Positive Conservation Outcomes Research Articles

Conservation performance of tropical protected areas: How important is management?

AbstractIncreasing the coverage of effectively managed protected areas (PAs) is a key focus of the 2020 Aichi biodiversity targets. PA management has received considerable attention, often based on the widely held, but rarely examined, assumption that positive conservation outcomes will result from increased PA management inputs. To shed light on this assumption, we integrated data on PA management factors with 2006–2011 avoided forest degradation and deforestation across the Peruvian Amazon, using a counterfactual approach, combined with interviews and ranking exercises. We show that while increasing PA management input to Amazonian PAs tended to reduce likelihoods of forest degradation and deforestation, the associations were weak. Key challenges facing PAs ranked by PA managers included wider law enforcement, corruption and land title issues, rather than local management factors. We therefore encourage the post‐2020 conservation targets to adopt holistic approaches beyond PA management, incorporating political, institutional and governance contexts across scales.

Leveraging local livelihood strategies to support conservation and development in West Africa

Over the past 30 years, the promotion of alternative occupations has been central to livelihood-centered conservation projects (LCP). However, continued pressure on protected areas and high poverty levels in surrounding communities suggest that other LCP approaches may be needed. One historically understudied approach focuses on enhancing pre-existing livelihood strategies to achieve conservation and development goals. We assessed the efficacy of the alternative occupations and pre-existing livelihood strategies approaches to LCPs using two case studies of adjacent protected areas along the Senegal River in West Africa. One community in Senegal promotes tourism as an alternative occupation; another in Mauritania builds on the local fishing-farming mixed livelihood strategy. From 2014 to 2015 we used qualitative methods (e.g. semi-structured interviews and participant observations) to examine each LCP’s capacity to deliver positive conservation and development outcomes, focusing on perceived outcomes on local livelihoods and conservation goals. Overall, LCP which focused on the pre-existing fishing-farming livelihood strategy received more positive perceptions in terms of enhancing local livelihoods, fostering positive conservation behaviors, and improving park-community relations. We conclude that these observed outcomes stem from acknowledgment of and adherence to local needs and priorities within the context of local vulnerability and a park management approach that fostered a sense of resource ownership. In places where alternative occupations like tourism have not succeeded in delivering positive conservation and development goals, this paper presents an alternative strategy that is rooted in the social and environmental realities of local communities.

Empowered communities or “cheap labour”? Engaging volunteers in the rationalised management of invasive alien species in Great Britain

Volunteers are increasingly involved in the delivery of nature conservation policies, usually supported by a twofold rationale: volunteering can (a) enhance citizen participation in environmental governance and (b) ensure a workforce is in place to support conservation work in times of budget shortages. Here, we ask how these two rationales correspond to volunteers' own motivations to engage in a specific nature conservation activity, namely the control of invasive alien species (IAS). We use qualitative interviews with professional project managers, local group leaders, and volunteers to examine the interactions between policies aiming to rationalise the management of IAS and the motivations for and goals of volunteer engagement. Our findings suggest that although volunteering can lead to positive conservation outcomes, satisfying experiences and empowerment, the different interests do not always align in practice. We investigate the implications of strategies that aim to improve the efficiency of invasive species and volunteer management, and discuss organisational arrangements that reconcile different objectives.

Finding the Silver Lining: Creating Positive Outcomes From Pest Problems

Pests pose a significant risk to natural science collections with appreciable resources invested in prevention, monitoring and eradication. Despite best efforts, infestations do still occur in the vast majority of museums at one time or another. Tackling these can be an expensive, time-consuming and labour-intensive undertaking that can also affect staff morale. In some circumstances, however, having to deal with infestations can have positive long-term outcomes. In 2017, a small team of Conservation and Collection Management staff at Otago Museum were required to deal with a carpet beetle outbreak in the museum’s much-loved Animal Attic gallery. The project quickly expanded in scope to include the Natural Science Dry Store. For a team of only four staff it involved significant logistical challenges and the movement of a large number of items. Despite the challenges involved, the staff found that a number of positive Conservation and Collection Management outcomes beyond the eradication of carpet beetles also occurred. Examples were increased museum-wide staff understanding of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies, improvements to gallery environmental conditions, and opportunities for the reorganisation of storage. The planning, implementation and resolution stages of the project will be discussed, with an emphasis on how a significant risk to the museum’s collection has been used to improve the long-term preservation and management of the Otago Museum’s Natural Science Collections.

Conservation potential of apex predator tourism

In recent decades, public interest in apex predators has led to the creation and expansion of predator-focused wildlife tourism. As wildlife tourism has become an increasing topic of study for both social and biological scientists, researchers have debated whether these activities serve conservation goals by providing non-consumptive values for wildlife. Discussion of predator tourism requires additional recognition of predator-specific biological and ecological characteristics, consideration of human safety concerns, and mitigation of human-wildlife conflict. By reviewing tourism activities centered on both aquatic and terrestrial predators from diverse taxa (sharks, crocodiles, and big cats), we evaluate the potential benefits and conservation challenges associated with predator tourism. Our review suggests that positive conservation outcomes are possible, but not assured given historical, cultural, and ecological complexities. We explore some of the factors which determine whether tourism contributes to conservation outcomes, including (1) effective protection of animals and habitats, (2) avoidance and mitigation of human-wildlife conflict, (3) quality of associated educational interpretation and outreach, (4) collaboration with local stakeholders, and (5) use of generated funds to advance conservation goals. Our findings suggest tourism is most likely to support predator conservation and/or recovery when the industry has both public and political support and under conditions of effective regulation focused on management, monitoring and enforcement by local, national, and international bodies.

Impacts of TURFs and marine reserves on fisheries and conservation goals: theory, empirical evidence, and modeling

Unsustainable fishing in marine systems creates fisheries management and conservation challenges, with implications for ecosystem health, livelihoods, economies, and seafood supply. Thus there is a need for management approaches that can support productive fisheries and healthy ecosystems. Property rights, and particularly spatial rights or territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs), are increasingly proposed as a solution. It has been suggested that TURFs may align fishers' incentives with long-term stewardship, resulting in improved yields and positive conservation outcomes. Here we examined this idea by reviewing existing theoretical and empirical evidence for TURF performance in achieving both fisheries and conservation goals, and find equivocal evidence that TURFs can consistently deliver on this promise. We then explored the potential to improve outcomes by implementing no-take marine reserves with TURFs (TURF-reserves). We evaluated theoretical and empirical evidence in the literature and develop a simulation model to examine tradeoffs for achieving conservation and fishery objectives. With our model, we examined different management regimes (e.g., open access vs TURFs), harvest controls within the TURF (e.g., selectivity and harvest rate restrictions), and varying reserve sizes. We found that combining reserves with TURFs does not eliminate the tradeoff between fisheries and conservation goals if the TURF already effectively controls fishing pressure. However, given the results from our literature review, many TURFs may not achieve effective fisheries management. Thus, TURF-reserves may be better able to balance fisheries and conservation goals relative to TURF-only systems, but outcomes will depend on target species mobility, TURF size, and fishing intensity outside the TURF-reserve.

Agroecological tourism: bridging conservation, food security and tourism goals to enhance smallholders’ livelihoods on South Pentecost, Vanuatu

ABSTRACTSmallholder farmers continue to make up the largest proportion of the world's disadvantaged. Rural smallholders in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to climate change, underinvestment and growing competition for land and resources. Strengthening synergies between agriculture and tourism through avenues such as agritourism has been widely discussed; however, very little research has approached these concepts from a sustainability perspective. This case study of rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders uses the Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework (ASRLF) to explore tourism's potential contribution to improved conservation and food security outcomes. Data collection combined participatory methods such as “storian sessions” with analysis of secondary data.The findings highlight minimal current opportunities for rural Ni-Vanuatu smallholders to gain significantly from the tourism sector in Vanuatu. The shift from traditional gardening systems to cash cropping monocultures is also conflicting with tourism and conservation goals. This paper puts forward agroecological tourism as a strategy for integrating positive conservation, food security and livelihood outcomes for rural smallholders. It defines agroecological tourism as having a primary focus on the interpretation of sustainable traditional agroecosystems which exhibit cultural and heritage significance. Agroecological tourism has potential to support traditional practices, enhance the preservation of cultural knowledge and promote sustainable farming practices.

Social enterprises with environmental objectives: saving traditional orchards in England and Germany

Social enterprises (SE) re-invest their profits towards a social mission. They have proliferated as post-industrial economies try to meet social need with limited state funding. Scholarship has expanded accordingly, although SEs with primarily environmental objectives have been neglected. This article examines how SEs, in regions noted for wildlife-rich orchards, fund nature conservation by marketing juice and/or cider, thereby attempting to revive economic possibilities for this traditional land use. A common thread between the SEs is their initiation by conservation organisations, and it is possible to group them within models of market intervention. Three models in particular are examined that reveal different approaches and success in orchard conservation. SE scholarship is marked by a wealth of case studies, and to avoid simply adding to this richness, the paper revisits Jen Beckert’s ideas on the social order of markets. His theory that actors strive for stability through forms of co-ordination in dynamic market ‘fields’ is applied to SEs aiming to produce positive conservation outcomes – or environmental order – from their market interventions. Within limits, social order advances understanding of environmental SE by identifying the multiple challenges they juggle, and revealing the environmental outcomes of SE engagement in markets.

Sensory-based conservation of seabirds: a review of management strategies and animal behaviours that facilitate success.

Sensory-based conservation harnesses species' natural communication and signalling behaviours to mitigate threats to wild populations. To evaluate this emerging field, we assess how sensory-based manipulations, sensory mode, and target taxa affect success. To facilitate broader, cross-species application of successful techniques, we test which behavioural and life-history traits correlate with positive conservation outcomes. We focus on seabirds, one of the world's most rapidly declining groups, whose philopatry, activity patterns, foraging, mate choice, and parental care behaviours all involve reliance on, and therefore strong selection for, sophisticated sensory physiology and accurate assessment of intra- and inter-species signals and cues in several sensory modes. We review the use of auditory, olfactory, and visual methods, especially for attracting seabirds to newly restored habitat or deterring birds from fishing boats and equipment. We found that more sensory-based conservation has been attempted with Procellariiformes (tube-nosed seabirds) and Charadriiformes (e.g. terns and gulls) than other orders, and that successful outcomes are more likely for Procellariiformes. Evolutionary and behavioural traits are likely to facilitate sensory-based techniques, such as social attraction to suitable habitat, across seabird species. More broadly, successful application of sensory-based conservation to other at-risk animal groups is likely to be associated with these behavioural and life-history traits: coloniality, philopatry, nocturnal, migratory, long-distance foraging, parental care, and pair bonds/monogamy.

Human–Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence

Human interactions with wildlife are a defining experience of human existence. These interactions can be positive or negative. People compete with wildlife for food and resources, and have eradicated dangerous species; co-opted and domesticated valuable species; and applied a wide range of social, behavioral, and technical approaches to reduce negative interactions with wildlife. This conflict has led to the extinction and reduction of numerous species and uncountable human deaths and economic losses. Recent advances in our understanding of conflict have led to a growing number of positive conservation and coexistence outcomes. I summarize and synthesize factors that contribute to conflict, approaches that mitigate conflict and encourage coexistence, and emerging trends and debates. Fertile areas for scholarship include scale and complexity, models and scenarios, understanding generalizable patterns, expanding boundaries of what is considered conflict, using new tools and technologies, information sharing and collaboration, and the implications of global change. The time may be ripe to identify a new field, anthrotherology, that brings together scholars and practitioners from different disciplinary perspectives to address human–wildlife conflict and coexistence.

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

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

Studying citizen science through adaptive management and learning feedbacks as mechanisms for improving conservation.

Citizen science has generated a growing interest among scientists and community groups, and citizen science programs have been created specifically for conservation. We examined collaborative science, a highly interactive form of citizen science, which we developed within a theoretically informed framework. In this essay, we focused on 2 aspects of our framework: social learning and adaptive management. Social learning, in contrast to individual-based learning, stresses collaborative and generative insight making and is well-suited for adaptive management. Adaptive-management integrates feedback loops that are informed by what is learned and is guided by iterative decision making. Participants engaged in citizen science are able to add to what they are learning through primary data collection, which can result in the real-time information that is often necessary for conservation. Our work is particularly timely because research publications consistently report a lack of established frameworks and evaluation plans to address the extent of conservation outcomes in citizen science. To illustrate how our framework supports conservation through citizen science, we examined how 2 programs enacted our collaborative science framework. Further, we inspected preliminary conservation outcomes of our case-study programs. These programs, despite their recent implementation, are demonstrating promise with regard to positive conservation outcomes. To date, they are independently earning funds to support research, earning buy-in from local partners to engage in experimentation, and, in the absence of leading scientists, are collecting data to test ideas. We argue that this success is due to citizen scientists being organized around local issues and engaging in iterative, collaborative, and adaptive learning.

The conservation status of Niugini black bass: a world‐renowned sport fish with an uncertain future

AbstractThe Niugini black bass, Lutjanus goldiei Bloch, is an estuarine and freshwater fish species endemic to New Guinea and the surrounding islands. It is the focus of a growing sport fishing industry that has the potential to provide long‐standing benefits to local people. Plantation agriculture, mining and logging are expanding in many catchments where L. goldiei is found, creating the potential for these industries to impact on L. goldiei and the environments it relies on. Understanding of the current status of the species, including its biology, ecology and distribution, is essential for its sustainable management. However, very little is known about the species. Here, the published literature, unpublished data and interviews with anglers and fisheries officers were used to draw together existing knowledge, assess the current conservation status, make a preliminary analysis of threats and identify key areas for research that will support the sustainable development of the L. goldiei sport fishing industry while fostering positive conservation outcomes.

Commercialization of Nature: Can Market-Based Mechanisms Deliver Positive Conservation and Development Outcomes?

Over the past two decades, market-based approaches to natural resources conservation have become a focus in national and international arenas. They are regarded as a means to finance biodiversity conservation. The approaches have emerged, partly because of global environmental challenges as well as a response to growing criticisms levelled against the efficiency of conventional approaches to natural resources conservation. Drawing from numerous case studies, this article aims to demonstrate the extent to which these approaches have managed to deliver win-win outcomes as claimed by its proponents. It synthesizes literature from the current experiences of market-based approaches, and assesses its success with respect to economic, social and environmental impacts. The article contributes to the growing debate about the role of environmental markets for biodiversity conservation and development. The article concludes that despite some weaknesses that market-based conservation approaches exhibit, they are the vital component in efforts to combine conservation and development.

Diagnosing species decline: a contextual review of threats,causes and future directions for management and conservation of the eastern quoll

Diagnosing the cause of a species’ decline is one of the most challenging tasks faced by conservation practitioners. For a species approaching extinction, it is not possible to go back in time to measure the agents that operated at various stages of the decline. Accordingly, managers are often restricted to measuring factors currently affecting residual populations, which may not be related to factors that operated earlier in the decline, and inferring other mechanisms from different lines of evidence. In this review, I adopt a methodical diagnostic framework to comprehensively evaluate the potential causal factors for the decline of the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) in Tasmania, and propose a hypothesis as to the cause of decline. Potential causal agents were gleaned from two key sources: factors implicated in the eastern quoll’s historical demise on the Australian mainland, and factors that changed during the recent period of quoll decline in Tasmania. The three most likely candidate causal agents were investigated over 4 years to evaluate their likely contribution to the decline. Here, I synthesise the findings from this recent research to advance a hypothesis as to the cause of the eastern quoll decline in Tasmania. I suggest that a period of unsuitable weather reduced quoll populations to an unprecedented low abundance, and that populations are now too small to overcome established threat intensities to which they were robust when at higher densities. Residual small populations are inherently more susceptible to demographic, environmental and genetic stochasticity and are unlikely to recover without management intervention. I propose a study design to experimentally test this hypothesis, and outline priority areas for future research and actions to guide in the future management and conservation of the species. This case study illustrates an approach by which practical species conservation problems might be solved and recovery strategies may be better informed, thereby ensuring positive conservation outcomes for threatened species.

Functional responses of insectivorous bats to increasing housing density support ‘land‐sparing’ rather than ‘land‐sharing’ urban growth strategies

Summary Debates about ‘land‐sparing’ and ‘land‐sharing’ strategies for conserving biodiversity in cities provide an overly simplistic characterization of alternate planning options. Increased urbanization manifests in a number of ways and sophisticated analyses of how species respond to urban environments are required before generalizations about the relative merits of either planning strategy should be made. We investigated how insectivorous bats respond to housing density (a measure of urbanization intensity) and a range of habitat variables by modelling the occupancy and activity of 12 species in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to species‐level analyses, species were grouped into guilds (‘matrix’, ‘patch’ or ‘edge’ species) depending on their ecomorphology and level of patch‐dependency. Housing density (dwellings per hectare: dph) was the dominant explanatory variable of occupancy and activity of most species studied. Site occupancy probabilities of patch and edge species were reduced by half at housing densities of just 1·1–4·5 dph depending on species, while their activity was halved at housing densities of 2·6–10·3 dph. The activity of two matrix species also declined, but at higher housing densities (reducing by half at 4·5–7·9 dph). Patch and edge species responded nonlinearly to tree cover at low housing densities, with peaks in occupancy and activity at 20–60%. This response broke down at medium housing densities, however, as most species were no longer present. Synthesis and applications. Occupancy probability and activity of almost all bat species studied were substantially reduced even at very low housing densities. Increasing tree cover had no positive effect on the occupancy and activity of patch and edge species once medium housing densities were reached. In order for land‐sharing strategies to provide good habitat for patch and edge bat species housing densities would need to be so low as to be impractical in most urban planning contexts. By contrast, land‐sparing with forested habitat remaining in 20% or more of the landscape could provide positive conservation outcomes for the species modelled here. We discuss the relevance of our findings in planning for conservation of bats and their habitats in other recently established and expanding cities.

A global assessment of the social and conservation outcomes of protected areas.

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy for protecting biological resources, but they vary considerably in their effectiveness and are frequently reported as having negative impacts on local people. This has contributed to a divisive and unresolved debate concerning the compatibility of environmental and socioeconomic development goals. Elucidating the relationship between positive and negative social impacts and conservation outcomes of PAs is key for the development of more effective and socially just conservation. We conducted a global meta-analysis on 165 PAs using data from 171 published studies. We assessed how PAs affect the well-being of local people, the factors associated with these impacts, and crucially the relationship between PAs' conservation and socioeconomic outcomes. Protected areas associated with positive socioeconomic outcomes were more likely to report positive conservation outcomes. Positive conservation and socioeconomic outcomes were more likely to occur when PAs adopted comanagement regimes, empowered local people, reduced economic inequalities, and maintained cultural and livelihood benefits. Whereas the strictest regimes of PA management attempted to exclude anthropogenic influences to achieve biological conservation objectives, PAs that explicitly integrated local people as stakeholders tended to be more effective at achieving joint biological conservation and socioeconomic development outcomes. Strict protection may be needed in some circumstances, yet our results demonstrate that conservation and development objectives can be synergistic and highlight management strategies that increase the probability of maximizing both conservation performance and development outcomes of PAs.

Identifying challenges to enforcement in protected areas: empirical insights from 15 Colombian parks

AbstractProtected areas are intended to conserve biodiversity by restricting human activities within their boundaries. However, such restrictions are difficult to enforce fully in many tropical parks. Improving regulatory enforcement requires an understanding of prevailing challenges to detection and sanctioning activities. Drawing from empirical field research in 15 Colombian parks, I show that current enforcement efforts may be insufficient to deter most priority threats. For long-term infractions, such as agriculture, livestock grazing, and construction, sanctioning violators is challenging, whereas for furtive infractions, such as logging and hunting, it may be difficult to detect violators. Investment in staff, equipment and infrastructure may fail to increase enforcement capacity and yield positive conservation outcomes unless accompanied by resolution of land tenure, clarification of use rights, improved patrolling strategies and protection of park guards.

Evaluating the outcomes of payments for ecosystem services programmes using a capital asset framework

There is a limited understanding of the conditions under which payments for ecosystem services (PES) programmes achieve improvements in ecosystem service (ES) flows, enhance natural resource sustainability or foster sustainable livelihoods. We used a capital asset framework to evaluate PES programmes in terms of their social, environmental, economic and institutional outcomes, focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and equity trade-offs. We found that PES schemes can provide positive conservation and development outcomes with respect to livelihoods, land-use change, household and community incomes, and governance. However, programmes differ with regards to contract agreements, payment modes, and compliance, and have diverse cross-sector institutional arrangements that remain primarily state-structured and external donor-financed. There is a consistent lack of focus on evaluating and fostering human, social and institutional capital. This reflects general inattention to how PES programmes consider the causal links between ES and outcomes. To enhance ES production and PES scheme accessibility and participation, we recommend strengthening the linkages between ES production and land-use practices, boosting private and voluntary sector involvement, encouraging property rights and tenure reform, improving financial viability, and adequately accounting for the distribution of programme costs and benefits among participants.

Integrating Biological and Social Values When Prioritizing Places for Biodiversity Conservation

The consideration of information on social values in conjunction with biological data is critical for achieving both socially acceptable and scientifically defensible conservation planning outcomes. However, the influence of social values on spatial conservation priorities has received limited attention and is poorly understood. We present an approach that incorporates quantitative data on social values for conservation and social preferences for development into spatial conservation planning. We undertook a public participation GIS survey to spatially represent social values and development preferences and used species distribution models for 7 threatened fauna species to represent biological values. These spatially explicit data were simultaneously included in the conservation planning software Zonation to examine how conservation priorities changed with the inclusion of social data. Integrating spatially explicit information about social values and development preferences with biological data produced prioritizations that differed spatially from the solution based on only biological data. However, the integrated solutions protected a similar proportion of the species' distributions, indicating that Zonation effectively combined the biological and social data to produce socially feasible conservation solutions of approximately equivalent biological value. We were able to identify areas of the landscape where synergies and conflicts between different value sets are likely to occur. Identification of these synergies and conflicts will allow decision makers to target communication strategies to specific areas and ensure effective community engagement and positive conservation outcomes.