Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1388

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Following the much acclaimed success of the first volume of Key Topics in Conservation Biology, this entirely new second volume addresses an innovative array of key topics in contemporary conservation biology.  Written by an internationally renowned team of authors, Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 adds to the still topical foundations laid in the first volume (published in 2007) by exploring a further 25 cutting-edge issues in modern biodiversity conservation, including controversial subjects such as setting conservation priorities, balancing the focus on species and ecosystems, and financial mechanisms to value biodiversity and pay for its conservation. Other chapters, setting the framework for conservation, address the sociology and philosophy of peoples’ relation with Nature and its impact on health, and such challenging practical issues as wildlife trade and conflict between people and carnivores. As a new development, this second volume of Key Topics includes chapters on major ecosystems, such as forests, islands and both fresh and marine waters, along with case studies of the conservation of major taxa: plants, butterflies, birds and mammals. A further selection of topics consider how to safeguard the future through monitoring, reserve planning, corridors and connectivity, together with approaches to reintroduction and re-wilding, along with managing wildlife disease. A final chapter, by the editors, synthesises thinking on the relationship between biodiversity conservation and human development.

Each topic is explored by a team of top international experts, assembled to bring their own cross-cutting knowledge to a penetrating synthesis of the issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

The interdisciplinary nature of biodiversity conservation is reflected throughout the book. Each essay examines the fundamental principles of the topic, the methodologies involved and, crucially, the human dimension. In this way, Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2, like its sister volume, Key Topics in Conservation Biology, embraces issues from cutting-edge ecological science to policy, environmental economics, governance, ethics, and the practical issues of implementation.

Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 will, like its sister volume, be a valuable resource in universities and colleges, government departments, and conservation agencies. It is aimed particularly at senior undergraduate and graduate students in conservation biology and wildlife management and wider ecological and environmental subjects, and those taking Masters degrees in any field relevant to conservation and the environment. Conservation practitioners, policy-makers, and the wider general public eager to understand more about important environmental issues will also find this book invaluable.

Leseprobe

Contents

Contributors

Preface

About the Companion Website

Part I The framework

1 Conservation priorities: identifying need, taking action and evaluating success

Introduction

Identifying need for action

Taking action: what to do with limited resources

Evaluating success

When and for whom is research a priority?

Conclusions and recommendations

2 Levels of approach: on the appropriate scales for conservation interventions and planning

Introduction

Populations

Species

Protected areas

Landscapes/ecosystems

IUCN Red Lists and conservation planning

Red Lists and conservation planning: the EDGE approach case study

The evolution of species action plans

The species conservation strategy approach: a case study

Other action planning processes for species

Range-wide priority setting: a case study

Practical prescriptions for area or landscape approaches to conservation planning

The Conservation Action Planning (CAP) approach in practice: a case study

Action plans for entire taxonomic groups or functional groups

Conservation action plans for countries

The Canadian National Report: a case study

The growing grey area between the various levels of approach

3 Five paradigms of collective action underlying the human dimension of conservation

Introduction

Divided we must act: five paradigms of collective action on environmental issues

Illustrating the five paradigms of collective action for conservation: community-based conservation in East Africa’s Maasailand

Discussion

4 Economic instruments for nature conservation

Introduction

Economic growth, poverty reduction and conservation

Regulatory approaches

Payments for environmental services

Economic incentives as the road forward?

Application: REDD

Conclusions

5 Tackling unsustainable wildlife trade

Introduction

Law and Policy

Livelihoods and incentives

Wildlife management

Education

6 Leadership and listening: inspiration for conservation mission and advocacy

Introduction: conservation biology as mission-driven science

Public sensitivity to the message of conservation

The concept of mission and the sense of vocation in conservation

Traditional ecological knowledge and the problem of anthropocentricity

Religion and conservation

Conservation and the emotional human bond with nature

7 The human dimension in addressing conflict with large carnivores

Introduction

The complexity of the human dimension

Individual level

Societal/cultural level

Using an understanding of the human dimension to guide conflict mitigation

Conclusions

8 Citizen science and nature conservation

Introduction

Recruiting and retaining volunteers

Volunteer motivation

Training of volunteers

Data validation and analysis

Conclusions

9 Nature as a source of health and well-being: is this an ecosystem service that could pay for conserving biodiversity?

The ecosystem service hypothesis: health and well-being

Is engagement with nature health giving?

Part II Habitat case studies

10 Ocean conservation: current challenges and future opportunities

Introduction

The threats to marine biodiversity

How can the seas be conserved – and where are the successes?

Future adoption of broader principles of conservation

Trends in marine conservation science

Final remarks

11 Lost in muddy waters: freshwater biodiversity

Introduction

The extent of freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity

Patterns of diversity

The current decline of freshwater quality and biodiversity

How can societies protect what remains and restore what has been lost?

12 Habitat case studies: islands

Introduction

Conservation biogeography

Conservation management on islands

Conclusions

13 Conservation of tropical forests: maintaining ecological integrity and resilience

Introduction

Destruction versus degradation: ecosystem-level consequences

Practical solutions

Protecting a forest the size of a continent: good news from the Brazilian Amazon

Conclusions

Part III Taxonomic case studies

14 A global perspective on conserving butterflies and moths and their habitats

Introduction

Long-term change in populations of Lepidoptera

Single-species conservation

From single sites to meta-populations: ecological conservation at landscape scales

Advancing towards multi-species conservation

Two multi-species approaches

Conclusion

15 Bird conservation in tropical ecosystems: challenges and opportunities

Introduction

Threats to tropical environments

New insights into threats facing tropical avifaunas

The impact of bird declines on ecosystem function and services

What are the implications for biodiversity conservation?

Towards long-term and broad-scale strategies for the conservation of tropical ecosystems

Conclusions

16 Conserving large mammals: are they a special case?

Introduction

Conservation and management problems of large mammals

Why are large mammal species particularly vulnerable to extinction?

Why losing large terrestrial mammals matters

Conservation interventions for large mammals

Conclusion

17 Plant conservation: the seeds of success

Introduction

Research in plant conservation science

Changing plant conservation priorities

Conclusion

Part IV Safeguarding the future

18 The ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of monitoring for conservation

Introduction

Why monitor?

What to monitor?

How to monitor?

Conclusions

19 Effective conservation depends upon understanding human behaviour

Introduction

Understanding individual behaviour

Individuals in society

How do people respond to conservation interventions?

Exciting research tools for conservation scientists

Conclusion

20 Designing effective solutions to conservation planning problems

Introduction

Characteristics and principles of effective conservation planning

An operational model for conservation planning

Problem definition for conservation planning: orientation and formulation

Future directions for improving the effectiveness of conservation planning

21 Biological corridors and connectivity

Introduction

Estimating landscape resistance

From landscape resistance to population connectivity

Identifying corridors using least-cost modelling

Other ways to analyse connectivity

Beyond single species

Validation of predicted corridors

Conclusions

22 Righting past wrongs and ensuring the future: challenges and opportunities for effective reintroductions amidst a biodiversity crisis

Emerging challenges and opportunities for reintroductions

What are the risks?

When is the right time to start a reintroduction?

Strategies to improve reintroduction techniques

A novel approach to assessing ‘programme success’ in reintroductions

Emerging needs: function, form and focus

On the verge of a disciplinary shift? Beyond single species and beyond the historic range

23 Rewilding

Introduction: in need of the wild

What is rewilding? Origins and purpose

Developing the rewilding manual: putting rewilding into practice?

Where and when is rewilding appropriate?

Conclusion

24 Disease control

Introduction

Vaccine safety

Networks and disease control efficiency

Disease control in African apes

Conclusion

Part V A synthesis

25 Elephants in the room: tough choices for a maturing discipline

Introduction

What is biodiversity?

Why conserve biodiversity?

How much biodiversity do we need or want?

How to conserve biodiversity?

Where to conserve biodiversity?

What compromises are required?

The final elephant

Index

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Key topics in conservation biology 2 / edited by David W. Macdonald & Katherine J. Willis.pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-65876-5 (cloth) – ISBN 978-0-470-65875-8 (pbk.) 1. Conservation biology. I. Macdonald, David W. (David Whyte) II. Willis, K. J.QH75.K472 2013333.95′16–dc23

2012035721

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Cover image: Radio-tagged (see antenna) lion, part of WildCRU’s study of the impact of trophy hunting around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Courtesy of D.W. Macdonald.Cover design by Design Deluxe

Contributors

Frank AdriaensenDepartment of Biology,University of Antwerp,Antwerp, BelgiumGregory P. AsnerDepartment of Global Ecology,Carnegie Institution for Science,Stanford, CA, USAJonathan E.M. BaillieZoological Society of London,London, UKChristopher B. BarrettCharles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and ManagementCornell University,Ithaca, New York, USAYves BassetSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute,Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa,Ancon, PeruPaul BeierSchool of Forestry, Northern Arizona University,Flagstaff, AZ,USAShonil BhagwatSchool of Geography and the Environment,University of Oxford, Oxford, UKRaphaël BilléInstitute for Sustainable Development and International Relations,27 rue Saint Guillaume,Paris, FranceLuigi BoitaniDepartment of Biology & Biotechnologies,Università La Sapienza,Viale Università 32,Rome, ItalyMark BontaCenter for Community and Economic Development,Delta State University,Cleveland, MS, USAChristina D. BueschingWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre,University of Oxford, Oxford, UKErwin H. BulteDevelopment Economics Group,Wageningen University,The NetherlandsStuart H.M. ButchartBirdLife International,Cambridge, UKSamuel A. CushmanUSDA Forest Service,Rocky Mountain Research Station,Flagstaff, AZ, USAAmy DickmanWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKEric DinersteinWWF-US,1250 24th St. NW,Washington, D.C. USAKingsley W. DixonKings Park and Botanic Garden,The University of Western Australia,West Perth, 6005,Nedlands,AustraliaAndrew DobsonKeele University,Keele, UKC. Josh DonlanAdvanced Conservation Strategies,Midway, UT, USAandCornell University,Department of Ecology & EvolutionaryBiology, Ithaca, NY, USAAdam J. DuttonWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKRobert M. EwersDivision of Biology,Imperial College London,Ascot, UKJohn E. FaDurrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Jersey,and ICCS, Department of Life Sciences,Imperial College London,Ascot, UKPaul FerraroDepartment of Economics,Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,Georgia State University,Atlanta, GA, USAHervé FritzLaboratoire Biométrie et Bilogie EvolutiveCNRS UMR 5558,Université de Lyon,Villeurbanne Cedex, FranceToby GardnerConservation Science Group,Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UKBrendan GodleyCentre for Ecology and Conservation,University of Exeter,Exeter, UKAndrew GoslerEdward Grey Institute of Field Ornithologyand Institute of Human Sciences,University of Oxford,Oxford, UKBrian GratwickeCenter for Species Survival,Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute,Washington, D.C., USADennis HansenInstitute of Evolutionary Biology andEnvironmental Studies,University of Zurich,Winterthurerstrasse 190,Zurich, SwitzerlandDavid M. HarperDepartment of Biology,University of Leicester,Leicester, UKStephen A. HarrisDepartment of Plant Sciences,University of Oxford,Oxford, UKStuart HarropDurrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology,University of Kent,Canterbury, UKPeter HendersonPisces Conservation,Lymington, UKCameron HepburnSmith School of Enterprise and the Environment and James Martin Institute,Said Business School,University of Oxford,Oxford, UKEmilio A. HerreraDepartamento de Estudios Ambientales,Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas,VenezuelaKatherine HomewoodDepartment of Anthropology,University College London,Gower Street,London, UKBlanca HuertasLife Sciences Department,The Natural History Museum,Cromwell Road,London, UK.Joelene HughesWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford,Oxford, UKSusan K. JacobsonDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation,University of FloridaGainesville, FL, USAJulia P.G. JonesSchool of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography,Bangor University,Bangor, UKValerie KaposUnited Nations Environment Programme,World Conservation Monitoring Centre,Cambridge, UKK. Ullas KaranthWildlife Conservation Society,Centre for Wildlife Studies,IndiaAidan M. KeaneDepartment of Anthropology, UniversityCollege London and Institute of Zoology,London, UKCarolyn KingDepartment of Biological Sciences,University of Waikato, Hamilton,New ZealandAndrew T. KnightDivision of Ecology and Evolution,Imperial College London,Ascot, UKandDepartment of Botany,Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University,Port Elizabeth,South AfricaDan LaffoleyInternational Union for Conservation of Nature,Gland, SwitzerlandTom Le QuesneWWF-UK,Godalming, UKOwen T. LewisDepartment of Zoology,University of Oxford,Oxford, UKMark LomolinoDepartment of Environmental and Forest Biology,SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry,Syracuse, New York, USAMargaret D. LowmanNature Research Center, North Carolina Museum of Natural SciencesandNorthCarolina State University, Raleigh,NC, USADavid W. MacdonaldWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford,Oxford, UKYadvinder MalhiEnvironmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment,University of Oxford,Oxford, UKMichael ManfredoHuman Dimensions of Natural Resources,Colorado State University,Fort Collins, CO, USASilvio MarchiniInstituto Pró-Carnívoros,Av. Horácio Neto,Atibaia, BrazilBrad McRaeThe Nature Conservancy,North America Region1917,Seattle, USAThomas MerckxWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKLaurent MermetAgroParisTech,19 avenue du Maine,Paris, FranceEleanor J. Milner-GullandDepartment of Life Sciences,Imperial College London,Ascot, UKAxel MoehrenschlagerCentre for Conservation Research,Calgary Zoological Society, Calgary,Alberta, CanadaTom P. MoorhouseWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre,University of Oxford, Oxford, UKNic PaciniUniversity of Calabria,Cosenza, ItalyNick PoluninSchool of Marine Science and Technology,Newcastle University,Newcastle, UKJules PrettyDepartment of Biological Sciences,University of Essex,Colchester, UKAndrew S. PullinCentre for Evidence-Based Conservation,School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography,Bangor University,Bangor, UKDavid RaffaelliEnvironment Department,University of York, York, UKTony RebeloThreatened Species Research Unit,South African National Biodiversity Institute,Claremont, South AfricaAna S.L. RodriguesCentre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive,CNRS-CEFE UMR5175,Montpellier, FranceGary RoemerDepartment of Fish, Wildlife & Conservation Ecology,New Mexico State University,Las Cruces, NM, USAAlex D. RogersDepartment of Zoology, University of Oxford,Oxford, UKChris SandomEcoinformatics & Biodiversity Group,Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University,Ny Munkegade 114,Aarhus, DenmarkÇağan H.ŞekercioğluDepartment of Biology, University of Utah,Salt Lake City, UT, USADebra M. Shier, Ph.D.Applied Animal Ecology Division,San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research,Escondido, CA, USAMark ShirleySchool of Biology, Newcastle University,Newcastle upon Tyne, UKClaudio Sillero-ZubiriWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford,Oxford, UKJonathan SilvertownDepartment of Environment,Earth and Ecosystems, Faculty of Science,Open University,Milton Keynes, UKFreya A.V. St JohnDurrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology,School of Anthropology and Conservation,University of Kent,Canterbury, UKMark R. Stanley PriceWildlife Conservation Research Unit,Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKandAl Ain Zoo and Aquarium, Abu DhabiNiels StrangeDepartment of Food and Resource Economics,Centre for Macroecology,Evolution and Climate,University of Copenhagen,Frederiksberg, DenmarkWilliam SutherlandConservation Science Group,Department of Zoology,University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UKJens-Christian SvenningEcoinformatics & Biodiversity Group,Department of Bioscience,Aarhus University,Ny Munkegade 114,Aarhus, DenmarkTom TewThe Environment Bank,Stamford, UKJeremy ThomasDepartment of Zoology, University of Oxford,Oxford, UKSonia TidemannBatchelor Institute of Indigenous TertiaryEducation, Batchelor, NT, AustraliaDerek P. TittensorUnited Nations Environment Programme,World Conservation Monitoring Centre/Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UKJoseph A. TobiasEdward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology,University of Oxford, Oxford, UKF. Hernan VargasPeregrine Fund,Boise, ID, USATimothy WalkerUniversity of Oxford Botanic Garden,Oxford, UKPeter D. WalshDepartment of Archaeology andAnthropology, University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UKKatherine J. WillisBiodiversity Institute,Oxford Martin School, Department of Zoology,University of Oxford, UKKerrie A. WilsonSchool of Biological Sciences,University of Queensland,St Lucia, QLD, AustraliaRichard WranghamDepartment of Human EvolutionaryBiology, Peabody Museum,Harvard University,Cambridge, MA, USASven WunderCenter for International Forestry Research,Rio de Janeiro, BrazilKathy ZellerPanthera,8 West 40th Street, 18th Floor,NY, USA

Preface

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

(Charles Dickens,Tale of Two Cities)

As we celebrate the completion of this second collection of essays on Key Topics in Conservation Biology, a reader might wonder what has changed since the publication of the first ­volume in 2007. Happily, one thing that has not changed is the relevance of the essays in the first volume. Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 does not replace Key Topics 1, it complements it. Less happy, however, are the changes in the state of wildlife and nature. These are ­commemorated in the almost complete failure of the 2010 targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity to reduce biodiversity loss. Indeed, rare species continue to edge towards the precipice of extinction, more populous ones dwindle in abundance and distribution, ­environments are degraded and with them go not only beautiful and fascinating organisms but also the ecosystem services on which the human enterprise depends, and so too the quality of life deteriorates for many of the planet’s ever more numerous people.

A brief stock-take of the years between Key Topics 1 and 2 reveals that the global human population has increased by 395 million, the global economy has grown from US$66 trillion to US$77 trillion and CO2 emissions have increased from 28 billion metric tons to 31.6 billion metric tons. As part of this syndrome of more people using more resources and producing more CO2, its hardly surprising that 80 million hectares of forests have been ­converted and, of the 600 marine fish stocks monitored, 52% are fully exploited, 17% overexploited and 7% depleted. This year, Arctic Ocean sea ice coverage has shrunk to the ­lowest level since modern records began, smashing the previous record by 293,000 square miles. Arctic summers have been free of sea ice for the first time in thousands of years. Against this dismal backdrop, the need for conservation biology could scarcely be more pressing.

With the 2007 collection of Key Topics 1 essays safely to hand and still relevant, our response to the escalating threats and associated ­challenges has been to drive the 2013 collection in Key Topics 2 to be even more comprehen­sive, ­interdisciplinary, frank and focused on ­solutions. Our aim is that these collections will help a new generation of conservationists to operate at the front line, their feet firmly based on sound theory, their eyes scanning the ­horizon for innovation and opportunity, and their hands busily at work delivering practical outcomes. This is a vibrant field, and one in which Key Topics are bursting on to the world stage with energizing insight and determined to make a difference. These are the subjects of this new crop of essays: ideas, technologies, ­frameworks for thinking and for action that are beacons of hope amongst the gloom (and peril) of biodiversity loss.

A journey that was already well advanced when Key Topics 1 was written traced the route through interdisciplinarity, leaving far behind a perception of isolationist conservation that ­prioritized wildlife over people, in the quest to combine the interests of wildlife and people, reversing biodiversity loss and alleviating ­poverty. In the 5 years that have passed since its publication, new voices have joined this ­irresistible mantra of alignment. But facing the facts can be uncomfortable – the interests of biodiversity conservation and development are often at odds, values are often measured in incommensurable currencies, some problems defy easy solution and some alternative ­priorities are not easily reconciled – so conservation biologists have become not only more ingenious but also more worldly and pragmatic. As conservation biologists take their seats alongside politicians, economists, ­medics, indus­trialists, agriculturalists and philosophers to chart a future for the environment and nature, they become expert in trade-offs; they realize that one model does not fit all for biodiversity conservation and that, as we discuss in the concluding essay to this collection (Chapter 25), there are some very hefty ‘elephants in the room’ whenever the reconciliation of people and wildlife is being discussed.

It is the flushing from cover of metaphorical elephants, along with any bluster, hypocrisy or delusion that conceals them, that explains the philosophy and modus operandi behind the structure of this book. As indelicately confided in the Preface to Key Topics 1, the working title had been ‘Conservation Without Crap’, and each of the essays in that volume, and now in this one, cuts to the unvarnished essence of the key topic that it probes. To achieve this, we assembled teams of critical authorities – almost always including people who had not ­previously collaborated, who had different perspectives and generally came from different parts of the world. This alchemy made things much tougher for the editors (we have herded these scholarly cats relentlessly, even when their claws were unsheathed) and for the authors (whom we thank for tolerating our demands and rising to the challenge). We hope these essays will fascinate, inform and entertain a wide readership from the loftiest authority to the aspirant high school sixth former, from interested layman to policy maker to naturalist. Of this spectrum, our imagined modal reader might well be a Master’s student, whose career and world-view may be shaped by these essays – a weighty responsibility with which we repeatedly flogged our authors, and which they have shouldered unstintingly. We thank them, confident that our readers will appreciate the effort.

In the Preface to Key Topics 1, we concluded that each essay in the collection was intended to stand alone but that the collection as a whole was more than the sum of its parts, together introducing the nature of the problem, the framework in which it can be understood, some tools that could be used in the quest for ­solutions and various of the issues that are topical. As such, neither that volume nor this one has ­pretensions to compendiousness or balance. Thus in 2007, we wrote ‘there are many more than 18 key topics in wildlife conservation’ – and now, in Key Topics 2, we present 25 more of them. This new selection of 25 more key topics was not chosen on a whim. We scanned the landscape, and the researchers navigating it, for emerging ideas and innovative thinkers – in particular, this led to chapters that push the borders of interdisciplinarity, capture the sophistication of finance and culture, and reveal the astonishing potency of new technologies. While the purpose of the essays is unchanged, we have also taken an additional step in grouping them, having in mind the strengthened ­perspective of viewing a landscape from more than one hilltop. Thus, the first nine chapters explore that landscape, identifying conservation ­priorities, the levels at which they can fruitfully be approached and paradigms for engagement with society. Next, the essays tackle financial mechanisms to encourage nature conservation, and to prevent unsustainable trade, before exploring theological and cultural dimensions (the latter with respect to conflict between ­people and carnivores). Still with a societal ­perspective, two concluding chapters of the framework complete this setting of the scene by tackling the role of citizen science and the capacity of nature to deliver an unsung ecosystem service, namely health and well-being.

Following this framework, next we shuffle the pack in two ways. First, we select four ­habitats (oceans, fresh water, islands and ­tropical forests) and then four taxa (butterflies and moths, birds, plants and large mammals – the latter originally intended as two sibling chapters on predators and prey, eventually fused into a bumper chapter on the two together). Having created the framework and then introduced a selection of the actors, we turn to seven chapters that dwell on safeguarding the future, by monitoring, understanding human behaviour, designing solutions, creating biological corridors and the twin aspirations of reintroduction and rewilding. This section ­concludes with a perspective on intervening to manage wildlife disease. Finally, the book ends with our perspective on a synthesis that ­encompasses human population, development, sustainability and biodiversity.

As conservation biology matures, at least three different models are now emerging: the first is the original ‘protectionist model’ where biodiversity conservation takes place in ­protected areas, sometimes behind a fence and heavily guarded. While the pendulum swung strongly against protectionism throughout the latter years of the 20th century, in recent years it may be swinging back. Nonetheless, protected areas encompass only about 12% of the earth’s terrestrial surface and less than 1% of the oceans, and insofar as the protectionist model can apply only in protected areas, it is never going to be enough. Further, within protected areas, how are priorities to be devised amongst species or habitats, or landscapes and corridors? These subjects are amongst those tackled in Chapters 2, 5, 10, 11 and 20.

The second model for biodiversity conservation is community based. The antithesis of the protectionist approach, this model has it that the best people to carry out conservation are the communities that live within biodiverse landscapes. Here, the focus is on participation, not building fences but rather bridges along the road to working with the local communities – once again to find pragmatic solutions. As Chapters 3 and 6 demonstrate, these bridges can involve acknowledging the religious dimension provided by biodiverse landscapes, groves and species, an approach that is based on the premise that those things people value and respect the most, they will conserve. Community conservation highlights the need to understand human behaviour (Chapter 3, 19) associated with, for example, the bush meat trade or addressing conflict with large carnivores (Chapter 7).

The third emphasis, and one that has been rapidly rising up the political agenda in the past decade, is one that values and conserves ­biodiversity because of the ecosystem services that it provides to human well-being. This is not so much a different way to implement ­conservation (in the sense that the protected area and community-based approaches are strategically different) but rather an added rationale for ­conserving biodiversity. This is a complex issue (Chapters 5 and 6) that revolves around the challenging task of valuing the ­ecosystem services provided by biodiversity (Chapter 4). An acknowledged political reality is that the contribution that biodiversity makes to humankind – be it through direct benefits to health and well-being (Chapter 9), clean water, soil erosion protection, regulation of carbon or maintaining genetic diversity of food stocks – is critical and possibly invaluable. Ideas of this genre, expressed in terms of the agendas of earth security and planetary boundaries, aim at conserving specific ecosystem services that benefit humanity and dominated the agenda at the recent Rio +20 conference. Many biodiversity conservationists are learning the language of economists, and their fluency offers huge potential for delivering conservation. However, not everything can be monetized and much (perhaps most) that is beautiful in nature ­cannot pay its way but is nonetheless priceless.

Finally, and in a vocabulary where compromise is not a dirty word, another emerging model is that of sustainable landscape and ­seascape management. This approach, taking some of the working parts from the ethos of each of protectionist and community-based conservation, seeks to fashion a new machinery for nature amidst mankind by managing ­wildlife sustainably in a matrix landscape.

So where is the future agenda in biodiversity conservation? Is one of these models more promising than the others? Nobody’s crystal ball is sufficiently clear to answer definitively. Without societal engagement with wildlife and the wider environment, the battle is lost, which is why citizen science is a key topic (Chapter 8). With the dramatic emergence of technologies from the internet to the smartphone, the ­gadgetry of engagement is revolutionized, as it is for researchers New ways of managing and restoring nature are also emerging, less focused on static baselines but rather on restoring ­ecosystem process and the important role of large herbivores as ecosystem engineers (Chapter 23). Whilst the economic model is currently favoured by research councils and governments alike, as we write this chapter the current UK Minister for the Environment has reputedly forbidden his officials from using the phrase ‘ecosystem services’ on the grounds that it is too jargon laden. Similarly, there is endless carping that the very word ‘biodiversity’ is too technical and off-putting, yet in news bulletins every day a vast public speedily absorbs much more obscure notions because they appreciate their relevance (it didn’t take citizens long to grasp the term ‘subprime mortgages’ when they realized they might have one!). Leeriness of the, actually rather intuitive, vocabulary of the environment is merely a symptom of not taking the topic seriously. The essays in this book are excitingly diverse but one theme unites them all: everybody should take the environment seriously: it is the Key Topic.

David W. Macdonald and Kathy J. WillisWildlife Conservation Research UnitBiodiversity Institute, Department of ZoologyUniversity of Oxford

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; ­without it, nothing can succeed.

(Abraham Lincoln)

About the Companion Website

This book is accompanied by a companion website:

                                    www.wiley.com/go/macdonald/conservationbiology

The website includes:

Powerpoints of all figures from the book for downloading

PDFs of tables from the book

1

The framework

1

Conservation priorities: identifying need, taking action and evaluating success

Andrew S. Pullin1, William Sutherland2, Toby Gardner3, Valerie Kapos4 and John E. Fa5

1Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation, School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University, Bangor, UK2Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK3Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK4United Nations Environment Programme, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK5Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Jersey, and ICCS, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, UK

“What I decided I could not continue doing was making decisions about intervening when I had no idea whether I was doing more harm than good”

Archie Cochrane

Introduction

Conserving biodiversity requires identifying and addressing the myriad of problems generated when humans exploit natural resources. This challenge is ongoing and expensive in terms of time, money and access to the necessary expertise. Needs invariably outweigh resources, and actions require prioritization on multiple fronts. Conservation also needs appro­aches that ­enable more effective objective setting, as well as critical evaluation of conservation actions and of the extent to which targeted problems are solved.

Although there might seem to be room for some optimism given the increased investment in protected areas, sustainable forest management, and the management of invasive ­species, the rate of biodiversity loss does not appear to be slowing (Butchart et al. 2010; Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010). In addition, information on the nature and scale of conservation problems is accumulating faster than our ability to process it and respond effectively. Current rates of biodiversity loss exceed estimates of historical rates by several orders of ­magnitude (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Species extinctions are invariably associated with direct drivers, such as habitat loss and overexploitation, though secondary extinctions can readily be triggered by the initial loss of species that ­provide key ecosystem functions. Interaction effects between land use and climate change also ­present increasingly complex challenges for global conservation (Iwamura et al. 2010).

Conservation is part of a continuous cyclical process in which management activities are implemented in spite of uncertainties about their effectiveness. This process typically starts with the detection of the decline or degradation of an aspect of nature that we value. Once this change has been identified, conservation goals can be set, such as an area of habitat to be ­protected, a wetland area to be restored or ­species decline to be arrested or reversed. When goals are made clear, interventions can be selected and implemented, and their relative success or failure assessed in order to inform future action. In this cycle of doing and ­learning, conservation decision making ultimately involves some scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of past efforts to guide future actions (Pullin & Knight 2001; Knight et al. 2006).

Priority setting in conservation research and action will always reflect human-oriented ­values and be forever changing and contested, not least as baselines of human values shift and other societal priorities change. Nevertheless, science can be a potent guiding force in informing decision making and can help improve the cost-effectiveness of conservation practice. Conservation science is just one component of the overall decision-making process. Economic, social and political considerations also play a role and may determine the outcome. For example, decisions concerning which species and habitats are worth saving are strongly influenced by the necessarily subjective values of individual stakeholders, as well as by the political and socio-economic opportunities and constraints of the region of concern. Science can advise on which are likely to be the most cost-effective solutions for conserving the giant panda, for instance, but this information is only one factor in deciding how much money should be spent on its conservation, or the way in which available funds should be spent.

Table 1.1 Example summary of steps and ­processes that might be included in a decision-­making framework

Steps

Processes

Objective setting: desired trends, targets, time frame

Social process: priority assessment, stakeholder consultation, ethics approval

Solution scanning: identify potential interventions, actions

Expert process: consultation, workshops

Effectiveness assessment: comparison of previous intervention performance

Evidence-based process: evidence synthesis, predictive models

Cost-effectiveness assessment: value from investment

Evidence-based process: economic assessment, planning models

Outcome evaluation: programme evaluation

Mixed methods process: quantitative and qualitative data analysis

In this opening chapter, we first explore ways in which priorities for both conservation action and research emerge and are evaluated. Recognizing that conservation is ultimately a societal process underpinned by values and beliefs, we describe how decisions about resource allocation for conservation actions can be informed by explicit use of scientific ­evidence in decision-making frameworks. Decision-making frameworks are composed of a set of transparent principles and criteria that can help evaluate the pros and cons of alternative choices, thereby facilitating the identification of cost-effective actions (Table 1.1).We end by outlining future challenges to the development of decision-­making frameworks for conservation that encompass policy, management and research.

Identifying need for action

Effective conservation depends on identifying priorities for specific research and/or action. As described in this section, these are typically verified by one of two routes. The first route is more reactive and involves the detection, through surveillance monitoring, of a change in status of a taxon, species group, habitat or ­ecosystem. The second route is more proactive and works by identifying potential threats that may cause ­significant negative changes in the future.

Detection of ecological changes

Surveillance monitoring, whether of changes in habitats, species or even life history attributes of particular species, can sometimes detect unexpected and important changes useful for prioritizing conservation activity (whether for action or research). For example, long-term data on the widespread declines of sea turtles (Crouse et al. 1987) have motivated the ­discovery, development and implementation of innovative solutions such as turtle exclusion devices on shrimp trawlers. In another ­example, the UK Common Birds Survey (now, with a change in methodology, the Breeding Birds Survey), which was set up in 1962 partly to identify changes in bird populations from direct organophosphate pesticide poisoning, has played an important role in detecting a range of other issues requiring action. These include bird responses to agricultural change and changes in woodland management, as well as to changing conditions in the African wintering grounds (Newson et al. 2009).

Even when ecological changes are detected, the challenge remains of how to interpret and communicate the significance of monitoring data. Biodiversity indices that combine a range of trend data are increasingly used to represent broader changes in the environment, and are often welcomed by policy makers responsible for setting high-level targets. For example, in 2000 the UK government set a target of reversing the decline of farmland birds by 2020. One of the reasons why this target was selected over others was that a single index was available for tracking whether or not the desired changes were taking place. On a global scale, the Living Planet Index (Loh et al. 2005) and other ­composite indices are being used to track ­progress towards reducing the current rate of biodiversity loss (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010). In the last ­decade, catalysed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and its political impact, there has been an increase in emphasis on measuring change in ecosystems and the ­services they provide to human well-being and the global economy. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project, for example, has estimated monetary values for many of the headline metrics used to measure environmental change in an effort to help guide conservation policy (Sukhdev et al. 2010). This guidance includes a detailed consideration of subsidies and incentives, environmental liability, national income accounting, cost-benefit analysis, and methods for implementing instruments such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). Adoption of a more ecosystem-based approach to conservation may ultimately encourage a shift in societal values and political priorities far beyond that achieved by ­traditional species-based conservation approaches.

Identification of the most endangered species has provided a long-standing focus for conservation research and action since the inception of the IUCN Red Lists in the 1960s (IUCN 2011; Mace et al. 2009). Red Lists of species and their conservation status were initially based on ­subjective expert-based threat assessments for different species groups. The Red Listing process and assessment of extinction risk have now become much more rigorous, and are based on a combination of factors involving population size, rate of decline, size of the distribution range of the species as well as other empirical measures of threat (Mace et al. 2011). More recently, Rodríguez et al. (2011) have argued the need for analogous ecosystem-level threat assessments, suggesting they may be more ­efficient and less time consuming than species-by-species evaluations, given that ecosystems better represent biological diversity as a whole and require fewer resources to survey. Despite concerted efforts, by 2010 the status of only 47,978 of the world’s 1,740,330 known species had been evaluated for potential inclusion on the IUCN Red List (IUCN 2011).

Proactive decisions based on value and threat

Conservation priorities are commonly based on asset value (e.g. total number of species or the number of endemic species in a defined area) and/or potential threat to those assets. Brooks et al. (2006) reviewed nine major approaches for setting global conservation priorities. Most of these approaches prioritize highly irreplaceable regions, with some being reactive (prioritizing high-vulnerability, threatened areas), and others more proactive (prioritizing low-vulnerability wilderness areas). A lack of data means that it is difficult to compare these approaches in terms of their success in generating conservation funding (Halpern et al. 2006), but hot spots alone have mobilized at least $750 million of funding for conservation in these regions (Brooks et al. 2006). More specifically, conservation funding mechanisms have been established for several of the approaches, such as the $100 million, 10-year Global Conservation Fund focused on high-biodiversity wilderness areas and hot spots, and the $137 million Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, aimed exclusively at hot spots. The Global Environment Facility, the largest financial mechanism addressing biodiversity conservation, has since 2006 applied a Resource Allocation Framework (RAF) to prioritize its distribution of funds. The RAF allocates resources to countries based on (among other factors) their potential to generate global environmental benefits, which for biodiversity is assessed in relation to the ­distributions of species and ecosystems and their threat status (GEF 2005).

Given the uneven global distribution of ­biodiversity, prioritizing conservation efforts makes sense to ensure the ‘biggest bang for our buck’ (Brooks et al. 2006; Possingham & Wilson, 2005; Wilson et al. 2006). One major challenge is that different measures of conservation value are not always strongly correlated, and as such need to be given joint consideration in any ­priority setting exercise. For example, Funk & Fa (2010) used global vertebrate distributions in terrestrial ecoregions to evaluate how ­continuous and categorical ranking schemes target and accumulate endangered taxa within the IUCN Red List, Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) and EDGE of Existence programme. By employing total, endemic and threatened ­species richness as well as an estimator for richness-adjusted endemism, Funk & Fa (2010) showed that all metrics target endangerment more efficiently than by chance. However, each selects unique sets of top-ranking ecoregions, which overlap only partially, and include ­different sets of threatened species. From these analyses, Funk & Fa (2010) developed an inclusive map for global vertebrate conservation that incorporates important areas for endemism, richness and threat.

Providing information to support prioritization of conservation action has become ­something of a cottage industry, with many overlapping initiatives collating data on species and habitats, their distribution and status, and the level of protection they are afforded. Some examples are the GEO-Biodiversity Observation Network (www.earthobservations.org/geobon.shtml), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) and the World Database of Protected Areas (www.wdpa.org). While these different databases undoubtedly provide useful information, this plethora of global information providers, well summarized by Brooks et al. (2006), overlap considerably. Such duplication may risk repeating past efforts and ­wasting valuable resources (Mace et al. 2000). Moreover, they do little to guide decisions on where precisely to allocate resources within large priority areas, and the types of interventions that should be attempted (Wilson et al. 2006).

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) is increasingly widely used to help solve conservation problems at a particular site. At the simplest level, SCP employs analyses of numerical data related to the distribution of biodiversity to aid decision making and optimize allocation of effort (Margules & Sarkar 2007), but it can also involve the application of decision-making frameworks. At the landscape scale, Wilson et al. (2007) have shown that combining information on the spatial distribution of conservation objectives and the cost-effectiveness of actions can achieve more efficient allocation of resources (see section on ‘Taking action’ below).

However, there is currently a serious ­mismatch between the development of these methodologies and their use by conservation implementation bodies (global, governmental and non-governmental). Knight et al. (2008) reviewed 88 published conservation plans and found that two-thirds failed to deliver any conservation action. Much of this shortcoming can be attributed to the researchers themselves, as many studies were academic and did not plan for practical and regionally specific implementation (Knight et al. 2008). However, the converse situation is also true in that numerous conservation plans that are implemented are not supported by any systematic or peer-reviewed study. Part of the reason for this is that incentives for conservation bodies to evaluate the success of their investments are often lacking. Achieving the necessary cultural shift in conservation planning will require critical pressure from donors and funders (including the general public) for conservation agencies to adopt and implement more transparent measures of performance (Keene & Pullin 2011).

Scientists are often aware of conservation issues that may be prominent in the future but have attracted little research or policy consideration (Sutherland et al. 2008). Providing mechanisms for the articulation and publication of such issues can become a useful tool. This process, known as ’horizon scanning’, is the systematic search for incipient trends, opportunities and constraints that can affect the probability of achieving present and future management goals and objectives. Horizon scanning seeks to inform policy decisions by anticipating issues and accumulating information about them, and is employed by a number of different types of organizations, ranging from the military to, more recently, conservation scientists. As examples, these exercises identified issues such as a step change in pressure on land for agricultural production (Sutherland et al. 2008), high-latitude volcanism (Sutherland et al. 2010) and fracking to remove natural gas (Sutherland et al. 2011a). In each case these have subsequently become high-profile issues (as exemplified by the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull soon after Icelandic volcanoes were discussed), and identifying the issues provides the opportunity to be better prepared (Sutherland & Woodroof 2009).

Since 2009 there has been an annual ­horizon-scanning exercise to identify global environmental issues (Sutherland et al. 2010). This has involved specialists in horizon scanning, experts in specific areas (e.g. coral reefs, diseases or invasives) as well as representatives from large organizations that have a wide range of conservation interests. The need for this is illustrated by the fact that conservation scientists apparently did not clearly foresee the major shift to biofuel in 2006 by the USA and European Union, with serious consequences for food security, climate change and biodiversity (Fitzherbert et al. 2008; Koh & Wilcove 2008). As a community, we should have seen this coming and been well prepared to contribute to the debate. Issues that are identified as being potentially important but not well recognized are debated and ranked to form a shortlist (Table 1.2). Conservation organizations have taken these issues and identified their responses using a six-point classification, from not planning to track or respond to this issue to committed to responding now through practice or policy work; in many cases the sensible response is to wait until further developments occur (Sutherland et al. 2012).

Table 1.2 Examples of horizon-scanning issues given in Sutherland et al. (2010, 2011a)

Example

Issues

Arctic tundra burning

Increased tundra burning associated with climatic conditions, fuel availability and sea ice retreat may impact upon species and human communities, and alter the role Arctic ecosystems play in the global carbon cycle (Hu et al. 2010)

Microplastics

Plastic waste in the sea disintegrates to form tiny fragments to which chemicals may adhere; impact is poorly understood (Barnes et al. 2009)

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking)

Natural gas can be extracted from organic-rich shale basins by pumping in water at high pressure. The impact on hydrology and pollution is poorly understood (Kerr 2010)

Nanosilver

Nanoscale silver is primarily used as an antimicrobial to safeguard human health. Risk to bacteria in ecosystems and aquatic vertebrates is suggested by increased deformities and mortality of exposed zebrafish embryos (Choi & Hu 2009)

Artificial life

These new forms of life could produce vaccines and chemicals, including fuel derived from carbon dioxide. Risks, if the technology becomes widely accessible, include potential interactions with genes and species in natural communities and the potential for malicious use (Lartigue et al. 2009)

Synthetic meat

Muscle stem cells can be taken from live animals, multiplied in a growth medium and stretched to make muscle fibres, potentially shifting meat production from farmland to the factory with considerable impacts for land use (Madrigal 2008)

Assisted colonization

There is considerable debate as to whether this is creating a new wave of invasive species or whether this is an inevitable and sensible conservation measure (Ricciardi & Simberloff 2009; Vitt et al. 2009)

Promotion of biochar

Pyrolysis lessens decomposition, thus may sequester carbon over a long period. However, little is known about the impact on the soil, nor is there a detailed consideration of the source of the wood (Royal Society 2009)

Taking action: what to do with limited resources

The concept of prioritizing conservation action is easy to grasp. There are many alternatives for action (interventions) but only limited resources are available to be deployed so difficult choices have to be made. Deciding on how to spend resources depends not only on values but also on what is achievable with current knowledge (Mace et al. 2009).

In approaching this problem, it is useful to list all possible interventions (or candidate solutions) relating to an identified need or problem. One such exercise has been undertaken by Jacquet et al. (2011) who assembled an international team of marine experts to identify potential interventions for protecting the marine environment. The team listed a total of 181 potential interventions, such as 23 cost-effective ways of reducing accidental by-catch of seabirds in fishing nets. Such methods include using streamer lines or spreading shark liver oil in the water to scare birds, deploying acoustic deterrents or setting lines at the side rather than the stern to avoid birds foraging closer to the fishing vessels. Such an exercise can never be fully comprehensive, but it works as a valuable starting point to identify options for action and needs for evidence of their comparative effectiveness in achieving the desired conservation outcome.

Beyond simple listing exercises, a number of decision-making frameworks have been developed to guide the process of moving from ­conservation goals and potential interventions through the allocation of resources to implementation and conservation monitoring (Wilson et al. 2007; Pullin et al. 2009; Segan et al. 2010). All these frameworks have some common features including:

a holistic conservation goal that is derived from societal values and concern about undesirable changes and losses to those values. This broad goal (e.g. conservation of tropical forests) may be translated into a more specific conservation target or objective, e.g. to halt loss of tropical forest cover by 2020

an assumption of a limited budget being available to achieve the stated objectives, and the need to decide which strategies and objectives are most deserving of priority investment, and in which order

a consideration of all potential interventions that are available to help achieve an objective, assuming that it is invariably necessary to adopt a complementary set of interventions

explicit use of systematic review and evaluation of effectiveness to inform prioritization of interventions. What do we know about what works and what does not, and how was this learning achieved?

explicit consideration of the cost-­effectiveness of interventions: is the impact of intervention X worth the money compared with intervention Y or no intervention?

the need to monitor and evaluate resource allocation decisions based on outcomes in relation to objectives (i.e. what impact did our decisions have and why?). See section on ‘Evaluation success’ below.

One of the most intractable problems is how to allocate funds among alternative conservation actions to address specific threats. To address this, Wilson et al. (2007) proposed an explicit ‘ecoaction-specific’ framework that focuses on specific objectives, and accounts for the economic costs of interventions (Figure 1.1). The approach goes beyond the decisions to protect areas or species and considers the optimal allocation of resources to specific management interventions in order to address known threats. Wilson et al. demonstrate the utility of this approach by applying it to the management of Mediterranean ecoregions, addressing threats such as invasive species and fire and comparing the likely performance of different interventions based on their cost and the likely biodiversity gain per dollar invested.

A similar approach seeks to determine appropriate interventions for the realization of high-level policy objectives (e.g. halting loss of tropical forest cover or reduction of illegal wildlife trade). Pullin et al. (2009) compared the UK National Service Framework for reducing premature death due to heart disease (the method is well established in the health services) with a potential framework for resolving biodiversity issues, such as the lessening of the impact of alien invasive species. In the health service example, targets for reducing the problem were used to generate strategic actions (such as ­primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and treatment). Potential interventions contributing to these strategies were then identified based on evidence of their effectiveness (from systematic reviews). For example, thrombolytic therapy has been identified as effective acute treatment, whereas cardiac rehabilitation programmes are effective tertiary prevention for those already suffering from heart disease. The implementation of the National Service Framework enabled the target of reducing ­premature death from cardiovascular disease by 40% from baseline (1999) to be met 5 years earlier than expected. This equates to thousands fewer premature deaths per year. Such a generic framework that guides decision making from a general policy goal to a set of specific interventions might be useful in conservation. Pullin et al. (2009) concluded that strategic actions (prevention, control and eradication in the case of invasive species) and potential interventions (e.g. poison baiting for eradication) can readily be identified. Indeed, much of this work has been done by the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group. However, evidence for the effectiveness and cost of each intervention is generally lacking. The conservation community has not as yet conducted the necessary research or evidence syntheses (Pullin & Knight 2009). Consequently, it is not possible to make objective, evidence-based decisions among alternative interventions. In a similar way, Segan et al. (2010) considered the methods used by existing government structures, such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England and Wales (NICE), for optimizing resource allocation. In the NICE framework, any intervention is assessed against alternative interventions for achieving a specified goal, in terms of both ­relative effectiveness of impact and cost. Thus, for example, when protecting fish stocks, the designation of marine protected areas might be assessed against ­fishing quotas in terms of ­cost-effectiveness in delivering conservation benefits.

Figure 1.1 Decision steps involved in the conservation investment framework (from Wilson et al. 2007).

Taken together, the above examples combine: (1) the social process of objective setting, (2) the expert-based process of ‘solution scanning’, (3) assessing and predicting relative effectiveness of interventions through systematic review and evidence synthesis, and (4) the economic basis of assessing cost effectiveness (see Table 1.1).

A different challenge in planning conservation action is the question of how to measure the comparative value of success among alternative actions, in terms of both the cost of action (cost-effectiveness analysis) and the ­perceived value of the outcome to society. For example, what might be the comparative value of a successful wetland restoration that requires minimal future management versus the arrested decline of a large mammal that will require considerable continued investment to maintain? In health, there is a standard metric of benefit (the quality-adjusted life-year, QALY) that is recognized as both socially and economically relevant. The QALY is based on the ­number of years of life added by an action (intervention), and weighted by the quality of life experienced by the patient in each year (i.e. 1.0 for perfect health to 0.0 for death; a debilitating side-effect of treatment might reduce the weight to 0.5). Conservation has no such single simple metric. One useful concept developed by Wilson et al. (2006) is the ‘optimal allocation of conservation effort’ in which one could use a transferable metric such as the number of species conserved per unit area, but this is both difficult to measure and contestable as a universally valid standard.

Evaluating success

The realities of conservation practice mean that rigorous assessment of the results of projects and programmes is challenging for several reasons.

Time frames

: natural systems often take longer than the funding period to undergo detectable change.

Scale and context

: conservation actions may have results at different scales from those at which they are implemented and/or from the overall scale of the problem they seek to address.

Objective setting

: conservation actions often address multiple objectives, which are sometimes poorly articulated.

Attribution

: conservation action (as distinct from research) usually comprises multiple simultaneous interventions, leading to difficulties in attributing outcomes.

Resources

: funding agencies and natural resource managers are often reluctant to divert scarce resources from action to monitoring and research, along with uncertainty about what to evaluate and monitor (Gardner 2010).

Counterfactual

: rigorously assessing what would have happened without the intervention (a control or counterfactual) can be difficult.

A systematic review of the effectiveness of ­community forest management programmes in providing global biodiversity and local human welfare benefits found evidence for all of these problems (Bowler et al. 2010), and suggested measures to improve the quality of study designs and provide better evidence of their effectiveness in the future.

In some cases, there is also an insidious disincentive for claiming or demonstrating success in that perceived improvements may reduce the case for public, political and/or financial support for conservation action. Conversely, however, lack of demonstrable success may result in ‘donor fatigue’. Furthermore, there are considerable disincentives for assessing and publicizing less successful conservation actions and the problems that explain them (Redford & Taber 2000).

Here we expand on each challenge in turn and identify some possible solutions.

Time frames

Conservation responses usually require time scales much longer than that of the intervention. For example, projects that aim to improve the status of slow-growing trees or large mammals cannot detect population changes during the time frame of the project. Species with long generation times may take decades to respond sufficiently for the effects of an intervention to be measurable above baseline variability.

Scale and context

Scale is important both in geographical terms (where and over how large an area is an intervention expected to be effective, and therefore where should it be monitored and assessed?) and in relation to the scale of the problem. How should practitioners assess the effectiveness of their own actions in relation to the scale of the problem they seek to address? Which is better: a highly effective intervention on a small area or weaker intervention across a wide area?

Objective setting

Despite improvements over recent years in articulating clear objectives for conservation work, it is common that objectives are too poorly formulated to allow rigorous evaluation of success. This is partly due to the reactive ‘crisis management’ nature of much conservation action. A further contributing factor is that many conservation projects have multiple objectives, some of which may be perceived as less important and/or less attractive to funders and are therefore left unstated or poorly articulated. For example, conservation projects that are supported within development agendas must emphasize their objectives related to human well-being. Similarly, project ­documents may emphasize the conservation objectives for charismatic species (e.g. large mammals, birds) even when the proposed action is equally or more important for addressing taxa or problems ­perceived as less attractive to donors (e.g. small brown moths). When there are multiple ­objectives, the total burden of research and monitoring needed to advance and track ­progress towards all of them can be very heavy and a major drain on resources. Therefore, evaluation is often limited to a few of the most explicit objectives (or the ones that are easiest to measure). Thus, for example, a project ­aiming to conserve African birds by improving the livelihoods of local communities and reducing pressures on forest habitats emphasized the livelihoods objectives to obtain its funding from a donor in the development sector. As a result, its monitoring budgets had to be devoted ­primarily to assessing its livelihoods impacts, and few resources were available for monitoring forest cover or bird populations.

Attribution

Interventions are frequently conducted simultaneously, often by different actors, and it is ­difficult to attribute changes to particular interventions and actors. Areas and issues that are perceived as of urgent conservation importance, such as the fragmentation of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil or the impacts of ecotourism in the Virunga Volcano region in Central Africa, are the focus of intense conservation effort by many actors and organizations. The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) has identified a very large range of funders and organizations working on ­conservation in the Western Ghats hot spot. These include at least three Indian central government departments, state forest departments, multilateral donors, such as the World Bank and the GEF, and as many as nine bilateral donor agencies (e.g. the UK’s DFID), and the CEPF itself. Several international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Ford Foundation, WCS, BirdLife International, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, are also active in the Western Ghats, at least 19 national NGOs have programmes of action and/or research within the hot spot and large numbers of research projects are carried out by academic and technical institutions (CEPF 2007). Of necessity with such a large number of actors, many approaches are employed in parallel, and monitoring is often not unified or strategic across conservation programmes, some of which may differ (financially or physically) by several orders of magnitude. This makes it difficult to link individual changes or outcomes to individual actions or interventions.

Resources

Limited resources and a focus on action mean that practitioners (in conservation and other fields) can be reluctant to divert resources to learning rather than doing (see below), and this is especially true where many objectives are combined and/or many actors involved. In the latter case, collaborative effort may possibly achieve some efficiencies and reduce the total resources needed to assess the achievement of stated objectives.

Counterfactual