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Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Conservation philanthropy has grown significantly in the past decade. As the number of philanthropic‐supported conservation initiatives increases, so too will the frequency of exits—the ending of funding relationships. A trend toward "strategic philanthropy," where foundations fund time‐limited grants, is already contributing to near‐constant exits. We draw attention to exits as a critical and ubiquitous—yet understudied—part of conservation grantmaking processes that can have tremendous impacts on the people and places foundations invest in. This paper begins to address this research gap with the first empirical study of exit processes in the context of ocean conservation philanthropy. We draw on an analysis of interviews and a knowledge co‐production workshop with donors representing 36 foundations investing in ocean conservation globally to: (1) develop a conceptual framework that broadens and clarifies definitions of exits and provides a common language to characterize exits along varied dimensions, and (2) derive best practices for exiting responsibly. This paper provides timely guidance for environmental philanthropy broadly, including the need to think about exits early and often as an integral part of the grantmaking strategy. Responsible giving must include responsible exits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental governance scholars have overlooked philanthropic foundations as influential non‐state actors. This omission, along with the continued growth in funding from private foundations for conservation issues, presents important questions about what foundations do in governance spaces. To address this gap, we examine The David and Lucile Packard Foundation's involvement in Fiji and Palau in the context of the Foundation's "Western Pacific Program"—a series of coastal and marine‐related investments made from 1998 to 2020. We describe and analyze six governance roles that the Packard Foundation contributed to: funding, influencing agendas, capacity‐building, convening and coordinating, facilitating knowledge, and rule‐making and regulation. In documenting the Packard Foundation's governance roles, we provide scholars and practitioners a conceptual framework to more systematically and strategically think about foundations as more than funders. This research helps move the conversation around conservation philanthropy beyond binary conceptions of "good" versus "bad," and, instead, toward deeper considerations about what foundations currently do within governance systems, how they engage with diverse practitioners, as well as what they can and should do to advance conservation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure property rights are often seen as a precondition of incentives for long‐term sustainable use by communities dependent on natural resources. Securing formal property rights can be challenging in coastal small‐scale fisheries, which often operate under open access conditions. We argue that insecure, informal rights can offer one pathway for property‐rights regime change, and may also provide greater flexibility for developing sustainable fishing practices compatible with climate change adaptation, among other policy‐relevant outcomes. The process of establishing short‐term but renewable area‐based conservation tools, such as the Fish Refuges of Baja California Sur, Mexico, offers the opportunity to examine how community‐based strategies can generate incentives for conservation despite the lack of secure property rights. Using in‐depth qualitative methods, socioeconomic surveys, and ecological data from 2009 to 2019, we studied the process of engagement among fishers, civil society, and government. We focused on understanding the emerging transition from a scenario of open access and limited withdrawal property rights, toward locals' attaining of insecure defacto management and exclusion property rights and longer‐term visions of resource use and conservation. Altogether, this case illustrates the potential and limitations of Fish Refuges as an area‐based fisheries and conservation tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Environmental conservation initiatives, including marine protected areas (MPAs), have proliferated in recent decades. Designed to conserve marine biodiversity, many MPAs also seek to foster sustainable development. As is the case for many other environmental policies and programs, the impacts of MPAs are poorly understood. Social-ecological systems, impact evaluation, and common-pool resource governance are three complementary scientific frameworks for documenting and explaining the ecological and social impacts of conservation interventions. We review key components of these three frameworks and their implications for the study of conservation policy, program, and project outcomes. Using MPAs as an illustrative example, we then draw upon these three frameworks to describe an integrated approach for rigorous empirical documentation and causal explanation of conservation impacts. This integrated three-framework approach for impact evaluation of governance in social-ecological systems (3FIGS ) accounts for alternative explanations, builds upon and advances social theory, and provides novel policy insights in ways that no single approach affords. Despite the inherent complexity of social-ecological systems and the difficulty of causal inference, the 3FIGS approach can dramatically advance our understanding of, and the evidentiary basis for, effective MPAs and other conservation initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between the design of regulations and levels of individual compliance? To answer this question, Crawford and Ostrom's institutional grammar tool is used to deconstruct regulations governing the aquaculture industry in Colorado, USA. Compliance with the deconstructed regulatory components is then assessed based on the perceptions of the appropriateness of the regulations, involvement in designing the regulations, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The findings suggest that levels of compliance with regulations vary across and within individuals regarding various aspects of the regulatory components. As expected, the level of compliance is affected by the perceived appropriateness of regulations, participation in designing the regulations, and feelings of guilt and fear of social disapproval. Furthermore, there is a strong degree of interdependence among the written components, as identified by the institutional grammar tool, in affecting compliance levels. The paper contributes to the regulation and compliance literature by illustrating the utility of the institutional grammar tool in understanding regulatory content, applying a new Q-Sort technique for measuring individual levels of compliance, and providing a rare exploration into feelings of guilt and fear outside of the laboratory setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can policies for governing marine fisheries become more effective? How can we engage in developing a new science of fisheries governance that promotes knowledge accumulation and collective learning? We look into these issues by reviewing the current social-ecological status of marine fisheries, common policy approaches in place to govern them, and key learned lessons and shortcomings. While great efforts have been made towards understanding marine governance in the last 50 years, if we are to meet the current and upcoming challenges facing global fisheries, we need to engage with systematic knowledge accumulation about governance performance. To this end we report on a novel classificatory framework which, while nascent, could offer the potential to help us move in that direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often implemented to conserve or restore species, fisheries, habitats, ecosystems, and ecological functions and services; buffer against the ecological effects of climate change; and alleviate poverty in coastal communities. Scientific research provides valuable insights into the social and ecological impacts of MPAs, as well as the factors that shape these impacts, providing useful guidance or 'rules of thumb' for science-based MPA policy. Both ecological and social factors foster effective MPAs, including substantial coverage of representative habitats and oceanographic conditions; diverse size and spacing; protection of habitat bottlenecks; participatory decision-making arrangements; bounded and contextually appropriate resource use rights; active and accountable monitoring and enforcement systems; and accessible conflict resolution mechanisms. For MPAs to realize their full potential as a tool for ocean governance, further advances in policy-relevant MPA science are required. These research frontiers include MPA impacts on nontarget and wide-ranging species and habitats; impacts beyond MPA boundaries, on ecosystem services, and on resource-dependent human populations, as well as potential scale mismatches of ecosystem service flows. Explicitly treating MPAs as 'policy experiments' and employing the tools of impact evaluation holds particular promise as a way for policy-relevant science to inform and advance science-based MPA policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enduring challenge for the policy and political sciences is valid and reliable depiction of policy designs. One emerging approach for dissecting policy designs is the application of Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom's institutional grammar tool. The grammar tool offers a method to identify, systematically, the core elements that comprise policies, including target audiences, expected patterns of behavior, and formal modes of sanctioning for noncompliance. This article provides three contributions to the study of policy designs by developing and applying the institutional grammar tool. First, we provide revised guidelines for applying the institutional grammar tool to the study of policy design. Second, an additional component to the grammar, called the oBject, is introduced. Third, we apply the modified grammar tool to four policies that shape Colorado State Aquaculture to demonstrate its effectiveness and utility in illuminating institutional linkages across levels of analysis. The conclusion summarizes the contributions of the article as well as points to future research and applications of the institutional grammar tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]