New Condatis reports online – Supporting ecological networks in rapidly developing, biodiverse countries

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Forest restoration areas in west Java, Indonesia.

We are pleased to announce that the outputs from the project “Decision support for restoring ecological networks in rapidly developing, biodiverse countries” are now freely available online and can be downloaded here. These outputs are the culmination of our project, which aimed to make Condatis accessible to users in tropical, developing countries, as well as making improvements for the benefit of all users.

We wanted to facilitate sustainable land-use planning for tropical developing countries under climate change, with the following goals:

  1. Create new, accessible decision support methods for maximizing landscape connectivity;
  2. Demonstrate how conservation decisions can be supported in our partner organisations through three collaborative case studies; and,
  3. Create a freely available web application for our decision support tool to ensure its long-term sustainability and accessibility to users globally.

Goals (i) and (iii) have been achieved through the development and launch of Condatis Version 1.0, which can be accessed from any computer, for free, via www.webapp.condatis.org.uk.  Each of the three collaborative case studies has focused on advancing a particular component of Condatis as well as providing specific guidance for the region:

  • Enhancing Sabah’s Protected Area network, Malaysian Borneo, focused on the prioritisation of forested cells for connectivity in multiple directions. Condatis outputs are being used to inform the decision making process for prioritising new protected areas in Sabah within this SEARRP-led project.
  • Scenarios for wildlife corridor restoration in Java, Indonesia, focused on the inclusion of habitat quality effects for flagship species. Condatis could provide ecological support for future restoration interventions, and help communities to compare different options as part of an interactive mapping process. A holistic restoration prioritisation scheme in Mount Halimun Salak National Park could be achieved by combining Condatis analyses with on-the-ground knowledge.
  • Expanding shade cocoa in Western Ghana, focused on robustness to uncertainty when limited ecological data are available. Through focusing on the most ecologically efficient areas for enhancing the movement of forest-associated species across the expanse of cocoa farms, Condatis outputs could help to improve the success and reduce the overall cost of creating more resilient cocoa production landscapes in Ghana.

The summaries are one page documents designed to give an overview of the case studies’ goals and results. They are particularly suitable for facilitating discussions with land managers or policy makers. The reports expand on the summaries, giving greater detail for those wanting to gain deeper understanding of the case studies.

This Innovation project ran from November 2017 until April 2019. We would like to thank everyone who has been involved, in particular our partner organisations for each case study (listed below). We also thank those who came along to the Condatis training workshops, providing invaluable feedback on how Condatis Version 1.0, and the associated training, could be improved.  These activities were supported by NERC grant NE/R009597/1. Katherine Allen is also supported by NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship NE/N005376.

Partners in this project:

  • Bogor Agricultural Institute, Indonesia
  • Climate Change Unit (National REDD+ Secretariat), Forestry Commission of Ghana, Ghana
  • Kwame Nrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
  • Mount Halimun Salak National Park, Indonesia
  • Rainforest Alliance, UK
  • Sabah Forestry Department, Malaysia
  • South-east Asia Rainforest Research Partnership, Malaysia
  • University of Liverpool, UK
  • University of York, UK