As summarized in TNC's CAP Overview of Basic Practices This step helps you to identify the various factors that immediately affect your project’s focal targets and then rank them so that you can concentrate your conservation actions where they are most needed. Specific questions that this step answers include: “What threats are affecting our targets?”
“Which threats are more of a problem?” Expected Outputs - A list of stresses for each focal conservation target.
- Ratings of the scope and severity of each stress.
- A list of sources of stress for each focal conservation target.
- Ratings of the contribution and reversibility for each source.
- A ranking of the sources of stress affecting each focal target and a determination of the critical threats affecting your overall project.
The Importance of Identifying Critical Threats Show Hide
In many conservation situations, the biodiversity that we care about has either already been degraded, or is facing a series of threats that need to be countered by conservation actions. Threat ranking is a process wherein sources of stress, or direct threats, to your targets are first identified and then prioritized so that conservation actions can be directed where they are most needed. Threat ranking is important because in any given project area, there are always many activities that could be undertaken. The idea is to identify the most critical threats so that energy can be directed at them. Criteria-based ranking of threats provides an objective analysis of which threats are truly the critical threats. It also helps a team to lay out and document their assumptions so that they can be revisited at later dates. Defining Critical Threats Show Hide
As shown in the following diagram which follows the basic steps in the CAP process (step number corresponds to step in the CAP Basic Practices), the work of conservation ultimately involves having a project team uses strategies to achieve certain desired outcomes among factors (sources of stress, indirect threats and opportunities) that cause stresses to biodiversity targets. 
Terms at a Glance Stresses – Impaired aspects of conservation targets that result directly or indirectly from human activities (e.g., low population size, reduced extent of forest system; reduced river flows; increased sedimentation; lowered groundwater table level). Generally equivalent to degraded key ecological attributes (e.g., habitat loss). Sources of Stress(Direct Threats) – The proximate activities or processes that directly have caused, are causing or may cause stresses and thus the destruction, degradation and/or impairment of focal conservation targets (e.g., logging). Critical Threats – Direct threats that are most problematic. Most often, Very high and High rated threats based on the rating criteria of their impact on the focal targets. |
Stresses are impaired aspects of conservation targets that result directly or indirectly from human sources (e.g., low population size, reduced extent of forest system). In essence stresses are degraded key ecological attributes (Box 1). Sources of stress (also known as direct threats) are the proximate activities or processes that have caused, are causing or may cause the stresses (e.g., incompatible trawling or logging). For the most part, sources of stress are limited to human activities. Thus fires set by lighting or tropical storms that blow down large swaths of forest are not threats, but instead part of a natural (and often necessary) disturbance regime. There is a fine line, however, between a naturally occurring event, such as a fire set by lightning, and a human-caused threat, such as a fire set by a match or even increased intensity of fires due to forest management practices. In general, the latter two are sources of stress whereas the former is not. However, in special conservation situations –for example, when the last population of Javan rhinos is vulnerable to extinction from a “natural” tsunami –we would have to regard the tsunami as a threat to this species, even if it is not a threat to their forest habitat. Sources of stress can be currently active, likely to occur in the future (usually defined as within 10 years), or historical (Box 2). Critical threats are the sources of stress that are most problematic, as defined through the threat-rating process. Each stress is rated in terms of its likely scope and severity of impact on the target within the project planning horizon. Each source of stress is then rated in terms of its contribution and irreversibility and these ratings are combined to determine threat ratings. When identifying and rating sources of stress, it is important to focus on direct threats – the proximate activities that directly cause the stresses to the conservation targets. The underlying causes (usually social, economic, political, institutional or cultural) that enable or otherwise contribute to the occurrence and/or persistence of direct threats (i.e., indirect threats) or that represent opportunities to reduce direct threats (i.e., opportunities) will be considered in Step 5: Complete Situation Analysis and Step 6 Develop Strategies. Box 1. The Relationship Between Stresses and KEAsA key feature of the CAP methodology is to distinguish between stresses and sources of stress. As Bill Weeks described in Beyond the Ark (Weeks 1997[1]): The Nature Conservancy originally called the second step in its [site conservation] planning discipline “threats analysis.” Project teams understandably adopted “threat” as the unit of analysis. The Conservancy concluded after a time, however, that its project teams would be better positioned to develop good strategies if they considered threats in two more narrowly defined steps. Team members are now advised to ask first what the ecological stresses to a system are – independent of the source of those stresses – before separately tracing those stresses to their sources. If we do not consciously alter our natural mode of expression, we will, for example, call a proposed road a threat in an estuarine system. We are then immediately inclined to the conclusion that we must stop construction of the road. Threat: road. Solution: stop road. However, if we separate the threat into stress and source, the stress isn’t the road. The stress is, for example, loss of tidal flow. That formulation of stress inclines us to think, instead, of ways to keep tidal waters flowing through the pathway that is the proposed location of the road. Culverts may be the answer.
In the old 5-S system (the precursor to CAP), identification of stresses was particularly important as a means of understanding the disturbances that are likely to destroy, degrade or impair your targets and that result directly or indirectly from human sources (e.g., low population size, reduced extent of forest system, reduced river flows, increased sedimentation, lowered groundwater table level). But identification of stresses in a consistent fashion also tended to be a particularly challenging part of the 5-S process. The current iteration of the CAP process has expanded the analysis of targets, adding in particular an emphasis on developing and understanding key ecological attributes. This innovation has led to some confusion over the relationship between stresses and key ecological attributes. The simplest way to think about it is that a stress is a degraded key ecological attribute –one that is outside its acceptable range of variation. As shown in the following diagram, the stress (altered flow regime) is not a threat in and of itself, but rather a manifestation of the source of stress (agricultural water withdrawal) on the target. 
Most of the stresses acting on your targets can thus be identified by looking at which key ecological attributes are currently degraded or have a high potential to become degraded within the planning horizon of your project (e.g., the next 10 years)
______
[1] Weeks, W.W. 1997. Beyond the ark: tools for an ecosystem approach to conservation. Island Press, Washington, D.C. |
Box 2. Dealing With Historical Sources of StressAn issue that often occurs in threat analyses is how to deal with cases in which a persistent stress exists, even though the original source of stress is no longer present – in other words, the stress comes from a “historical” source. Consider the following examples: A. Levees are no longer constructed along a river but the remnant levees prevent the seasonal inundation of the floodplain – an important key attribute necessary for riparian forest recruitment. Levees need to be breeched to restore the flooding regime.
Stress: Altered flood regime
Source: Historical levee construction? Existing levees? B. Illegal dumping of dirt has filled part of a wetland. A chain-link fence has been installed around the site that will prevent future dumping, but the fill needs to be removed to restore the wetland.
Stress: Reduced wetland extent
Source: Historical dumping? Fill dirt? C. An accident at an industrial plant releases toxins into the downstream wetland resulting in the local extinction of many amphibian species. The plant has been permanently closed, but extensive clean-up and restoration work will be needed to restore the wetland.
Stress: Altered species composition/structure
Source: Historical industrial plant? Presence of toxins? In each of these cases, the human-caused sources of stress have been abated, but persistent stresses are still affecting the targets. In each case, the degraded state of the conservation target will be reflected in reduced target viability ratings. As a result, traditional CAP guidance has held that these “restoration situations” should not be included in threats analyses, because the actual human-caused sources of stress have already been abated and their effects are adequately captured as altered key ecological attributes within the viability assessment. In the absence of other actual threats, traditional CAP guidance thus holds that these targets should be considered unthreatened (have dark green “low” threat ranks), even though the targets are clearly still stressed [2]. Practitioners then have to consult both the viability and threat summary tables during strategy development to make sure they are not missing any restoration situations. There is, however, a grey area between “active” and “historical” sources of stress. In each of the above examples, one could make the case that the source of stress is the existing levees, the fill dirt or the presence of toxins and that these sources should be included in your threats analysis. Ultimately, the point of assessing target status and doing threat ratings is to lead to good strategy selection. To this end, it’s not worth spending a lot of time worrying about whether a source is “historical” or not. Your project team should define the stresses and sources that you feel are most important, make sure that restoration situations are expressed by altered key ecological attributes in the viability assessment, and then use your judgment to decide whether to also capture these persistent-stress situations within their threats analyses tables _________
[2] Note that in the previous 5-S system, practitioners were instructed to mark these historical sources with a special tag that then was used to generate a separate summary table of “historical sources of stress” that could be consulted during strategy development. This practice caused confusion, however, so now current versions of the CAP Workbook do not support the historical source designation. |
|
Commonly Used Methods Show Hide
| xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Since its inception, the CAP process has relied on a threat-rating methodology that involves identifying and rating stresses and then sources of stress on a target-by-target basis as described in this section. Recently, a “simplified” version of this methodology has been developed that focuses on directly rating the sources of stress (see Opportunities for Innovation below). üAs you go through this methodology, you can enter your work directly into the appropriate sections of the CAP Workbook. Or alternatively, if you are working in a large group setting, you can use a sticky tarp and index cards to capture your thinking (see Box 2 in Step 5: Complete Situation Analysis) and then transcribe it into the workbook.
1. Select a target and review its key ecological attributes
Threat identification is typically done on a target-by-target basis. You should thus select one of your focal conservation targets as a starting point (if this is your first time doing threat rating, you may wish to select a relatively simple and straightforward target). You should then review the key ecological attributes and indicators for this target that you identified in Step 3. Assess Viability. 2. Identify stresses / altered key ecological attributesDiscuss each key ecological attribute and determine which of these are sufficiently altered (or predicted to be sufficiently altered within the next 10 years) so as to be causing stress to your target. Consider the key ecological attributes that were rated Fair or Poor in the viability analyses and determine if the stresses that led to the degradation of the target are still active. Also consider those key ecological attributes that have a current status rating of Good or Very Good but are likely to degrade to Fair or Poor within your planning horizon if no conservation action is taken. Enter these altered key ecological attributes into the ü CAP Workbook, on a flip chart (Box 3), or put each one on an index card linked to your target. To more clearly describe the altered key ecological attribute as a stress to a target, considering adding a verb to your key ecological attribute name (e.g., reduced population size, altered species composition). If you identify stresses to a target that don’t match any of the key ecological attributes, you may have missed a “key” attribute of that target in your initial viability assessment and you should consider updating your viability table with this new information. 3. Apply stress-rating criteria and calculate stress rankRate each stress according to the criteria of scope and severity as defined in Box 3. If you are using the ü CAP Workbook, it will automatically calculate the Stress Rank for you. Or you can use the manual threat calculation guidance. You should also record any important comments or notes that emerge during your discussion. 4. Identify sources of stressFor each stress, brainstorm specific direct threats that are the source of the stress. Enter each source of stress in the ü CAP Workbook, flipchart, or if you are using index cards, put each source/direct threat on a card and then link the card to the appropriate stress(es). As you go through this process, you may find it useful to review the IUCN-CMP classification of direct threats to see if there are any threats you have not considered. 5. Apply source of stress rating criteria and calculate threat rankRate each source of stress according to the criteria of irreversibility and contribution as defined in Box 4. The ü CAP Workbook will automatically calculate the Threat to System and Overall Threat Ranks for you. Or you can use the manual threat calculations guidance. You should also record any important comments or notes that emerge during your discussion. 6. Repeat for your other targetsGo through steps 1-5 for your remaining targets. 7. Discuss threat summaryLook at the results of your threat rankings in the summary table in the workbook (see Bering Sea example in Box 5). See if there are any outcomes that do not match up with your team’s intuition. If so, go back and review your stress and source rankings for the questioned outcome. Perhaps your rankings need to be adjusted, or perhaps your intuition was off the mark. Then make any appropriate adjustments. This analysis identifies your critical threats (the very high and high ranked threats overall as well as threats that are very high or high ranked for one target). If it’s useful and feasible, you may also want to map your critical threats as shown in Box 5. Box 3. Stress RatingsEach stress is rated in terms of its scope and severity of its impact on the target as defined below. If you are working with a group, you can copy the following table on a flip chart and fill it in for each stress. Or you can enter the ratings directly into the appropriate cells of the üCAP Workbook. Simple Stress Rating Form for Flip Charts
Target X Stress | Severity | Scope | Stress Rank | Stress 1 | High | Very High | High | Stress 2 | | | | Stress 3 | | | | etc… | | | | | | | |
|
Rating Criteria for StressesSeverity – The level of damage to the conservation target that can reasonably be expected within 10 years under current circumstances (i.e., given the continuation of the existing situation). - Very High: The threat is likely to destroy or eliminate the conservation target over some portion of the target’s occurrence at the site.
- High: The threat is likely to seriously degrade the conservation target over some portion of the target’s occurrence at the site.
- Medium: The threat is likely to moderately degrade the conservation target over some portion of the target’s occurrence at the site.
- Low: The threat is likely to only slightly impair the conservation target over some portion of the target’s occurrence at the site.
Scope – Most commonly defined spatially as the geographic scope of impact on the conservation target at the site that can reasonably be expected within 10 years under current circumstances (i.e., given the continuation of the existing situation). - Very High: The threat is likely to be widespread or pervasive in its scope and affect the conservation target throughout the target’s occurrences at the site.
- High: The threat is likely to be widespread in its scope and affect the conservation target at many of its locations at the site.
- Medium: The threat is likely to be localized in its scope and affect the conservation target at some of the target’s locations at the site.
- Low: The threat is likely to be very localized in its scope and affect the conservation target at a limited portion of the target’s location at the site.
Example of Stress Ratings - Adapted from the TNC-WWF Bering Sea Project
4 | Target:Sea Ice Ecosystem | | Stresses - Altered Key Ecological Attributes | Severity | Scope | Stress | User Override | 1 | Reduced population size (all sea ice spp.) | High | Very High | High | | 2 | Loss of polar bear denning sites on land | Low | Medium | Low | | 3 | Reduced sea ice habitat integrity | Very High | Very High | Very High | | 4 | Degraded animal condition (all sea ice spp.) | Medium | Medium | Medium | |
|
Box 4. Source of Stress RatingsEach source of stress is rated in terms of its irreversibility and contribution as defined below. If you are working with a group, you can copy the following table on a flip chart and fill it in for each source of stress. Or you can enter the ratings directly into the appropriate cells of the üCAP Workbook. Simple Source of Stress Rating Form for Flip Charts Source | Stress 1 | Stress 2 | Stress 3 | etc… | Threat A | | | | | Contribution | High | Very High | | | Irreversibility | Medium | Medium | | | Threat B | | | | | Contribution | | | High | | Irreversibility | | | Low | | etc. | | | | |
Rating Criteria for Stresses Contribution – The expected contribution of the source, acting alone, to the full expression of a stress (as determined in the stress assessment) under current circumstances (i.e., given the continuation of the existing management/conservation situation). - Very High: The source is a very large contributor of the particular stress.
- High: The source is a large contributor of the particular stress.
- Medium: The source is a moderate contributor of the particular stress.
- Low: The source is a low contributor of the particular stress.
Irreversibility – The degree to which the effects of a source of stress can be restored.
- Very High: The source produces a stress that is not reversible (e.g., wetlands converted to a shopping center).
- High: The source produces a stress that is reversible, but not practically affordable (e.g., wetland converted to agriculture).
- Medium: The source produces a stress that is reversible with a reasonable commitment of resources (e.g., ditching and draining of wetland).
- Low: The source produces a stress that is easily reversible at relatively low cost (e.g., off-road vehicles trespassing in wetland).
Example of Source of Stress Ratings - Adapted from the TNC-WWF Bering Sea Project
Stress 1 = Reduced pop size, Stress 2 = Loss of polar bear denning,
Stress 3 = Reduced sea ice integrity, Stress 4 = Degraded animal condition
Threats- Sources of Stress Threats to System Rank | | | | Stress 1 | Stress 2 | Stress 3 | Stress 4 | | 1 | Climate change | Contribution | Very High | Low | Very High | Very High | Very High | Irreversibility | Very High | Very High | Very High | Very High | Source | Very High | Medium | Very High | Very High | Combined Rank | High | Low | Very High | Medium | 2 | DLPkillings (polar bears) | Contribution | Medium | | | | Medium | Irreversibility | Medium | | | | Source | Medium | - | - | - | Combined Rank | Medium | - | - | - | 3 | Overhunting | Contribution | High | | | | Medium | Irreversibility | Medium | | | | Source | Medium | - | - | - | Combined Rank | Medium | - | - | - |
|
Box 5. Example of a Threat Rating Summary and Threat MapsThis example is adapted from the TNC-WWF Bering Sea Project. Note that threat maps are optional in the standard CAP process. Summary of Threats
to Targets | Seabirds | Pinn-ipeds | Pelagic Fish | Sea Ice Ecosys-tem | Sea Otter | Whales | Coral & SpongeGardens | Bottom Dwelling Fish & Crab | Overall Threat Rank | Project-specific threats | Climate change | High | High | High | V High | V High | - | - | High | V High | Excessive predation | - | - | - | - | V High | - | - | - | High | Oil spill | High | Med. | Med. | Med. | High | - | - | - | High | Competition with fisheries | High | High | - | - | - | - | - | - | High | Overfishing | - | - | Med. | - | - | - | - | High | Med. | Fisheries | - | - | - | - | - | - | High | - | Med. | Introduced predators | High |
|
|
|
Conservation by Design Gateway
