Peer-reviewed publications

Although a major portion of the planet’s land and sea is managed to conserve biodiversity, little is known about the extent, speed and patterns of adoption of conservation initiatives. We undertook a quantitative exploration of how area-based conservation initiatives go to scale by analysing the adoption of 22 widely recognized and diverse initiatives from across the globe. We use a standardized approach to compare the potential of different initiatives to reach scale. While our study is not exhaustive, our analyses reveal consistent patterns across a variety of initiatives: adoption of most initiatives (82% of our case studies) started slowly before rapidly going to scale. Consistent with diffusion of innovation theory, most initiatives exhibit slow-fast-slow (that is, sigmoidal) dynamics driven by interactions between existing and potential adopters. However, uptake rates and saturation points vary among the initiatives and across localities. Our models suggest that the uptake of most of our case studies is limited; over half of the initiatives will be taken up by <30% of their potential adopters. We also provide a methodology for quantitatively understanding the process of scaling. Our findings inform us how initiatives scale up to widespread adoption, which will facilitate forecasts of the future level of adoption of initiatives, and benchmark their extent and speed of adoption against those of our case studies.

This study analyzes the five primary ecosystem services and their trade-offs and synergies associated with future scenarios of oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Three plausible future scenarios were assessed: 1) business as usual, 2) conservation and, 3) sustainable intensification, based on current land-use policy and spatial planning and projected oil palm expansion. The spatial analysis tool in ArcGIS and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs Tool (InVEST Tool) were used to analyze historical and future land-use change, valuation and trade-offs of ecosystem services. The sustainable intensification scenario generates a positive impact on carbon storages and water yield, although habitat quality nominally declines. In terms of total economic value of ecosystem services, the conservation scenario generates the highest value of ecosystem services, while the sustainable intensification scenario offers a compromise solution for future expansion of oil palm by ensuring the supply of ecosystem services comparable to conservation scenario but without significantly affecting palm oil yield in comparison to the business-as-usual scenario. A detailed study with better information on the economic values of ecosystem services can provide a better understanding of the social and environmental impacts of oil palm expansion.

Wildlife-based tourism poses opportunities and challenges for species conservation. Minimizing potential negative impacts of tourism is critical to ensure business and conservation enterprises can coexist. In north-western Namibia tourism is used as a conservation tool for the Critically Endangered black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis. However, black rhinoceroses are susceptible to human disturbance and may become displaced by tourist activities, which threatens not only the security and health of the rhinoceros population but also the sustainability of the business. We examined areas avoided by black rhinoceroses to understand how they respond to the type and extent of tourism development, and to evaluate management alternatives. We used spatial data on use of water sources by rhinoceroses to create a series of a priori candidate models that described the negative influences of tourist activities on rhinoceros habitat use. A model selection approach strongly supported a cumulative zones of influence model comprised of a 6 km buffer around the airstrip combined with a 1 km buffer around roads used daily. We compared alternative management scenarios using the best-performing model and found that an optimal road-use policy combined with airstrip relocation could minimize the total area avoided by the black rhinoceros to 7.1% and loss of high quality habitat to 20.7%. Under the worst-case scenario the area avoided and loss of high quality habitat were 153 and 85% greater, respectively, than under the scenario with optimal management. Our findings provide a novel framework and a practical, policy-relevant decision support tool to improve the contribution of tourism to wildlife conservation.

Wildlife is an essential component of all ecosystems. Most places in the globe do not have local, timely information on which species are present or how their populations are changing. With the arrival of new technologies, camera traps have become a popular way to collect wildlife data. However, data collection has increased at a much faster rate than the development of tools to manage, process and analyse these data. Without these tools, wildlife managers and other stakeholders have little information to effectively manage, understand and monitor wildlife populations. We identify four barriers that are hindering the widespread use of camera trap data for conservation. We propose specific solutions to remove these barriers integrated in a modern technology platform called Wildlife Insights. We present an architecture for this platform and describe its main components. We recognize and discuss the potential risks of publishing shared biodiversity data and a framework to mitigate those risks. Finally, we discuss a strategy to ensure platforms like Wildlife Insights are sustainable and have an enduring impact on the conservation of wildlife.

Sustaining the Last Rivers: The renewable revolution could keep dams off the world’s remaining free-flowing rivers.

This study analyzes the five primary ecosystem services and their trade-offs and synergies associated with future scenarios of oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Three plausible future scenarios were assessed: 1) business as usual, 2) conservation and, 3) sustainable intensification, based on current land-use policy and spatial planning and projected oil palm expansion. The spatial analysis tool in ArcGIS and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs Tool (InVEST Tool) were used to analyze historical and future land-use change, valuation and trade-offs of ecosystem services. The sustainable intensification scenario generates a positive impact on carbon storages and water yield, although habitat quality nominally declines. In terms of total economic value of ecosystem services, the conservation scenario generates the highest value of ecosystem services, while the sustainable intensification scenario offers a compromise solution for future expansion of oil palm by ensuring the supply of ecosystem services comparable to conservation scenario but without significantly affecting palm oil yield in comparison to the business-as-usual scenario. A detailed study with better information on the economic values of ecosystem services can provide a better understanding of the social and environmental impacts of oil palm expansion.

Without drastic efforts to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate globalized stressors, tropical coral reefs are in jeopardy. Strategic conservation and management requires identification of the environmental and socioeconomic factors driving the persistence of scleractinian coral assemblages—the foundation species of coral reef ecosystems. Here, we compiled coral abundance data from 2,584 Indo-Pacific reefs to evaluate the influence of 21 climate, social and environmental drivers on the ecology of reef coral assemblages. Higher abundances of framework-building corals were typically associated with: weaker thermal disturbances and longer intervals for potential recovery; slower human population growth; reduced access by human settlements and markets; and less nearby agriculture. We therefore propose a framework of three management strategies (protect, recover or transform) by considering: (1) if reefs were above or below a proposed threshold of >10% cover of the coral taxa important for structural complexity and carbonate production; and (2) reef exposure to severe thermal stress during the 2014–2017 global coral bleaching event. Our findings can guide urgent management efforts for coral reefs, by identifying key threats across multiple scales and strategic policy priorities that might sustain a network of functioning reefs in the Indo-Pacific to avoid ecosystem collapse.

Water-management infrastructure, such as dams, diversions, and levees, provides important benefits to society, including energy, flood management, and water supply, but this infrastructure is a primary cause of the decline of freshwater ecosystems and the services they provide. Due to these declines, recent attention has focused on improving the environmental performance of water infrastructure, such as modifying the location, design, or operation of infrastructure to maintain or restore environmental flows. Despite growing attention to the importance of environmental flows, and continued advancement in flow assessment methods, implementation of flow protection or restoration has lagged expectations. In this paper we describe how pursuing environmental flows at the scale of infrastructure systems, rather than individual sites, such as a dam, offers two pathways to increased implementation of environmental flows. First, policy and management mechanisms that apply to large areas–river basins or political jurisdictions–can catalyze large-scale implementation of flow protection or restoration. We provide two examples of system-scale policy and management mechanisms: flow protection policies and system-scale hydropower planning and management. Although system-scale policy and management offer a clear path to large-scale implementation, there will continue to be a need for flow implementation that occurs at smaller scales, such as a high priority river reach. The second pathway focuses on implementation at that scale–such as environmental flow releases from a dam or small set of dams–but embeds dam reoperation or site-scale flow implementation within reoperation of the larger systems of resource management within which the dam or ecosystem is located. These systems of resource management can encompass various sectors and here we provide examples of dam reoperation or flow implementation facilitated by solutions that included changes to the management of (1) water supply systems; (2) floodplains; and (3) irrigation systems. We illustrate both of these system-scale pathways through a set of case studies, drawn primarily from North America, each of which includes an example of current implementation.

Biodiversity conservation interventions often aim to benefit both nature and people; however, the social impacts of these interventions remain poorly understood. We reviewed recent literature on the social impacts of four marine conservation interventions to understand the synergies, tradeoffs, and equity (STE) of these impacts, focusing on the direction, magnitude, and distribution of impacts across domains of human wellbeing and across spatial, temporal, and social scales. STE literature has increased dramatically since 2000, particularly for marine protected areas (MPAs), but remains limited. Few studies use rigorous counterfactual study designs, and significant research gaps remain regarding specific wellbeing domains (culture, education), social groups (gender, age, ethnic groups), and impacts over time. Practitioners and researchers should recognize the role of shifting property rights, power asymmetries, individual capabilities, and resource dependency in shaping STE in conservation outcomes, and utilize multi-consequential frameworks to support the wellbeing of vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Camera traps have existed since the 1890s (Kucera and Barrett 2011), but they weren't widely used until the introduction of commercial infrared-triggered cameras in the early 1990s (Meek et al. 2014). Since then, millions, perhaps billions of camera trap images have been collected for many reasons, biodiversity monitoring being one of the key applications. Unfortunately, although there are camera trap deployments all over the world, these operations occur in isolation, limiting the impact they could have on a global understanding of biodiversity health. Even within individual institutions, managing and analyzing multiple camera trap deployments in aggregate can be challenging. In fact, managing a single deployment of camera traps is non-trivial and important data are frequently cast aside as bycatch, left unanalyzed on decaying hard drives. Wildlife Insights attempts to overcome these hurdles by providing camera trap data upload, management, and analysis services. It provides the world's largest database of camera trap images by bringing together the camera trapping efforts of several the world’s largest conservation and research organizations, and it is open to future contributors. Artificial Intelligence-driven services sit at the heart of the platform. New camera trap data uploads are automatically analyzed to differentiate between images with people, non-human animals, and no animals. The images with non-human animals are further analyzed to detect specific species. The proposed labels are sent back to the submitter for review and then uploaded to the database. All uploaded images, unless specifically embargoed, are immediately available for analysis by all users of the system. A selection of tools are provided to support analyses of global biodiversity. This presentation will describe Wildlife Insights and its AI implementation in detail, contextualized by case studies using analyses of the data currently stored on the platform. Challenges around integrating camera trap data within the platform and with other external services that work with the platform will also be discussed. The talk will end with some thoughts about future directions for the AI services, especially with regards to integration with related platforms.