Conservation Goals

Hawaiian High Islands Ecoregion
This page last revised 31 August 2008 -- S.M.Gon III

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Forest bird

Securing forest bird habitat was the conservation goal of our first Hawaiian campaign (1981-83).

Conservation Goals

Setting goals and building the portfolio

Conservation goals for ecoregional planning require explicit identification of lands and waters to be placed under effective conservation management, so that representative biodiversity (in the form of conservation targets) is secured. Goals may include area (e.g., at least 100,000 acres of protected montane wet system), occurrences (e.g., four occurrences of viable contunous perennial streams per high island), or percent (e.g., at least 75% of all waterbird concentrations). Explicit goals were not developed in the 1998 ecoregional plan, and the portfolio consisted of all native-dominated areas on all the main islands. Goal setting and portfolio development for ERA II, however, followed guidelines and principles outlined in Geography of Hope, augmented by more recent guidance available from TNC ecoregional working groups.

Stratification Units

Stratification Units are geographical subsets of an ecoregion that aid in ensuring maximum ecological and evolutionary variability of protected biodiversity. There are strong distribution patterns of biological diversity across the Hawaiian archipelago. The older islands of O‘ahu and Kaua‘i are biologically distinct, and the islands comprising "Maui Nui" (Maui, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, and Kaho‘olawe) are biologically similar and distinct from the other islands. The youngest island, Hawai‘i, is also justifiably a separate stratification unit because of its great size (larger than all the other islands combined) and its geological youth (Wagner & Funk 1995). The four resulting stratification units (see Figure 1 below) were the basis for redundancy across the ecoregion.

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

(continued next column)

lehua blossom

Goals for ecological systems:

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

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

Goals for natural communities:

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

Goals for 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 plan as needed for recovery. Their recovery assessment is appropriate goal-setting for both scientific and strategic reasons.

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

Figure 1: Four Stratification Units (SU) were established to account for ecological and evolutionary variability across the Hawaiian archipelago. Redundant examples of all conservation targets across the four SUs helps ensure that island and regional biodiversity is captured in the ecoregional portfolio of conservation areas.

Stratification Units for Hawaii

Table: Portfolio Assembly Rules
The table at right depicts the end result of the goal-setting process as described above. Redundant representation for ecological systems, stream communities, and viable species concentrations is seen for each of the four stratification units. Each black dot represents a conservation target added to the ecoregional portfolio.

goal setting table

Key to abbreviations: SU = Stratification Unit; ES = Ecological System, NII = Ni‘ihau, KAU = Kaua‘i, OAH = O‘ahu, MOL = Moloka‘i, LAN = Lāna‘i, KAH = Kaho‘olawe, MAU = Maui, HAW = Hawai‘i; Conservation Areas: NII = Ni‘ihau, KAU = Kaua‘i, WAI = Wai‘anae, KOO = Ko‘olau, EMO = East Moloka‘i, LAN = Lāna‘i, KAH = Kaho‘olawe, EMA = East Maui, WMA = West Maui, KOH = Kohala, MK = Mauna Kea, WML = Windward Mauna Loa, K-K = Ka‘ū - Kapāpala, KON = Kona, P-P = Pōhakuloa - Pu‘u Wa‘awa‘a; Targets: ALP = Alpine System, SUB = Subalpine System, MD = Montane Dry System, MM = Montane Mesic System, MW = Montane Wet System, WC = Wet Cliff System, LW = Lowland Wet System, LM = Lowland Mesic system, LD = Lowland Dry System, DC = Dry Cliff System; CPS = Hawaiian Continuous Perennial Stream Community, FBC = Forest Bird Concentration, RPC = Rare Plant Concentration, WBC = Waterbird Concentration. Black dots indicate target selected for portfolio.

Remote area management

Bringing active management to priority ecological systems is the primary goal.

feral ungulates

Alien species, such as feral ungulates, are a prevailing threat to native conservation targets in all conservation areas in Hawai‘i.

Minimum Effective Goals

To set thresholds for minimum long-term goals for adequate conservation of ecological systems, we propose to use the lower size, condition and landscape context criteria for 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

Other combinations that yield an overall rank of good may also be considered, with one viability/integrity condition factor falling to fair, but balanced by others of good or very good rank. Applying this minimum goal to our portfolio means active management of threats that raise overall rank from fair to good for all ecological systems of less than good overall rank.

For conservation areas with large area occurrences of ecological systems (e.g., Hawai‘i Island, Maui), there might be room to identify subsets of the total area (but exceeding 18,750 acres minimum size) within which to actively reduce threats (and improve condition) and ensure improved landscape context.

What these goals mean for the ecological system occurrences for each Stratification Unit is that some systems with overall good or very good rank can be maintained at that level, while any with fair rank should be improved via active management toward a rank of good. Over half of the ecological system targets in the portfolio require this kind of improvement. These typically lie at lower elevations. The next column offers, in a summary table, the specific recommendations for achieving the desired ranks.

Continue to Ecoregional Portfolio

Ecological System Target	Maintain Rank	Improve Rank
KAUA‘I STRATIFICATION UNIT
Montane Mesic		x
Montane Wet	x
Wet Cliff	x
Lowland Wet		x
Lowland Mesic		x
Dry Cliff		x
O‘AHU STRATIFICATION UNIT
Montane Wet		x
Wet Cliff		x
Lowland Wet		x
Dry Cliff		x
MAUI NUI STRATIFICATION UNIT
Alpine	x
Subalpine	x
Montane Mesic		x
Montane Wet	x
Wet Cliff	x
Lowland Wet		x
Dry Cliff		x
HAWAI‘I STRATIFICATION UNIT
Alpine	x
Subalpine	x
Montane Dry	x
Montane Mesic	x
Montane Wet	x
Wet Cliff		x
Lowland Wet		x
Lowland Mesic		x
Lowland Dry		x

Coastal Conservation Goals

Stratification Units

When we first considered adding coastal conservation targets to the initial terrestrial ecoregional assessment, we asked explicitly if the strategy of establishing stratification units involving multiple islands (e.g., Maui Nui) was valid for coastal biodiversity. There is far less distinctiveness of island coastal vegetation, lower endemism, and fewer overall species; therefore less justification for that level of stratification. However, general representation across the main archipelago is proposed, including occurrences on each of the main islands and associated islets. For coastal vegetation, within-island stratification via four major moisture settings (very dry, dry, mesic, and wet) captures the variation of coastal species distribution.

One interesting finer-scale stratification is required for anchialine pool communities. It stands to reason that although the vast majority of pool occurrences are to be found on the island of Hawai‘i, it does not follow that the coastal portfolio should be restricted to that island.

GOALS FOR COASTAL TARGETS

Anchialine Pools - The majority of anchialine pool occurrences are on the island of Hawai`i. To help stratify geographically, the goal includes at least ten viable pool occurrences per DAR aquifer sector.

Seabird Nesting Concentrations - Recognizing that seabirds once maintained huge nesting concentrations on the main islands, the goal includes at least one viable occurrence per main island, and all viable occurrences on islets.

Native Coastal Vegetation - Recognizing that native coastal communities vary in composition and structure according to moisture setting, our goals include 20% of the shoreline for each main island, with at least two viable occurrences per moisture regime (very dry, dry, mesic, wet).