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A billion rural people live near tropical forests. Urban populations need them for water, energy and timber. Global society benefits from climate regulation and knowledge embodied in tropical biodiversity. Ecosystem service valuations can incentivise conservation, but determining costs and benefits across multiple stakeholders and interacting services is complex and rarely attempted. We report on a 10-year study, unprecedented in detail and scope, to determine the monetary value implications of conserving forests and woodlands in Tanzania's Eastern Arc Mountains. Across plausible ranges of carbon price, agricultural yield and discount rate, conservation delivers net global benefits (+US$8.2B present value, 20-year central estimate). Crucially, however, net outcomes diverge widely across stakeholder groups. International stakeholders gain most from conservation (+US$10.1B), while local-rural communities bear substantial net costs (-US$1.9B), with greater inequities for more biologically important forests. Other Tanzanian stakeholders experience conflicting incentives: tourism, drinking water and climate regulation encourage conservation (+US$72M); logging, fuelwood and management costs encourage depletion (-US$148M). Substantial global investment in disaggregating and mitigating local costs (e.g., through boosting smallholder yields) is essential to equitably balance conservation and development objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework is now well advanced and will outline a vision, goals, and targets for the next decade of biodiversity conservation and beyond. For the effectiveness of Protected areas and Other Effective area‐based Conservation Measures, an indicator has been proposed for "areas meeting their documented ecological objectives." However, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has not identified or agreed on what data should inform this indicator. Here we draw on experiences from the assessment of protected area effectiveness in the CBD's previous strategic plan to provide recommendations on the essential elements related to biodiversity outcomes and management that need to be captured in this updated indicator as well as how this could be done. Our proposed protected area effectiveness indicators include a combination of remotely derived products for all protected areas, combined with data from monitoring of both protected area management and trends in species and ecosystems based on field observations. Additionally, we highlight the need for creating a digital infrastructure to operationalize national‐level data‐capture. We believe these steps are critical and urge the adoption of suitable protected area effectiveness indicators before the post‐2020 framework is agreed in 2021. [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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

Protected areas (PAs) are a key tool in efforts to safeguard biodiversity against increasing anthropogenic threats. As signatories to the 2011–2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, 196 nations pledged support for expansion in the extent of the global PA estate and the quality of PA management. While this has resulted in substantial increases in PA designations, many sites lack the resources needed to guarantee effective biodiversity conservation. Using management reports from 2167 PAs (with an area representing 23% of the global terrestrial PA estate), we demonstrate that less than a quarter of these PAs report having adequate resources in terms of staffing and budget. Using data on the geographic ranges of the 11,919 terrestrial vertebrate species overlapping our sample of PAs, we estimate that only 4–9% of terrestrial amphibians, birds, and mammals are sufficiently represented within the existing global PA estate, when only adequately resourced PAs are considered. While continued expansion of the world's PAs is necessary, a shift in emphasis from quantity to quality is critical to effectively respond to the current biodiversity crisis. [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.)

Abstract: Currently, human society is predominantly powered by fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—yet also ultimately depends on goods and services provided by biodiversity. Fossil fuel extraction impacts biodiversity indirectly through climate change and by increasing accessibility, and directly through habitat loss and pollution. In contrast to the indirect effects, quantification of the direct impacts has been relatively neglected. To address this, we analyze the potential threat to >37,000 species and >190,000 protected areas globally from the locations of present and future fossil fuel extraction in marine and terrestrial environments. Sites that are currently exploited have higher species richness and endemism than unexploited sites, whereas known future hydrocarbon activities will predominantly move into less biodiverse locations. We identify 181 “high‐risk” locations where oil or gas extraction suitability coincides with biodiversity importance, making conflicts between extraction and conservation probable. In total, protected areas are located on $3‐15 trillion of unexploited hydrocarbon reserves, posing challenges and potentially opportunities for protected area management and sustainable financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess progress toward the protection of 50% of the terrestrial biosphere to address the species-extinction crisis and conserve a global ecological heritage for future generations. Using a map of Earth's 846 terrestrial ecoregions, we show that 98 ecoregions (12%) exceed Half Protected; 313 ecoregions (37%) fall short of Half Protected but have sufficient unaltered habitat remaining to reach the target; and 207 ecoregions (24%) are in peril, where an average of only 4% of natural habitat remains. We propose a Global Deal for Nature--a companion to the Paris Climate Deal--to promote increased habitat protection and restoration, national- and ecoregion-scale conservation strategies, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples to protect their sovereign lands. The goal of such an accord would be to protect half the terrestrial realm by 2050 to halt the extinction crisis while sustaining human livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushmeat hunting is a pantropical threat to rainforest mammals. Understanding its effects on species richness, community composition and population abundance is of critical conservation relevance. As data on the pre-hunting state of mammal populations in Africa are not generally available, we evaluated the impacts of illegal bushmeat hunting on the mammal community of two ecologically similar forests in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. The forests differ only in their protection status: one is a National Park and the other a Forest Reserve. We deployed systematic camera trap surveys in these forests, amounting to 850 and 917 camera days in the Forest Reserve and the National Park, respectively, and investigated differences between the two areas in estimated species-specific occupancies, detectabilities and species richness. We show that the mammal community in the Forest Reserve is degraded in all aspects relative to the National Park. Species richness was almost 40% lower in the Forest Reserve (median 18 vs 29 species, highest posterior density intervals 15–30 and 23–47, respectively). Occupancy of most species was also reduced significantly and the functional community appeared significantly altered, with an increase in rodents, and loss of large carnivores and omnivores. Overall, our results show how ineffective reserve management, with almost absent law enforcement, leads to uncontrolled illegal hunting, which in turn has a significant impact on the mammal fauna of globally important sites for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding cultural preferences toward different ecosystem services is of great importance for conservation and development planning. While cultural preferences toward plant species have been long studied in the field of plant utilisation, the effects of ethnicity on ecosystem services identification and valuation has received little attention. We assessed the effects of ethnicity toward different ecosystem services at three similar forest islands in northern Kenya inhabited by Samburu and Boran pastoralists. Twelve focus groups were organised in each mountain, to evaluate the ecosystem services provided by the forest, and assess which plant species are most important for provisioning different ecosystem services. While water was always identified as the most important ecosystem service, the second most important differed; and some were only mentioned by one ethnic group or in one location. Preferred plant species for food, fodder, medicine resources, poles and firewood followed the same pattern. Our results showed that ethnicity and location affect ecosystem services’ identification and importance ranking. This should be taken into account by decision-makers, e.g. as restricted access and regulated extraction is likely to affect people differently. Conservation and development projects would be more effective if they were initiated with an understanding of how people already use and value their forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas (PAs) are at the forefront of conservation efforts, and yet despite considerable progress towards the global target of having 17% of the world's land area within protected areas by 2020, biodiversity continues to decline. The discrepancy between increasing PA coverage and negative biodiversity trends has resulted in renewed efforts to enhance PA effectiveness. The global conservation community has conducted thousands of assessments of protected area management effectiveness (PAME), and interest in the use of these data to help measure the conservation impact of PA management interventions is high. Here, we summarize the status of PAME assessment, review the published evidence for a link between PAME assessment results and the conservation impacts of PAs, and discuss the limitations and future use of PAME data in measuring the impact of PA management interventions on conservation outcomes. We conclude that PAME data, while designed as a tool for local adaptive management, may also help to provide insights into the impact of PA management interventions from the local-to-global scale. However, the subjective and ordinal characteristics of the data present significant limitations for their application in rigorous scientific impact evaluations, a problem that should be recognized and mitigated where possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 10% of the world's total forest area is formally owned by communities and indigenous groups, yet knowledge of the effects of decentralized forest management approaches on conservation (and livelihood) impacts remains elusive. In this paper, the conservation impact of decentralized forest management on two forests in Tanzania was evaluated using a mixed method approach. Current forest condition, forest increment and forest use patterns were assessed through forest inventories, and changes in forest disturbance levels before and after the implementation of decentralized forest management were assessed on the basis of analyses of Landsat images. This biophysical evidence was then linked to changes in actual management practices, assessed through records, interviews and participatory observations, to provide a measure of the conservation impact of the policy change. Both forests in the study were found to be in good condition, and extraction was lower than overall forest increment. Divergent changes in forest disturbance levels were in evidence following the implementation of decentralized forest management. The evidence from records, interviews and participatory observations indicated that decentralized management had led to increased control of forest use and the observed divergence in forest disturbance levels appeared to be linked to differences in the way that village-level forest managers prioritized conservation objectives and forest-based livelihood strategies. The study illustrates that a mixed methods approach comprises a valid and promising way to evaluate impacts of conservation policies, even in the absence of control sites. By carefully linking policy outcomes to policy outputs, such an approach not only identifies whether such policies work as intended, but also potential mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and their partners are to report effectively on progress against national, regional and global biodiversity conservation goals, data will need to be collected at multiple levels. Global data sets, many gathered using remote sensing, offer partial solutions but need to be complemented by field-level observations to provide the resolution necessary to track conservation measures in a meaningful way. This paper summarises efforts made by the conservation organisation WWF, working with partners, to integrate 10 indicators of relevance to CBD parties into its global monitoring system and to use global data sets and data from field programmes to determine progress against multi-level goals and to assess programme performance and impacts. Integration ofin-situandex-situdata into reporting dashboards tailored to WWF’s needs allowed some degree of assessment of progress and adaptive management of the programme portfolio. Indicator trends were most favourable (on track) for protected area (PA) coverage and market share of sustainable commodities, and least favourable (worsening) for species offtake, species populations, wildlife trade, habitat fragmentation and Ecological Footprint. The most useful indicators – which could be disaggregated to provide trends at local levels relevant to WWF field programmes – were species populations, habitat cover and fragmentation, PA coverage and PA management effectiveness. However challenges remain if local and global monitoring objectives are to be aligned, including the need for increased collection of data by field projects, improved harmonisation of indicators, and greater sharing of data in formats of use to practitioners. We advocate wider adoption by governments and civil society organisations of indicators with the dual function of tracking delivery of CBD Aichi Targets as well as monitoring national, regional and ecoregional level conservation programmes, and urge more NGOs and academic bodies to support capacity building and data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The UNFCCC mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) represents an unprecedented opportunity for the conservation of forest biodiversity. Nevertheless, there are widespread concerns surrounding the possibility of negative environmental outcomes if biodiversity is not given adequate consideration throughout the REDD+ process. We propose a general framework for incorporating biodiversity concerns into national REDD+ programmes based on well-established ecological principles and experiences. First, we identify how biodiversity distribution and threat data, together with data on biodiversity responses to forest change and management, can be readily incorporated into the strategic planning process for REDD+ in order to identify priority areas and activities for investment that will deliver returns for both carbon and biodiversity. Second, we propose that assessments of changes in biodiversity following REDD+ implementation could be greatly facilitated by paralleling, where possible, the existing IPCC architecture for assessing carbon emissions. A three-tiered approach is proposed for biodiversity assessment, where lower tiers can provide a realistic starting point for countries with fewer data and lower technical capacities. Planning and assessment of biodiversity safeguards for REDD+ need not overburden an already encumbered UNFCCC process. Immediate progress is already possible for a large number of developing countries, and a gradual, phased approach to implementation would minimise risks and facilitate the protection of additional biodiversity benefits from REDD+ activities. Greater levels of coordination between the UNFCCC and CBD, as well as other agencies and stakeholder groups interested in forest conservation are needed if biodiversity safeguards are to be fully adopted and implemented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Analyses of gaps in protected area (PA) coverage of species distributions have been carried out extensively for the past two decades, aiming to better locate new PAs and conserve species. In this study, progress to close gaps in the protection of the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of Tanzania is assessed between 2002 and 2009, with a detailed GIS analysis from 2007 to 2009. Remaining gaps are ranked according to biological factors such as numbers of red list and restricted range avian species and social pressures such as human population, agriculture and density of the road network. Results show that there has been a 5.3% increase (7615.1 km2) in protection of IBAs between 2007 and 2009. Of the 27 remaining IBA protection gaps, three are of high, nine of medium and fifteen of low priority for action. The current IBA 'gap area' of 17,133.3 km2 contains around 26% forest, 13% shrubland, 9% grassland, 36% wetland and 12% agricultural land. This analysis provides a simple template for defining where further action to protect remaining IBA sites in Tanzania would lead to enhanced conservation of avian biodiversity in that country and provides a methodology for analysis leading to conservation action elsewhere in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical forest degradation emits carbon at a rate of -0.5 Pgy1, reduces biodiversity, and facilitates forest clearance. Understanding degradation drivers and patterns is therefore crucial to managing forests to mitigate climate change and reduce biodiversity loss. Putative patterns of degradation affecting forest stocks, carbon, and biodiversity have variously been described previously, but these have not been quantitatively assessed together or tested systematically. Economic theory predicts a systematic allocation of land to its highest use value in response to distance from centers of demand. We tested this theory to see if forest exploitation would expand through time and space as concentric waves, with each wave targeting lower value products. We used forest data along a transect from 10 to 220 km from Dar es Salaam (DES), Tanzania. collected at two points in time (1991 and 2005). Our predictions were confirmed: high-value logging expanded 9 kmy1, and an inner wave of lower value charcoal production 2 kmy1. This resource utilization is shown to reduce the public goods of carbon storage and species richness, which significantly increased with each kilometer from DES [carbon, 0.2 Mgha1 0.1 species per sample area (0.4 ha)]. Our study suggests that tropical forest degradation can be modeled and predicted, with its attendant loss of some public goods. In sub-Saharan Africa, an area experiencing the highest rate of urban migration worldwide, coupled with a high dependence on forest- based resources, predicting the spatiotemporal patterns of degradation can inform policies designed to extract resources without unsustainably reducing carbon storage and biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) offers significant potential for conserving forests to reduce negative impacts of climate change. Tanzania is one of nine pilot countries for the United Nations REDD Programme, receives significant funding from the Norwegian, Finnish and German governments and is a participant in the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. In combination, these interventions aim to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, provide an income to rural communities and conserve biodiversity. The establishment of the UN-REDD Programme in Tanzania illustrates real-world challenges in a developing country. These include currently inadequate baseline forestry data sets (needed to calculate reference emission levels), inadequate government capacity and insufficient experience of implementing REDD+-type measures at operational levels. Additionally, for REDD+ to succeed, current users of forest resources must adopt new practices, including the equitable sharing of benefits that accrue from REDD+ implementation. These challenges are being addressed by combined donor support to implement a national forest inventory, remote sensing of forest cover, enhanced capacity for measuring, reporting and verification, and pilot projects to test REDD+ implementation linked to the existing Participatory Forest Management Programme. Our conclusion is that even in a country with considerable donor support, progressive forest policies, laws and regulations, an extensive network of managed forests and increasingly developed locally-based forest management approaches, implementing REDD+ presents many challenges. These are being met by coordinated, genuine partnerships between government, non-government and community-based agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Deforestation is a major threat to the conservation of biodiversity, especially within global centers of endemism for plants and animals. Elevation, the major environmental gradient in mountain regions of the world, produces a rapid turnover of species, where some species may exist only in narrow elevational ranges. We use newly compiled datasets to assess the conservation impact of deforestation on threatened trees across an elevational gradient within the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. The Eastern Arc has suffered an estimated 80% total loss in historical forest area and has lost 25% of forest area since 1955. Forest loss has not been even across all elevations. The upper montane zone (>1800m) has lost 52% of its paleoecological forest area, 6% since 1955. Conversely, the submontane habitat (800–1200m) has lost close to 93% of its paleoecological extent, 57% since 1955. A list of 123 narrowly endemic Tanzanian Eastern Arc tree taxa with defined and restricted elevational ranges was compiled and analyzed in regard to mountain block locations, elevational range, and area of forest within each 100m elevational band. Half of these taxa have lost more than 90% of paleoecological forest habitat in their elevational range. When elevational range is considered, 98 (80%) of these endemic forest trees should have their level of extinction threat elevated on the IUCN Red List. Conservation efforts in montane hotspots need to consider the extent of habitat changes both within and across elevations and target conservation and restoration efforts throughout these ecosystems’ entire elevational ranges. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The protected area network of Africa has grown from nothing to over 2 million km² in the past 110 years. This network covers parts of all biomes and priority areas for biodiversity conservation but protected area gaps remain, as identified at the 5th World Parks Congress in 2003. Forest reserves, managed by Forest Departments, are typically excluded from global protected area lists, but in Africa they are found in 23 countries and cover at least 549,788 km², adding 25% to the conservation estate. Forest reserves protect 5.3% (2,027 km²) of the dry forest habitats, 5% (165,285 km²) of lowland and montane moist forests, 2.6% (364,354 km²) of savannah woodlands, 1.8% (10,561 km²) of flooded grasslands, and 1.65% (1,177 km²) of mangroves. Forest reserves also protect parts of three conservation schemes: 6.5% (61,630 km²) of BirdLife's Endemic Bird Areas, 3.4% (147,718 km²) of Conservation International's Hotpots and 3.4% (346,864 km²) of WWF's Global 200 Ecoregions. Several of the global protected area gaps identified in Africa are also covered by forest reserves, in the Eastern Arc Mountains, Eastern African coastal forests, Kenyan Highlands, Cameroon-Nigerian Mountains, West African Forests and mountain areas of Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia. Some African forest reserves have a legally defined role in biodiversity conservation and are strictly protected; they thus fit criteria for protected areas. Working with forest departments in individual countries may help develop a more comprehensive protected area network without creating additional new reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Generalised additive models built to describe forest and woodland loss in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. [•] Rates of evergreen forest loss, at −0.2% per year, are lower than rates of miombo woodland loss, at −2.3% per year. [•] Protected areas are partially effective at reducing forest (40% decrease) and woodland (16% decrease) loss. [•] The majority of remaining forest lies within protected areas, while most remaining woodland lies outside protected areas. [•] More resources are needed to reduce the loss of forest and, in particular, woodland, both valuable for ecosystem services. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aichi Target 11 (AT11) includes the commitment of 194 governments to equitably manage protected areas (PAs) by 2020. Here we evaluate whether existing PA Management Effectiveness (PAME) and social and governance assessment tools can be used to determine if AT11 meets equity goals. We find that PAME assessment conditions are insufficiently inclusive of relevant actors and do not satisfactorily allow for a diversity of perspectives to be expressed and accounted for, both of which are essential for equitable PA management. Furthermore, none of the analysed PAME tools fully cover multidimensional equity and thus they are inadequate for assessing progress towards equitable management in PAs. The available social and governance PA assessment tools stipulate more inclusive and participatory conditions within their guidelines, and the IUCN Governance Guidelines comprehensively capture equity dimensions in PA management, but results are not comparable across sites. We conclude that available assessment tools do not provide a reliable way to track equity in PAs at global scale. The IUCN Governance Guidelines could be adjusted to achieve this goal, providing that the information collected is made globally comparable, while ensuring transparency, accountability and room for contestation, including by communities whose livelihoods are directly implicated. Ultimately, developing and deploying globally comparable measures to evaluate equity is problematic, as the process of gathering comparable data inevitably obscures information that is highly relevant to resolving equity issues at local scales. This challenge must be met, however, if nations are to achieve and report on their success at meeting AT11 by 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related "Aichi Targets" to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of individual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the biodiversity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of biodiversity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response from the author of the article "Financial Costs of Meeting Global Biodiversity Conservation Targets: Current Spending and Unmet Needs" that was published in the November 16, 2012 issue of the journal is presented, concerning the economic aspects of biodiversity conservation efforts.