multi-country ecosystem management via interacting models of political and ecological processes...

Multi-country Ecosystem Management via Interacting

Models of Political and Ecological Processes

Timothy C. HaasSchool of Business AdministrationUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

haas@uwm.eduwww.uwm.edu/~haas/ems-cheetah/

Outline

• Ecosystem management with interacting models of political and ecological processes

• Example: Management of cheetah across East Africa

System Characteristics

• Probabilistic models of groups and the affected ecosystem fitted to data

• Practical management strategies found from these fitted models

Group Models

• President, EPA, rural residents, pastoralists, and NGOs

• Groups act to reach economic, militaristic, and political goals

• Internal (distorted) perceptions of other groups and the ecosystem

Example: Simplified Group Influence Diagram

Endangered Species-Focused Ecosystem Model

• Latest population dynamics model

• Convert to a stochastic differential equation system to add uncertainty representation

East African Cheetah Management

• Presidents, EPAs, rural residents, and pastoralists of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

• Conservation-focused NGO

• Cheetah population dynamics in each political region

Data

• Political actions from on-line newspapers over 1999-2006

• Artificial cheetah counts based on actual data from 1998-2000

Observed Group Actions for Kenya

Kenya Actions from Fitted Model

Data-Model Agreement

• 23% of observed action-target combinations matched by fitted model

• Error rate: 1 – 0.23 = 77%

• Blind guessing error rate:1 – 1/20 = 95% (with 20 decisionoptions)

Model-Based Most Practical Management Strategy Setup

• Specify desired future ecosystem state

• Example: 1000 cheetahs 50 years hence

Solution

• Find smallest change in group belief systems that will result in a sequence of group actions that lead to the desired ecosystem state

Conclusions

• A political-ecological model of ecosystem management decisions can be built

Conclusions continued

• This model can be calibrated to political-ecological data

• This fitted model can out-perform blind guessing of future group decisions