Addressing behavior in pollinator conservation policies to combat the implementation gap

Solutions for conserving biodiversity lie in changing people's behavior. Ambitious international and national conservation policies frequently fail to effectively mitigate biodiversity loss because they rarely apply behavior-change theories. We conducted a gap analysis of conservation behavior-change interventions advocated in national conservation strategies with the Behavior Change Wheel (BCW), a comprehensive framework for systematically characterizing and designing behavior-change interventions. Using pollinator conservation as a case study, we classified the conservation actions listed in national pollinator initiatives in relation to intervention functions and policy categories of the BCW. We included all national-level policy documents from the European Union available in March 2019 that focused on conservation of pollinators (n = 8). A total of 610 pollinator conservation actions were coded using in-depth directed content analysis, resulting in the identification of 787 intervention function and 766 policy category codes. Overall, these initiatives did not employ the entire breadth of behavioral interventions. Intervention functions most frequently identified were education (23%) and environmental restructuring (19%). Least frequently identified intervention functions were incentivization (3%), and restriction (2%) and coercion were completely absent (0%). Importantly, 41% of all pollinator conservation actions failed to identify whose behavior was to be changed. Building on these analyses, we suggest that reasons for the serious implementation gap in national and international conservation policies is founded in insufficient understanding of which behavioral interventions to employ for most beneficial impacts on biodiversity and how to clearly specify the intervention targets. We recommend that policy advisors engage with behavior-change theory to design effective behavior-change interventions that underpin successful conservation policies.     

Regional policy models for forest biodiversity analysis: lessons from coastal Oregon.

The crisis in the early 1990s over conservation of biodiversity in the forests of the Pacific Northwest caused an upheaval in forest policies for public and private landowners. These events led to the development of the Coastal Landscape Assessment and Modeling Study (CLAMS) for the Coast Range Physiographic Province of Oregon, a province containing over two million hectares of forest with a complex mixture of public and private ownership. Over a decade, CLAMS scientists developed regional data bases and tools to enable assessments of the implications of current policies for biodiversity and have begun using these data and tools to test ideas for solving policy problems. We summarize here four main lessons from our work: (1) Regional ecosystem perspectives, while rewarding, are difficult to achieve. Helping policy makers and the public understand biodiversity policies for an entire province can assist in developing more reasoned policies. However, this result is difficult to achieve because needed scientific building blocks generally do not exist, few policy institutions address regional cross-ownership issues, people can find it difficult to take a regional view, and the appropriate region for analysis changes with the policy problem. (2) Interest in environmental policy analysis may come as much from a pursuit of power as a pursuit of understanding. Biodiversity policy analyses are often viewed as weapons in an ongoing political battle. Also, results that might destabilize existing policies generally will not be well received by those in power. (3) The relationship of regional analyses to civic processes remains challenging and unsettled. Communication between citizens and scientists takes real effort. Also, collaborative processes both inspire and constrain regional policy analysis, and scientific work often proceeds at a different pace than these processes. In the end, CLAMS's most important effect on the civic dialogue may be to change how people think about the Coast Range. (4) An important role exists for anticipatory assessments done independently by scientists. Independent review will be especially important as policy analyses shift to management of nonfederal forests. Our future efforts in CLAMS will focus on evaluating ideas for fundamental changes in forest management.     

Political Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract:  There seems to be a worldwide lack of political will for conservation that leads, inevitably, to an undermining of conservation policy. This is a standard complaint but one that has received little academic attention. In an attempt to better understand the gap between conservation policy and practice, we examined conservation policies and practice as they have played out in the Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh, India, over the past two decades. In particular we consider the park's experience within two larger contexts: (1) Himachal's current development orientation, which seeks to transform the state into the electrical powerhouse of the country by building over 300 medium and large power projects and (2) electoral politics that result in politician's support for villagers and others denied access to national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Each of these factors works to undermine state conservation policies. Conservationists need to build political bridges with local communities if they are to use electoral power to work for rather than against conservation. Only such electoral power can be expected to force governments to adopt more cautious policies in advancing a particular development agenda. In the absence of strategic alignments in places such as Himachal Pradesh with strong democratic traditions, one must expect continued political support for potentially destructive megaprojects and an absence of political support for the conservation of biological diversity.     

Renewable electricity policies,heterogeneity, and cost effectiveness

Renewable electricity policies promote investment in renewable electricity generators and have become increasingly common around the world. Because of intermittency and the composition of other generators in the power system, the value of certain renewable – particularly wind and solar – varies across locations and technologies. This paper investigates the implications of this heterogeneity for the cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies. A simple model of the power system shows that renewable electricity policies cause different investment mixes. Policies also differ according to their effect on electricity prices, and both factors cause the cost effectiveness to vary across policies. We use a detailed, long-run planning model that accounts for intermittency on an hourly basis to compare the cost effectiveness for a range of policies and alternative parameter assumptions. The differences in cost effectiveness are economically significant, where broader policies, such as an emissions price, outperform renewable electricity policies.     

Optimal policy instruments for externality-producing durable goods under present bias

When consumers exhibit present bias, the standard solution to market failures caused by externalities—Pigouvian pricing—is suboptimal. I investigate policies aimed at externalities for present-biased consumers. Optimal policy includes an instrument to correct the externality and an instrument to correct the present bias. Either instrument can be an incentive-based policy (e.g. a tax on fuel economy) or a command-and-control policy (e.g. a fuel economy mandate). Under consumer heterogeneity, a command-and-control policy may dominate an incentive-based policy. Calibrated to the US automobile market, simulation results suggest that the second-best gasoline tax is 3–30% higher than marginal external damages. The optimal price policy includes a gasoline tax set about equal to marginal external damages and a fuel economy tax that increases the price of an average non-hybrid car by about $550–$2200 relative to the price of an average hybrid car.     

Cumulative ecological and socioeconomic effects of forest policies in coastal Oregon.

Forest biodiversity policies in multi-ownership landscapes are typically developed in an uncoordinated fashion with little consideration of their interactions or possible unintended cumulative effects. We conducted an assessment of some of the ecological and socioeconomic effects of recently enacted forest management policies in the 2.3-million-ha Coast Range Physiographic Province of Oregon. This mountainous area of conifer and hardwood forests includes a mosaic of landowners with a wide range of goals, from wilderness protection to high-yield timber production. We projected forest changes over 100 years in response to logging and development using models that integrate land use change and forest stand and landscape processes. We then assessed responses to those management activities using GIS models of stand structure and composition, landscape structure, habitat models for focal terrestrial and aquatic species, timber production, employment, and willingness to pay for biodiversity protection. Many of the potential outcomes of recently enacted policies are consistent with intended goals. For example, we project the area of structurally diverse older conifer forest and habitat for late successional wildlife species to strongly increase. 'Other outcomes might not be consistent with current policies: for example, hardwoods and vegetation diversity strongly decline within and across owners. Some elements of biodiversity, including streams with high potential habitat for coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and sites of potential oak woodland, occur predominately outside federal lands and thus were not affected by the strongest biodiversity policies. Except for federal lands, biodiversity policies were not generally characterized in sufficient detail to provide clear benchmarks against which to measure the progress or success. We conclude that land management institutions and policies are not well configured to deal effectively with ecological issues that span broad spatial and temporal scales and that alternative policies could be constructed that more effectively provide for a mix of forest values from this region.     

Making Sense of the Policy Process for Carnivore Conservation

Grizzly bears ( Ursus arctos horribilis ), mountain lions ( Puma concolor ), wolverines ( Gulo gulo ), wolves ( Canis lupus ), and lynx ( Felis lynx ) are all top-level carnivores in the Rocky Mountains of the northern U.S. and southern Canada. Because of their body size and high trophic position, these species require abundant prey species and large habitat areas—requirements that make their conservation a controversial public policy problem. Because the challenge of conserving these species extends beyond biological issues, it is necessary to involve other relevant disciplines and perspectives in understanding and solving the problem. Our examination of the context, content, and process of large carnivore conservation policies suggests more effective and active roles for scientists in designing solutions to the problem of landscape-level carnivore conservation. Scientists must develop an understanding of the range of participants in the policy process and the ways in which these participants receive and utilize information. This knowledge of the policy process could help scientists to better understand their roles in framing and clarifying policy questions, projecting the consequences of various alternatives, and presenting policy information in appropriate fora.     

Aligning science and policy to achieve evolutionarily enlightened conservation

There is increasing recognition among conservation scientists that long‐term conservation outcomes could be improved through better integration of evolutionary theory into management practices. Despite concerns that the importance of key concepts emerging from evolutionary theory (i.e., evolutionary principles and processes) are not being recognized by managers, there has been little effort to determine the level of integration of evolutionary theory into conservation policy and practice. We assessed conservation policy at 3 scales (international, national, and provincial) on 3 continents to quantify the degree to which key evolutionary concepts, such as genetic diversity and gene flow, are being incorporated into conservation practice. We also evaluated the availability of clear guidance within the applied evolutionary biology literature as to how managers can change their management practices to achieve better conservation outcomes. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of maintaining genetic diversity, conservation policies provide little guidance about how this can be achieved in practice and other relevant evolutionary concepts, such as inbreeding depression, are mentioned rarely. In some cases the poor integration of evolutionary concepts into management reflects a lack of decision‐support tools in the literature. Where these tools are available, such as risk‐assessment frameworks, they are not being adopted by conservation policy makers, suggesting that the availability of a strong evidence base is not the only barrier to evolutionarily enlightened management. We believe there is a clear need for more engagement by evolutionary biologists with policy makers to develop practical guidelines that will help managers make changes to conservation practice. There is also an urgent need for more research to better understand the barriers to and opportunities for incorporating evolutionary theory into conservation practice.     

Simulating forest structure, timber production, and socioeconomic effects in a multi-owner province.

Protecting biodiversity has become a major goal in managing coastal forests in the Pacific Northwest--an area in which human activities have had a significant influence on landscape change. A complex pattern of public and private forest ownership, combined with new regulations for each owner group, raises questions about how well and how efficiently these policies achieve their biodiversity goals. To develop a deeper understanding of the aggregate effect of forest policies, we simulated forest structures, timber production, and socioeconomic conditions over time for the mixture of private and public lands in the 2.3-million-ha Coast Range Physiographic Province of Oregon. To make these projections, we recognized both vegetative complexity at the stand level and spatial complexity at the landscape level. We focused on the two major factors influencing landscape change in the forests of the Coast Range: (1) land use, especially development for houses and cities, and (2) forest management, especially clearcutting. Our simulations of current policy suggest major changes in land use on the margins of the Coast Range, a divergence in forest structure among the different owners, an increase in old-growth forests, and a continuing loss of the structural elements associated with diverse young forests. Our simulations also suggest that current harvest levels can be approximately maintained, with the harvest coming almost entirely from private lands. A policy alternative that retained live trees for wildlife would increase remnant structures but at a cost to landowners (5-7% reduction in timber production). Another alternative that precluded thinning of plantations on federal land would significantly reduce the area of very large diameter (>75 cm dbh) conifer forests 100 years into the future     

The Weitzman price corner

The standard theoretical approach to comparing price and quantity policies is strictly interior. We extend the comparison to account for the possibility of corner outcomes, where a polluting industry responds to a tax by abating either completely or not at all. We show that, when the uncertainty in marginal costs is high, the inclusion of corner outcomes confers an extra and unnoticed advantage upon an emissions tax. In situations where the standard approach would recommend a quantity policy, the possibility of corners can reverse that recommendation.     

The Importance of Site-Specific Information in the Design of Policies to Control Pollution

The presence and concentration of pollutants in groundwater are influenced by geophysical processes and the behavior of economic agents. The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of spatial variability in physical parameters in the design of efficient pollution regulations. Alternative tax policies are evaluated in terms of effects on farm profit utilizing a spatially distributed, dynamic simulation model which links economic behavior with the geophysical processes that determine groundwater quality. The empirical focus is the control of groundwater nitrates arising from irrigated agriculture in Malheur County, Oregon. Results indicate that a detailed accounting of spatial variance in physical parameters had little effect on selection of a cost-minimizing tax policy to control groundwater nitrate concentration. This result implies that relatively simple tax schemes and models to evaluate these tax schemes may be adequate in some settings.     

Considering connections between Hollywood and biodiversity conservation

Cinema offers a substantial opportunity to share messages with a wide audience. However, there is little research or evidence about the potential benefits and risks of cinema for conservation. Given their global reach, cinematic representations could be important in raising awareness of conservation issues and species of concern, as well as encouraging greater audience engagement due to their heightened emotional impact on viewers. Yet there are also risks associated with increased exposure, including heightened visitor pressure to environmentally sensitive areas or changes to consumer demand for endangered species. Conservationists can better understand and engage with the film industry by studying the impact of movies on audience awareness and behavior, identifying measurable impacts on conservation outcomes, and engaging directly with the movie industry, for example, in an advisory capacity. This improved understanding and engagement can harness the industry's potential to enhance the positive impacts of movies featuring species, sites, and issues of conservation concern and to mitigate any negative effects. A robust evidence base for evaluating and planning these engagements, and for informing related policy and management decisions, needs to be built.     

Terminating links between emission trading programs

Links between emission trading programs are not immutable, as highlighted by New Jersey׳s exit from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2011. This raises the question of what to do with existing permits that are banked for future use—choices that have consequences for market behavior in advance of, or upon speculation about, delinking. We consider two delinking policies. One differentiates banked permits by origin, the other treats banked permits the same. We describe the price behavior and relative cost-effectiveness of each policy. Treating permits differently generally leads to higher costs, and may lead to price divergence, even with only speculation about delinking.     

How Research‐Prioritization Exercises Affect Conservation Policy

Abstract: Conservation scientists are concerned about the apparent lack of impact their research is having on policy. By better aligning research with policy needs, conservation science might become more relevant to policy and increase its real‐world salience in the conservation of biological diversity. Consequently, some conservation scientists have embarked on a variety of exercises to identify research questions that, if answered, would provide the evidence base with which to develop and implement effective conservation policies. I synthesized two existing approaches to conceptualizing research impacts. One widely used approach classifies the impacts of research as conceptual, instrumental, and symbolic. Conceptual impacts occur when policy makers are sensitized to new issues and change their beliefs or thinking. Instrumental impacts arise when scientific research has a direct effect on policy decisions. The use of scientific research results to support established policy positions are symbolic impacts. The second approach classifies research issues according to whether scientific knowledge is developed fully and whether the policy issue has been articulated clearly. I believe exercises to identify important research questions have objectives of increasing the clarity of policy issues while strengthening science–policy interactions. This may facilitate the transmission of scientific knowledge to policy makers and, potentially, accelerate the development and implementation of effective conservation policy. Other, similar types of exercises might also be useful. For example, identification of visionary science questions independent of current policy needs, prioritization of best practices for transferring scientific knowledge to policy makers, and identification of questions about human values and their role in political processes could all help advance real‐world conservation science. It is crucial for conservation scientists to understand the wide variety of ways in which their research can affect policy and be improved systematically.     

Science, Policy Advocacy, and Marine Protected Areas

Abstract:  Much has been written in recent years regarding whether and to what extent scientists should engage in the policy process, and the focus has been primarily on the issue of advocacy. Despite extensive theoretical discussions, little has been done to study attitudes toward and consequences of such advocacy in particular cases. We assessed attitudes toward science and policy advocacy in the case of marine protected areas (MPAs) on the basis of a survey of delegates at the First International Marine Protected Areas Congress. Delegates were all members of the international marine conservation community and represented academic, government, and nongovernmental organizations. A majority of respondents believed science is objective but only a minority believed that values can be eliminated from science. Respondents showed only partial support of positivist principles of science. Almost all respondents supported scientists being integrated into MPA policy making, whereas half of the respondents agreed that scientists should actively advocate for particular MPA policies. Scientists with a positivist view of science supported a minimal role for scientists in policy, whereas government staff with positivist beliefs supported an advocacy or decision-making role for scientists. Policy-making processes for MPAs need to account for these divergent attitudes toward science and advocacy if science-driven and participatory approaches are to be reconciled.     

Double-dipping in environmental markets

There is an increasing tendency to use markets to induce the provision of environmental services. As such markets increase in scope, potential market participants might sell multiple environmental services. The question we consider here is whether participants in such markets should be allowed to sell credits in more than one market simultaneously. Some have argued in favor of such “double-dipping”, because it would make the provision of environmental services more profitable. In practice however, most programs do not allow double-dipping. We show that if the optimal level of pollution abatement is sought, then double-dipping maximizes societal net benefits. However, if pollution policies are set in a piecemeal fashion, then the caps for each market are unlikely to be optimal and, in this second-best setting, a policy prohibiting double-dipping can lead to greater social net benefits. We explore conditions under which a single-market policy is preferred, or equivalently, where piecemeal policies are likely to yield particularly inefficient outcomes.     

Potential effects of forest policies on terrestrial biodiversity in a multi-ownership province.

We used spatial simulation models to evaluate how current and two alternative policies might affect potential biodiversity over 100 years in the Coast Ranges Physiographic Province of Oregon. This 2.3-million-ha province is characterized by a diversity of public and private forest owners, and a wide range of forest policy and management objectives. We evaluated habitat availability for seven focal species representing different life histories. We also examined how policies affected old-growth stand structure, age distributions relative to the historical range of variability, and landscape patterns of forest types. Under the current policy scenario, the area of habitat for old-growth forest structure and associated species increased over time, the habitat for some early-successional associates remained stable, and the area of hardwood vegetation and diverse early-successional stages declined. The province is projected to move toward but not reach the historical range of variation of forest age classes that may have occurred under the wildfire regimes of the pre-Euroamerican settlement period. Ownership explained much of the pattern of biodiversity in the province, and under the current policy scenario, its effect increased over time as the landscape diverged into highly contrasting forest structures and ages. Patch type diversity declined slightly overall but declined strongly within ownerships. Most of the modeled change in biodiversity over time resulted from policies on public forest lands that were intended to increase the area of late-successional forests and species. One of the alternative policies, increased retention of wildlife trees on private lands, reduced the contrast between ownerships and increased habitat availability over time for both early- and late-successional species. Analysis of another alternative, stopping thinning of plantations on federal lands, indicated that current thinning regimes improve habitat for the Olive-sided Flycatcher, but the no-thinning alternative had no effect on the habitat scores for the late-successional species in the 100-year simulation. A comparison of indicators of biological diversity suggests that using focal species and forest structural measures can provide complementary information on biodiversity. The multi-ownership perspective provided a more complete synthesis of province-wide biodiversity patterns than assessments based on single ownerships.     

The optimal time path of clean energy R&D policy when patents have finite lifetime

We study the optimal time path for clean energy innovation policy. In a model with emission reduction through clean energy deployment, and with R&D increasing the overall productivity of clean energy, we describe optimal R&D policies jointly with emission pricing policies. We find that while emission prices can be set at the Pigouvian level independently of innovation policy, the optimal level of R&D subsidies and patent lifetime change with the stages of the climate problem. In the early stages of clean energy development, innovators find it more difficult to capture the social value of their innovations. Thus, for a given finite patent lifetime, optimal clean energy R&D subsidies are initially high, but then fall over time. Alternatively, if research subsidies are kept constant, the optimal patent lifetime should initially be long and fall over time.     

Moral dimensions of human–wildlife conflict

Despite increasing support for conservation globally, controversy over specific conservation policies persists among diverse stakeholders. Investigating the links between morals in relation to conservation can help increase understanding about why humans support or oppose policy, especially related to human–wildlife conflict or human conflict over wildlife. Yet the moral dimension of human–wildlife conflict has mostly gone unconsidered and unmeasured; thus, policy and programmatic efforts to reduce controversy may be missing a key part of the equation. We conducted a web‐based survey (n = 1239 respondents) in Michigan (U.S.A.) to investigate cognitive and emotional influences on the value–behavior relationship. Respondents were identified by their interest and involvement in Michigan wolf management. The survey consisted of questions about values, emotions, cognitions, and behaviors relative to wolves in Michigan. We used path analysis to explore whether emotions and cognitions mediated the relationship between value and behavior. Most respondents attributed intrinsic value to wolves (n = 734) and all life (n = 773) and engaged in behaviors that benefited wolf populations and ecosystems regardless of stakeholder group (e.g., environmentalist, farmer). Attributing intrinsic value to wolves was positively related to favorable emotions toward wolves and cognitive assessments that hunting and trapping of wolves is unacceptable. Despite similarities in attribution of intrinsic value, groups differed in emotions and cognitions about wolf hunting. These differences provide a useful way to predict stakeholder behavior. Our findings may inform interventions aimed at increasing support for wolf management policies and positive interactions among stakeholders and wildlife. Leveraging agreement over intrinsic value may foster cooperation among stakeholders and garner support for controversial conservation policy.     

Effects of Water Availability and Habitat Quality on Bark-Stripping Behavior in Barbary Macaques

Abstract: The cedar oak forest of the Middle Atlas in Morocco is not only the last of the large forests in the southern Mediterranean, but it also contains all the surviving forest biodiversity. This forest has been severely affected by drought, overgrazing by mixed herds of goat and sheep, and excessive logging for timber, firewood, and livestock fodder. Recently, cedar bark stripping by Barbary Macaques (    Macaca sylvanus ) has begun to have an effect on the forest. We investigated this behavior by monitoring a 500-km² mosaic forest of cedar and oak in the Middle Atlas of Morocco between 1994 and 1996. We surveyed the forest 18 times in four different seasons along a 90-km transect. We recorded observations of bark stripping and a variety of quantitative ecological factors that could predict this behavior, such as livestock density, forest quality, undergrowth condition, water availability, and monkey density. The statistical analysis (including rank correlation, regression, and nonparametric variance analysis) strongly suggests that water scarcity and monkey exclusion from previously available permanent water sources are correlated with intense cedar bark-stripping behavior by macaques. The density of cedars and of monkeys appeared to be only secondary factors. As a conservation policy, making water more accessible to wild monkeys might reduce bark-stripping behavior.