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Pitfalls for the sustainability of forest transitions: evidence from Southeast Asia Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-23 Christian A Kull, Jennifer Bartmess, Wolfram Dressler, Simone Gingrich, Maciej Grodzicki, Katarzyna Jasikowska, Zofia Łapniewska, Stephanie Mansourian, Van Thi Hai Nguyen, Joel Persson, Melanie Pichler, Herimino Manoa Rajaonarivelo, Amélie Robert, Thang Nam Tran, Kevin Woods
Summary The concept of a forest transition – a regional shift from deforestation to forest recovery – tends to equate forest area expansion with sustainability, assuming that more forest is good for people and the environment. To promote debate and more just and ecologically sustainable outcomes during this period of intense focus on forests (such as the United Nations’ Decade on Ecological Restoration
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Urban green space exposure is low and unequally distributed in an Amazonian metropolis Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 Alessandra dos Santos Facundes, Victor Juan Ulises Rodriguez Chuma, Karen Mustin
Urban green spaces are important for interactions between people and non-human nature, with their associated health and well-being impacts, although their distribution is often unequal. Here, we characterize the distribution of urban green spaces in Belém, the largest city in the Amazon Delta, and relate it to levels of human development and social vulnerability across the city; this is the first such
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Forest cover and environment type shape functional diversity of insectivorous birds within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Enzo C Manzoli, Lucas P Gaspar, Marcos A Melo, Bruno FCB Adorno, Milton C Ribeiro, Augusto J Piratelli
Summary Tropical insectivorous birds comprise a diverse group that has a distinct response to habitat degradation. However, knowledge on birds’ ecological functions and their large-scale functional responses to human impacts across various habitats is scarce. We sampled 22 1-km-radius buffer landscapes within the Cantareira-Mantiqueira region (south-east Brazil), including native forests, pastures
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Integrative research of Mediterranean climate regions: a global call to action Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Ignasi Arranz, Enric Batllori, Cristina Linares, William J. Ripple, Núria Bonada
Summary Mediterranean climate regions (hereafter ‘Med-regions’) cover small areas globally but harbour a wide diversity of ecosystems that are under serious threat due to current global climate change. Despite intensive research and conservation efforts in freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems to prevent the consequences of habitat fragmentation, overfishing and changes in fire regimes and
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Evaluating guidelines as key components of conservation policies: a conceptual framework and a pilot application Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Angela Osorio, Laurent Schmitt, Dominique Badariotti, Yves Meinard
Summary Guidelines for managers of protected areas are an important component of conservation policies, on a par with large-scale frameworks and vehicles for conservation funding. In line with the recent literature proposing evaluations of conservation actions or political strategies to improve them, here we use an innovative, hybrid methodology, based both on an interpretative approach anchored in
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Market–community collaborative wildlife management in Malawi: subjectivities and shifting configurations of protests and celebrations Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Sane Pashane Zuka, Brenda Kanyika Zuka
Summary Although wildlife management models across the world have since the early 1980s shifted from top-down fortress conservation to different labels of people-friendly community-based conservation, their outcomes remain contested. This paper explores how, and in whose interests, approaches to wildlife conservation in Malawi have been reconfigured from fortress conservation to market–community collaborative
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Community-based monitoring reveals low anthropogenic pressure on a game vertebrate population in a sustainable-use Amazonian protected area Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Yasmin Maria Sampaio dos Reis, Maíra Benchimol
Summary Biodiversity systematic monitoring programmes have been expanding across the globe, especially in protected areas (PAs). Amongst sustainable-use PAs, medium- to large-sized mammals and birds comprise crucial groups to monitor, given their importance to forest functionality and subsistence for local residents. Here, we used 6 years of community-based monitoring data from a sustainable-use PA
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Identifying medium- and large-sized mammal species sensitive to anthropogenic impacts for monitoring in subtropical montane forests Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Sofía Bardavid, Luis Rivera, Sebastián Martinuzzi, Anna M Pidgeon, Volker C Radeloff, Natalia Politi
Summary Medium- and large-sized mammals play important roles in maintaining forest ecosystem functions, and these functions often diminish when mammal species are depleted by human activities. Understanding the sensitivity or tolerance of mammal species to human pressure and detecting species changes through monitoring programmes can inform appropriate management decisions. The objective of our study
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Perceived benefits, burdens and effectiveness of a buffer zone programme in improving protected area–people relationships Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Sweta Dixit, Neelam Chandra Poudyal, Thakur Silwal, Omkar Joshi, Ananta Bhandari, Ganesh Pant, Donald G Hodges
Summary Programmes focused on buffer zones (BZs) and park revenue-sharing (PRS) are aimed at sharing protected area (PA) benefits with local communities to meet their development needs and, in turn, improve the PA–people relationship. However, whether and how these programmes improve public attitudes towards PAs is little understood. We assessed how residents perceive the benefit and burdens of Nepal’s
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‘… And We have made from water every living thing’: water conservation and the Holy Qur’an Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Lisa A Blankinship, Sarah Gillaspie, Khaled Obaideen, Basil H Aboul-Enein
Summary Water conservation is of particular importance for arid regions, including many Muslim-majority countries. With the added pressures of human population growth and expansion and global climate change, water conservation efforts are imperative to extending the life of current water supplies as well as to sourcing water treatment methods that are religiously congruent. We review Qur’anic verses
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Selective logging intensity and time since logging drive tropical bird and dung beetle diversity: a case study from Amazonia Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Filipe M França, Wallace Beiroz, Christian B Andretti, Thiago VV Costa, Fernando Z Vaz-De-Mello, Juliana M Silveira, Julio Louzada
Summary Understanding how selective logging affects biodiversity is crucial to planning cost-effective conservation strategies in tropical forests, yet there is limited understanding of its impacts on fauna functional diversity in the tropical Americas. We assessed how selective logging intensification and time since logging influence multiple metrics of fauna functional integrity in the Brazilian
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Droughts and controlled rivers: how Belo Monte Dam has affected the food security of Amazonian riverine communities Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-12-27 Priscila FM Lopes, Marta Cousido-Rocha, Monalisa RO Silva, Cristiane C Carneiro, Juarez CB Pezzuti, Eduardo G Martins, Eder MS De Paula, Alpina Begossi, Maria G Pennino
The Neotropics have vast river catchments with untapped hydroelectric potential, but there are multiple expected negative impacts of dams, including those on local food security and livelihoods. Yet, monitoring of dam effects on subsistence is rare, particularly during initial implementation. Our study assessed changes in human fish consumption near the Belo Monte Dam in the Brazilian Amazon during
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Methodological approaches to assessing population-level impacts of bird collisions with wind turbines: a critical perspective Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-12-27 Thierry Chambert, Olivier Duriez, Aurélien Besnard
Wind energy is a source of collision fatalities for birds and bats. To evaluate the risk that wind power development projects might pose to the conservation of protected species, it is essential to quantify the impact of collisions on the dynamics of wild populations. To address this challenge, two approaches are primarily employed: potential biological removal (PBR) and population projection analysis
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Relational values shape people’s connectedness to nature in a former military protected area of Ecuador Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-12-22 Christian Oswaldo Asanza-Reyes, Antonio J Castro, Juan Miguel Requena-Mullor, María Dolores López-Rodríguez, Cristina Quintas-Soriano
Relational values are a way of recognizing and valuing the complex and interconnected relationships between people and nature, such as caregiving, place attachment and spiritual meaning, as well as the social and cultural impacts of degradation and environmental and conservation efforts. However, the implications of these values for the management and conservation of protected areas are little known
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Forest loss during 2000–2019 in pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis) habitats was driven by shifting agriculture Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Estefania Erazo-Mera, Nicolás Younes, Paul F Horwood, Damien Paris, Monique Paris, Nicholas Murray
The Upper Guinea Forest (UGF; West Africa), a global biodiversity hotspot, has lost more than 90% of its original area since 1900, threatening endemic species such as the endangered pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis). However, little is known about the proximate causes of this deforestation. We classified Sentinel-2 data using the random forest algorithm to differentiate between three main
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The Ethiopian wolf can act as a flagship and umbrella species to protect the Afroalpine ecosystem and foster sustainable development Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Addisu Mekonnen, Peter J Fashing, Colin A Chapman, Ejigu Alemayehu Worku, Belste Fetene, Mekbib Fekadu, Awoke Guadie, Nils Chr Stenseth, Vivek V Venkataraman
Habitat alteration and climate change are important threats to terrestrial biodiversity in the tropics. Endorsing flagship or umbrella species can help conserve sympatric biodiversity, restore degraded ecosystems and achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is a rare and endemic Ethiopian canid. It is Africa’s most endangered canid species
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Tourism, international wildlife trade and the (in)effectiveness of CITES Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Jessica Chavez, I Nyoman Aji Duranegara Payuse, Kuntayuni, Marco Campera, Vincent Nijman
There are clear links between tourism and the international wildlife trade, especially in countries with high levels of biodiversity and high numbers of international tourists. In the absence of clear regulations and implementation of existing policies, tourists can inadvertently have a negative impact on the environment, including through items bought as souvenirs. Bali is one of the world’s premier
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Conservation, uncertainty and intellectual humility Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Sarah Michaels, Graeme Auld, Steven J Cooke, Nathan Young, Joseph R Bennett, Jesse C Vermaire
SummaryInterventions in environmental conservation are intended to make things better, not worse. Yet unintended and unanticipated consequences plague environmental conservation; key is how uncertainty plays out. Insights from the intellectual humility literature offer constructive strategies for coming to terms with uncertainty. Strategies such as self-distancing and self-assessment of causal complexity
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Barriers and opportunities regarding community-based forest management in Afghanistan: considerations for fragile states Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Safiullah Khurram, Mohammad Nasir Shalizi, Mujtaba Bashari, Kofi Akamani, John W Groninger
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA), in power during 2002–2021, initiated the process of instituting community-based forest governance and building local capacity for natural resource management. These efforts coincided with the presence of international security forces and the mobilization of civil society organizations, and they were in response to community aspirations
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Vulnerability of wilderness areas to day-use visits Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-19 T Ryan McCarley, Jocelyn L Aycrigg, Sebastián Martinuzzi, R Travis Belote, Thomas P Holmes
Protected areas worldwide are impacted by human activities within their boundaries. Despite having the highest level of protection in the US, wilderness areas are still vulnerable to ecological impacts. We compiled population, population growth rate, median travel time, wilderness size, wilderness proximity, relative accessibility, trail density and an amenity index to generate a Day-Use Vulnerability
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Mapping high-altitude peatlands to inform a landscape conservation strategy in the Andes of northern Peru Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-12 Giulia F Curatola Fernández, Sandro Makowski Giannoni, Ellen Delgado Florián, Piero Rengifo, Jesús Rascón, Elder Chichipe Vela, Carolina Butrich, Rolando Salas López, Manuel Oliva-Cruz, Christel Scheske
The wetlands of the jalca ecoregion in the Andes of northern Peru form peat and play a major role in the hydrological ecosystem services of the ecoregion. Although peat is globally valued for carbon sequestration and storage, peatlands have not yet been mapped in the jalca. In this region, the Gocta waterfall, one of the 20 highest waterfalls in the world, depends on the jalca’s wetlands ecosystem
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Greenness and biodiversity of open spaces in primary schools and their local surroundings in England Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Kate Howlett, Edgar C Turner
There is increasing disconnect between children and nature in the UK. Given that childhood nature experiences are important for the development of nature connection, well-being benefits and aspects of children’s development, mapping the existing biodiversity that children are exposed to on a daily basis in schools and their grounds is vital to identifying areas of low biodiversity and to developing
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Social development and biodiversity conservation synergies for the West African giraffe in a human–wildlife landscape Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Kateřina Gašparová, Julien Blanco, Jenny A Glikman, Julian Fennessy, Abdoul Razack Moussa Zabeirou, Abdoul Razakou Abdou Mahamadou, Fortuné Azihou, Thomas Rabeil, Karolína Brandlová
The West African giraffe is restricted to Niger, but historically it inhabited much of the Sudano-Sahelian zone. The population is concentrated in the ‘Giraffe Zone’ (GZ), an unprotected area with a high human population density. Since the mid-1990s, the giraffe population has steadily increased mainly due to the collective social and conservation initiatives of the government, non-governmental organizations
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Conservation and indigenous peoples’ struggles for livelihoods: Suba Park (Ethiopia) Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Gutema Gizachew Abate
Contested from the early period of Menelik territorial expansion into the hinterlands of Addis Ababa, areas in the vicinity of Suba Park continue to be a bone of political contention in the context of the struggle of Oromo people against the expansion of the central state. A flashpoint is the Oromo protests (2014–2018) against federal state territorial expansion into the Oromo ethnic territory through
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Applying geostatistical hotspot analyses to a ‘double-invaded’ plant–pest co-occurrence scenario Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-09-22 Walter De Simone, Mattia Iannella, Paola D’Alessandro, Maurizio Biondi
Invasive alien species represent a multifaceted management problem in terms of threats to biodiversity and ecosystems and their impacts on agriculture and human well-being. Ambrosia artemisiifolia is an invasive alien plant in Europe that affects the human population as its already highly allergenic pollen can interact with air pollutants, resulting in detrimental effects on health. In this context
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Socio-environmental responsibility in Iranian universities: a multidimensional perspective Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Mahdi Kolahi, Rogaieh AzimiSeginSara
Universities are expected to play a pivotal role in promoting environmental conservation goals, yet a comprehensive analysis of their actual contributions remains limited. This study delves into the perceptions of socio-environmental responsibility among faculty members within Iran’s top 13 universities. Using random cluster sampling, we collected 410 questionnaires from these institutions, evaluating
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Examining how risk diversification for conservation is influenced by the probability assigned to uncertainty scenarios Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Seong-Hoon Cho, Nawon Kang, Gengping Zhu
Despite the progress in conservation risk management, conservation organizations are reluctant to interface usable risk-diversification strategies with their decision-making processes. One reason for this reluctance is that the empirical models used to develop risk-diversification strategies need the expected returns on investment (ROIs) of target assets and their variances and covariances, and the
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On the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns for the management of invasive species Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-08-22 Anne L Haley, Tanya A Lemieux, Morgan L Piczak, Spencer Karau, Alexa D’Addario, Robyn L Irvine, Christine Beaudoin, Joseph R Bennett, Steven J Cooke
Invasive species can have disastrous effects on the ecosystems they invade, requiring costly, labour-intensive mitigation. Public awareness campaigns are often used as a tool to reduce these species’ impacts. While heralded as useful and cost-effective, little evidence suggests that these campaigns contribute to meaningful biological outcomes. Furthermore, awareness campaigns are relatively understudied
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Commuters: a waterbird provides a new view of how species may utilize cities and wildlands Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 Katherine R Shlepr, Betsy A Evans, Dale E Gawlik
Traditional classifications of vertebrates’ responses to urbanization fail to capture the behaviour of those that rely on both urban and wildland resources for population persistence. Here, we use the wood stork (Mycteria americana), a species that makes daily foraging trips up to 74 km away from its nest, as an example of a previously unrecognized response to urbanization. We monitored nests and sampled
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Spatiotemporal evaluation of waning grassland habitats for swamp deer conservation across the human-dominated upper Gangetic Plains, India Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-06-22 Shrutarshi Paul, Sohini Saha, Parag Nigam, Sk Zeeshan Ali, Navendu Page, Aamer Sohel Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Bilal Habib, Dhananjai Mohan, Bivash Pandav, Samrat Mondol
Grassland habitats currently face severe anthropogenic exploitation, thereby affecting the survival of grassland-dependent biodiversity globally. The biodiversity-rich grasslands of India lack quantitative spatiotemporal information on their status. We evaluated the status of upper Gangetic Plains grasslands in 2015 and compared it with those from 1985, 1995 and 2005. On-ground mapping and visual classifications
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Sacred groves: a model of Zagros forests for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Aioub Moradi, Naghi Shabanian
Forests are the most important carbon pools among terrestrial ecosystems, and ensuring less disturbance of sacred groves might constitute a form of forest management for carbon sequestration and climate change reduction. The carbon contents in Zagros oak sacred groves and silvopastoral lands were compared to determine the carbon sequestration potential of these forests. Using a nested sampling design
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Changes in a Neotropical insectivorous bat community associated with artificial clearing of the forest in a geothermal project Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-05-09 Ivannia Sandoval-Castro, Albán Jiménez-Céspedes, David Villalobos-Chaves, Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera
SummaryThe energy needs of the human population inevitably affect natural environments, but the effects on wildlife of human modifications of habitat specifically for geothermal projects are scarcely known. Through acoustic monitoring, we quantified at Proyecto Geotérmico Las Pailas II, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, the impact of forest openings on the diversity and community composition of aerial insectivorous
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Impacts of passive elephant rewilding: assessment of human fatalities in India Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-31 Lakshminarayanan Natarajan, Parag Nigam, Bivash Pandav
Elephant ranges in Asia overlap with human-use areas, leading to frequent and often negative two-way interactions, a fraction of which result in human fatalities. Minimizing such negative interactions rests on gaining a mechanistic understanding of their patterns and underlying processes. In Chhattisgarh (India), a rewilding population of 250–300 elephants that have recently expanded their range from
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Community perceptions of environmental water: a review Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Anna Kosovac, Avril C Horne, Erin O’Donnell
Allocation of water specifically to the environment (often dubbed ‘environmental water’ or ‘environmental flows’) can be contentious within government, among irrigators and between community members. The reduction in supply of fresh water has led to questions surrounding the efficiencies and ecological value of securing these adequate flows for waterways. This literature review examines the evidence
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How science communications can help build societal perceptions of invasive alien species and their impacts on the environment Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Achyut Kumar Banerjee, Yelin Huang
While scientific research highlights the threats of invasive alien species (IAS) to the environment and human livelihoods, another voice is rising that recognizes their beneficial impacts. With evidence increasing of the contrasting impacts of some IAS, the lack of communication between science and society makes decision-making processes more complex. Here, we consider the beneficial aspects of invasive
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Landscape heterogeneity: concepts, quantification, challenges and future perspectives Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Vinicius Tonetti, João Carlos Pena, Marina DA Scarpelli, Larissa SM Sugai, Fábio M Barros, Paula R Anunciação, Paloma M Santos, André LB Tavares, Milton C Ribeiro
The intrinsic complexity, variety of concepts and numerous ways to quantify landscape heterogeneity (LH) may hamper a better understanding of how its components relate to ecological phenomena. Our study is the first to synthesize understanding of this concept and to provide the state of the art on the subject based on a comprehensive systematic literature review of 661 articles published between 1982
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The Australian public worries more about losing species than the costs of keeping them Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-16 Kerstin K Zander, Michael Burton, Ram Pandit, Stephen T Garnett
Government conservation measures will always depend on public support. While more has been learnt about which species the public values and which conservation measures are socially acceptable, less is known about the criteria that the public thinks government should consider when making conservation investment decisions. This study uses a stated preference best–worst scaling method to gauge the views
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From social networks to bird enthusiasts: reporting interactions between plastic waste and birds in Peru Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-16 Félix Ayala, Jhonson K. Vizcarra, Karen Castillo-Morales, Uriel Torres-Zevallos, Cristel Cordero-Maldonado, Lyanne Ampuero-Merino, Kárlom Herrera-Peralta, Gabriel Enrique De-la-Torre, Fernando Angulo, Susana Cárdenas-Alayza
Peru has the second-highest diversity of birds in the world, but little is known about the interactions between birds and plastic waste. To fill this knowledge gap, we searched the scientific literature, collected information from social networks such as Facebook and databases such as Macaulay Library and iNaturalist and solicited records through messaging with researchers and bird enthusiasts. We
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Hunter territoriality creates refuges for threatened primates Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-03-03 Brian M Griffiths, Mark Bowler, Michael P Gilmore
Unsustainable hunting threatens biodiversity in the tropics through the removal of key seed-dispersing frugivorous primates. Traditionally, hunting in the Amazon Basin was managed through hunter territoriality, with the threat of social sanctions for overexploitation. We examined hunter territoriality and differential prey selection as alternative hypotheses to central-place foraging. Territoriality
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Natural area visitors’ potential role in preventing pathogen threats to amphibian biodiversity Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Kevin Cavasos, Ram K Adhikari, Neelam C Poudyal, Alexa R Warwick, Matthew J Gray
The anthropogenic spread of disease from captive to wild amphibian populations (referred to as spillover) is linked to global amphibian declines. Disinfecting procedures and protocols exist to mitigate pathogen transmission to and within natural areas, but understanding of visitor attitudes and behaviour regarding their adoption is limited. We surveyed visitors in two natural areas in a global amphibian
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Conservation narratives and bibliogrammatic networks in the conservation landscape Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-02-07 Andreas Y Troumbis, Haralambos Sideropoulos, Maria Gialeli, Georgios K Vasios
The analysis of conservation narratives primarily resides in the methods and techniques of social sciences, focusing mainly on uncovering advocacy versus critical lines of thought in the complex mosaic of arguments around institutional actors and the public. Researchers have previously proposed an archetypal scheme in which the core conservation narratives and their conceptual interrelations are classified
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Grass fires and road structure influence plant invasions in a critical wildlife habitat in north-eastern India Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-02-03 Subham Banerjee, Amit Das, Masidur Rahman, Swapnil Bhowal, Dhritiman Das, Robert John
One of the multiple threats to protected areas worldwide, invasive plant species have the potential to decrease biodiversity and ecosystem function. We studied changes in infestation by two widespread invasive plant species – Chromolaena odorata and Mikania micrantha – in India’s Manas National Park, a critical conservation site for threatened flora and fauna. Based on field surveys in 2011 and 2019
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Jaguars and wild pigs indicate protected area connectivity in the south-east Atlantic Forest (Brazil) Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-01-30 Maitê Packer Silva, Klécia Gili Massi, Rogério Galante Negri, Felipe Pedrosa
SummaryThe Atlantic Forest of South America has undergone major changes due to urban and agriculture/pasture extension, resulting in a highly fragmented biome. Protected areas, created to ensure the biodiversity conservation of this biome, need to be connected for long-term landscape integrity. We aimed to quantify connectivity among protected areas in the south-east Atlantic Forest using two species
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Out of the frying pan and into the fire: effects of volcanic heat and other stressors on the conservation of a critically endangered plant in Hawai‘i Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2023-01-06 Nathan S Gill, Jeffery K Stallman, Linda Pratt, Jennifer Lewicki, Tamar Elias, Patricia A Nadeau, Stephanie Yelenik
Loss of local biodiversity resulting from abrupt environmental change is a significant environmental problem throughout the world. Extinctions of plants are particularly important yet are often overlooked. Drawing from a case in Hawai‘i, a global hotspot for plant and other extinctions, we demonstrate an effort to better understand and determine priorities for the management of an endangered plant
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IPBES as a transformative agent: opportunities and risks Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-12-14 Karin M Gustafsson, Erik Hysing
SummaryThe Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has played an important role in assessing knowledge and raising awareness of biodiversity loss, and it is now also mandated to assess and support processes of transformative change. This perspective paper argues that the transformative change assessment entails key elements of transformative agency
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Public and private protected areas can work together to facilitate the long-term persistence of mammals Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-11-25 Ielyzaveta M Ivanova, Carly N Cook
SummaryThe conservation performance of protected areas (PAs) is typically measured according to whether species are likely to be present within PAs. However, to attain the goal of long-term conservation it is important to consider the performance of PAs in terms of their ability to support the persistence of the species they contain. We used the concept of minimum viable population (MVP) size to examine
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Temporal differences in snail diversity responses to wildfires and salvage logging Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-11-18 Roger Puig-Gironès, Xavier Santos, Vicenç Bros
SummarySpecies tend to peak in abundance at different times after fires. Over time, species richness (α) and landscape heterogeneity are prone to increase and lead to greater between-site diversity (β). However, post-fire salvage logging can reduce β-diversity, both directly and through its influence on succession. The as-yet understudied response of land snails to long-term habitat modification after
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Invasive species policy in Brazil: a review and critical analysis Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Larissa Faria, Barbara Maichak de Carvalho, Laís Carneiro, Natali Oliva Roman Miiller, Clemerson Richard Pedroso, Thiago Vinícius Trento Occhi, Lívia Helena Tonella, Jean Ricardo Simões Vitule
SummaryBiological invasions represent one of the main threats to biodiversity and a recognized economic burden worldwide; the issue has been included in the conservation agenda such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Brazil is a signatory country of the CBD; however, the number of alien species records in its territory is continuously rising. To evaluate the invasive alien species (IAS)
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Expert-based assessment of the climate change vulnerability of amphibians and reptiles of Uruguay Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Pablo Vaz-Canosa, Gabriel Laufer, Claudio Borteiro, Diego Baldo, Carlos Prigioni, Alvaro Soutullo
SummaryClimate change (CC) is a major threat to biodiversity, increasing species extinction risk. Assessments of its possible impacts on species are crucial for designing conservation strategies. Here, we adjusted a global trait-based approach to the national level and apply it to Uruguay (South America) to evaluate the CC vulnerability of its herpetofauna. A total of 112 species were assessed in a
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Integrating habitat models for threatened species with landownership information to inform coastal resiliency and conservation planning Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Michael C Allen, Julie L Lockwood, Orin J Robinson
SummarySea-level rise threatens both human communities and vulnerable species within coastal areas. Joint spatial planning can allow conservation and social resiliency goals to work in synergy. We present a case study integrating distribution information of a threatened saltmarsh bird, the eastern black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis), with social information to facilitate such joint planning
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Climate-driven animal mass mortality events: is there a role for scavengers? Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Philip S Barton, Anna Reboldi, Stefanie Bonat, Patricia Mateo-Tomás, Thomas M Newsome
SummaryAnimal mass mortality events (MMEs) will increase with weather and climate extremes. MMEs can add significant stress to ecosystems through extraordinary nutrient pulses or contribute to potential disease transmission risks. Given their efficient removal of carrion biomass from landscapes, we argue here for the potential of scavenger guilds to be a key nature-based solution to mitigating MME
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Predicting suitable habitat for the endangered plant Cephalotaxus oliveri Mast. in China Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-10-14 Chunping Xie, Boyang Huang, CY Jim, Dawei Liu, Chang Liu, Zhenxiang Zhu
The coniferous shrub Oliver’s plum yew (Cephalotaxus oliveri) is endemic to southern China with potential medicinal use for cancer treatment and ecological value in sustaining China’s threatened subtropical forest ecosystems. Comprehensive understanding of the current spatial patterns of this vulnerable species vis-à-vis climatic conditions is crucial for its sustained economic use and conservation
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Impact of soil and water conservation measures on farm productivity and income in the semi-arid tropics of Bundelkhand, central India Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Bishwa Bhaskar Choudhary, Inder Dev, Priyanka Singh, Ramesh Singh, Purushottam Sharma, Khem Chand, Kaushal K Garg, KH Anantha, Venkataradha Akuraju, Sreenath Dixit, Sunil Kumar, Asha Ram, Naresh Kumar
Soil and water are crucial resources for agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid rain-fed areas, yet farm-level economic impacts and the factors influencing the adoption of measures for their conservation are little studied. The present study used data from 400 farm households to assess factors influencing the adoption of soil and water conservation measures (SWCMs) and their impacts on farm
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Governments commit to forest restoration, but what does it take to restore forests? Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Stephanie Mansourian, Hermine Kleymann, Valerie Passardi, Susanne Winter, Mercy Afua Adutwumwaa Derkyi, Anita Diederichsen, Mónica Gabay, Pablo Pacheco, Daniel Vallauri, Christian A Kull
Forest restoration is receiving increased attention from many public and private actors, but few large-scale experiences exist. We explored 10 cases where forest cover had either increased or stabilized or where there was a significant drive towards forest expansion to understand which factors can facilitate the scaling up of forest restoration. We developed a data collection checklist to search the
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Forest land-cover trends in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, 1994–2017 Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-09-01 José López-García, Rafael María Navarro-Cerrillo, Lilia de Lourdes Manzo-Delgado
The hibernation sites of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus, L.) were discovered in central Mexico in 1975 and, following the decree of a protected area in 1986, processes of deforestation and forest degradation were triggered on the socially owned land in question. Further deterioration has occurred since the expansion and designation of the area as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in
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A machine learning approach to mapping canopy gaps in an indigenous tropical submontane forest using WorldView-3 multispectral satellite imagery Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-08-30 Colbert M Jackson, Elhadi Adam
Selective logging in tropical forests may lead to deforestation and forest degradation, so accurate mapping of it will assist in forest restoration, among other ecological applications. This study aimed to track canopy tree loss due to illegal logging of the important hardwood tree Ocotea usambarensis in a closed-canopy submontane tropical forest by evaluating the mapping potential of the very-high-resolution
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Complex spatiotemporal changes in land-use and ecosystem services in the Jeju Island UNESCO heritage and biosphere site (Republic of Korea) Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-08-11 Jihwan Kim, Heejoon Choi, Wonhyeop Shin, Jiweon Yun, Youngkeun Song
Jeju Island, designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site, continues to face the anthropogenic pressures of reckless development for regional tourism and economic revitalization purposes. Because land use/land cover (LULC) affects ecosystem services and human well-being, it is crucial to comprehensively identify the causes of changes in LULC based on long-term analyses. This study examined LULC changes
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Assessment of the effect of landowner type on deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon using remote sensing data Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-08-05 Ana IR Cabral, Anne Elisabeth Laques, Carlos Hiroo Saito
The Brazilian Legal Amazon contains important reservoirs of forest that are threatened by stakeholders’ behaviour. The Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR; Rural Environmental Registry) database was used to define the limits and classes of landowner according to private property size. For each class, we identified the annual forest-cover/cover-loss profile at 2-year intervals from 2000 to 2020 based on Brazilian
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Integrating human and species habitat preferences in conservation in heterogeneous urban settings Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-07-28 Heather A Sander, Cody B Hodson, Brandon M Macdougall
Cities are becoming increasingly important to biodiversity conservation, conservation that could also benefit urban people given the importance of nature to human well-being. Urban conservation is challenging, however, given cities’ primary role as human habitats and the need to simultaneously support heterogeneous human and wild species communities in similarly heterogeneous environments. We demonstrate
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Terrestrial protected areas do not fully shield their streams from exogenous stressors Environ. Conserv. (IF 2.7) Pub Date : 2022-07-22 Victor Hugo dos Santos Mollmann, Sandro Santos, Gracieli Fernandes, Emerson Contreira Mossolin, Marcelo Marchet Dalosto, Sônia Maria Vaz Sanches Cardoso, Osmar Damian Prestes, Renato Zanella, Marlise Ladvocat Bartholomei-Santos
Protected areas (PAs) represent a powerful refuge for maintaining and safeguarding biodiversity. Generally, PAs are delineated to protect terrestrial taxa, providing incidental protection to the aquatic ecosystems within their borders. Here, we compare water quality within PAs and non-PAs in southern Brazil, encompassing remnants of the Atlantic Forest biome, to assess whether PAs serve as a buffer