Conservation Letters最新文献

Gender equality is a key target for conservation but is often treated as a women's issue with limited attention to the roles of men and masculinities in perpetuating unequal gender relations. This paper provides a qualitative systematic review of academic literature on “masculinities”—actions, norms, and values associated with men—in the conservation sector and synthesizes the reported effects of masculinities on conservation science, policy, and practice. We adopt a performative and intersectionality-inspired approach, recognizing that masculinities may be performed by men, women, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people, and that gender interacts with other dimensions of identity such as race, age, and (dis)ability. We found that the current literature primarily reports conservation masculinities performed by White men in Global North and settler-colonial contexts. The most common actions and norms were the exercise of control/authority, rationalism, and strength, and the most common effects were the marginalization of others, prioritization of natural sciences over other knowledge, and support for policies such as protected areas and militarization. Explicitly addressing the dominance of such masculinities, as well as the conditions through which their dominance is enabled and rewarded, may contribute towards gender equality and to more just and effective forms of conservation.

A core rationale for wildlife conservation incentive programs is their ability to catalyze habitat provision on private lands. Stewardship drop refers to the magnitude and timing of the decreased landowner effort that most notably occurs after a landowner completes a conservation incentive program. We examined how landowner and land use characteristics, motivations for program participation, perceptions of land management effort, and program characteristics were related to habitat quality across stages of a program. We used a mail survey to examine engagement and perceptions of habitat management across landholders, from newly enrolled to those in the post-completion stage. We conducted on-site habitat assessments for a subsample of landowners to assess habitat condition. We found that habitat condition ratings decreased before program completion, during the monitoring stage, and remained at a similar level afterward. Stewardship drop was primarily associated with completed agreements and longer contracts. Programs should anticipate erosion by including mechanisms that support landowners throughout the program and during the transition as contracts conclude. We highlight the timing of payments as a structural fix and a relational monitoring approach as promising ways to mitigate stewardship drop.

The EU's Green Deal, a comprehensive policy package for sustainability transition in Europe, was launched in 2019 with the ambition to demonstrate global environmental leadership. It has been successful in establishing new EU environmental policy instruments, with a strong focus on sustainable land use and conservation, such as the EU Nature Restoration Law or the EU Deforestation Regulation. Recently, however, the Green Deal has lost political traction, and its sustainable land use and conservation-oriented policy instruments are under pressure or have already been cut back. In this paper, we undertake a multidisciplinary assessment of the Green Deal, presenting four theoretical perspectives (policy analysis, international relations, political economy/macroeconomics, and political ecology). These perspectives provide a so far missing comprehensive analysis of the strategic situation of EU land use and conservation policy, rooted in complementary explanations for the emergence, evolution, and faltering of the Green Deal. We move on to present two pathways for future EU land use and conservation policy—one assuming a continuation of currently visible patterns of deterioration in environmental ambitions; the other arguing for the possibility of reinvigorating the policy as what may be labeled as a new, Social Green Deal.

Addressing the biodiversity crisis requires effective pro-nature conservation strategies. This study proposes and empirically validates a novel model that enhances conservation agency through sense of place (SOP) and promotes pro-nature conservation behavior (ProCoB). Focusing on Bryde's whale conservation at Weizhou Island, China, a 3-month educational program engaged 110 adolescents through lectures, participatory activities, and advocacy initiatives. Results revealed significant and sustained increases in conservation agency and behavior, especially among those involved in volunteer advocacy. Structural equation modeling showed that SOP directly boosted agency, which in turn promoted behavior, while subjective norms also contributed to increased agency. The model explained 65.8% of the variance in agency and 30.7% in behavior. Qualitative interviews confirmed notable improvements in participants’ SOP, attitude, agency, and behavior, particularly among those who integrated coursework with advocacy efforts. This research offers a theoretical framework linking SOP, agency, and ProCoB, highlighting the effectiveness of place-based educational approaches.

Evidence assessment—identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing data and findings from previous studies—is important to inform environmental decision-making but can be slow and resource intensive. Users seeking efficiency have developed multiple definitions and methods for rapid evidence assessment (REA), raising concerns about consistency and rigor. To improve consistency and confidence in REA, we convened an international group of evidence users and researchers to define REA for environmental applications. Through a consensus-driven and iterative approach, we define REA as: a structured review process that aims to maximize rigor and objectivity given assessment needs and resource constraints; is transparent about trade-offs, risks, and biases; and can integrate multiple types of evidence. Our standardized definition of REA will improve transparency and facilitate decisions about the appropriate levels of rigor required for those who commission, conduct, and use REAs for environmental decision-making.

Worldwide, more people are migrating to the forest frontier, significantly altering land use in smallholder farming communities, yet there is limited empirical evidence on the environmental impacts of this migration. The common assumption is that migrants disproportionately contribute to resource degradation. In this study, we investigate if migration drives deforestation in Madagascar, using national census data, global land cover datasets, and qualitative insights from drought-affected migrant-sending and forest-margin migrant-receiving areas. Quantitative analysis showed no evidence of spatial overlap between net positive in-migration and forest loss, and only a marginally significant negative relationship between in-migration and forest cover for extreme in-migration. The qualitative findings suggested that while in-migrants may sometimes access lands through clearing forestlands, they were no more likely than local people to clear land. These results challenge narratives of migrants as primary drivers of environmental degradation and highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of migration–environment interactions.