summarize any key research questions that need answers to support biodiversity conservation corridor planning in general (i.e. not specific to this corridor) and any decision support tools that you think would be widely valuable.

· Improved understanding of defining the size of an effective population of the species being saved

· Improved understanding of the range requirements and habitat use of the species being saved

· IUCN Red Listing process (i.e. a greater understanding of the process and how CI can influence Red Listing)

· Survey gap analysis

· Development of planning/problem-solving tools

The process of corridor planning is an important product. The plan itself is possibly less important because plans are subject to ongoing revision so it is the process lying behind that is most important. How to record and communicate the process?

All corridor planning requires the solution of a series of problems. Science (& research) is the art of problem solving. Thus, corridor planning IS scientific research and needs always to be underpinned by applied research in balance with conservation implementation.

Milne Bay Corridor