Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, University of New South Wales, Vallentine Annexe, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Environ Manage. 2011 Oct;48(4):659-74. doi: 10.1007/s00267-011-9721-5. Epub 2011 Jul 21.
Effective management of large protected conservation areas is challenged by political, institutional and environmental complexity and inconsistency. Knowledge generation and its uptake into management are crucial to address these challenges. We reflect on practice at the interface between science and management of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA), which covers approximately 1 million hectares west of Sydney, Australia. Multiple government agencies and other stakeholders are involved in its management, and decision-making is confounded by numerous plans of management and competing values and goals, reflecting the different objectives and responsibilities of stakeholders. To highlight the complexities of the decision-making process for this large area, we draw on the outcomes of a recent collaborative research project and focus on fire regimes and wild-dog control as examples of how existing knowledge is integrated into management. The collaborative research project achieved the objectives of collating and synthesizing biological data for the region; however, transfer of the project's outcomes to management has proved problematic. Reasons attributed to this include lack of clearly defined management objectives to guide research directions and uptake, and scientific information not being made more understandable and accessible. A key role of a local bridging organisation (e.g., the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute) in linking science and management is ensuring that research results with management significance can be effectively transmitted to agencies and that outcomes are explained for nonspecialists as well as more widely distributed. We conclude that improved links between science, policy, and management within an adaptive learning-by-doing framework for the GBMWHA would assist the usefulness and uptake of future research.
大型保护保护区的有效管理面临着政治、制度和环境的复杂性和不一致性的挑战。知识的产生及其纳入管理对于应对这些挑战至关重要。我们反思了位于澳大利亚悉尼以西约 100 万公顷的大蓝山世界遗产区（GBMWHA）的科学与管理之间的实践。多个政府机构和其他利益相关者参与了其管理，决策受到众多管理计划和相互竞争的价值观和目标的影响，反映了利益相关者的不同目标和责任。为了突出这个大面积决策过程的复杂性，我们借鉴了最近一个合作研究项目的结果，并以火灾制度和野狗控制为例，说明如何将现有知识纳入管理。合作研究项目实现了为该地区整理和综合生物数据的目标；然而，将项目的成果转移到管理中被证明是有问题的。导致这种情况的原因包括缺乏明确界定的管理目标来指导研究方向和采用，以及科学信息没有变得更加易于理解和获取。一个地方桥梁组织（例如，蓝山世界遗产研究所）在连接科学和管理方面的关键作用是确保具有管理意义的研究结果可以有效地传递给机构，并为非专业人士以及更广泛的人群解释结果。我们的结论是，在 GBMWHA 的适应性学习框架内，科学、政策和管理之间的联系得到改善，将有助于提高未来研究的有用性和采用率。
