Engaged conservation planning and uncertainty mapping as means towards effective implementation and monitoring

Conservation planning attempts to ascertain and communicate the spatial needs of biodiversity in an effort to improve land-use decision-making. Unfortunately, these communications are largely being ignored, in what has been termed the 'implementation crisis' of conservation planning. The purpose of this research is to help improve systematic conservation planning to better facilitate actual implementation of conservation action. A participatory action research (PAR) approach was used, requiring that the researcher was actively involved in a conservation planning case study. After preliminary scoping, it became apparent that a critical problem was that the traditional conservation planning maps were controversial, so they were either creating conflict, or being held back, resulting in a lack of knowledge-sharing. A design principle and corollary were derived and tested---if the uncertainty involved with implementation of conservation planning were quantified and mapped, it would decrease the volatility of the maps and increase their influence on implementation. A conservation assessment was performed and a method for quantifying and mapping this 'implementation uncertainty' was developed and applied. Three advisory groups evaluated two sets of final products---those with and those without the uncertainty communicated. Some of the uncertainty products were deemed unnecessary, but the remaining products were considered superior to the traditional products in their expected ability to facilitate implementation. But the certainty of the finding was hindered by several other flaws in the assessment. The PAR experience highlighted the need for a conservation planning framework that not only (1) identifies the spatial priorities of biodiversity conservation and management, but that also (2) facilitates and monitors the implementation of these priorities, and (3) fosters understanding and actions to support biodiversity. Engaged conservation planning and management (ECPM) was derived, which dramatically increases participation by utilizing a novel blend of geospatial browsers, conservation assessment, and the emerging culture of Web 2.0. Scientists, stakeholders, and landscape observers (i.e. citizen scientists) are able to engage in two-way knowledge-sharing network that builds the capacity of the regional institutions to achieve socio-ecological resilience. Details and further research directions of ECPM are provided