Threats – What’s likely to get worse?
Threats – What’s likely to get worse?
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Threats destroy, degrade or impair conservation targets by impacting a key ecological attribute. In CAP we seek to identify the sources that are the proximate cause of a stress.
For example, nutrient loading is a stress to water quality (key attribute) in many aquatic ecosystems, where excess nutrients in the water draw off oxygen and therefore kill fish and other aquatic life. However, the nutrient loading might be caused by many different sources, such as farm fertilizers, animal feed lots, septic systems, sewage treatment facilities or suburban runoff. CAP seeks to clearly identify the sources for each and rank their impact.
This section has 3 steps:
1. Develop/refine your list of major Threats.
2. Rank the Sources of future stress to your targets' key attributes
3. Review the Threats Scorecard to determine the most critical threats.
As with your Health Summary Scorecard, let your intuition kick in, look for patterns, and look for any threat rankings that may seem out of whack. Go back and adjust any rankings that need additional reflection.
Along with the Health Scorecard, the Threats Scorecard will lead you to developing the Strategies for your project to improve Target Health and abate critical Threats.
Overall Process.
- The turboCAP approach to ranking threats has been greatly simplified from traditional CAP threat ranking, but actually increases the clarity of connection to the potential degradation of key attributes. Simply, each potential source of stress to a key attribute is ranked on a one-page chart, with a focus on High or Very ranked sources.
- The turboCAP software is recommended for two reasons: (1) it provides a "starter set" of Threats for teams to consider and (2) it generates the all-important Threat Scorecard after ratings are entered. However, teams can use worksheets, and easily enter rating information later.
- “Threats” are Sources of stress to Key Attributes. Stresses are impacts to a Key Attribute. Sources are the human causes of a stress.
- Threats may be…
- Historic - these are already reflected in a degraded Key Attribute & poor Current Health
- Current and Ongoing – a Key Attribute may stay the same or get worse
- Future – focus of the threat assessment; we’re looking for what’s likely to get worse
- Multiple Threats may impair a Key Attribute, but pay most attention to High sources of stress; more than one source might be High to a given Key Attribute.
- Focus on High and Very High threats – these will become your focus with Strategies.
- Rank threats that are “reasonably likely to occur” over the next 10 years
- If the impact occurs over 10 years away, but the source is activated within 10 years, then it falls within the 10 year window – e.g., invasive species, policy decision
- Climate change brings complexity - the Threats are predominantly from global sources vs. the CAP need for local project strategies; make it as specific as possible
- How to rank very uncertain threats – e.g., improbable but potentially very harmful
“How much sleep do you lose” thinking about this threat:
Nightmare = Very High; Bad Dream = High; Troubled Sleep = Medium
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