| 1. |
- Armitage, Derek, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental governance and its implications for conservation practice
- 2012
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 5:4, s. 245-255
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Governments are no longer the most important source of decision making in the environmental field. Instead, new actors are playing critical decision-making roles, and new mechanisms and forums for decision making are becoming important (e.g., in some contexts regulation is being supplemented or replaced by markets and cooperative arrangements). New ways of governing in relation to the environment have important implications for the practice of conservation. Greater awareness of key ideas and concepts of environmental governance can help conservation managers and scientists participate more effectively in governance processes. Understanding how conservation practice is influenced by emergent hybrid and network governance arrangements is particularly important. This short review explores key environmental governance concepts relevant to the practice of conservation, with specific reference to institutional fit and scale; adaptiveness, flexibility and learning; the coproduction of knowledge from diverse sources; the emergence of new actors and their roles in governance; and changing expectations about accountability and legitimacy. Case-based examples highlight key directions in environmental governance.
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| 2. |
- Casini, Michele
(författare)
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Spatial management of marine resources can enhance the recovery of predators and avoid local depletion of forage fish
- 2012
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 5, s. 486-492
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The eastern Baltic cod stock has recently started to recover, after two decades of severe depletion, however with unexpected side effects. The stock has not re-occupied its former wide distribution range, but remains concentrated in a limited area in the southern Baltic Sea. The biomass of forage fish, i.e., sprat and herring, is historic low in this area, which in combination with increasing cod stock results in locally high predation mortality of forage fish and cannibalism of cod. In line with low prey availability, body weight and nutritional condition of cod drastically declined. In the southern Baltic Sea, cod competes with pelagic fisheries for the limited resources of sprat and herring, while the largest biomass of these species is currently found outside the distribution range of cod. Accounting for spatial overlap between species is crucial in developing ecosystem based fisheries management to enhance the recovery of predator stocks.
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| 3. |
- Felton, Adam
(författare)
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Avoiding bio-perversity from carbon sequestration solutions
- 2012
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 5, s. 28-36
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The development of a new carbon economy has the potential to offer winwin outcomes for environments and economies. Large-scale tree plantations are expected to play a major role in carbon economies but could have negative ecological and economic consequences when key environmental values such as biodiversity conservation are not considered. We discuss three potential bio-perversitiesnegative outcomes for biodiversitythat could result from inappropriate plantation tree programs aimed solely at reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide and mitigating rapid climate change effects. These are: (1) clearing native vegetation to establish tree plantations, (2) planting trees that become invasive taxa, and (3) tree plantations negatively affecting key ecosystem processes such as fire and hydrological regimes. These bio-perversities may result from common mistakes in environmental management: (1) too narrow a focus on a single environmental value, (2) failing to adequately quantify ecological uncertainty, and (3) failing to anticipate how different groups of people respond to an environmental problem. We highlight ways to prevent possible bio-perverse outcomes in large-scale plantation programs. These include requiring that risk assessments precede project establishment, full carbon accounting is undertaken, incentives used to stimulate tree plantation establishment are rigorously examined, and rigorous compliance and ecological monitoring is undertaken.
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| 4. |
- Kiehl, Berrit, et al.
(författare)
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A major shift to the retention approach for forestry can help resolve some global forest sustainability issues
- 2012
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 5, s. 421-431
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Approximately 85% of the global forest estate is neither formally protected nor in areas dedicated to intensive wood production (e.g., plantations). Given the spatial extent of unprotected forests, finding management approaches that will sustain their multiple environmental, economic, and cultural values and prevent their conversion to other uses is imperative. The major global challenge of native forest management is further demonstrated by ongoing steep declines in forest biodiversity and carbon stocks. Here, we suggest that an essential part of such managementsupplementing the protection of large reserves and sensitive areas within forest landscapes (e.g., aquatic features)is the adoption of the retention approach in forests where logging occurs. This ecological approach to harvesting provides for permanent retention of important selected structures (e.g., trees and decayed logs) to provide for continuity of ecosystem structure, function, and species composition in the postharvest forest. The retention approach supports the integration of environmental, economic, and cultural values and is broadly applicable to tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, adaptable to different management objectives, and appropriate in different societal settings. The widespread adoption of the retention approach would be one of the most significant changes in management practice since the onset of modern high-yield forestry.
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| 5. |
- Peterson, Tarla
(författare)
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Rearticulating the myth of human-wildlife conflict
- 2010
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 3, s. 74-82
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human-wildlife conflict has emerged as the central vocabulary for cases requiring balance between resource demands of humans and wildlife. This phrase is problematic because, given traditional definitions of conflict, it positions wildlife as conscious human antagonists. We used content analysis of wildlife conservation publications and professional meeting presentations to explore the use of the phrase, human-wildlife conflict, and compared competing models explaining its usage. Of the 422 publications and presentations using human-wildlife conflict, only 1 reflected a traditional definition of conflict, >95% referred to reports of animal damage to entities human care about, and <4% referred to human-human conflict. Usage of human-wildlife conflict was related to species type (herbivores with human food, carnivores with human safety, meso-mammals with property), development level of the nation where the study occurred (less developed nations with human food and more developed nations with human safety and property damage), and whether the study occurred on private lands or protected areas (protected areas with human-human conflict and other areas with property damage). We argue that the phrase, human-wildlife conflict, is detrimental to coexistence between humans and wildlife, and suggest comic reframing to facilitate a more productive interpretation of human-wildlife relationships.
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| 6. |
- Alexander, Steven M., et al.
(författare)
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Participation in planning and social networks increase social monitoring in community-based conservation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - : Wiley. - 1755-263X. ; 11:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biodiversity conservation is often limited by inadequate investments in monitoring and enforcement. However, monitoring and enforcement problems may be overcome by encouraging resource users to develop, endorse, and subsequently enforce conservation regulations. In this article, we draw upon the literature on common-pool resources and social networks to assess the impacts of participation and network ties on the decisions of fishers to voluntarily report rule violations in two Jamaican marine reserves. Data was collected using questionnaires administered through personal interviews with fishers (n = 277). The results suggest that local fishers are more likely to report illegal fishing if they had participated in conservation planning and if they are directly linked to community-based wardens in information sharing networks. This research extends well-established findings regarding the role and impacts of participation on biodiversity conservation by highlighting the importance of synergies between participation and social networks for voluntary monitoring of conservation regulations.
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| 7. |
- Baylis, Kathy, et al.
(författare)
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Mainstreaming Impact Evaluation in Nature Conservation
- 2016
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - : Wiley. - 1755-263X. ; 9:1, s. 58-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- An important part of conservation practice is the empirical evaluation of program and policy impacts. Understanding why conservation programs succeed or fail is essential for designing cost-effective initiatives and for improving the livelihoods of natural resource users. The evidence we seek can be generated with modern impact evaluation designs. Such designs measure causal effects of specific interventions by comparing outcomes with the interventions to outcomes in credible counterfactual scenarios. Good designs also identify the conditions under which the causal effect arises. Despite a critical need for empirical evidence, conservation science has been slow to adopt these impact evaluation designs. We identify reasons for the slow rate of adoption and provide suggestions for mainstreaming impact evaluation in nature conservation.
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| 8. |
- Chapron, Guillaume
(författare)
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Emotions and the Ethics of Consequence in Conservation Decisions: Lessons from Cecil the Lion
- 2016
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - : Wiley. - 1755-263X. ; 9, s. 302-306
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Though the conservation community has long premised its moral foundations on consequentialist thinking and has embraced a dualistic worldview severing reason from emotion, the conservation community has erred by failing to addressor even acknowledgethe limitations of these fundamental tenets. This failure reemerged in 2015 when a wealthy hunter killed an African Lion named Cecil for a trophy, in turn, prompting a debate within the conservation community about the appropriateness of killing Cecil. A number of conservationists: (1) defended such instances of trophy hunting on the basis that money generated by trophy hunting can support conservation and (2) ridiculed as irrational those who oppose such instances of killing in the name of conservation. We suggest this response by the conservation community represents common, but problematic, ethical reasoning. We offer a critique of both the ethical underpinning of such reasoning and the assumptions about the relationship between reason and emotion. We urge ethical and social psychological maturation on behalf of the conservation community.
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| 9. |
- Chen, Cheng, et al.
(författare)
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Global camera trap synthesis highlights the importance of protected areas in maintaining mammal diversity
- 2022
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - : Wiley. - 1755-263X. ; 15:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The establishment of protected areas (PAs) is a central strategy for global biodiversity conservation. While the role of PAs in protecting habitat has been highlighted, their effectiveness at protecting mammal communities remains unclear. We analyzed a global dataset from over 8671 camera traps in 23 countries on four continents that detected 321 medium- to large-bodied mammal species. We found a strong positive correlation between mammal taxonomic diversity and the proportion of a surveyed area covered by PAs at a global scale (β = 0.39, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.19–0.60) and in Indomalaya (β = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.19–1.2), as well as between functional diversity and PA coverage in the Nearctic (β = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.09–0.85), after controlling for human disturbances and environmental variation. Functional diversity was only weakly (and insignificantly) correlated with PA coverage at the global scale (β = 0.22, 95% CI = −0.02–0.46), pointing to a need to better understand the functional response of mammal communities to protection. Our study provides important evidence of the global effectiveness of PAs in conserving terrestrial mammals and emphasizes the critical role of area-based conservation in a post-2020 biodiversity framework.
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| 10. |
- Clough, Yann, et al.
(författare)
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Field sizes and the future of farmland biodiversity in European landscapes
- 2020
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - : Wiley. - 1755-263X. ; 13:6
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lower diversity of plant and animal farmland species are usually reported where cropland has been aggregated into larger fields, which raises prospects of curbing declines in European farmland biodiversity and associated ecosystem services by halting trends to field size increases associated to agricultural intensification, without having to set aside arable land for conservation. Here, we consider the factors underlying trade-offs between farmer income and biodiversity as mediated by field size at local and landscape scales, and how these trade-offs may be overcome. Field sizes are still increasing, facilitated by increasing farm sizes and land consolidation. Decreases in working time and fuel expenses when fields are larger, uptake of larger machinery and subsidies favoring larger farms provide incentives to manage land in larger units, putting farmland biodiversity further at risk. Yet, field size-mediated ecological–economic trade-offs are largely ignored in policy and research. We recommend internalizing the ecological effects of changes in landscape-scale field size into land consolidation scheme design, ensuring that EU Common Agricultural Policy post-2020 rewards farmers that maintain and recreate fine-grained landscapes where these are essential for farmland biodiversity targets, and reducing economic–ecological trade-offs by stimulating agricultural research and innovation for economically efficient yet biodiversity-friendly farming in fine-grained landscapes.
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