Shepherd says that while conservation progress is being made on the ground in Madagascar, he notes that any successful attempt to save these species must be international in scope "involving Madagascar, the countries used as transit points, and the consumer countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia".
Yet, with few exceptions, the indicators remain largely unevaluated in their capacity to report meaningfully on conservation targets and the means of achieving them; this remains a critical task for predictive conservation science if it is to influence conservation progress.
Yet lost in the holiday shuffle were two other important signs of conservation progress.
UNESCO spared the icon from an "in danger" listing this year, but warns that significant conservation progress must be made.
And while UNESCO acknowledged that the Australian Government had made some conservation progress, the committee warned the outlook for the Reef remained "poor".
The arrival of 6th IUCN World Parks Congress, which opened this week in Sydney, presents an opportune time to talk about how we might credibly and affordably measure and report our conservation progress in national, state and community protected areas.
Interest by donors in these five measures is growing and the USAID-Government of Norway funded Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is already requiring their WCS, WWF, AWF, and CI NGO partners to use these to monitor and report their conservation progress over the next five years.
Measuring conservation progress in terms of inputs, outputs, and outcomes results in means (establishing protected areas) being confused with ends (making a positive difference for biodiversity or livelihoods).
Scientific methodological and ecological advances, however, are rarely used to their full potential when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of management activities, monitoring conservation progress and adapting management approaches based on the outcome of the performance assessment (Gardner 2010).
* Updating content on SFG's website and social media to keep the public informed of international, national and local issues of conservation concern and progress.
