Conservation Goals

Setting goals andbuilding the portfolio

Conservationgoals for ecoregional planning require explicit identification of landsand waters to be placed under effective conservation management, so thatrepresentative biodiversity (in the form of conservation targets) issecured. Goals may include area (e.g., at least 100,000 acres ofprotected montane wet system), occurrences (e.g., four occurrences ofviable contunous perennial streams per high island), or percent (e.g.,at least 75% of all waterbird concentrations). Explicitgoals were not developed in the 1998 ecoregional plan, and theportfolio consisted of all native-dominated areas on all the mainislands. Goalsetting and portfolio development for ERA II, however, followedguidelines andprinciples outlined in Geography of Hope, augmented by more recent guidance available from TNC ecoregional working groups. 

Stratification Units

StratificationUnits aregeographical subsets of an ecoregion that aid in ensuring maximumecological and evolutionary variability of protectedbiodiversity. There arestrong distribution patterns of biologicaldiversity across the Hawaiian archipelago. Theolder islands ofO‘ahu and Kaua‘i are biologically distinct, and the islands comprising "Maui Nui"(Maui, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, andKaho‘olawe) are biologically similar and distinct from the other islands. Theyoungest island, Hawai‘i, is also justifiably a separate stratification unit because ofits great size (larger than all the other islands combined) and its geologicalyouth (Wagner & Funk 1995). The four resulting stratification units (see Figure 1 below) werethe basis for redundancy across the ecoregion. 

For more details on the Stratification Units of the Hawaiian High Islands Ecoregion, click here.

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Goalsfor ecological systems:

·        Include all occurrences with viability ranked good or very good.The limited geographic area of the Hawaiian Islands, and the low numberof remaining viable ecological systems requires, in our assessment, thegreatest possible inclusion of viable conservation targets.

·        Add fair ranked occurrences to ensure at least two occurrencesof each ecologicalsystem per stratification unit (if extant).  Diversity ofecological systems is not adequately covered by inclusion of those ofgood or better rank alone.

Goalsfor natural communities:

·        Select four high ranked/quality occurrences of continuous perennial streams oneach high islandwhere streams occur, stratifying by conservation area as appropriate. This results in 20 selected streams in theecoregion, or more than 10% of the total remaining occurrences. 

Goalsfor special features:

·        Select all forest bird concentration occurrences ranked good or very good. Given the history of decline of forest bird species in Hawai‘i, our assessment concludes that all remaining viable occurrences should receive protection.

·        No rare plant concentration areas were selected, because all were of poor viability.  

·        Select all waterbird concentration occurrences recommended by the USFWS recovery planas neededfor recovery. Their recovery assessment is appropriate goal-setting for both scientific and strategicreasons.

Applyingthe goals described above resulted in a terrestrial target ecoregional portfolio of 16 conservationareas,including four broadly defined areas that encompass waterbirdconcentrations (see Summary Table below). Brief summary descriptions for theconservation areas are provided in the Appendices. 

To set thresholds for minimum long-term goals for adequate conservation of ecological systems, wepropose to use the lower size, condition and landscape context criteriafor a viability rank of "good." This translates practically as a combination of:

• >18,750 acres minimum size
• >75% native composition and structure
• >75% native boundary conditions

Continue to Ecoregional Portfolio

Coastal Conservation Goals