SUBJECT: RE: Science for better governance
AUTHOR: Yiannis Matsinos
DATE: 21st April 2003

KEYWORDS: Ecological risk assessment, model, invasion, management.

SUMMARY: The author suggests population models to help reduce uncertainty at the biotic level and help in decision making. He also lists some fields which need more attention.

Martin Sharman's comments about treatment of uncertainty in decision making, regarding biodiversity issues are really important. One way to deal with the uncertainty of potential outcomes of management actions for sensitive species is to develop population models, and through a probabilistic framework try to "encapsulate" uncertainty, at least at the biotic component. This approach termed Ecological Risk Assessment has been quite successful in many cases of hot conservation issues lacking all demographic information. By using all the available life history information about the species, and incorporating treatments for parameter uncertainty and environmental and demographic variation, it is possible to rank management alternatives according to which induces the lowest risk of decline or extinction. A similar quantitative approach is currently emerging in invasion ecology, where the probability of declining is substituted by the probability of spreading non-indigenous populations in natural systems.

It is however to be noted that models are of high complementary value to experimental approaches. My belief is that we need to make theoretical advances to the following topics/fields in an effort to make wiser decisions:
- Invasion as an ecological and economic process
- Risk assessment and quantitative appraisal of alternative management schemes
- Uncertainty management

A contribution by:

Yiannis Matsinos
Dept of Environmental Studies
University of the Aegean
Mytilene
Lesvos, Greece