Wrestling with the complexity of evaluation for organizations at the boundary of science,policy, and practice

Boundary organizations are situated between science, policy, and practice and have a goal of supporting communication and collaboration among these sectors. They have been promoted as a way to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts by building stronger relationships between scientists, policy makers, industry, and practitioners (Cook et al. 2013). Although their promise has been discussed in theory, the work of and expectations for boundary organizations are less defined in practice. Biodiversity conservation is characterized by complexity, uncertainty, dissent, and tight budgets, so boundary organizations face the challenging task of demonstrating their value to diverse stakeholders. We examined the challenges boundary organizations face when seeking to evaluate their work and thus aimed to encourage more productive conversations about evaluation of boundary organizations and their projects. Although no off‐the‐shelf solution is available for a given boundary organization, we identified 4 principles that will support effective evaluation for boundary organizations: engage diverse stakeholders, support learning and reflection, assess contribution to change, and align evaluation with assumption and values.     

Factors influencing property selection for conservation revolving funds

Finding sustainable ways to increase the amount of private land protected for biodiversity is challenging for many conservation organizations. In some countries, organizations use revolving‐fund programs, whereby land is purchased and then sold to conservation‐minded owners under condition they enter into a conservation covenant or easement. The sale proceeds are used to purchase, protect, and sell additional properties, incrementally increasing the amount of protected private land. Because the effectiveness of this approach relies on selecting appropriate properties, we explored factors currently considered by practitioners and how these are integrated into decision making. We conducted exploratory, semistructured interviews with managers from each of the 5 major revolving funds in Australia. Responses indicated although conservation factors are important, financial and social factors are also highly influential. A major determinant was whether the property could be resold within a reasonable period at a price that replenishes the fund. To facilitate resale, often selected properties include the potential for the construction of a dwelling. Practitioners face with clear trade‐offs between conservation, financial, amenity, and other factors in selecting properties and 3 main challenges: recovering the costs of acquisition, protection, and resale; reselling the property; and meeting conservation goals. Our findings suggest the complexity of these decisions may constrain revolving‐fund effectiveness. Drawing from participant responses, we identified potential strategies to mitigate these risks, such as providing adequate recreational space without jeopardizing ecological assets. We suggest managers could benefit from a shared‐learning and adaptive approach to property selection given the commonalities between programs. Understanding how practitioners deal with complex decisions in the implementation of revolving funds helps identify future research to improve the performance of this conservation tool.     

Leadership: a New Frontier in Conservation Science

Abstract:  Leadership is a critical tool for expanding the influence of conservation science, but recent advances in leadership concepts and practice remain underutilized by conservation scientists. Furthermore, an explicit conceptual foundation and definition of leadership in conservation science are not available in the literature. Here we drew on our diverse leadership experiences, our reading of leadership literature, and discussions with selected conservation science leaders to define conservation-science leadership, summarize an exploratory set of leadership principles that are applicable to conservation science, and recommend actions to expand leadership capacity among conservation scientists and practitioners. We define 2 types of conservation-science leadership: shaping conservation science through path-breaking research, and advancing the integration of conservation science into policy, management, and society at large. We focused on the second, integrative type of leadership because we believe it presents the greatest opportunity for improving conservation effectiveness. We identified 8 leadership principles derived mainly from the "adaptive leadership" literature: recognize the social dimension of the problem; cycle frequently through action and reflection; get and maintain attention; combine strengths of multiple leaders; extend your reach through networks of relationships; strategically time your effort; nurture productive conflict; and cultivate diversity. Conservation scientists and practitioners should strive to develop themselves as leaders, and the Society for Conservation Biology, conservation organizations, and academia should support this effort through professional development, mentoring, teaching, and research.     

Black swans,cognition, and the power of learning from failure

Failure carries undeniable stigma and is difficult to confront for individuals, teams, and organizations. Disciplines such as commercial and military aviation, medicine, and business have long histories of grappling with it, beginning with the recognition that failure is inevitable in every human endeavor. Although conservation may arguably be more complex, conservation professionals can draw on the research and experience of these other disciplines to institutionalize activities and attitudes that foster learning from failure, whether they are minor setbacks or major disasters. Understanding the role of individual cognitive biases, team psychological safety, and organizational willingness to support critical self‐examination all contribute to creating a cultural shift in conservation to one that is open to the learning opportunity that failure provides. This new approach to managing failure is a necessary next step in the evolution of conservation effectiveness.     

Standardized reporting of the costs of management interventions for biodiversity conservation

Effective conservation management interventions must combat threats and deliver benefits at costs that can be achieved within limited budgets. Considerable effort has focused on measuring the potential benefits of conservation interventions, but explicit quantification of the financial costs of implementation is rare. Even when costs have been quantified, haphazard and inconsistent reporting means published values are difficult to interpret. This reporting deficiency hinders progress toward a collective understanding of the financial costs of management interventions across projects and thus limits the ability to identify efficient solutions to conservation problems or attract adequate funding. We devised a standardized approach to describing financial costs reported for conservation interventions. The standards call for researchers and practitioners to describe the objective and outcome, context and methods, and scale of costed interventions, and to state which categories of costs are included and the currency and date for reported costs. These standards aim to provide enough contextual information that readers and future users can interpret the cost data appropriately. We suggest these standards be adopted by major conservation organizations, conservation science institutions, and journals so that cost reporting is comparable among studies. This would support shared learning and enhance the ability to identify and perform cost‐effective conservation.     

Progress and challenges in consolidating the management of Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories

Effective management refers to the ability of a protected area or indigenous territory to meet its objectives, particularly as they relate to the protection of biodiversity and forest cover. Effective management is achieved through a process of consolidation, which among other things requires legally protecting sites, integrating sites into land‐use planning, developing and implementing management and resource‐use plans, and securing long‐term funding to pay for recurrent costs. Effectively managing all protected areas and indigenous territories in the Amazon may be needed to avoid a deforestation tipping point beyond which regional climatic feedbacks and global climate change interact to catalyze irreversible drying and savannization of large areas. At present, protected areas and indigenous territories cover 45.5% (3.55 million km²) of the Amazon, most of the 60–70% forest cover required to maintain hydrologic and climatic function. Three independent evaluations of a long‐term large‐scale philanthropic initiative in the Amazon yielded insights into the challenges and advances toward achieving effective management of protected areas and indigenous territories. Over the life of the initiative, management of sites has improved considerably, particularly with respect to management planning and capacity building, but few sites are effectively managed and many lack sufficient long‐term financing, adequate governance, support of nongovernmental organizations, and the means to withstand economic pressures. The time and money required to complete consolidation is still poorly understood, but it is clear that philanthropic funding is critical so long as essential funding needs are not met by governments and other sources, which could be on the order of decades. Despite challenges, it is encouraging that legal protection has expanded greatly and management of sites is improving steadily. Management of protected areas in other developing countries could be informed by improvements that have occurred in Amazonian countries.     

Use of monitoring data to support conservation management and policy decisions in Micronesia

Adaptive management implies a continuous knowledge‐based decision‐making process in conservation. Yet, the coupling of scientific monitoring and management frameworks remains rare in practice because formal and informal communication pathways are lacking. We examined 4 cases in Micronesia where conservation practitioners are using new knowledge in the form of monitoring data to advance marine conservation. These cases were drawn from projects in Micronesia Challenge jurisdictions that received funding for coupled monitoring‐to‐management frameworks and encompassed all segments of adaptive management. Monitoring in Helen Reef, Republic of Palau, was catalyzed by coral bleaching and revealed evidence of overfishing that led to increased enforcement and outreach. In Nimpal Channel, Yap, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), monitoring the recovery of marine food resources after customary restrictions were put in place led to new, more effective enforcement approaches. Monitoring in Laolao Bay, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, was catalyzed by observable sediment loads from poor land‐use practices and resulted in actions that reduced land‐based threats, particularly littering and illegal burning, and revealed additional threats from overfishing. Pohnpei (FSM) began monitoring after observed declines in grouper spawning aggregations. This data led to adjusting marine conservation area boundaries and implementing market‐based size class restrictions. Two themes emerged from these cases. First, in each case monitoring was conducted in a manner relevant to the social and ecological systems and integrated into the decision‐making process. Second, conservation practitioners and scientists in these cases integrated culturally appropriate stakeholder engagement throughout all phases of the adaptive management cycle. More broadly, our study suggests, when describing adaptive management, providing more details on how monitoring and management activities are linked at similar spatial scales and across similar time frames can enhance the application of knowledge.     

Quantifying species recovery and conservation success to develop an IUCN Green List of Species

Stopping declines in biodiversity is critically important, but it is only a first step toward achieving more ambitious conservation goals. The absence of an objective and practical definition of species recovery that is applicable across taxonomic groups leads to inconsistent targets in recovery plans and frustrates reporting and maximization of conservation impact. We devised a framework for comprehensively assessing species recovery and conservation success. We propose a definition of a fully recovered species that emphasizes viability, ecological functionality, and representation; and use counterfactual approaches to quantify degree of recovery. This allowed us to calculate a set of 4 conservation metrics that demonstrate impacts of conservation efforts to date (conservation legacy); identify dependence of a species on conservation actions (conservation dependence); quantify expected gains resulting from conservation action in the medium term (conservation gain); and specify requirements to achieve maximum plausible recovery over the long term (recovery potential). These metrics can incentivize the establishment and achievement of ambitious conservation targets. We illustrate their use by applying the framework to a vertebrate, an invertebrate, and a woody and an herbaceous plant. Our approach is a preliminary framework for an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Green List of Species, which was mandated by a resolution of IUCN members in 2012. Although there are several challenges in applying our proposed framework to a wide range of species, we believe its further development, implementation, and integration with the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species will help catalyze a positive and ambitious vision for conservation that will drive sustained conservation action.     

Adapting the bioblitz to meet conservation needs

When conservation strategies require new, field‐based information, practitioners must find the best ways to rapidly deliver high‐quality survey data. To address this challenge, several rapid‐assessment approaches have been developed since the early 1990s. These typically involve large areas, take many months to complete, and are not appropriate when conservation‐relevant survey data are urgently needed for a specific locale. In contrast, bioblitzes are designed for quick collection of site‐specific survey data. Although bioblitzes are commonly used to achieve educational or public‐engagement goals, conservation practitioners are increasingly using a modified bioblitz approach to generate conservation‐relevant data while simultaneously enhancing research capacity and building working partnerships focused on conservation concerns. We term these modified events expert bioblitzes. Several expert bioblitzes have taken place on lands of conservation concern in Southern California and have involved collaborative efforts of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, botanic gardens, museums, and universities. The results of expert bioblitzes directly informed on‐the‐ground conservation and decision‐making; increased capacity for rapid deployment of expert bioblitzes in the future; and fostered collaboration and communication among taxonomically and institutionally diverse experts. As research and conservation funding becomes increasingly scarce, expert bioblitzes can play an increasingly important role in biodiversity conservation.     

A multispecies test of source–sink indicators to prioritize habitat for declining populations

For species at risk of decline or extinction in source–sink systems, sources are an obvious target for habitat protection actions. However, the way in which source habitats are identified and prioritized can reduce the effectiveness of conservation actions. Although sources and sinks are conceptually defined using both demographic and movement criteria, simplifications are often required in systems with limited data. To assess the conservation outcomes of alternative source metrics and resulting prioritizations, we simulated population dynamics and extinction risk for 3 endangered species. Using empirically based habitat population models, we linked habitat maps with measured site‐ or habitat‐specific demographic conditions, movement abilities, and behaviors. We calculated source–sink metrics over a range of periods of data collection and prioritized consistently high‐output sources for conservation. We then tested whether prioritized patches identified the habitats that most affected persistence by removing them and measuring the population response. Conservation decisions based on different source–sink metrics and durations of data collection affected species persistence. Shorter time series obscured the ability of metrics to identify influential habitats, particularly in temporally variable and slowly declining populations. Data‐rich source–sink metrics that included both demography and movement information did not always identify the habitats with the greatest influence on extinction risk. In some declining populations, patch abundance better predicted influential habitats for short‐term regional persistence. Because source–sink metrics (i.e., births minus deaths; births and immigrations minus deaths and emigration) describe net population conditions and cancel out gross population counts, they may not adequately identify influential habitats in declining populations. For many nonequilibrium populations, new metrics that maintain the counts of individual births, deaths, and movement may provide additional insight into habitats that most influence persistence.     

Practitioner and scientist perceptions of successful amphibian conservation

Conservation requires successful outcomes. However, success is perceived in many different ways depending on the desired outcome. Through a questionnaire survey, we examined perceptions of success among 355 scientists and practitioners working on amphibian conservation from over 150 organizations in more than 50 countries. We also sought to identify how different types of conservation actions and respondent experience and background influenced perceptions. Respondents identified 4 types of success: species and habitat improvements (84% of respondents); effective program management (36%); outreach initiatives such as education and public engagement (25%); and the application of science‐based conservation (15%). The most significant factor influencing overall perceived success was reducing threats. Capacity building was rated least important. Perceptions were influenced by experience, professional affiliation, involvement in conservation practice, and country of residence. More experienced practitioners associated success with improvements to species and habitats and less so with education and engagement initiatives. Although science‐based conservation was rated as important, this factor declined in importance as the number of programs a respondent participated in increased, particularly among those from less economically developed countries. The ultimate measure of conservation success—population recovery—may be difficult to measure in many amphibians; difficult to relate to the conservation actions intended to drive it; and difficult to achieve within conventional funding time frames. The relaunched Amphibian Conservation Action Plan provides a framework for capturing lower level processes and outcomes, identifying gaps, and measuring progress.     

Time discounting and the decision to protect areas that are near and threatened or remote and cheap to acquire

Should conservation organizations focus on protecting habitats that are at imminent risk of being converted but are expensive or more remote areas that are less immediately threatened but where a large amount of land can be set aside? Variants of this trade‐off commonly arise in spatial planning. I used models of land‐use change near a deforestation frontier to examine this trade‐off. The optimal choice of where to protect was determined by how decisions taken today accounted for ecological benefits and economic costs of conservation actions that would occur sometime in the future. I used an ecological and economic discount rate to weight these benefits and costs. A large economic discount rate favored protecting more remote areas, whereas a large, positive ecological discount rate favored protecting habitat near the current deforestation frontier. The decision over where to protect was also affected by the influence economic factors had on landowners' decisions, the rate of technological change, and ecological heterogeneity of the landscape. How benefits and costs through time are accounted for warrants careful consideration when specifying conservation objectives. It may provide a niche axis along which conservation organizations differentiate themselves when competing for donor funding or other support.     

Limitations of outsourcing on‐the‐ground biodiversity conservation

To counteract global species decline, modern biodiversity conservation engages in large projects, spends billions of dollars, and includes many organizations working simultaneously within regions. To add to this complexity, the conservation sector has hierarchical structure, where conservation actions are often outsourced by funders (foundations, government, etc.) to local organizations that work on‐the‐ground. In contrast, conservation science usually assumes that a single organization makes resource allocation decisions. This discrepancy calls for theory to understand how the expected biodiversity outcomes change when interactions between organizations are accounted for. Here, we used a game theoretic model to explore how biodiversity outcomes are affected by vertical and horizontal interactions between 3 conservation organizations: a funder that outsourced its actions and 2 local conservation organizations that work on‐the‐ground. Interactions between the organizations changed the spending decisions made by individual organizations, and thereby the magnitude and direction of the conservation benefits. We showed that funders would struggle to incentivize recipient organizations with set priorities to perform desired actions, even when they control substantial amounts of the funding and employ common contracting approaches to enhance outcomes. Instead, biodiversity outcomes depended on priority alignment across the organizations. Conservation outcomes for the funder were improved by strategic interactions when organizational priorities were well aligned, but decreased when priorities were misaligned. Meanwhile, local organizations had improved outcomes regardless of alignment due to additional funding in the system. Given that conservation often involves the aggregate actions of multiple organizations with different objectives, strategic interactions between organizations need to be considered if we are to predict possible outcomes of conservation programs or costs of achieving conservation targets.     

Exceptional responders in conservation

Conservation operates within complex systems with incomplete knowledge of the system and the interventions utilized. This frequently results in the inability to find generally applicable methods to alleviate threats to Earth's vanishing wildlife. One approach used in medicine and the social sciences has been to develop a deeper understanding of positive outliers. Where such outliers share similar characteristics, they may be considered exceptional responders. We devised a 4‐step framework for identifying exceptional responders in conservation: identification of the study system, identification of the response structure, identification of the threshold for exceptionalism, and identification of commonalities among outliers. Evaluation of exceptional responders provides additional information that is often ignored in randomized controlled trials and before–after control‐intervention experiments. Interrogating the contextual factors that contribute to an exceptional outcome allow exceptional responders to become valuable pieces of information leading to unexpected discoveries and novel hypotheses.     

A Comparison of Global Conservation Prioritization Models with Spatial Spending Patterns of Conservation Nongovernmental Organizations

Abstract: In recent decades, various conservation organizations have developed models to prioritize locations for conservation. Through a survey of the spending patterns of 281 conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), we examined the relation between 2 such models and spatial patterns of spending by conservation NGOs in 44 countries in sub‐Saharan Africa. We tested whether, at the country level, the proportion of a country designated as a conservation priority was correlated with where NGOs spent money. For one model (the combination of Conservation International's hotspots and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas, which are areas of high endemism with high or low levels of vegetation loss respectively), there was no relation between the proportion of a country designated as a priority and levels of NGO spending, including by the NGO associated with the model. In the second model (Global 200), the proportion of a country designated as a priority and the amount of money spent by NGOs were significantly and positively related. Less money was spent in countries in northern and western sub‐Saharan Africa than countries in southern and eastern Africa, relative to the proportion of the country designated as a conservation priority. We suggest that on the basis of our results some NGOs consider increasing their spending on the areas designated as of conservation priority which are currently relatively underfunded, although there are economic, political, cultural, historical, biological, and practical reasons why current spending patterns may not align with priority sites.     

Limits of monetization in protecting ecosystem services

The monetary valuation of ecosystem services is gaining traction in policy and business communities. Several tools and decision‐making processes have been proposed, including criteria to assess the appropriateness of using monetary valuation for biodiversity conservation outcomes. These criteria include measures such as scale, uniqueness, and threat. We used case studies of monetization projects for which the outcomes were measured to explore the limitations and application of these criteria. There was limited evidence of the effectiveness of such schemes. The majority of the schemes were established in areas where the criteria specifically excluded their use in isolation. Thus, although some aspects of monetization may be beneficial for biodiversity conservation, these schemes were not being used appropriately and require some quantitative minimum (or maximum) measurements to be applied through additional policy or governance measures to ensure biodiversity conservation outcomes.     

Quantifying current and potential contributions of Australian indigenous peoples to threatened species management

Formal engagement of indigenous peoples in conservation is increasing globally and leads to multiple benefits to communities while contributing to national and international biodiversity goals and obligations. This and ongoing declines in biodiversity have led to calls to increase opportunities for indigenous people to engage in managing their estates. However, there is no overarching understanding of indigenous peoples’ involvement in conservation, which limits the identification of new opportunities. We amalgamated information across governments and large nongovernmental organizations in the megadiverse country of Australia to quantify the involvement of indigenous people in management of threatened species. We identified 153 Australian‐based projects undertaken by different indigenous groups around the nation in 2015 and 2016 that included explicit funds for management of threatened species or threatened ecosystems. Most were in remote parts of western and northern Australia. Almost one‐quarter of all threatened animals and 2% of threatened plants were the subject of some formal conservation action by indigenous people. Occurrence records for 1574 threatened species showed that 823 (89.2%) of 923 species recorded on indigenous peoples’ lands were not listed in management projects. This gap may represent new opportunities for conservation initiatives. Because at least 59.5% of Australia's threatened species occur on indigenous peoples’ lands, efforts to build appropriate and effective indigenous conservation alliances are vital. However, it is also important to recognize that threatened species are part of complex social, ecological, economic and cultural systems, and to achieve successful outcomes requires consideration of indigenous peoples’ priorities, rights, and obligations and relationships with their traditionally owned land and sea.     

Traps and transformations influencing the financial viability of tourism on private‐land conservation areas

The ability of private conservation organizations to remain financially viable is a key factor influencing their effectiveness. One‐third of financially motivated private‐land conservation areas (PLCAs) surveyed in South Africa are unprofitable, raising questions about landowners’ abilities to effectively adapt their business models to the socioeconomic environment. In any complex system, options for later adaptation can be constrained by starting conditions (path dependence). We tested 3 hypothesized drivers of path dependence in PLCA ecotourism and hunting business models: (H1) the initial size of a PLCA limits the number of mammalian game and thereby predators that can be sustained; (H2) initial investments in infrastructure limit the ability to introduce predators; and (H3) rainfall limits game and predator abundance. We further assessed how managing for financial stability (optimized game stocking) or ecological sustainability (allowing game to fluctuate with environmental conditions) influenced the ability to overcome path dependence. A mechanistic PLCA model based on simple ecological and financial rules was run for different initial conditions and management strategies, simulating landowner options for adapting their business model annually. Despite attempts by simulated landowners to increase profits, adopted business models after 13 years were differentiated by initial land and infrastructural assets, supporting H1 and H2. A conservation organization's initial assets can cause it to become locked into a financially vulnerable business model. In our 50‐year simulation, path dependence was overcome by fewer of the landowners who facilitated natural ecological variability than those who maintained constant hunting rates and predator numbers, but the latter experienced unsustainably high game densities in low rainfall years. Management for natural variability supported long‐term ecological sustainability but not shorter term socioeconomic sustainability for PLCAs. Our findings highlight trade‐offs between ecological and economic sustainability and suggest a role for governmental support of the private conservation industry.     

Effectiveness in Conservation Practice: Pointers from Medicine and Public Health

Abstract: Practical conservation activity is increasing globally and is being undertaken by many different government and nongovernmental organizations. In the majority of cases, justification for proposed actions is experience-based rather than evidence-based, action is often taken without monitoring or evaluation of effectiveness, and results are rarely widely disseminated. Conservation has been compared with medicine as a crisis discipline in which action is often required urgently in the absence of good information. The practice of medicine has recently gone through an effectiveness revolution that has improved the criteria upon which treatment strategies are based by progressing from reliance on personal experience to reliance on scientific evidence. We draw parallels between medicine and conservation and present a practical framework to encourage evidence-based conservation action. Our rationale is that conservation actions for which scarce resources are sought should be justified by good scientific evidence. In our view this will also encourage more research addressing practical issues in conservation management.