Bridging research and practice in conservation

Conservation practitioners' perspectives on decision triggers for evidence‐based management

Conservation ethics in the time of the pandemic: Does increasing remote access advance social justice?

Cultivating a Constituency for Conservation

Many conservation practitioners and scholars have called for increasing involvement of the social sciences in conservation and better integration among the various disciplines engaged in conservation practice. This research uses the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Fourth World Conservation Congress (WCC) as a site of ethnographic inquiry to explore in-depth how conservation researchers and practitioners view the social sciences in conservation. This paper situates those views in the context of the WCC itself and treats such themes as the appropriate role for the social sciences in conservation, conflicts between social and natural scientists, and sorting out differences between academic social scientists and those working within conservation organisations. It ends with a reflection on what changes new approaches to conservation might bring to the relationship between natural and social sciences in conservation.

Building a tool to overcome barriers in research-implementation spaces: The Conservation Evidence database

A meta-analysis of agricultural conservation intentions, behaviors, and practices: Insights from 35 years of quantitative literature in the United States

Ecosystem services

A sustainable management of national park requires collaboration between park staff, NGOs, local organizations and stakeholders, and government intervention. This collaboration promotes community-based welfare and inspires a sense of responsibility, thus promoting more benefits than conflicts. A survey administered to residents surrounding Nyungwe National Park was used to evaluate the relationship between Nyungwe National Park management and local communities. The residents acknowledged a positive attitude towards participating in conservation organizations where there was involvement, while a negative response revealed weak community mobilization. The community’s opinions about protection and tourism progression noted weak conflict resolution, but a positive attitude towards tourism activities in the area since they believed employment was likely as a result. In addition, the residents asked for support from government investments and stakeholders to develop the local private sector, and asked to be involved during the planning process. Approaches including the design of coordination mechanisms and integrated conservation and developments projects are suggested to promote a management structure leading to community involvement in conservation and tourism activities. This will increase visitor numbers and contribute to economic development not only in the region but also in the whole country. Empirical studies along with the factors shaping tourism and conservation activities should be considered as the basis for sustainable decision and policy making for sustainable management, and will contribute to government, stakeholders and park manager collaborations at Nyungwe national park.

A practice-oriented approach to foster private landowner participation in ecosystem service conservation and restoration at a landscape scale

Building bridges between science and environmental management

The <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 pandemic: A learnable moment for conservation

Domestic cats are the most abundant vertebrate predator in many regions, but the acceptability of management strategies to reduce their effects on wildlife among conservation researchers and practitioners is unclear. We conducted a survey of UK-based conservation researchers and practitioners, using eight key statements on cat risks and management strategies, and assessed whether cat ownership influenced attitudes. While both researchers and practitioners agreed that cats were harmful to wildlife and management was needed, researchers were more concerned about cats entering nature reserves and less supportive of trap-neuter-release (TNR) than practitioners. Furthermore, cat ownership affected perceptions, with cat owners less likely to agree that cats threaten wildlife or support management strategies such as building buffer zones around nature reserves. Together, both occupation and cat ownership affected attitudes toward cats. This study could guide future campaigns in designing management strategies for nature reserves to reduce the effects of domestic cats on wildlife.

What is a legitimate conservation policy?

The need for consensus on consensus methods

Evidence-informed decision-making can help catalyze the development and implementation of effective conservation actions. Yet despite decades of research on evidence-informed conservation, its realization within conservation implementing agencies and organizations still faces challenges. First, conservation decisions are shaped by individual, organizational, and systemic factors that operate and interact across different temporal and spatial scales. Second, the different cultures and value systems within conservation implementing agencies fuels continued debate on what can and should count as evidence for decision-making, and ultimately shapes how evidence is used in practice. While the importance of evidence-informed conservation is increasingly recognized, we have witnessed few changes within conservation implementing agencies that could enable better engagement with diverse types of evidence and knowledge holders. Based on our experience supporting monitoring, evaluation and learning systems in conservation implementing agencies, we argue that to realize evidence-informed conservation we need a better understanding of the process and context of conservation decision-making within organizations, an alignment of institutional systems and processes that generate evidence relevant to information needs, and changes that help conservation organizations become learning organizations. These actions could help transform how conservation practitioners and organizations learn to enable more evidence-informed decision-making within the complex systems they work in.