Background
Conservation resources are limited, and with thousands of threatened species in need of help the conservation needs assessment process outlined below seeks to objectively and consistently identify priority species and their immediate conservation needs.
The Conservation Needs Assessment process was initially developed in 2006, during an
Amphibian Ex Situ Conservation Planning workshop
in El Valle de Anton, Panama, when a taxon selection and prioritization working group developed a decision tree for the selection and prioritization of taxa that are most in need of ex situ assistance. The decision tree has subsequently been further reviewed and refined, and has now evolved into the Amphibian Ark Conservation Needs Assessment process. The assessment process has proven to be a logical, transparent, and repeatable procedure for guiding amphibian conservation activities within a country or region.
The conservation needs assessment tool has been structured in two sections:
The first section concerns assessing species for both in situ and ex situ conservation actions - i.e. with limited resources (space, staff, money etc.) which species should have ex situ programs established ahead of others; which species urgently need field research or protection, etc. It takes the form of
a series of questions
with weighted scores. The total score for a species determines its priority for conservation action.
The second section includes
questions
ensuring that there is authorization for any proposed ex situ conservation program, and that founder animals are available.
Some questions may not be straightforward to answer and will require consultation with colleagues, taxonomic experts and other individuals/groups working with the species.
The information provided in sections one and two is then used to categorize each species for one or more
conservation actions.
A series of prioritized reports is generated for each conservation action, and these are then be used to determine the next steps required for the conservation of each species - at the national level, this is most often a
National Action Plan
for the group of species being assessed (e.g. Amphibians).
Online assessments
Prior to the development of this online application, conservation needs assessments were generally carried out during
physical workshops,
where scientists, field biologists, animal husbandry experts and other stakeholders met, and worked as a single group to assess all of the species of a given Class (e.g. amphibians), in the particular country or region. This process results in a single assessment for each species for each of the countries that the species occurs in. Using this online application multiple assessors will work independently from each other, and sometimes, multiple assessments will be submitted for the same species in the same country or region. It is likely that due to the differing individual expertise and experiences of each assessor, that some of the assessment data will differ between assessments for the same species. Although each and every individual assessment record can be viewed, most reports within this application will report “consolidated”, summary assessments which combine all of the assessments for a given species in each country or region. This consolidation will allow for the different areas of expertise from multiple assessors to be factored into a more holistic assessment of the conservation needs for each species.
Ex situ management actions
Ex situ conservation of any threatened species should be considered a necessity when the imperative of in situ conservation cannot by itself ensure the survival of a species and its ecosystem. When ex situ management of a species is considered necessary and appropriate, the priority should be to establish the initiative within the range State of ecological origin, wherever possible. Emphasis should therefore be placed on developing appropriate capacity within the range State where this does not exist. However, if the perceived urgency of the situation requires it, ex situ programs will be set up outside of range State wherever expertise and other resources are forthcoming.
Ideally an ex situ initiative should be temporary in nature and viewed as just one of the tools that can help in the overall conservation of a species. It therefore follows that strong links between ex situ and in situ components are fundamental to the long-term success of species conservation. Full integration between ex situ and in situ conservation approaches should be sought wherever possible. This is normally best highlighted through the establishment of a formal Taxon Management Plan that explicitly states the short, medium and long term goals of each component of the conservation initiative.
In cases where an ex situ conservation initiative has been established prior to, or in the absence of, a concurrent in situ initiative (e.g. where a political situation currently prohibits in situ conservation measures, or where a disease problem currently invalidates measures to protect wild populations), emphasis should be placed on establishing the appropriate in situ links as soon as it becomes possible to do so in order to achieve the end goal of having the species safely back in nature.
When considering Implementation of an ex situ program, each facility should ensure they have the appropriate resources in place to manage that species for the entire term of the ex situ program. The Amphibian Ark has developed a
Program Implementation tool
While a number of very successful conservation programs have begun, and are currently underway without following all of these steps, it is strongly recommends that where possible, these steps are all followed, to ensure the best possible outcome for the population being managed.
It cannot be emphasised enough how important it is to ensure that adequate resources, including skilled staff, appropriate food, funding, veterinary services etc. can be provided for the expected life of the ex situ program. Many programs run for five, ten, or even more years, and sufficient resources to support the program for the whole of this time must be available if the program is to be successful. Establishing facilities and collecting rescue populations is only the first, albeit perhaps the single greatest expense. However, it is insufficient to support only those first-year expenses without operational support for the long term, which as stated above, may amount to years or even decades. In addition to financial planning, ex situ programs should establish at the onset a plan for working with partners to mitigate threats in the wild and, where necessary, getting animals back into the wild, as well as how to distribute and properly manage the progeny of captive animals in the interim.
If hope remains that a species can be saved as the result of ex situ breeding, any number of founder animals is better than none, however, it is strongly recommended that at least twenty pairs of animals (or groups of individuals) are collected as founder animals. Ideally these would be unrelated and will successfully reproduce, but of course that cannot be guaranteed. Realize that many more than this number may have to be captured to ensure that twenty pairs actually survive and successfully reproduce. Searches for the sufficient number of founders should be thorough and complete, and if exhaustive searches do not result in a minimum of twenty pairs of founders, searching should continue after the program has been initiated. The Amphibian Ark has developed a tool to help calculate the number of founders that should be collected, based on the reproductive biology of the species being considered. The tool uses data from AArk’s
Amphibian Population Management Guidelines
(en Español –
Guidelines for the Management of Amphibian Populations).
This tool is available as an
online founder calculation tool
(or en Español)
or it can be
downloaded and used offline.
The tool is also available in
Spanish.
The conservation needs assessment tool has been an evolving protocol. The criteria and their rankings have been adjusted as experience with the process was gained, and we continue to work with the broader conservation community to identify goals, threats, and conservation options. Assessments and prioritisation of individual species should be revised as we gain knowledge and as the threats to the species change. Thus, there will be a need to constantly assess species status and monitor threats, so that emerging critical situations are responded to sufficiently quickly.