ABSTRACT
Ecological monitoring is critical to the success of protected areas and remote sensing is critical to the success of ecological monitoring. Both of these statements are true, in part, because of the uncertainty inherent in protected area management. A dominant paradigm in protected area management is the “uncertainty principle” (Hockings et al. 2000) which simply states that decisions can never be made with complete certainty regarding the outcome of management actions. This uncertainty is due to the complex and dynamic nature of ecosystems that protected areas are established to protect. For this reason, adaptive management is a key strategy in the conservation of protected areas (Hockings et al. 2000). Adaptive management is an iterative approach to management where decisions are treated as hypotheses that are to be tested through monitoring (Holling 1978). Results of decisions are monitored to ensure that they support goals and objectives. If monitoring suggests that actions (or inactions) are not effective then they are adapted in light of the new information and adjustments are made. This cycle of
CONTENTS
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 95 5.2 Study Area .................................................................................................... 97 5.3 Methods ......................................................................................................... 98
5.3.1 Earth Observation/Remote Sensing Methods ............................99 5.3.2 Landscape Ecology Methods ....................................................... 101
5.4 Results ......................................................................................................... 105 5.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 108 References ............................................................................................................. 109
decision-making-monitoring-adaption is repeated in an iterative manner until protected area goals are met. For protected areas, adaptive management cannot be successful without effective ecological monitoring.
