Peer-reviewed publications

To more effectively protect biodiversity and promote sustainable development, transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) aim to enhance wildlife flows across national borders. This is true of the world's largest terrestrial TFCA, the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA), home to half of Africa's savannah elephants that move across five countries in a mixed-use landscape. We used GPS tracking data from >100 collared elephants to evaluate how fences between Namibia and Botswana impact transboundary connectivity in KAZA. For female elephants these fences formed an impenetrable boundary, with no exchange between animals collared in Botswana and those collared in Namibia. Male elephants did cross border fences, although they remained a partial boundary, with 7 of 21 males accounting for most crossings. Our results suggest a review of fence alignment and de-commissioning of some fencing separating Namibia and Botswana, combined with increased support for fence-free interventions that reduce wildlife-livestock interactions, should be considered to meet the objectives of KAZA.

Freshwater biodiversity is declining dramatically, and the current biodiversity crisis requires defining bold goals and mobilizing substantial resources to meet the challenges. While the reasons are varied, both research and conservation of freshwater biodiversity lag far behind efforts in the terrestrial and marine realms. We identify fifteen pressing global needs to support informed global freshwater biodiversity stewardship. The proposed agenda aims to advance freshwater biodiversity research globally as a critical step in improving coordinated action towards its sustainable management and conservation.

Future climate projections of warming, drying, and increased weather variability indicate that conventional agricultural and production practices within the Northern Great Plains (NGP) will become less sustainable, both ecologically and economically. As a result, the livelihoods of people that rely on these lands will be adversely impacted. This is especially true for Native American communities, who were relegated to reservations where the land is often vast but marginal and non-tribal operators have an outsized role in food production. In addition, NGP lands are expected to warm and dry disproportionately relative to the rest of the United States. It is therefore critical to identify models of sustainable land management that can improve ecological function and socio-economic outcomes for NGP communities, all while increasing resilience to a rapidly changing climate. Efforts led by Native American Nations to restore North American Plains bison (Bison bison bison) to tribal lands can bring desired socio-ecological benefits to underserved communities while improving their capacity to influence the health of their lands, their people, and their livelihoods. Ecological sustainability will depend on the restoration of bison herds and bison’s ability to serve as ecosystem engineers of North America’s Plains. The historically broad distribution of bison suggests they can adapt to a variety of conditions, making them resilient to a wide range of management systems and climates. Here we review bison’s ecological, cultural, and economic value using four case studies from tribal communities within the NGP. We discuss the potential contributions of bison to food sovereignty, sustainable economies, and conservation of a working landscape with limited protections and significant risk of conversion. The ecological role of bison within this setting has potential due to cultural acceptance and the vast availability of suitable lands; however, it is critical to address tribal needs for funding support, enhanced community capacity, and solving complex landownership for these goals to be achieved.

Attempts to mitigate the biodiversity crisis require effective indicators on the state of nature, and the Living Planet Index1 (LPI) is an important tool for policy response and for communicating the importance of biodiversity declines to the general public. We welcome the recent analysis of Leung et al.2, who identified clusters in population trends between 1970 and the present from the LPI and illustrated that previously reported vertebrate declines are sensitive to a small percentage of declining populations. We agree that the disaggregation of indices such as the LPI can provide many useful insights1, but caution against the over-interpretation of stable or even increasing recent population trends as success stories, because for many vertebrate species, critical losses to populations happened before 1970 (the start date of the LPI). Shifting baselines for conservation success stories need to be confronted if we are to set biodiversity targets that meaningfully represent humans living in harmony with nature for the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework.

In a marine environment that is rapidly changing due to anthropogenic activities and climate change, area-based management tools are often used to mitigate threats and conserve biodiversity. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are amongst the most widespread and recognized marine conservation tools worldwide, however, MPAs alone are inadequate to address the environmental crisis. The promotion of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) under draft Target 3 of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, i.e., conserving 30% of marine areas by 2030, holds promise to acknowledge sites and practices occurring beyond MPAs that contribute to conservation. Here, we evaluate the potential recognition of OECMs into Indonesia's national policy framework on marine resource management and provide the first-ever overview of distribution and types of potential marine OECMs in Indonesia, including a review of the existing evidence on conservation effectiveness. We identified > 390 potential marine OECMs, led by government, customary and local communities, or the private sector, towards diverse management objectives, including habitat protection, traditional/customary management, fisheries, tourism, or other purposes. While some evidence exists regarding the conservation effectiveness of these practices, the long-term impacts on biodiversity of all potential marine OECMs in Indonesia are unknown. Many OECM elements have been included in several national policies, yet there are no established mechanisms to identify, recognize and report sites as OECMs in Indonesia. We propose four transformational strategies for future OECM recognition in Indonesia, namely: (i) safeguard customary and traditional communities, (ii) leverage cross-sector and cross-scale collaboration, (iii) focus on delivering outcomes, and (iv) streamline legal frameworks. Our study shows that OECMs have the potential to play a significant role in underpinning marine area-based conservation in Indonesia, including supporting the Government of Indonesia in reaching national and international conservation targets and goals.

Widespread, common species continue to decline, disrupting ecosystems and human connections with nature. New strategies to motivate people to protect widespread species are needed. Drawing on a relational values framework, we deploy a discrete choice experiment survey (n = 646) to test whether foregrounding the genetic distinctiveness of local populations and interdependence with humans could motivate conservation of a widespread species (rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss). Genetic/genomic data have long been used to manage endangered species, but have heretofore not been used to motivate public support for conservation of widespread species. Fitting our survey data to a mixed multinomial logit model, we find that when we emphasize participants' interdependent relationships with fish, participants are willing to pay significantly more to support conservation projects that protect genetically distinct populations. These findings suggest a new avenue for using an abundant resource (genetic data) to motivate conservation of widespread species.

Production rate of oil palm has been increased in Indonesia to meet the high demand of products. In response, companies and smallholders have improved their production through expansions. In 2018, plantation occupied a land mass of 3.4 million hectares, leading to environmental, social, and economic problems. The aims of study were to analyze the rationality responsible for the encroachment chaos in forest areas, to analyze the correlation between readiness to implement ISPO and the logic responsible for smallholders’ classification, and to analyze related issues in ISPO implementation. Survey method with questionnaires was used on plasma smallholders managing independent plantations in two villages at East Kalimantan. The results showed rules guiding forest encroachment cover the activities of Smallholders with effective and substantive rationality. However, many of them are not ready to implement ISPO certification because their marketing activities are controlled by middlemen. Therefore, forest area encroachment will remain and ISPO certification will be difficult to implement.

The purpose of this study was to assess the amounts of land, water, energy in fuels, and wild fish for fishmeal and fish oil in feeds required per tonne of harvested, farmed shrimp in five countries producing most of the shrimp destined for the international market. Land use for whiteleg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei production differed slightly between Indonesia (0.37 ha/t shrimp) and the other four, major shrimp exporting countries – Ecuador, India, Thailand, and Vietnam (0.42–0.46 ha/t shrimp). Total water use was greater in Ecuador (76,800 m3/t) and Indonesia (55,000 m3/t) than in the other three countries (14,000–45,500 m3/t), but most water was saline. Freshwater use was mainly embodied in feed, did not differ among countries, and averaged 6.3% of total water use. Energy use ranged from 56.0 GJ/t (Ecuador) to 98.8 GJ/t (Thailand). All Asian countries had energy use above 75 GJ/t. Wild fish use for fishmeal and fish oil in feeds was greatest in Ecuador (0.891 t/t) and similar in Asian countries (0.612–0.670 t/t). In terms of edible crude protein, whiteleg shrimp was similar to broiler chickens, but more efficient than pigs and beef cattle in land and freshwater use, but greater in energy use than were the three terrestrial meat sources. Compared to L. vannamei, black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon required more land, a greater amount of water, but less energy per tonne of shrimp. Although comparatively small differences in average uses of these primary resources were found among countries, the large variation which was noted among farms in each country suggests that resource use could be improved considerably.

Conservation technology holds the potential to vastly increase conservationists’ ability to understand and address critical environmental challenges, but systemic constraints appear to hamper its development and adoption. Understanding of these constraints and opportunities for advancement remains limited. We conducted a global online survey of 248 conservation technology users and developers to identify perceptions of existing tools’ current performance and potential impact, user and developer constraints, and key opportunities for growth. We also conducted focus groups with 45 leading experts to triangulate findings. The technologies with the highest perceived potential were machine learning and computer vision, eDNA and genomics, and networked sensors. Ninety-five percent, 94%, and 92% of respondents, respectively, rated them as very helpful or game changers. The most pressing challenges affecting the field as a whole were competition for limited funding, duplication of efforts, and inadequate capacity building. Seventy-six percent, 67%, and 55% of respondents, respectively, identified these as primary concerns. The key opportunities for growth identified in focus groups were increasing collaboration and information sharing, improving the interoperability of tools, and enhancing capacity for data analyses at scale. Some constraints appeared to disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Respondents in countries with developing economies were more likely to report being constrained by upfront costs, maintenance costs, and development funding (p = 0.048, odds ratio [OR] = 2.78; p = 0.005, OR = 4.23; p = 0.024, OR = 4.26), and female respondents were more likely to report being constrained by development funding and perceived technical skills (p = 0.027, OR = 3.98; p = 0.048, OR = 2.33). To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to formally capture the perspectives and needs of the global conservation technology community, providing foundational data that can serve as a benchmark to measure progress. We see tremendous potential for this community to further the vision they define, in which collaboration trumps competition; solutions are open, accessible, and interoperable; and user-friendly processing tools empower the rapid translation of data into conservation action.

The growth of the global and domestic trade in agricultural and forest (primarily timber) commodities over the past decade has driven an expansion of their production, a significant portion of which takes place in tropical lands. This is leading to a significant increase in environmental impacts that are linked to deforestation and forest fragmentation, biodiversity loss and rising carbon emissions. Negative social impacts are also increasing; they include threats to local food and nutrition security, and to the tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Positive impacts include support for the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers who depend on commodity crops