Conservation Letters最新文献

Environmental stewardship is often invoked as a net social good and an approach for achieving equitable and sustainable conservation outcomes, but it is rarely defined explicitly in management settings, and conflicting definitions have proliferated. This lack of consensus can influence conservation outcomes in several ways. Conflict can arise between stakeholders with different definitions of stewardship; managers may not proactively identify important stakeholders whose stewardship orientation does not include public advocacy; and stakeholders whose sense of stewardship does not include in-depth knowledge of a particular ecosystem may advocate for ineffective or counterproductive actions. Developing strategies for identifying the implicit, unspoken definitions of environmental stewardship held by resource users, managers, and scientists can help with navigating these challenges. Here, we develop a method to elicit the unstated stewardship orientations of a group of stakeholders in a shared conservation setting. Using thought experiments and a Policy Delphi process, we find that even within our relatively homogeneous test group of recreational fisheries managers and scientists, individuals differed in their understanding of stewardship. We encourage conservation organizations with a mission of stewardship, or ones that interface with environmental stewards, to adopt an approach like this one to identify potential sources of conflict, inequity, and ineffective action before they arise.

Derham, T. T., F. Mathews, and C. N. Johnson. 2025. “Rewilding and Indigenous Community-Led Land Care.” Conservation Letters 18, no. 1: e13090. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13090

Acknowledgments were included in the original submission but were missing from the final manuscript. Acknowledgments should read as follows:

The authors would like to thank A. Sculthorpe and R. Swain for comments on the manuscript, and A. Sculthorpe and the Warru Recovery Team Steering Committee of Traditional Owners for permission to relate the stories of their peoples.

We apologize for this error.

Wildlife trade is a key threat to global biodiversity, involving thousands of species and millions of individuals. Global research and policy attention on international wildlife trade has increased in recent years and is represented in key global policy frameworks (e.g., Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework). Yet the dominant focus of research and discussion is on illegal wildlife trade and the use of CITES in managing trade for a subset of species, despite the fact that the majority of species in trade are legal and fall outside the remits of CITES. Furthermore, there is no global mechanism to record what species are traded; current systems only capture subsets of species and regions, with no consistent standards. This hampers our understanding of global trade patterns and limits any understanding of the wider sustainability of international wildlife trade. There is an urgent need to develop and implement policies that capture the full scope of international trade, tools that embed comprehensive and reproducible sustainability assessments, and funding that reflects the telecoupled nature of trade and the inherent wealth imbalance between exporting and importing nations. The adoption of these more holistic approaches is critical for a sustainable future for species in trade and the livelihoods reliant on them.

The conversion of natural habitats to impervious surfaces in cities affects biotic and abiotic attributes of urban ecosystems. However, detailed information on the gradual influence of impervious surfaces on reproductive output is lacking. Using 5 years of nestbox-breeding great tit and blue tit data collected across various habitat types within and outside a Central–Eastern European capital city, we quantified the impact of impervious surfaces on avian reproductive success. Impervious surfaces strongly and negatively covaried with the number of fledged young in both species: a 0%–50% increase in impervious surface within 100 m of the nest was associated with 3.56 fewer fledged offspring in great tits (95% CI: −4.85, −2.27) and 2.91 fewer fledged offspring in blue tits (95% CI: −4.26, −1.56), thus halving the reproductive output of two widespread urban species. These results provide benchmark values of avian productivity for ecologists and urban policy makers, and for the management of urban areas.

Reducing human–wildlife conflict is critical for global biodiversity conservation and supporting livelihoods in landscapes where people and wildlife co-occur. Interventions intended to reduce conflicts and their negative outcomes are diverse and widespread, yet there is often a dearth of empirical evidence regarding effectiveness, particularly at appropriate spatiotemporal scales. We investigate an underappreciated question relevant to large carnivore–livestock systems globally regarding spillover effects of anti-conflict interventions: Do fortified livestock enclosures modify carnivore predation on livestock for neighbors who lack such interventions? We use ca. 25,000 monthly reports from agropastoralists in an East African landscape critical for large carnivore conservation. Results from Bayesian multilevel statistical models demonstrate robust effects of fortified livestock enclosures in reducing reported predation not only in target households, but also in neighboring households that lack such fortification—a beneficial spillover effect. Results provide empirical evidence for policy and practice regarding tools to reduce large carnivore conflicts while pointing to the important role of complex-systems processes in determining coexistence outcomes.

Global conservation targets aim to expand protected areas and maintain species’ genetic diversity. Whether protected areas capture genetic diversity is unclear. We examined this question using a global sample of nuclear population-level microsatellite data comprising genotypes from 2513 sites, 134,183 individuals, and 176 mammal and marine fish species. The genetic diversity and differentiation of samples inside and outside protected areas were similar, with some evidence for higher diversity in protected areas for small-bodied mammals. Mammal populations, particularly large species, tended to be more genetically diverse when near multiple protected areas, regardless of whether samples were collected in or outside protected areas. Older marine protected areas tended to capture more genetically diverse fish populations. However, limited data availability in many regions hinders the systematic incorporation of genetic diversity into protected area design. Focusing on minimizing population decline and maintaining connectivity between protected areas remain essential proxies for maintaining genetic diversity.

Climate change will have profound and unexpected impacts on biodiversity in the future. These impacts could potentially be mitigated through adaptive and responsive conservation planning, but it remains unclear how adaptation opportunities can be harnessed through careful planning of present-day activities. Here, we show that the use of flexible conservation strategies that exploit opportunities for climate adaptation can mitigate climate risks without increasing total conservation costs. We estimate the value of allowing flexible delays of conservation investments for protecting habitats of the iconic and threatened koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in eastern Australia. Conservation strategies that have no option to strategically delay investments face significant trade-offs between minimizing conservation costs and reducing risks in conservation outcomes. These trade-offs are substantially mitigated by flexible strategies that strategically delay investments into the future when the effects of climate change are likely to be better understood. Strategic delays are shown to mitigate climate risks in inflexible conservation strategies without even increasing conservation costs. These results show that conservation planning that strategically allocates present-day conservation resources while also allowing the flexibility to shift these resources in the future is much more likely to achieve cost-effective conservation outcomes in the face of uncertain climate change impacts.

In the 1990s, pioneers of rewilding described a bold vision of wilderness connected at the continental scale, with thriving populations of large, wild animals. Much of the resulting discourse has emphasized uninhabited places or has promoted a “hands-off” approach to environmental management. This clashes with many Indigenous (e.g., First Nations) perspectives and has made rewilding largely irrelevant to Indigenous communities, especially in colonized countries. Yet rewilding can support Indigenous community aspirations for sovereignty, health, and justice. Moreover, Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge are vital to conservation. We suggest two principles by which rewilding can align with, and support, Indigenous communities: shifting focus from wilderness to the creative agency of wild beings, and framing restoration as a collaborative endeavor between humans and wildlife. As an approach to conservation policy and practice, rewilding should seek opportunities to place Indigenous communities in leadership positions, in terms of both practical restoration and the conceptual reshaping of rewilding itself. We relate two case studies of Indigenous community-led conservation which exemplify the potential of such an approach: the Buffalo Treaty in North America, and the Lungtalanana Cultural Restoration Project in southern Australia.

The environmental and social sustainability of seafood is jeopardized by rampant illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Regulations implemented by fishing countries and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations are insufficient to combat illegal fishing; complementary efforts from the consumer end of the supply chain are essential. Despite the growing reliance on imported seafood globally, only three market states have implemented legislation to regulate the legality of seafood products from other countries. We provide an overview of existing import regulations to address widespread confusion about the structure and scope of these measures. We propose eight key design criteria for more effective seafood import controls, emphasizing the need for a centralized, fully electronic catch documentation scheme with automated fraud checks and a broad scope of species covered. Broad adoption of import controls across more countries can collectively enhance global efforts to curb illegal seafood trade. Countries developing new seafood import policies, such as Australia, have the opportunity to design a world-leading system that encourages multilateral cooperation to help combat illegal fishing. Through the implementation of import regulations that address key flaws in existing frameworks, consumer countries can foster a more cohesive and effective front against illegally sourced seafood, improving the sustainability of global fisheries.

The western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) is classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with an 80% decrease decline between 1990 and 2014. A major threat to its survival is the illegal trade in live chimpanzees (ITLC), a highly organized criminal activity with national and international scope. Here, we compile the existing information on ITLC in Guinea-Bissau, highlight relevant knowledge gaps, and suggest immediate conservation management actions. ITLC in Guinea-Bissau is likely extensive and is a major factor contributing to the declining of the chimpanzee population. The most urgent measures needed to prevent the ITLC in Guinea-Bissau are to (i) build a centralized database containing information on wildlife kept as pets, (ii) train officials on national and international laws and regulations related to the wildlife trade and to identify protected and threatened species, (iii) define/update penalties for perpetrators holding live chimpanzees, (iv) raising awareness in society on the risks of maintaining wildlife, (v) investigate the ITLC supply trade-chain and the actors’ profile, and (vi) build a sanctuary or rehabilitation center within Guinea-Bissau. Considering the high risk of extinction of the subspecies, addressing the ITLC in Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere in West Africa is urgent.