More bang for your buck: Managing the military training and environmental values of military training areas

Management of military training areas (MTA) is complex. These areas are environmentally significant, covering an estimated 250M hectares globally. Often the dedicated military training values of these sites are in competition with the potential for protection of local environmental values. Globally, no current MTA management approach effectively integrates both the military training and environmental values of these areas. We present a new conceptual model of how military training and environmental values of an MTA can be integrated into management. Our approach identifies and assigns a value to all military training and environmental values that occur on an MTA, allowing for management trade-offs to be made. We demonstrate the application of our model with a case study.