Month: December 2016

Insights taken from an Understanding of Variation: (iii) Real improvement can be isolated from random noise

One of the most important things for conservation practitioners to be able to do is to detect real improvement (or real declines) from otherwise random changes for a species or ecosystem (Black and Copsey 2013).

Systems behaviour charts allow you to identify the difference between random changes and non-random changes -to see whether the ‘system’ has fundamentally changed if we use the rules summarised by Black (2015)

If we take the example of the recovery of Puerto Rican Parrots, initially managed by Snyder et al (1987) in the 1970s and 1980s, we see phases of the parrot population going up and down over time, some points above a mean line and some below (as you would expect).puerto-rican-parrots-chart

Where the pattern of data falls outside this expectation, the system has fundamentally changed. In the case of the Puerto Rican parrots, this occurred in 1978 and again more fundamentally in  1989. It even looks like a new breakthrough may follow on from 2009.

Even more important than the actual numbers however, is the insight from plotting natural limits and warning limits. For the parrots we see that although the population is generally improved it is not stable and could be expected throughout the 2000s to drop to less than 10 birds as much as rise to 65. Indeed today’s population could yet be vulnerable to extinction – with a projected lower natural limit appearing to be below zero using most recent year’s data .

Reading:

Black S.A. (2015) System behaviour charts inform an understanding of biodiversity recovery. International Journal of Ecology, 2015 (787925): pp6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/787925

Black S.A. and Copsey J.A. (2014) Does Deming’s ‘System of Profound Knowledge’ Apply to Leaders of Biodiversity Conservation? Open Journal of Leadership  3(2) 53-65. DOI: 10.4236/ojl.2014.32006

Snyder,N. F. R. , Wiley, J. W. and Kepler, C. B. (1987) The Parrots of Luquillo: Natural History and Conservation of the Puerto Rican Parrot,Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Los Angeles, Calif, USA.

110 Success Stories for Endangered Species Day 2012: Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata), March 2015, http://www.esasuccess.org/caribbean.shtml.

Endangered Species Act Works: Puerto Rican parrot Amazona vittata, 2015, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa works/caribbean.html.

When the ‘purpose’ of work is forgotten…peril and failure

Simon Black –

Probably the most fundamental aspect of leadership is to keep yourself and your team focused on the purpose of your work (Black et al, 2013; Black 2015).

Although this might seem obvious, it is actually very easy to be distracted. Sometimes it is the distraction of personal ambition, the needs of stakeholders (including one’s managers), ‘interesting work’ and so on.

The black-spotted turtles were released in Indus River near Kalar Goth on Monday morning. PHOTO: EXPRESS Here is a stark example of a lack of focus on purpose (conserving black-spotted turtles) leading to a mess up, exacerbated by (probably) panic and further blatant negligence (reported by witnesses). This did little for the turtles or the people charged with protecting them.

  1. Turtles were rescued from illegal smuggling (purposeful).
  2. They were taken to a release site, the Indus river (purposeful).
  3. The turtles stored in an office so that the release could be photographed the next day (a plausible approach to publicity, but not purposeful).
  4. The turtles died in the bags, or during handling (negligence).
  5. The bodies were discarded into the river (negligence).

All could have been avoided with either:

(i) a night-time release (if animals were healthy / disease free).

(ii) quarantine or pre-release in the pool facility which had been used on previous occasions

Both (i) and (ii) are purposeful – to conserve the turtles.

The opposite to negligence is diligence – leaders and team members must be diligent in their focus on the true and valuable purpose of work.

Read the article here:

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1181317/road-freedom-official-negligence-results-turtles-death/

Further reading:

SA Black, Groombridge, J.J. and Jones, C.G. (2013) Using better management thinking to improve conservation effectiveness. ISRN Biodiversity, Article ID 784701

Black, S.A. (2015) A clear purpose is the Start Point for Conservation Leadership. Conservation Letters.  8 (5): 383–384. DOI: 10.1111/conl.12203