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Antarctic specially protected areas (ASPAs) are a key regulatory mechanism for protecting Antarctic environmental values. Previous evaluations of the effectiveness of the ASPA system focused on its representativeness and design characteristics, presenting a compelling rationale for its systematic revision. Upgrading the system could increase the representation of values within ASPAs, but representation alone does not guarantee the avoided loss or improvement of those values. Identifying factors that influence the effectiveness of ASPAs would inform the design and management of an ASPA system with the greatest capacity to deliver its intended conservation outcomes. To facilitate evaluations of ASPA effectiveness, we devised a research and policy agenda that includes articulating a theory of change for what outcomes ASPAs generate and how; building evaluation principles into ASPA design and designation processes; employing complementary approaches to evaluate multiple dimensions of effectiveness; and extending evaluation findings to identify and exploit drivers of positive conservation impact. Implementing these approaches will enhance the efficacy of ASPAs as a management tool, potentially leading to improved outcomes for Antarctic natural values in an era of rapid global change. Evaluación del impacto de conservación de las áreas protegidas de la Antártida., (© 2023 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

The ecosystem services concept has come into wide use in conservation and natural resource management, partly due to its appeal as an anthropocentric rationale for protecting and restoring nature. Proponents of the ecosystem services concept expect that presenting these arguments alongside biodiversity arguments should lead to a broader base of support for conservation. This raises the question of whether support for activities that ensure ecosystem service provision relates to different sets of core values, or environmental attitudes, than support for biodiversity protection. We surveyed adult Australians to evaluate the influence of values and attitudes on willingness to pay for different habitat restoration outcomes. We hypothesized that when restoration is framed with an anthropocentric rationale (such as ecosystem service provision), support for restoration would align more strongly with anthropocentric or self-centered values and attitudes. Specifically, we tested if preference for ecosystem service benefits over biodiversity attributes, as indicated by willingness to pay in different restoration scenarios, is more strongly associated with self-enhancing (Egoistic) than self-transcending (Altruistic and Biospheric) values, and more associated with a pro-use attitude towards nature (Utilization) than an anti-use attitude (Preservation). We found that support for habitat restoration is generally based on ecocentric values and attitudes, but that positive associations between pro-environmental behavior and Egoistic values emerge when emphasis is placed on ecosystem service outcomes. Individuals scoring higher on Egoistic/Utilization metrics were also more likely to anticipate disservices from restoration. Attitudes predicted behavioral intention (willingness to pay) better than core values. Our results support the notion that the ecosystem services concept garners nontraditional backers and broadens the appeal of ecological restoration., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Experiences with nature through visits to protected areas provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Understanding accessibility to protected areas and likely preferences for enjoying the benefits of nature visits are key factors in identifying ways to reduce inequality in access and inform the planning and management for future protected areas. We develop, at a regional scale, a novel social media database of visits to public protected areas in part of the Chilean biodiversity hotspot using geotagged photographs and assess the inequality of access using the home locations of the visitors and socio-economic data. We find that 20% of the population of the region make 87% of the visits to protected areas. The larger, more biodiverse protected areas were the most visited and provided most cultural ecosystem services. Wealthier people tend to travel further to visit protected areas while people with lower incomes tend to visit protected areas that are closer to home. By providing information on the current spatial flows of people to protected areas, we demonstrate the need to expand the protected area network, especially in lower income areas, to reduce inequality in access to the benefits from cultural ecosystem services provided by nature to people., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

One of the key determinants of success in biodiversity conservation is how well conservation planning decisions account for the social system in which actions are to be implemented. Understanding elements of how the social and ecological systems interact can help identify opportunities for implementation. Utilizing data from a large-scale conservation initiative in southwestern of Australia, we explored how a social-ecological system framework can be applied to identify how social and ecological factors interact to influence the opportunities for conservation. Using data from semistructured interviews, an online survey, and publicly available data, we developed a conceptual model of the social-ecological system associated with the conservation of the Fitz-Stirling region. We used this model to identify the relevant variables (remnants of vegetation, stakeholder presence, collaboration between stakeholders, and their scale of management) that affect the implementation of conservation actions in the region. We combined measures for these variables to ascertain how areas associated with different levels of ecological importance coincided with areas associated with different levels of stakeholder presence, stakeholder collaboration, and scales of management. We identified areas that could benefit from different implementation strategies, from those suitable for immediate conservation action to areas requiring implementation over the long term to increase on-the-ground capacity and identify mechanisms to incentivize implementation. The application of a social-ecological framework can help conservation planners and practitioners facilitate the integration of ecological and social data to inform the translation of priorities for action into implementation strategies that account for the complexities of conservation problems in a focused way., (© 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Balancing economic development with international commitments to protect biodiversity is a global challenge. Achieving this balance requires an understanding of the possible consequences of alternative future scenarios for a range of stakeholders. We employ an integrated economic and environmental planning approach to evaluate four alternative futures for the mega-diverse island of Borneo. We show what could be achieved if the three national jurisdictions of Borneo coordinate efforts to achieve their public policy targets and allow a partial reallocation of planned land uses. We reveal the potential for Borneo to simultaneously retain ∼50% of its land as forests, protect adequate habitat for the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and Bornean elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), and achieve an opportunity cost saving of over US$43 billion. Such coordination would depend on enhanced information sharing and reforms to land-use planning, which could be supported by the increasingly international nature of economies and conservation efforts.

The huge conservation interest that mammals attract and the large datasets that have been collected on them have propelled a diversity of global mammal prioritization schemes, but no comprehensive global mammal conservation strategy. We highlight some of the potential discrepancies between the schemes presented in this theme issue, including: conservation of species or areas, reactive and proactive conservation approaches, conservation knowledge and action, levels of aggregation of indicators of trend and scale issues. We propose that recently collected global mammal data and many of the mammal prioritization schemes now available could be incorporated into a comprehensive global strategy for the conservation of mammals. The task of developing such a strategy should be coordinated by a super-partes, authoritative institution (e.g. the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN). The strategy would facilitate funding agencies, conservation organizations and national institutions to rapidly identify a number of short-term and long-term global conservation priorities, and act complementarily to achieve them.

We need to set priorities for conservation because we cannot do everything, everywhere, at the same time. We determined priority areas for investment in threat abatement actions, in both a cost-effective and spatially and temporally explicit way, for the threatened mammals of the world. Our analysis presents the first fine-resolution prioritization analysis for mammals at a global scale that accounts for the risk of habitat loss, the actions required to abate this risk, the costs of these actions and the likelihood of investment success. We evaluated the likelihood of success of investments using information on the past frequency and duration of legislative effectiveness at a country scale. The establishment of new protected areas was the action receiving the greatest investment, while restoration was never chosen. The resolution of the analysis and the incorporation of likelihood of success made little difference to this result, but affected the spatial location of these investments.

Global declines in biodiversity and the widespread degradation of ecosystem services have led to urgent calls to safeguard both. Responses to this urgency include calls to integrate the needs of ecosystem services and biodiversity into the design of conservation interventions. The benefits of such integration are purported to include improvements in the justification and resources available for these interventions. Nevertheless, additional costs and potential trade-offs remain poorly understood in the design of interventions that seek to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. We sought to investigate the synergies and trade-offs in safeguarding ecosystem services and biodiversity in South Africa's Little Karoo. We used data on three ecosystem services--carbon storage, water recharge, and fodder provision--and data on biodiversity to examine several conservation planning scenarios. First, we investigated the amount of each ecosystem service captured incidentally by a conservation plan to meet targets for biodiversity only while minimizing opportunity costs. We then examined the costs of adding targets for ecosystem services into this conservation plan. Finally, we explored trade-offs between biodiversity and ecosystem service targets at a fixed cost. At least 30% of each ecosystem service was captured incidentally when all of biodiversity targets were met. By including data on ecosystem services, we increased the amount of services captured by at least 20% for all three services without additional costs. When biodiversity targets were reduced by 8%, an extra 40% of fodder provision and water recharge were obtained and 58% of carbon could be captured for the same cost. The opportunity cost (in terms of forgone production) of safeguarding 100% of the biodiversity targets was about US$500 million. Our results showed that with a small decrease in biodiversity target achievement, substantial gains for the conservation of ecosystem services can be achieved within our biodiversity priority areas for no extra cost.

Initiatives to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) are providing increasing incentives for forest protection. The collateral benefits for biodiversity depend on the extent to which emissions reductions and biodiversity conservation can be achieved in the same places. Globally, we demonstrate spatial trade-offs in allocating funds to protect forests for carbon and biodiversity and show that cost-effective spending for REDD would protect relatively few species of forest vertebrates. Because trade-offs are nonlinear, we discover that minor adjustments to the allocation of funds could double the biodiversity protected by REDD, while reducing carbon outcomes by only 4 to 8%.

A generic framework for setting conservation priorities based on the principles of classic decision theory is provided. This framework encapsulates the key elements of any problem, including the objective, the constraints, and knowledge of the system. Within the context of this framework the broad array of approaches for setting conservation priorities are reviewed. While some approaches prioritize assets or locations for conservation investment, it is concluded here that prioritization is incomplete without consideration of the conservation actions required to conserve the assets at particular locations. The challenges associated with prioritizing investments through time in the face of threats (and also spatially and temporally heterogeneous costs) can be aided by proper problem definition. Using the authors' general framework for setting conservation priorities, multiple criteria can be rationally integrated and where, how, and when to invest conservation resources can be scheduled. Trade-offs are unavoidable in priority setting when there are multiple considerations, and budgets are almost always finite. The authors discuss how trade-offs, risks, uncertainty, feedbacks, and learning can be explicitly evaluated within their generic framework for setting conservation priorities. Finally, they suggest ways that current priority-setting approaches may be improved.

Global biodiversity priority setting underpins the strategic allocation of conservation funds. In identifying the first comprehensive set of global priority areas for mammals, Ceballos et al. [Ceballos G, Ehrlich PR, Soberón J, Salazar I, Fay JP (2005) Science 309:603-607] found much potential for conflict between conservation and agricultural human activity. This is not surprising because, like other global priority-setting approaches, they set priorities without socioeconomic objectives. Here we present a priority-setting framework that seeks to minimize the conflicts and opportunity costs of meeting conservation goals. We use it to derive a new set of priority areas for investment in mammal conservation based on (i) agricultural opportunity cost and biodiversity importance, (ii) current levels of international funding, and (iii) degree of threat. Our approach achieves the same biodiversity outcomes as Ceballos et al.'s while reducing the opportunity costs and conflicts with agricultural human activity by up to 50%. We uncover shortfalls in the allocation of conservation funds in many threatened priority areas, highlighting a global conservation challenge.

Priorities for conservation investment at a global scale that are based on a single taxon have been criticized because geographic richness patterns vary taxonomically. However, these concerns focused only on biodiversity patterns and did not consider the importance of socioeconomic factors, which must also be included if conservation funding is to be allocated efficiently. In this article, we create efficient global funding schedules that use information about conservation costs, predicted habitat loss rates, and the endemicity of seven different taxonomic groups. We discover that these funding allocation schedules are less sensitive to variation in taxon assessed than to variation in cost and threat. Two-thirds of funding is allocated to the same regions regardless of the taxon, compared with only one-fifth if threat and cost are not included in allocation decisions. Hence, if socioeconomic factors are considered, we can be more confident about global-scale decisions guided by single taxonomic groups.

Conservation planning is the process of locating, configuring, implementing and maintaining areas that are managed to promote the persistence of biodiversity and other natural values. Conservation planning is inherently spatial. The science behind it has solved important spatial problems and increasingly influenced practice. To be effective, however, conservation planning must deal better with two types of change. First, biodiversity is not static in time or space but generated and maintained by natural processes. Second, humans are altering the planet in diverse ways at ever faster rates.

Conservation priority-setting schemes have not yet combined geographic priorities with a framework that can guide the allocation of funds among alternate conservation actions that address specific threats. We develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world's 39 Mediterranean ecoregions. This framework offers an improvement over approaches that only focus on land purchase or species richness and do not account for threats. We discover that one could protect many more plant and vertebrate species by investing in a sequence of conservation actions targeted towards specific threats, such as invasive species control, land acquisition, and off-reserve management, than by relying solely on acquiring land for protected areas. Applying this new framework will ensure investment in actions that provide the most cost-effective outcomes for biodiversity conservation. This will help to minimise the misallocation of scarce conservation resources.

Data on the occurrence of species are widely used to inform the design of reserve networks. These data contain commission errors (when a species is mistakenly thought to be present) and omission errors (when a species is mistakenly thought to be absent), and the rates of the two types of error are inversely related. Point locality data can minimize commission errors, but those obtained from museum collections are generally sparse, suffer from substantial spatial bias and contain large omission errors. Geographic ranges generate large commission errors because they assume homogenous species distributions. Predicted distribution data make explicit inferences on species occurrence and their commission and omission errors depend on model structure, on the omission of variables that determine species distribution and on data resolution. Omission errors lead to identifying networks of areas for conservation action that are smaller than required and centred on known species occurrences, thus affecting the comprehensiveness, representativeness and efficiency of selected areas. Commission errors lead to selecting areas not relevant to conservation, thus affecting the representativeness and adequacy of reserve networks. Conservation plans should include an estimation of commission and omission errors in underlying species data and explicitly use this information to influence conservation planning outcomes.

One of the most pressing issues facing the global conservation community is how to distribute limited resources between regions identified as priorities for biodiversity conservation. Approaches such as biodiversity hotspots, endemic bird areas and ecoregions are used by international organizations to prioritize conservation efforts globally. Although identifying priority regions is an important first step in solving this problem, it does not indicate how limited resources should be allocated between regions. Here we formulate how to allocate optimally conservation resources between regions identified as priorities for conservation--the 'conservation resource allocation problem'. Stochastic dynamic programming is used to find the optimal schedule of resource allocation for small problems but is intractable for large problems owing to the "curse of dimensionality". We identify two easy-to-use and easy-to-interpret heuristics that closely approximate the optimal solution. We also show the importance of both correctly formulating the problem and using information on how investment returns change through time. Our conservation resource allocation approach can be applied at any spatial scale. We demonstrate the approach with an example of optimal resource allocation among five priority regions in Wallacea and Sundaland, the transition zone between Asia and Australasia.

Various global-scale proposals exist to reduce the loss of biological diversity. These include the Half-Earth and Whole-Earth visions that respectively seek to set aside half the planet for wildlife conservation or to diversify conservation practices fundamentally and change the economic systems that determine environmental harm. Here we assess these visions in the specific context of Bornean orangutans Pongo pygmaeus and their conservation. Using an expert-led process we explored three scenarios over a 10-year time frame: continuation of Current Conditions, a Half-Earth approach and a Whole-Earth approach. In addition, we examined a 100-year population recovery scenario assuming 0% offtake of Bornean orangutans. Current Conditions were predicted to result in a population c. 73% of its current size by 2032. Half-Earth was judged comparatively easy to achieve and predicted to result in an orangutan population of c. 87% of its current size by 2032. Whole-Earth was anticipated to lead to greater forest loss and ape killing, resulting in a prediction of c. 44% of the current orangutan population for 2032. Finally, under the recovery scenario, populations could be c. 148% of their current size by 2122. Although we acknowledge uncertainties in all of these predictions, we conclude that the Half-Earth and Whole-Earth visions operate along different timelines, with the implementation of Whole-Earth requiring too much time to benefit orangutans. None of the theorized proposals provided a complete solution, so drawing elements from each will be required. We provide recommendations for equitable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peri-urban areas, defined as the region between urban and rural settlements, are heterogeneous, dynamic regions experiencing rapid land use change in cities around the world. Ongoing development and land use change has resulted in the fragmentation, degradation and loss of natural assets, threatening biodiversity, and ecosystems within the peri-urban region. With much of this land privately owned, the actions of landholders have considerable opportunity to deliver environmental outcomes, yet an understanding of this diverse group of landholders is challenging. Through a survey of landholders (N = 184) in Australian peri-urban regions we sought to understand motivations and barriers to engagement in environmental management. Factors influencing willingness to engage in environmental management included perceived personal capacity to act, feeling that actions were helpful, and community participation. We discuss how engagement strategies could incorporate these findings by focussing on improving capacity and environmental knowledge with hands on, face-to-face extension activities, encouraging simple actions, and fostering greater community interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mediterranean‐type climate region of Chile is a globally unique biodiversity hotspot but its protected area system does not adequately represent the biological diversity, nor does it provide equitable access to people.We explored options to expand the protected area system to cost‐effectively improve the conservation of forest ecosystem types while simultaneously enhancing social accessibility to protected areas. Social accessibility is defined as the access of municipalities to cultural ecosystem services provided by protected areas which depends on distance to highly demanded protected areas and income of the municipalities.Using systematic conservation planning methods, we identified priority areas for extending the existing protected area system that: (a) minimise land acquisition cost, (b) maximise social accessibility and (c) optimise for both cost and accessibility.The results show that it is possible to improve social accessibility while simultaneously minimising land cost. Considering cost alone, the protected area system could be expanded to improve biodiversity conservation by 86% at the cost of $47 million USD, which would also increase the accessibility of protected areas by 12%. Accessibility can be increased by a further 18% by jointly considering cost and accessibility without compromising the cost or biodiversity performance.New private conservation policy developed in Chile could help offset the costs of conservation through novel public–private partnerships. Our results can provide specific guidance to policymakers to strategically identify new locations for protected areas which cost‐effectively improve biodiversity conservation, while at the same time reducing inequality in social accessibility. The consideration of social access in reserve design could increase the success of protected areas as a conservation tool by bringing people closer to nature. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many tropical countries continue to devolve forest management to forest‐dwelling communities. The assumption is that local knowledge of forests and community engagement in forest management will attain multiple social and environmental co‐benefits, such as poverty alleviation and reduced deforestation and fires. Evidence for this, however, is scant, commonly hampered by data availability and a lack of technical capacity for implementing statistically robust impact evaluations. Based on a practice‐based review of policy implementation, impact evaluation of case studies and examples of counterfactual analyses from Indonesia, we demonstrate that it is increasingly feasible to determine the conditions under which community forest management will most likely achieve its social and environmental objectives. Adapting community forest management implementation based on feedback from accurate impact evaluation could lead to positive outcomes for people and environment in Indonesia, and across the tropical realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public preferences for ecological restoration can be revealed through environmental valuation studies that aim to measure willingness to pay. However, respondents' environmental views will often influence the conclusions drawn from such studies. We conducted a national survey of perceptions of the benefits and perverse outcomes arising from ecological restoration using a dichotomous choice payment card. Using interval regression to estimate willingness to pay, we find that there are respondents who will perceive mostly biodiversity benefits from restoration, with a particular interest in threatened species recovery. We find that this eco‐centric view of the benefits of restoration also increases the dollar amount that respondents are willing to pay to support restoration activities. A proportion of respondents also perceive restoration as having negative impacts, with concerns orientated towards increased fire, decreased farmland productivity, and groundwater availability. Perceptions of the potential effects of restoration on land productivity had a significant negative influence on the amount of money respondents were willing to pay. These findings are useful for targeting outreach in order to garner public support for ecological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Political factors are significant drivers of deforestation. • Regulation reduced deforestation inconsistently across forests types and regions. • Policy uncertainty increased deforestation, particularly in remnant forests. • Perverse outcomes delayed forest transition and may reverse further transition. • Focusing on forest gains will ignore biodiversity threats of remnant forest loss. Abstract Policy-driven shifts from net deforestation to forest expansion are being stimulated by increasing social preferences for forest ecosystem services. However, policy uncertainty can disrupt or reverse the positive effects of forest transitions. For instance, if the loss of remnant (primary) forest continues, the ecological benefits of net forest gains may be small. We investigated how peak periods of uncertainty in forest conservation policy affected forest transition outcomes in Queensland, Australia, as well as a globally-relevant biodiversity hotspot in the state, the Brigalow Belt South (BBS) bioregion. Political, socioeconomic, and biophysical factors associated with net forest cover change and remnant forest loss from 1991 to 2014 were identified through spatial longitudinal analysis. This informed a Bayesian structural causal impact assessment of command-and-control regulation and policy uncertainty on remnant and non-remnant forest cover. The results indicate that forest cover was negatively influenced by increasing temperatures, food prices, and policy uncertainty, and positively influenced by strengthening regulation. Regulation during 2007–2014 avoided 68,620 ± 19,214 km2 of deforestation (with 18,969 ± 10,340 km2 of this in remnant forests) throughout Queensland, but was ineffective on remnant forests in the BBS. For state-wide remnant forests, perverse effects from policy uncertainty (e.g. pre-emptive deforestation) were strong enough to negate regulatory impacts. This study reveals a cautionary tale for conservation policy: despite strict environmental regulations, forest transition can be delayed (or reversed) when political inconsistency or instability provoke unintended reactions from landholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We assessed the potential for restoration to offset oil-palm impacts on carbon and biodiversity in Kalimantan, Indonesia. • Restoring degraded deep peatlands is an opportunity to offset carbon emissions from oil-palm plantations. • The costs of restoration to offset biodiversity loss are extremely high, suggesting that full compensation is impossible. • Reconciling multiple impacts at a landscape scale will necessitate tough choices on what to offset. • The high costs of offsetting clarify the fundamental role of conserving primary forests and peatlands in the tropics. Abstract When development impacts a broad landscape and causes the loss of multiple ecosystem services, decisions about which of these impacts to offset must be made. We use industrial oil-palm developments in Kalimantan and quantify the potential for restoration to offset oil-palm impacts on carbon storage and biodiversity. We developed a unique backcasting approach combined with a spatial conservation prioritisation framework to identify priority areas for restoration offsetting. We calculated the past impacts of oil-palm development, quantified the future benefits of restoration for carbon storage and biodiversity over one oil-palm planting cycle of 25 years, and prioritised areas for restoration to balance the impacts and benefits for the least cost. We estimate that offsetting the carbon emissions attributable to the existing 4.6 Mha of industrial oil-palm plantation in Kalimantan is most cost-effectively achieved by restoring 0.4–1.6 Mha of degraded peatlands, including failed agricultural projects, at a cost of US$0.7–2.9 billion. On the other hand, offsetting biodiversity losses would require at least 4.7 Mha of degraded areas to be restored (equating to 8.7% of Kalimantan) at a cost of US$7.7 billion. We show that priority areas for offsetting biodiversity losses overlap poorly with those for compensating carbon emissions. Our analysis suggests that reconciling multiple impacts at landscape scales will necessitate difficult choices among contested socio-political preferences. Our findings also clarify the fundamental importance of conserving biodiversity-rich primary forests and peatlands in the tropics and the need to avoid converting these areas in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushmeat hunting, trade and consumption is a growing biodiversity and food security concern. Much of the collated research is currently limited to forested regions however, despite indications of the increasing threat in savannas. Savanna regions are biodiverse and often have high-value wildlife tourism industries, but also have rapidly-growing rural populations, often highly dependent on natural resources. In this systematic quantitative literature review we seek to understand the state of knowledge about bushmeat in savanna regions in Africa. We aim to identify gaps in the literature, both spatially and topically, understand what methodologies are used, what common recommendations are made and what interventions have been quantified. We identified 144 relevant studies from the literature. Although studies have increased over time and diversified thematically, there were strong biases. Most studies were conducted in Tanzania, with gaps in research in southern Africa and the Sahelian region. Additionally, only 25% of papers investigated interventions used to reduce bushmeat hunting, with traditional enforcement being the most common intervention studied (53% of intervention studies, 13% of papers). Other frequently recommended interventions such as alternative incomes received little attention (14% of intervention studies, 3.5% of papers). Further, although many studies cite common drivers of bushmeat hunting such as income or livestock, the evidence for these drivers was lacking and contradictory. We reveal that although bushmeat in savanna regions is gaining recognition, many gaps in knowledge remain. This is the first study to systematically quantify the research about bushmeat in African savannas and aims to inform future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Conservation in human‐dominated landscapes is challenging partly due to the high costs of land acquisition. We explored a property tax mechanism to finance conservation easements or related contracts as a partial‐property acquisition strategy to meet Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) treaty targets to conserve critically imperiled coastal Douglas fir ecosystems in Canada. To maximize cost‐efficiency, we used systematic planning tools to prioritize 198,058 parcels for biodiversity values, estimated the cost of eliminating property tax on high‐priority parcels to engage land owners in conservation, and then calculated the tax increase on nonpriority parcels necessary to maintain tax revenue. Marginal tax rate increases of 0.13, 0.21, and 0.51% on nonpriority parcels were necessary to offset the elimination of tax revenue on ∼21,000 ha of high‐priority parcels, and potentially sufficient to increase area protection from 9% to 17% to meet CBD targets given uptake rates of 100, 50, or 25%, respectively. Sensitivity analyses suggest uptake rates of 30% to 40% could allow government to achieve a 17% target with 30% of the planning area prioritized for inclusion in a property tax mechanism. Our results suggest prioritizing parcels for biodiversity value and commensurate “tax shifting” may offer an efficient route to conservation on private land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Focus group discussion is frequently used as a qualitative approach to gain an in‐depth understanding of social issues. The method aims to obtain data from a purposely selected group of individuals rather than from a statistically representative sample of a broader population. Even though the application of this method in conservation research has been extensive, there are no critical assessment of the application of the technique. In addition, there are no readily available guidelines for conservation researchers. Here, we reviewed the applications of focus group discussion within biodiversity and conservation research between 1996 and April 2017. We begin with a brief explanation of the technique for first‐time users. We then discuss in detail the empirical applications of this technique in conservation based on a structured literature review (using Scopus). The screening process resulted in 170 articles, the majority of which (67%, n = 114,) were published between 2011 and 2017. Rarely was the method used as a stand‐alone technique. The number of participants per focus group (where reported) ranged from 3 to 21 participants with a median of 10 participants. There were seven (median) focus group meetings per study. Focus group discussion sessions lasted for 90 (median) minutes. Four main themes emerged from the review: understanding of people's perspectives regarding conservation (32%), followed by the assessment of conservation and livelihoods practices (21%), examination of challenges and impacts of resource management interventions (19%) and documenting the value of indigenous knowledge systems (16%). Most of the studies were in Africa (n = 76), followed by Asia (n = 44), and Europe (n = 30). We noted serious gaps in the reporting of the methodological details in the reviewed papers. More than half of the studies (n = 101) did not report the sample size and group size (n = 93), whereas 54 studies did not mention the number of focus group discussion sessions while reporting results. Rarely have the studies provided any information on the rationale for choosing the technique. We have provided guidelines to improve the standard of reporting and future application of the technique for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological restoration projects are motivated by diverse environmental and social reasons. Motivations likely vary between stakeholders or regions, and influence the approach taken to plan, implement, and monitor restoration projects. We surveyed 307 people involved in the restoration of native vegetation across Australia to identify their underlying motivations. We also elicited information on planning, implementation, and monitoring of restoration projects. We found that biodiversity enhancement is the main motivation for undertaking restoration, with biodiversity offsetting, water quality improvements, and social reasons as important secondary motivations. Motivations varied significantly by stakeholder type and region. Restoration projects primarily motivated by ecosystem service provision (e.g. water quality improvements and social reasons) sought less pristine ecological outcomes than projects motivated by biodiversity enhancement or offsetting. Rigorous monitoring designs (e.g. quantitative, repeatable surveys, and use of performance indicators) were rarely used in restoration projects, except for projects motivated by scientific research. Better alignment of different restoration motivations with the planning and monitoring of restoration projects should deliver greater benefits through setting appropriate objectives and evaluating outcomes against these objectives. These improvements will increase the capacity of the restoration practice to meet international biodiversity commitments and communicate restoration outcomes to stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Target 19, set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, seeks to improve the knowledge, science base, and technologies relating to biodiversity. We will fail to achieve this target unless prolific biases in the field of conservation science are addressed. We reveal that comparatively less research is undertaken in the world's most biodiverse countries, the science conducted in these countries is often not led by researchers based in-country, and these scientists are also underrepresented in important international fora. Mitigating these biases requires wide-ranging solutions: reforming open access publishing policies, enhancing science communication strategies, changing author attribution practices, improving representation in international processes, and strengthening infrastructure and human capacity for research in countries where it is most needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural and environmental policies that encourage multifunctional landscapes are referred to as land sharing or land sparing. Numerous assessments of the preferences for either policy exist, but a systematic evaluation of the impact of landscape or decision contexts has not been performed. We assess the impact of multiple contextual parameters using a simple model of landscape change. Past emphasis on different types of species appears warranted, but also important in determining preferences are the proportion of the landscape initially allocated to agriculture, the management intentions for spared land, crop types, and level of policy effectiveness. Variations in objective and decision criteria were less important but still altered the policy preferences under some circumstances. We provide foundational evidence that context warrants explicit inclusion in assessments of agricultural and environmental policy. Our methodological approach is broadly applicable, but generalizations from this case to others should still be made with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Local conservation managers need tools to support decision-making. • The spatial prioritisation tool MARXAN are useful for making local strategic decisions. • Including spatial explicit species and cost information can identify cost-efficient solutions. • Heterogeneous targets based on threat status increases target achievement compared to homogeneous targets. This study applied MARXAN to identify cost-efficient areas for biodiversity protection, within the Thy National Park in Denmark. Public authorities have requested a more systematic approach to managing public land, which identifies cost-effective solutions and potential trade-offs between economic cost and biodiversity benefits. The aim of this study was to support the local management staff in setting conservation targets and prioritizing their management efforts. This was addressed through the creation of two primary scenarios: i) applying uniform conservation targets to all biodiversity features, and ii) heterogeneous targets addressing various degrees of conservation importance. Four sub-scenarios were established for each primary scenario to investigate the implications of various conservation targets on conservation cost. Local data on red-listed species and habitat types were used to assess biodiversity benefits. Detailed cost estimates of required conservation actions were included. The results indicated that scenarios with uniform conservation targets provided more flexible networks of protected areas but contributed less to target achievement and a smaller share of selected planning units overlapped with current protected areas. Applying heterogeneous targets based on threat status resulted in a higher degree of target achievement and compactness, but provided less flexible networks. However, these networks may be more suitable for efficient management due to a higher level of clustering and spatial overlap with threatened species distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As threats to biodiversity from environmental change increase, assessing priorities for mitigation action becomes increasingly important. However, there have been few attempts to schedule actions across broad spatial extents that explicitly account for dynamic ecological processes and threats., We combined a dynamic occupancy model with a decision analysis framework to spatially allocate multiple recovery actions to maximize species' probability of occupancy under threats posed by climate and land-use change. We used the koala Phascolarctos cinereus across the Australian state of New South Wales (810 000 km2) to illustrate this approach. We considered four actions implemented on a 10 × 10 km2 grid: reduce domestic dog attacks through dog control, reduce vehicle collisions through fencing highways, protect habitat through land acquisitions and restore Eucalyptus forest. We used the occupancy model to predict ecological responses to recovery actions and simulated annealing to identify spatio-temporal priorities for each action. We contrasted the results against priorities generated using a traditional static distribution model., To maximize the probability of koala occupancy in 50 years' time, with an annual budget of up to AU$20 million, investment priorities were located in the eastern part of koala's range, focusing on dog control with some investment in habitat protection and restoration. With higher budgets, investment priorities shifted towards habitat protection and restoration in the western part of the range. However, priorities based on the static distribution model, which had a lower predictive accuracy than the dynamic model, were different. Regardless of budget, priorities derived from the static model were predominantly located in the western part of koala's range, focusing on highway fencing with some investment in dog control., Synthesis and applications. Our approach for integrating spatio-temporal dynamics into conservation prioritization across broad spatial extents provides a significant advance on existing approaches based on static distribution models. The finding that the inferior static model produced different priorities to the dynamic model cautions against the use of static models for conservation planning in dynamic landscapes. Additionally, the substantial changes in priorities with budget indicate that conservation planning under dynamic landscape and climate change must carefully consider priority actions and locations relative to the conservation resources available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, landscapes are managed for multiple objectives to balance social, economic, and environmental goals. The Ex-Mega Rice Project (EMRP) peatland in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia provides a timely example with globally significant development, carbon, and biodiversity concerns. To inform future policy, planning, and management in the EMRP, we quantified and mapped ecosystem service values, assessed their spatial interactions, and evaluated the potential provision of ecosystem services under future land-use scenarios. We focus on key policy-relevant regulating (carbon stocks and the potential for emissions reduction), provisioning (timber, crops from smallholder agriculture, palm oil), and supporting (biodiversity) services. We found that implementation of existing land-use plans has the potential to improve total ecosystem service provision. We identify a number of significant inefficiencies, trade-offs, and unintended outcomes that may arise. For example, the potential development of existing palm oil concessions over one-third of the region may shift smallholder agriculture into low-productivity regions and substantially impact carbon and biodiversity outcomes. While improved management of conservation zones may enhance the protection of carbon stocks, not all biodiversity features will be represented, and there will be a reduction in timber harvesting and agricultural production. This study highlights how ecosystem service analyses can be structured to better inform policy, planning, and management in globally significant but data-poor regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many scientific assessments have been recommending general strategies for biodiversity conservation under climate change, translation of these recommendations into specific actions and practice has been limited. Focusing on two biomes, rainforest and wetlands in biodiverse South East Queensland, Australia, we demonstrate how general principles can be translated into specific actions for stakeholders and responsible agencies. We synthesize research that is contextualizing protection of refugia and habitat connectivity, establishing baseline data sets to detect change and developing strategic conservation planning scenarios to adjust reserve boundaries or situate new reserves. This has been achieved by coupling spatial information on biological assets (i.e. ecosystems and species) with future climate scenarios and process models to anticipate movement of critical habitats. Conservation planning software is also being used to prioritize investment to meet specific objectives. This approach is enabling us to identify at-risk biological assets, opportunities to ameliorate threats and obstacles to delivering regional adaptation actions. A larger total reserved area is needed, with proactive planning to capture areas further inland and along watercourses. Major obstacles include conflict between urbanization and priorities for habitat conservation and the need for greater levels of investment for monitoring programmes and to protect landward shifted wetlands on private land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon finance offers the potential to change land management and conservation planning priorities. We develop a novel approach to planning for improved land management to conserve biodiversity while utilizing potential revenue from carbon biosequestration. We apply our approach in northern Australia's tropical savanna, a region of global significance for biodiversity and carbon storage, both of which are threatened by current fire and grazing regimes. Our approach aims to identify priority locations for protecting species and vegetation communities by retaining existing vegetation and managing fire and grazing regimes at a minimum cost. We explore the impact of accounting for potential carbon revenue (using a carbon price of US$14 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent) on priority areas for conservation and the impact of explicitly protecting carbon stocks in addition to biodiversity. Our results show that improved management can potentially raise approximately US$5 per hectare per year in carbon revenue and prevent the release of 1-2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over approximately 90 years. This revenue could be used to reduce the costs of improved land management by three quarters or double the number of biodiversity targets achieved and meet carbon storage targets for the same cost. These results are based on generalised cost and carbon data; more comprehensive applications will rely on fine scale, site-specific data and a supportive policy environment. Our research illustrates that the duel objective of conserving biodiversity and reducing the release of greenhouse gases offers important opportunities for cost-effective land management investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is impacting species and ecosystems globally. Many existing templates to identify the most important areas to conserve terrestrial biodiversity at the global scale neglect the future impacts of climate change. Unstable climatic conditions are predicted to undermine conservation investments in the future. This paper presents an approach to developing a resource allocation algorithm for conservation investment that incorporates the ecological stability of ecoregions under climate change. We discover that allocating funds in this way changes the optimal schedule of global investments both spatially and temporally. This allocation reduces the biodiversity loss of terrestrial endemic species from protected areas due to climate change by 22% for the period of 2002-2052, when compared to allocations that do not consider climate change. To maximize the resilience of global biodiversity to climate change we recommend that funding be increased in ecoregions located in the tropics and/or mid-elevation habitats, where climatic conditions are predicted to remain relatively stable. Accounting for the ecological stability of ecoregions provides a realistic approach to incorporating climate change into global conservation planning, with potential to save more species from extinction in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translating maps of priority areas for conservation into activities which actually secure these places is a complex process, overwhelmingly influenced by human and social factors. Spatial conservation prioritizations often assume that land is available for acquisition. Using data gathered through interviews, we predicted land managers willingness-to-sell their land. We included this information in spatial prioritization analyses that aimed to identify areas that achieve conservation objectives while maximizing the probability that land will be available for acquisition. As anticipated, our solutions were more likely of being available for acquisition compared to solutions that did not include the willingness-to-sell data. Our results illustrate the trade-off between designing so-called 'optimal' networks of protected areas, and the realities of translating these maps into on-ground action. We demonstrate how an important aspect of the social context in which conservation is embedded and defines conservation opportunities can be explicitly accounted for in the development of conservation plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the incorporation of ecological and evolutionary processes into conservation planning assessments in Australia. It discusses how biodiversity is generated by a number of ecological and evolutionary processes. It focuses on the novel incorporation of processes with traditional framework of a comprehensive sample of biodiversity to identify spatial priorities. It is stated that priority areas that considered ecological and evolutionary processes were more connected along vegetated waterways.

Conservation planning is often informed by quantitative targets: these are minimum amounts of the distribution of a species, vegetation type, or other biodiversity feature intended for protection. Targets are set for the global reserve system, and are also used at national and local levels to plan for both on- and off-reserve conservation. Understandably, the conservation community holds a range of opinions about target-based approaches to conservation planning. One school of thought is that the approach is inadequate, inflexible, and even counterproductive in many socioecological systems. We investigate the perceived limitations of target-based conservation planning, and find that most have resulted from poor communication and misuse of targets, leading to misconceptions and misunderstandings. Here we put target-based conservation planning in context by: (1) summarizing reported limitations of the approach and differentiating between those that are real and those that are misconceived; (2) identifying ways that some of the real limitations have, and can, be overcome, and (3) comparing target-based conservation planning to alternative conservation prioritization approaches. We hope to stimulate further discussion that will guide and improve target-based conservation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal allocation of conservation resources between biodiverse conservation regions has generally been calculated using stochastic dynamic programming, or using myopic heuristics. These solutions are hard to interpret and may not be optimal. To overcome these two limitations, this paper approaches the optimal conservation resource allocation problem using optimal control theory. A solution using Pontryagin's maximum principle provides novel insight into the general properties of efficient conservation resource allocation strategies, and allows more extensive testing of the performance of myopic heuristics. We confirmed that a proposed heuristic (minimize short-term loss) yields near-optimal results in complex allocation situations, and found that a qualitative allocation feature observed in previous analyses (bang-bang allocation) is a general property of the optimal allocation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Conventional wisdom identifies biodiversity hotspots as priorities for conservation investment because they capture dense concentrations of species. However, density of species does not necessarily imply conservation 'efficiency'. Here we explicitly consider conservation efficiency in terms of species protected per dollar invested. Methodology/Principal Findings. We apply a dynamic return on investment approach to a global biome and compare it with three alternate priority setting approaches and a random allocation of funding. After twenty years of acquiring habitat, the return on investment approach protects between 32% and 69% more species compared to the other priority setting approaches. To correct for potential inefficiencies of protecting the same species multiple times we account for the complementarity of species, protecting up to three times more distinct vertebrate species than alternate approaches. Conclusions/Significance. Incorporating costs in a return on investment framework expands priorities to include areas not traditionally highlighted as priorities based on conventional irreplaceability and vulnerability approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]