Search

Southeast Asia possesses the highest rates of tropical deforestation globally and exceptional levels of species richness and endemism. Many countries in the region are also recognized for their food insecurity and poverty, making the reconciliation of agricultural production and forest conservation a particular priority. This reconciliation requires recognition of the trade-offs between competing land-use values and the subsequent incorporation of this information into policy making. To date, such reconciliation has been relatively unsuccessful across much of Southeast Asia. We propose an ecosystem services (ES) value-internalization framework that identifies the key challenges to such reconciliation. These challenges include lack of accessible ES valuation techniques; limited knowledge of the links between forests, food security, and human well-being; weak demand and political will for the integration of ES in economic activities and environmental regulation; a disconnect between decision makers and ES valuation; and lack of transparent discussion platforms where stakeholders can work toward consensus on negotiated land-use management decisions. Key research priorities to overcome these challenges are developing easy-to-use ES valuation techniques; quantifying links between forests and well-being that go beyond economic values; understanding factors that prevent the incorporation of ES into markets, regulations, and environmental certification schemes; understanding how to integrate ES valuation into policy making processes, and determining how to reduce corruption and power plays in land-use planning processes.

Conservation science needs to engage the general public to ensure successful conservation interventions. Although online technologies such as Twitter and Facebook offer new opportunities to accelerate communication between conservation scientists and the online public, factors influencing the spread of conservation news in online media are not well understood. We explored transmission of conservation research through online news articles with generalized linear mixed-effects models and an information theoretic approach. In particular, we assessed differences in the frequency conservation research is featured on online news sites and the impact of online conservation news content and delivery on Facebook likes and shares and Twitter tweets. Five percent of articles in conservation journals are reported in online news, and the probability of reporting depended on the journal. There was weak evidence that articles on climate change and mammals were more likely to be featured. Online news articles about charismatic mammals with illustrations were more likely to be shared or liked on Facebook and Twitter, but the effect of news sites was much larger. These results suggest journals have the greatest impact on which conservation research is featured and that news site has the greatest impact on how popular an online article will be on Facebook and Twitter. Cuantificacion del Papel de las Noticias En Linea en el Enlazamiento de la Investigacion para la Conservacion con Facebook y Twitter Resumen La ciencia de la conservacion necesita envolver al publico en general para asegurar intervenciones exitosas de conservacion. Aunque tecnologias en linea como Twitter y Facebook ofrecen nuevas oportunidades para acelerar la comunicacion entre los cientificos de la conservacion y el publico en linea, los factores que influyen sobre el esparcimiento de las noticias de conservacion en los medios en linea no estan bien entendidos. Exploramos la transmision de la investigacion de la conservacion a traves de articulos en linea con modelos lineales generalizados de efectos mixtos y un enfoque teorico de informacion. En particular, evaluamos las diferencias en la frecuencia con la que la investigacion de la conservacion es incluida en sitios en linea de noticias y el impacto del contenido y la forma de comunicarse de las noticias de conservacion sobre los “likes” y numero de veces que se comparte en Facebook y sobre los tuits en Twitter. El 5% de los articulos de las revistas de conservacion se reportan en noticias en linea y la probabilidad de reportar dependio de la revista. Hubo evidencias debiles de que los articulos sobre el cambio climatico y los mamiferos tuvieran mayor probabilidad de ser incluidos. Las noticias en linea sobre mamiferos carismaticos con ilustraciones fueron mas probables de ser compartidas o que obtuvieran “likes” en Facebook y Twitter, pero el efecto de los sitios de noticias fue mucho mayor. Estos resultados sugieren que las revistas tienen el mayor impacto sobre cual investigacion se incluye y que los sitios de noticias tienen el mayor impacto sobre cuan popular sera un articulo en Facebook o Twitter.