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Trader - an Heuristic Method for Designing Protected Areas
Australian Institute of Marine Science, TOWNSVILLE, AUSTRALIA
Theme: TH2
Systems of protected areas are typically derived by optimization or heuristic methods. It can be argued that constraints such as the number, size-range and shape of areas, tend to favour heuristic rather than optimisation methods. Also, the process of determining such systems is often evolutionary, with frequent changes to both the objectives and the constraints. The analytical processes must thus be able to cope with such change, and hence the chosen tools must be easily adaptable, and should deliver potential schemes of protected areas in real-time. TRADER is an adaptable three-stage heuristic method-based multivariate regression trees and simple pruning techniques. It is ideally suited for designing protected area systems with spatial constraints, particularly so when the system is based on the representative areas paradigm. It is written in S/R, is easily adaptable, can be used alone or in conjunction with optimization methods, and its high computational speed means it can be used for real-time exploration and negotiation. Its use in the Representative Areas Program (RAP) of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park will be illustrated. The evolutionary process of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority RAP will be discussed in the context of the choices of analytical methods and tools.
