2011 Visiting Professorship Programme
30 May 2011
Professor Jonathan Gardner of Victoria University of Wellington has been awarded the second NZ-UK Link Foundation Visiting Professorship. He will take up his appointment in early October and will be based at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Professor Gardner is a marine biologist with research expertise in the fields of marine protected areas, biodiversity conservation and population genetics.
During his time in the UK, Professor Gardner intends to bring together these fields to address the UK’s new Marine Bill (the Marine and Coastal Access Bill of 2009) and NZ’s Marine Protected Areas Policy and Implementation Plan (2007). The expectation is that his work will contribute to a greater understanding of how Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can help protect marine biodiversity and how such MPAs can most effectively be set up and run to achieve their conservation goals (network design and aspects of connectivity).
Professor Gardner maintains that, worldwide, it is recognised that marine resources are depleted and that many anthropogenic actions now threaten marine biodiversity. There is increasing international recognition that various forms of marine reserves or marine protected areas provide substantial conservation benefits in terms of protecting marine biodiversity and ensuring the health of the marine environment. There is also now recognition of the fact that the best way to protect marine biodiversity is not through a series of ad hoc reserves, but through a network of interconnected and self-supporting reserves. This thinking is set out in current government policy for both the United Kingdom (the Marine Bill) and New Zealand (the MPA Strategy). The subject is therefore common to both countries, at the forefront of marine conservation planning, and has wider international relevance.
New Zealand is generally regarded as a world leader in marine protection because it has established 33 full ‘no take’ marine reserves, with several others planned. The UK has three statutory marine nature reserves in addition to a number of other types of marine protected areas.
Professor Jonathan Gardner, who is British born, has been at Victoria University of Wellington since April 1994. In December 1994, he became an active member of the South Coast Marine Reserve Coalition, a group set up to promote the establishment of a full ‘no take’ marine reserve on Wellington ’s south coast at Island Bay , in front of the university’s marine laboratory. The Taputeranga Marine Reserve was formally opened in August 2008, almost 20 years after it was first mooted. Professor Gardner is therefore a long time activist for marine protection and has longstanding and first hand experience of the NZ marine reserve process. He has published more than 50 papers on various aspects of marine reserves and marine
protected areas and on aspects of the population genetics of coastal biota.
Professor Jonathan Gardner is keen to appeal to both generalist and specialist audiences and to tailor his lectures to both the audience and the hosting institution. His initial thoughts on lecture themes are as follows:
1 – The New Zealand Experience with Marine Protected Areas. Topics will include history of development of marine reserves (MR) in NZ; legislation (the Marine Reserves Act 1971); different types of marine protected areas in NZ (MRs, mataitai, taipure, marine parks, benthic protection areas); sectors involved in establishing MRs; support and opposition for MRs in NZ; limitations and successes of MR establishment; the new MPA strategy; towards a network of MPAs in NZ.
2 – The design of a marine protected areas network. What do genetics and connectivity tell us about the structuring of populations of NZ coastal species? Topics will include background to MPAs in NZ; importance of science to underpin MPA establishment; relevance of genetic connectivity to the MPA network idea; review of NZ coastal species; assessment of population genetic structuring and genetic connectivity; contribution of genetic connectivity assessments to the NZ MPA network; future directions and importance of science to network design.
3 – New Zealand marine reserves: do they deliver conservation benefits? Topics will include rationale, purpose and establishment of MRs in NZ; expected conservation outcomes; monitoring – baselines, before/after and inside/outside comparisons; habitat mapping – before/after; examples of individual MR outcomes, including trophic cascades; measuring MR outcomes – meta-analysis and response ratio testing; power to detect change – monitoring effort; MRs as long term conservation tools.
4 – The future of marine protected areas This lecture is more of a personal view of MPAs. Topics will include where MPAs have been and where they are going in terms of global changes; what MPAs can and cannot achieve; what science is needed to support the development of a network of MPAs; timeframes for establishment; timeframes for conservation outcomes; examples of successes and failures; learning lessons from successes and failures.
Further details of the venues, dates and times for Professor Gardner’s lectures will be provided in due course.
Files
- Lectures Programme 2011-12
- Download: 2011-12_Lecture_Programme.pdf (277.76 KB)