Conservation Organizations Research Articles

Ionic complexation improves wound healing in deep second-degree burns and reduces in-vitro ciprofloxacin cytotoxicity in fibroblasts.

The development of new treatments capable of controlling infections and pain related to burns continues to be a challenge. Antimicrobials are necessary tools, but these can be cytotoxic for regenerating cells. In this study, antibiotic-anesthetic (AA) smart systems obtained by ionic complexation of polyelectrolytes with ciprofloxacin and lidocaine were obtained as films and hydrogels. Ionic complexation with sodium alginate and hyaluronate decreased cytotoxicity of ciprofloxacin above 70% in a primary culture of isolated fibroblasts (p < 0.05). In addition, the relative levels of the proteins involved in cell migration, integrin β1 and p-FAK, increased above 1.5 times (p < 0.05) with no significant differences in cell mobility. Evaluation of the systems in a deep second-degree burn model revealed that reepithelization rate was AA-films = AA-hydrogels > control films > no treated > reference cream (silver sulfadiazine cream). In addition, appendage conservation and complete dermis organization were achieved in AA-films and AA-hydrogels. Encouragingly, both the films and the hydrogels showed a significantly superior performance compared to the reference treatment. This work highlights the great potential of this smart system as an attractive dressing for burns, which surpasses currently available treatments.

Conservative conservationists: reconciling conflicting identities on climate change

ABSTRACT Identities – how individuals think about themselves in the social world – are powerful drivers of political attitudes and behaviors. On highly polarizing issues such as climate change, political identities are powerful predictors of attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences. However, other, non-partisan identities are also relevant to climate change attitudes, particularly when the identity is threatened by climate change. What happens when an individual has two salient identities informing opposing attitudes on a political issue? This study leverages a unique sample of politically conservative members of an environmental conservation organization – “conservative conservationists” – to understand how people reconcile conflicting identities to form their environmental attitudes and behaviors. Using qualitative data from interviews (n = 25) and participant observation, I document four strategies that participants use to reconcile identity conflicts and form environmental attitudes: distancing oneself from one of the conflicting identities; increasing deliberate political information seeking; redefining conceptions of an issue to fit with both identities; and creating a new identity that merges the non-conflicting aspects of the two identities. This research has implications for both the theoretical study of how identities influence political behavior and practical efforts to build bipartisan agreement on climate change.

Collaborative Conservation by Botanical Gardens: Unique Opportunities for Local to Global Impacts

Conservation organizations with common missions can find strength and synergy in collaboration. Collaboration can also be challenging, especially finding the right partnerships or organizations to lead. Within the “ecosystem” of conservation organizations, botanical gardens have a unique array of resources and expertise which make them ideal candidates for leadership or partnership in collaborative conservation efforts. We will explore this idea by examining four conservation initiatives at Desert Botanical Garden (Phoenix, AZ, USA) that approach collaborative conservation on regional, state, and international scales. On a regional scale, Metro Phoenix EcoFlora and the Central Arizona Conservation Alliance lead landscape-level conservation by providing a structure for more than 60 official conservation partners, by generating data, and through public engagement needed in a rapidly developing region. On the state scale, Great Milkweed Grow Out is an initiative for pollinator conservation that provides expertise, materials, and opportunities for a wide range of partners across Arizona. Desert Botanical Garden’s endangered plant species conservation efforts provide expertise and resources through horticulture and seed preservation for threatened and endangered plants across the US and internationally. We will share the structure of each program where applicable, how they came to fruition, and their successes. Through each case study, we will highlight the ways positioning within a botanical garden has benefitted the program and success in collaboration. We will also highlight unique challenges. Botanical gardens provide unique opportunities, and they should not be overlooked when seeking a conservation partner or leader.

Securing Flows in the River Systems through Irrigation Water Use Efficiency—A Case Study from Karula River in the Ganga River System

The pressure on freshwater resources is leading to diminishing flows in some of the critical river systems across the globe. India is no exception, and this is mainly because of water withdrawal for irrigation, which is often to the tune of 70% to 80% of the lean season flows, with some proportion for domestic and industrial use. While graduating from the concept of environmental flows and its assessment methodologies in India, the water-managers, the researchers and the conservationists are now moving towards answering the next question, if the rivers are to be revived, where will the water come from, especially in the case of over-allocated rivers, including the River Ganga. While the logical way is to look at the biggest user of water, i.e., irrigation, it remains to be seen whether the irrigation water savings will actually lead to enhancing flows in a river, complementing the efforts towards maintaining e-flows in rivers, or whether it will lead to more area under agriculture, bring changes in cropping patterns towards more water-intensive crops or result in something else. This is a growing debate across the globe, where India is no exception, and there has been a wide range of opinions in this regard. This paper discusses the process, findings and lessons from a joint initiative involving farmers, the Uttar Pradesh state Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Bijnor District Administration and a conservation organisation, WWF, to enhance flows in a sub-tributary, called the Karula River, which is part of the Ganga River system. Another objective of this paper is to look at the scalability and replicability of similar approaches in other irrigation command areas to benefit nearby river systems in general. Under this initiative, the team attempted to enhance flows in the river Karula by routing the saved water from irrigation supplies in a canal commanded area. This saving of water is being achieved due to supply-side and demand-side measures that are being adopted in the project area. With the objective of ensuring the sustainability of the initiative, efforts are made to form an institutional arrangement, through which this initiative can be sustained beyond the project support.

Factors affecting consumer purchase intention for buying solar energy products

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing consumers’ intention to purchase solar energy products (SEPs).Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on primary data that has been collected from a total of 351 non-users of SEPs from different cities of Tamil Nadu state (India). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling have been used to examine the collected data.FindingsAttitude, perceived behavioral control and energy concern variables are significant towards consumers’ purchase intention. However, other variables such as subjective norms and energy awareness were found insignificant.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size was chosen based on convenience sampling, and the sample was collected from the different cities in Tamil Nadu. As a result, the outcome may not be representative of the whole population. Respondents’ perspectives in one section of India may differ from those in another.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study help policymakers, business experts, marketers, social marketers and energy conservation organizations in gaining a better understanding of consumer behavior.Social implicationsThe outcome of this study will be effective in developing action plans to improve environmental quality through solar products.Originality/valueThis study has targeted the potential consumers and identified factors that are influencing consumers’ intention to purchase SEP. Therefore, the study’s findings will add value to SEP companies, government and non-government organizations, marketers, academicians and the research community.

The Characteristics of the Main Habitats of Goitered Gazelle (Artiodactyla, Bovidae) in Azerbaijan

The goitered gazelle was widely distributed in semi-desert plains and mountain foothills of the country. In historical times the distribution and number of gazelles was depending on alluvial activity of Kura and Araxes Rivers, level of the water in the Caspian Sea, irrigation and cultivation of steppes and semideserts, persecution of the gazelles by numerous tribes and peoples that inhabited this territory etc. By the mid XX century the number of gazelles in Azerbaijan declined catastrophically and was about to be extinct. By common efforts of state and international conservation organizations it was possible to significantly restore the historical range and the number of gazelle population in the country. Our studies covered current and potential gazelle habitats with purpose to find perspective sites for reintroduction. The article is devoted to a description of main habitats of the goitered gazelle in Azerbaijan.

Using the conservation excellence model to improve ecosystem restoration undertaken by organisations working in biodiversity hotspots

Ecosystem restoration is a relatively new discipline in conservation biology and good practice is needed to close the knowledge-action gap to implement evidence-based conservation and effective landscape recovery. The Conservation Excellence Model (CEM) has been used to evaluate over 100 conservation organisations including programmes involved in reforestation and ecosystem renewal. This study evaluates a reforestation initiative in Mauritius using the CEM methodology and compares the programme’s organisation with an equivalent Indian Ocean Island programme in Comoros. This study aims to identify whether improvements in reforestation can be identified by CEM evaluation, whether recommendations for these specific reforestation programmes generate learning about effective practices in the sector, and whether the CEM is a relevant tool for comparing effectiveness of reforestation initiatives. The Mauritius programme is shown to utilise sound approaches, whilst being a relatively new organisation (with a profile of more than 350 points), yet can still make improvements already implemented and observed in its Comorian equivalent, which will enable significant improvement in approach and results in the future. The findings identify the importance of addressing threats and factors influencing ecosystem degradation, ensuring links between agricultural and reforestation goals, involvement of local communities, resilient management teams, and having teams based on local staff. CEM assessment provides a rapid, low-intensity approach to investigate connections and facilitate improvements in organisational practice, enhance conservation and restoration work, and enable a more purposeful effort to ensure advances in achievement, outcomes and impact of reforestation initiatives.

Assessing Conservation Easement Landowners Adoption of Thinning

Abstract The Natural Resources Conservation Service has overseen several conservation easement programs in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV), which have the primary objective to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands functions and to protect conservation values, such as wildlife habitat. Promotion of thinning in forests reaching or past canopy closure improves habitat conditions in forests under conservation easement. This study explicitly explores determinants that influence easement landowner voluntary adoption of thinning and characterizes landowners who are unwilling to thin in terms of management concerns, objective interference, and other reasons. The willingness-to-thin models demonstrated that membership in conservation organizations, different income expectations from thinning, and investment objectives positively influence landowners’ willingness to thin, whereas being an original easement grantor decreases the likelihood to thin such that subsequent landowners who will inherit or purchase the easement will be more willing to conduct thinning. Study results also indicated that landowners who had recreation as an ownership objective are less likely to adopt thinning, having important long-term implications for managing the forest in the easements. Findings from this study could be used to improve efforts to design and conduct educational interventions that promote forest health and wildlife habitat needs in the LMAV easements.

A synthesis of human conflict with an African megaherbivore; the common hippopotamus

The common hippopotamus is an extant African megaherbivore that is relatively understudied by scientists and underfunded by conservation organisations. Conflict with people, however, is a major concern given the danger that hippos pose to human life. Moreover, very little is known about human–hippo conflict (HHC), and experimental fieldwork on mitigation methods has hardly been conducted. Here we conduct an exhaustive review of the primary and grey literature outlining how the conflict between people and hippos arises, the impacts of conflict on both human communities and hippo populations, and all known intervention measures. Our review highlights the effectiveness of barriers around crops, riparian buffer zones (that exclude cattle and crop planting), and payments for environmental services as tools to mitigate HHC. This study also highlights the knowledge gaps in HHC research, particularly the spatial scale of HHC, the lack of field experimental research on deterrents, and a paucity of knowledge on outcomes of projected climate change and HHC.

Valuing Cultural Landscape Heritage in Historic Areas: Proposed Assessment Criteria from Thailand

A historic area is a valuable cultural heritage site. A historic community’s landscape is no less valuable than the historic buildings. In Thailand, conservation organisations only preserve and value buildings with high archaeological importance. The appreciation of surrounding landscapes is still lacking. This study aimed to establish criteria for valuing cultural landscape in Thailand. The methodology was by reviewing concepts of cultural heritage, historic area, cultural landscape, and evaluation criteria created by UNESCO and Thai organisations so as to build the new criteria. We then proposed the criteria in four areas: aesthetics, history, science and education, and society, which would correspond to current guidelines to cover cultural landscapes comprehensively.

Evidence-based Risk Assessment of Ecological Damage due to Groundwater Abstraction; the Case of Doñana Natural Space, Spain

Many regions of the world are facing mounting water stress as competition increases for this vital resource that may become scarcer under future climates. More water is being allocated to our needs for food, public supply, hydro-electric power and industrial goods to support growing populations and mounting life-style expectations. To achieve this, less water is often being retained for water-dependent ecosystems. Environmental protection agencies and conservation organisations have highlighted the resulting threat to freshwater biodiversity and associated ecosystem services that support human livelihoods and well-being. Careful assessments are therefore required to advise on the optimum allocation of water and to determine the risk of developments that require redistribution of water resources.Along the northern fringes of the Guadalquivir River delta and estuary in southern Spain about 40% of all jobs derive from agriculture. The production of olives, fruit trees, rice and berries is a major component of the local economy producing large exports, but it requires significant water from local rivers and the underlying aquifers. The economy is also reliant on tourism that brings many thousands of people to the area in the summer for which groundwater abstraction is augmented. The delta is the location of the Doñana wetland complex of lagoons, marshlands, fixed and mobile dunes that was designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1980, as wetland of international importance (Ramsar Site) under the Convention on Wetlands in 1982 and as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994. Fears have been expressed that increasing human water use is putting the wetlands at risk of drying out, despite efforts by the river basin authority to limit abstraction to sustainable levels.This paper reports on a methodology that analyses best available eco-hydrological scientific knowledge together with information on the likely success of abstraction control measures to determine the risk to the wetland ecosystem of current and future planned water allocation. The method was applied to Doñana by the joint UNESCO/IUCN/Ramsar Reactive Monitoring mission to in 2020. The results are also provided in the paper, which raised many important scientific and related political, legal and social issues concerning the impacts of water withdrawals on the ecology of the wetlands. The methodology has wide application to environmental water allocation assessments.

Karyotype conservation and genomic organization of repetitive sequences in the leaf-cutting ant Atta cephalotes (Linnaeus, 1758) (Formicidae: Myrmicinae).

Leaf-cutting ants are among the New World's most conspicuous and studied ant species due to their notable ecological and economic roles. Cytogenetic studies carried out in Atta show remarkable karyotype conservation among the species. We performed classical cytogenetics and physical mapping of repetitive sequences in the leaf-cutting ant Atta cephalotes (Linnaeus, 1758), the type species of the genus. Our goal was to test the karyotype conservation in Atta and to understand the genomic organization and diversity regarding repetitive sequences in leaf-cutting ants. Atta cephalotes showed 2n = 22 (18m + 2sm + 2st) chromosomes. The heterochromatin followed a centromeric pattern, and the GC-rich regions and 18S rDNA clusters were co-located interstitially in the 4th metacentric pair. These cytogenetic characteristics were observed in other Atta species that had previously been studied, confirming the karyotype conservation in Atta. Evolutionary implications regarding the conservation of the chromosome number in leaf-cutting ants are discussed. Telomeric motif (TTAGG)n was detected in A. cephalotes as observed in other ants. Five out of the 11 microsatellites showed a scattered distribution exclusively on euchromatic areas of the chromosomes. Repetitive sequences mapped on the chromosomes of A. cephalotes are the first insights into genomic organization and diversity in leaf-cutting ants, useful in further comparative studies.

Stopping the slaughter: The economic rationale to anti-poaching in Tanzania

Having experienced significant declines in its wildlife populations, especially the elephant, Tanzania has embarked on a nation-wide anti-poaching program. These efforts are similar to those in regional countries and informed by security discourses that claim poaching is an issue of (inter)national security. However, far more widespread than the contemporary “poacher-as-terrorist” trope used to rationalize militarized conservation in other locations is Tanzania’s categorization of the poacher as an “economic saboteur,” who threatens the national economy. In this article, I show how this categorization is one aspect of a broader economic rationale directing the country’s increasingly militarized anti-poaching response. Here, the logic is that wildlife is central to the tourism industry, and critical for the economy, and therefore must be secured from its poacher enemies. Highlighting various examples of this economic threat discourse, the article details how conservation organizations and governmental actors, aiming to “stop the slaughter” of Tanzania’s elephant populations, utilize an economic rationality in their efforts to defend the value of wildlife to the Tanzanian economy. Premised on the desire to expand the economy, this economic rationale authorizes both the intensification of militarized conservation policy and practices and contradictory partnerships that arise within it, including with the extractive industries.

Communicating nature during lockdown – How conservation and outdoor organisations use social media to facilitate local nature experiences

Abstract Social media impact not only our communication and social interactions but also our relationships to the natural environment. Social media can increase understanding of our environment by offering information and sharing calls to action, while at the same time, they might present a glamourised, standardised picture of nature and distract from actual outdoor interactions. The COVID‐19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to study the spaces created for interactions between the online and offline natural world, especially in countries where movement and thus outdoor activities were restricted during lockdowns. To understand these interactions, we investigated the social media communication of nature conservation and outdoor organisations by analysing Twitter posts of four prominent NGOs in Scotland. We found that during the first COVID‐19‐induced UK lockdown in spring 2020, Scottish nature conservation and outdoor organisations made distinctive efforts in supporting followers to connect with nature in the face of restrictions. Organisations showed signs of moving towards community‐building through sharing experiences often related to nearby nature, while calls for environmental action, more prominent in the previous year, receded in relative importance. Emphasis was put on sensory engagement with, and finding solace in the rhythm of, nature. References to taking action to protect nature now became linked to a green recovery from the pandemic. We conclude that NGOs used social media not as a space separate from the outdoors, but as an augmented space where online and offline interactions were interwoven and a space in which during the COVID‐19 pandemic, new avenues for engagement were being explored. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Using deep convolutional neural networks to forecast spatial patterns of Amazonian deforestation

Abstract Tropical forests are subject to diverse deforestation pressures while their conservation is essential to achieve global climate goals. Predicting the location of deforestation is challenging due to the complexity of the natural and human systems involved but accurate and timely forecasts could enable effective planning and on‐the‐ground enforcement practices to curb deforestation rates. New computer vision technologies based on deep learning can be applied to the increasing volume of Earth observation data to generate novel insights and make predictions with unprecedented accuracy. Here, we demonstrate the ability of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn spatiotemporal patterns of deforestation from a limited set of freely available global data layers, including multispectral satellite imagery, the Hansen maps of annual forest change (2001–2020) and the ALOS PALSAR digital surface model, to forecast deforestation (2021). We designed four model architectures, based on 2D CNNs, 3D CNNs, and Convolutional Long Short‐Term Memory (ConvLSTM) Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), to produce spatial maps that indicate the risk to each forested pixel (~30 m) in the landscape of becoming deforested within the next year. They were trained and tested on data from two ~80,000 km2 tropical forest regions in the Southern Peruvian Amazon. The networks could predict the location of future forest loss to a high degree of accuracy (F1 = 0.58–0.71). Our best performing model (3D CNN) had the highest pixel‐wise accuracy (F1 = 0.71) when validated on 2020 forest loss (2014–2019 training). Visual interpretation of the mapped forecasts indicated that the network could automatically discern the drivers of forest loss from the input data. For example, pixels around new access routes (e.g. roads) were assigned high risk, whereas this was not the case for recent, concentrated natural loss events (e.g. remote landslides). Convolutional neural networks can harness limited time‐series data to predict near‐future deforestation patterns, an important step in harnessing the growing volume of satellite remote sensing data to curb global deforestation. The modelling framework can be readily applied to any tropical forest location and used by governments and conservation organisations to prevent deforestation and plan protected areas.

A global analysis of factors predicting conservationists' values

Abstract There exists a wealth of philosophical, sociological and anthropological literature on environmental values; yet, few studies have investigated the values held by conservationists themselves, and how these shape the conservation movement. Here, we present the first global analysis of the relationships between conservationists' values and a broad range of conservationists' characteristics, categorised into their educational and professional background, geographical context and personal experiences in childhood and adulthood. We draw on survey responses from 9264 conservationists from 149 countries to conduct the broadest analysis to date of what factors are associated with the values of conservationists. Our results demonstrate that 13 characteristics of conservationists' personal and professional backgrounds are statistically related to their values regarding the place of people, science, capitalism and nonhuman entities in conservation. Of these characteristics, educational specialism and continent of nationality had the highest predictive power. We also draw on open‐text responses to uncover other factors that conservationists identify as having been important in shaping their values; travel and religion were the most commonly reported. Our findings have important implications for current debates on diversity and inclusion within the conservation community. In particular, we provide broad empirical evidence that increasing personal and professional diversity in conservation organisations is likely to also increase the range of values represented. We also discuss the implications of our results for interdisciplinarity, the management of disagreement and conflict in conservation, and the training of future generations of conservationists. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change

Abstract Multiple visions for how urbanism can respond to the climate crisis and foster sustainability have emerged on the international agenda, including the ecocity, low-carbon city, smart city, and resilient city. These competing visions have been joined by one deploying “nature-based solutions.” We examine how nature-based solutions are emerging as a linchpin holding together the nature and climate agendas and what this means for where and by whom nature-based solutions are forming part of transnational urban governance. We argue that this field is animated by four frames connecting urban nature and climate: nature for resilience, nature for mitigation, the integrated benefits of nature, and nature first. Diverse actors, from conservation organizations to design firms to transnational municipal networks, draw on these frames and adopt new governance arrangements such that what it means to govern climate in the city is shifting. How this emerging nature–climate governance complex is structured will generate new momentum for governing urban nature over the coming decade.

For the love of insects: gardening grows positive emotions (biophilia) towards invertebrates

As growing urban populations have fewer chances to experience nature, i.e., ‘the extinction of experience’, the subsequent loss of emotional affinities for biodiversity (biophilia) pose major challenges to environmental conservation. Gardening, as an everyday nature interaction and window into invertebrate ecological functioning may offer opportunities to develop biophilia. However, the associations between gardening and biophilia/biophobia towards invertebrates remains untested. We conducted an online survey (n = 443) with adults in Japan about their nature and gardening experiences, demographics, and species identification knowledge in relation to their biophilia (like) and biophobia (dislike, fear, and disgust) towards invertebrates. We also asked participants about their perceptions of invertebrates as ‘beneficials’ or ‘pests’. From responses, we ranked invertebrates according to the attitudes held towards them. We found that frequent gardeners were more likely to express biophilia and perceive invertebrates as beneficial, and generally less likely to express biophobia towards invertebrates. Frequency of visits to recreational parks, but not national/state parks was associated with increased biophilia and reduced dislike and fear of invertebrates. Our results suggest that gardening, in addition to localised nature experiences, acts as a possible pathway towards appreciation of invertebrate biodiversity. We recommend that policymakers and conservation organisations view urban gardening as a potential tool to minimise the negative impacts of the extinction of experience.Implications for insect conservationAs people are more likely to conserve what they love, finding ways to nurture positive attitudes towards insects is critical for the public support needed for successful insect conservation. Considering gardening is a relatively accessible form of nature connection even in cities, our findings of the association between gardening and biophilia towards invertebrates holds promise for potential pathways towards fostering support for insect conservation now and into the future.

Investigating the Impact of Preschool Type on Young Children’s Empathy

Empathy can be a powerful driver for positive social change and is relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals that serve as a global blueprint for peace and prosperity. Empathy has also gained popularity within zoos, aquariums, and other wildlife conservation organizations as a motivator for caring action toward wildlife and nature. As such, there is a need to understand and develop interventions that further people’s empathy, particularly in the context of young children, given the critical developmental period of early childhood. A quantitative study was conducted with 124 children from eight preschools in Minnesota (USA). A modified version of the “Young Children’s Empathy Measure with Humans and Animals” was administered at the beginning and end of a preschool year to measure the impact of preschool type (nature preschool, animal-focused nature preschool, and non-nature preschool) on empathy (cognitive, affective, and empathic behavioral intentions). Results suggest that animal-focused nature preschools and nature preschools were more effective than non-nature preschools for empathic behavioral intentions in the context of humans, as well as for cognitive and affective empathy with wildlife. Further, the animal-focused nature preschools were more effective than nature and non-nature preschools in terms of empathic behavioral intentions in the context of animals. Implications are discussed in light of the study’s limitations.

First camera trap record of Striped Hyena Hyaena hyaena (Linnaeus, 1758) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Hyaenidae) in Parsa National Park, Nepal

The Striped Hyena occurs in the Tarai and midhill regions of Nepal, where limited information is available on species distribution. A camera trap survey was conducted in Parsa National Park in 2016 (Feb–May) and 2016–2017 (Nov–Feb) to monitor tigers at 158 locations for 21 days (6,615 trap efforts in total). This study successfully captured the 15 hyena images in 5 grids of eastern part (named as extension area) of national park. A total of 17 mammal species were captured simultaneously in hyena captured grid during the survey period. The presence of hyenas in Parsa National Park indicates the collective efforts of the government, conservation organizations and local communities in hyena conservation. A detailed ecological study of this species has been recommended for designing hyena conservation plan in the region.