Using interview surveys and multispecies occupancy models to inform vertebrate conservation

Species distribution data are an essential biodiversity variable requiring robust monitoring to inform wildlife conservation. Yet, such data remain inherently sparse because of the logistical challenges of monitoring biodiversity across broad geographic extents. Surveys of people knowledgeable about the occurrence of wildlife provide an opportunity to evaluate species distributions and the ecology of wildlife communities across large spatial scales. We analyzed detection histories of 30 vertebrate species across the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot in India, obtained from a large-scale interview survey of 2318 people who live and work in the forests of this region. We developed a multispecies occupancy model that simultaneously corrected for false-negative (non-detection) and false-positive (misidentification) errors that interview surveys can be prone to. Using this model, we integrated data across species in composite analyses of the responses of functional species groups (based on disturbance tolerance, diet, and body mass traits) to spatial variation in environmental variables, protection, and anthropogenic pressures. We observed a positive association between forest cover and the occurrence of species with low tolerance of human disturbance. Protected areas were associated with higher occurrence for species across different functional groups compared with unprotected lands. We also observed the occurrence of species with low disturbance tolerance, herbivores, and large-bodied species was negatively associated with developmental pressures, such as human settlements, energy production and mining, and demographic pressures, such as biological resource extraction. For the conservation of threatened vertebrates, our work underscores the importance of maintaining forest cover and reducing deforestation within and outside protected areas, respectively. In addition, mitigating a suite of pervasive human pressures is also crucial for wildlife conservation in one of the world's most densely populated biodiversity hotspots.     

Exploring nationality and social identity to explain attitudes toward conservation actions in the United States and Australia

Understanding human attitudes toward wildlife management is critical to implementing effective conservation action and policy. Understanding the factors that shape public attitudes toward different wildlife management actions is limited, however, which can result in unpredictable public responses to interventions. We drew on comparisons between residents of 2 countries on separate continents to explore differences in attitudes toward wildlife management and determine factors important in shaping these attitudes. We surveyed representative publics via market research panels in Australia (n = 881 respondents) and the United States (n = 1287). We applied a social-identity approach and demography to identify factors that explained variance between responses about wildlife management. We compared responses between countries overall and within subgroups of respondents who strongly identified as environmentalists, animal rights activists, wildlife conservation advocates, and farmers. We created aggregate scores for the management-related response items per respondent and used regression analyses to identify the relative importance of country, identity, age, and gender in explaining variance between responses. These factors accounted for 15.3% of variance among responses. Australians overall were generally more accepting of lethal wildlife management actions than U.S. respondents. Differences in national attitudes reflected differences between United States and Australian wildlife management and policy, highlighting the importance of understanding social attitudes in shaping conservation policy. Identifying as a farmer followed by identifying as an animal rights activist most shaped attitudes toward wildlife management. Identity-related conflicts could be initiated or exacerbated by conservation interventions that fail to consider identity-related processes.     

Conservation and the 4 Rs,which are rescue,rehabilitation, release,and research

Vertebrate animals can be injured or threatened with injury through human activities, thus warranting their “rescue.” Details of wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, release, and associated research (our 4 Rs) are often recorded in large databases, resulting in a wealth of available information. This information has huge research potential and can contribute to understanding of animal biology, anthropogenic impacts on wildlife, and species conservation. However, such databases have been little used, few studies have evaluated factors influencing success of rehabilitation and/or release, recommended actions to conserve threatened species have rarely arisen, and direct benefits for species conservation are yet to be demonstrated. We therefore recommend that additional research be based on data from rescue, rehabilitation, and release of animals that is broader in scope than previous research and would have community support.     

Governing trade-offs in ecosystem services and disservices to achieve human–wildlife coexistence

Sustaining wildlife populations, which provide both ecosystem services and disservices, represents a worldwide conservation challenge. The ecosystem services and Ostrom's social–ecological systems frameworks have been adopted across natural and social sciences to characterize benefits from nature. Despite their generalizability, individually they do not include explicit tools for addressing the sustainable management of many wildlife populations. For instance, Ostrom's framework does not specifically address competing perspectives on wildlife, whereas the ecosystem services framework provides a limited representation of the social and governance context wherein such competing perspectives are embedded. We developed a unified social–ecological framework of ecosystem disservices and services (SEEDS) that advances both frameworks by explicitly acknowledging the importance of competing wildlife perspectives embedded in the social and governance contexts. The SEEDS framework emulates the hierarchical structure of Ostrom's social–ecological systems, but adds subsystems reflecting heterogeneous stakeholder views and experiences of wildlife-based services and disservices. To facilitate operationalizing SEEDS and further broader analyses across human–wildlife systems, we devised a list of variables to describe SEEDS subsystems, such as types and level of services and disservices, cost and benefit sharing, and social participation of stakeholders. Steps to implement SEEDS involve engaging local communities and stakeholders to define the subsystems, analyze interactions and outcomes, and identify leverage points and actions to remedy unwanted outcomes. These steps connect SEEDS with other existing approaches in social–ecological research and can guide analyses across systems or within individual systems to provide new insights and management options for sustainable human–wildlife coexistence.     

Social values and biodiversity conservation in a dynamic world

Understanding what shape values (which ultimately shape human behavior) will help improve the effectiveness of conservation solutions that depend on public support. To contribute to this understanding, we investigated the influence of societal‐level changes, such as modernization, on values in a multilevel framework. We collected survey responses (n = 4183) to questionnaires mailed to a random selection of households within each county in Washington (U.S.A.) (response rate 32%). We used multilevel modeling to determine the relationship between modernization (e.g., county‐level urbanization, wealth, and education) and wildlife value orientations (values that shape thought about wildlife) while controlling for individual‐level sociodemographics. We then explored how values influence conservation support at different levels (e.g., individual and county) and how values explain conservation support in a case study of public responses to wolf (Canis lupis) recovery. We found positive associations between county‐level examples of modernization and mutualism (a wildlife value orientation that prioritizes the perceived needs of wildlife) independent of a respondent's sociodemographics, and negative associations between modernization and domination (a wildlife value orientation that prioritizes human needs). Our results suggest that context has an additive impact on one's values; certain locations exhibited domination values, whereas others exhibited a mix of value types. This finding is important because actions that restrict human interests to promote biodiversity were negatively associated with domination and positively associated with mutualism. In the wolf case study, mutualism was strongly correlated with less social conflict over wolf recovery in many, but not all, counties (e.g., Pearson's r correlation = 0.59 in one county and a nonsignificant correlation in another). Our findings suggest that modernization operates on values within a state with implications for biodiversity, but other factors in addition to values must be investigated to fully understand what leads to proconservation behavior.     

Campesino hunting and conservation in Latin America

Hunting presents a paradox for biodiversity conservation. It is both a problem and a solution to species declines and poverty. Yet, conservation scientists hold different assumptions about the significance and sustainability of hunting based on the cultures and identities of hunters. In Latin America, conservationists largely sort hunters as either indigenous or campesino. Indigenous hunters are often characterized as culturally driven stewards of wildlife sustainability. Campesino hunters, by contrast, are described as peasants—cultureless, uneducated, and uncaring toward wildlife sustainability. Although such ethnically fueled hunting discourse promotes hunting research, campesino hunters remain underrepresented in most comparative hunting reviews. Moreover, there are no targeted syntheses on the current state of knowledge about campesino hunting, nothing to guide conservation research and practice with and for the largest group of hunters in Latin America. We reviewed 334 articles published from 1937 to 2018 in English (55%) and Spanish (45%)—mostly published in 145 peer-reviewed journals—on the meanings, motivations, and sustainability of campesino hunting in Latin America. Although studies spanned 17 countries, 7 ecosystems, and >75 indigenous and nonindigenous demographics in 30 research contexts, they predominantly focused on nonindigenous campesinos for species-specific conservation and protected area management in tropical broadleaf forests of Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. Authors used 12 methods to collect campesino hunting data, primarily interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, and drew from 10 local and traditional knowledge themes about wildlife trends and uses. Eighteen drivers, 14 constraints, and 10 conflicts—mainly subsistence, income, ethics, regulations, and crop or livestock protection—shaped whether campesino hunters pursued 799 species, 70% of which were least concern species. Yet, only 25 studies (8%) empirically assessed sustainability. Our results show the need for increased interdisciplinary and geographic engagement with campesino hunting across Latin America.     

How percentage-protected targets can support positive biodiversity outcomes

Global targets for the percentage area of land protected, such as 30% by 2030, have gained increasing prominence, but both their scientific basis and likely effectiveness have been questioned. As with emissions-reduction targets based on desired climate outcomes, percentage-protected targets combine values and science by estimating the area over which conservation actions are required to help achieve desired biodiversity outcomes. Protected areas are essential for achieving many biodiversity targets, in part because many species are highly sensitive to human-associated disturbance. However, because the contribution of protected areas to biodiversity outcomes is contingent on their location, management, governance, threats, and what occurs across the broader landscape matrix, global percentage-protected targets are unavoidably empirical generalizations of ecological patterns and processes across diverse geographies. Percentage-protected targets are insufficient in isolation but can complement other actions and contribute to biodiversity outcomes within a framework that balances accuracy and pragmatism in a global context characterized by imperfect biodiversity data. Ideally, percentage-protected targets serve as anchors that strengthen comprehensive national biodiversity strategies by communicating the level of ambition necessary to reverse current trends of biodiversity loss. If such targets are to fulfill this role within the complex societal process by which both values and science impel conservation actions, conservation scientists must clearly communicate the nature of the evidence base supporting percentage-protected targets and how protected areas can function within a broader landscape managed for sustainable coexistence between people and nature. A new paradigm for protected and conserved areas recognizes that national coordination, incentives, and monitoring should support rather than undermine diverse locally led conservation initiatives. However, the definition of a conserved area must retain a strong focus on biodiversity to remain consistent with the evidence base from which percentage-protected targets were originally derived.     

Impacts of hunting on tropical forests in Southeast Asia

Although deforestation and forest degradation have long been considered the most significant threats to tropical biodiversity, across Southeast Asia (Northeast India, Indochina, Sundaland, Philippines) substantial areas of natural habitat have few wild animals (>1 kg), bar a few hunting‐tolerant species. To document hunting impacts on vertebrate populations regionally, we conducted an extensive literature review, including papers in local journals and reports of governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Evidence from multiple sites indicated animal populations declined precipitously across the region since approximately 1980, and many species are now extirpated from substantial portions of their former ranges. Hunting is by far the greatest immediate threat to the survival of most of the region's endangered vertebrates. Causes of recent overhunting include improved access to forests and markets, improved hunting technology, and escalating demand for wild meat, wildlife‐derived medicinal products, and wild animals as pets. Although hunters often take common species, such as pigs or rats, for their own consumption, they take rarer species opportunistically and sell surplus meat and commercially valuable products. There is also widespread targeted hunting of high‐value species. Consequently, as currently practiced, hunting cannot be considered sustainable anywhere in the region, and in most places enforcement of protected‐area and protected‐species legislation is weak. The international community's focus on cross‐border trade fails to address overexploitation of wildlife because hunting and the sale of wild meat is largely a local issue and most of the harvest is consumed in villages, rural towns, and nearby cities. In addition to improved enforcement, efforts to engage hunters and manage wildlife populations through sustainable hunting practices are urgently needed. Unless there is a step change in efforts to reduce wildlife exploitation to sustainable levels, the region will likely lose most of its iconic species, and many others besides, within the next few years.     

Changing legislative thinking in China to better protect wild animals and human health

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of China's legal protection of wildlife. Long-standing illegal wildlife trade in China and worldwide increases the risk of zoonotic infectious diseases. We sought to improve the understanding of China’ legal system for the protection of wildlife, which has at its core the wildlife protection law, by systematically evaluating the laws and regulations of China's Wildlife Protection Framework. We examined how existing legal documents (e.g., the Wildlife Protection Law 2018) are directly or indirectly related to wildlife conservation. The inherent defects of wildlife protection legislation include a narrow scope of protection, insufficient public participation, and inconsistent enforcement among responsible agencies. Solutions to improve China's Wildlife Protection Law include expanding the legal protection of wildlife, and improving monitoring of wildlife protection. Strengthening legislation will be the basis for effective regulation of the use of wild animals. We advocate the establishment of a sound wildlife protection legal system for resolving conflicts between humans and wild animals and preventing zoonotic disease, such a system will have a profound impact on the sustainable development of China's wildlife resources.     

The role of agri‐environment schemes in conservation and environmental management

Over half of the European landscape is under agricultural management and has been for millennia. Many species and ecosystems of conservation concern in Europe depend on agricultural management and are showing ongoing declines. Agri‐environment schemes (AES) are designed partly to address this. They are a major source of nature conservation funding within the European Union (EU) and the highest conservation expenditure in Europe. We reviewed the structure of current AES across Europe. Since a 2003 review questioned the overall effectiveness of AES for biodiversity, there has been a plethora of case studies and meta‐analyses examining their effectiveness. Most syntheses demonstrate general increases in farmland biodiversity in response to AES, with the size of the effect depending on the structure and management of the surrounding landscape. This is important in the light of successive EU enlargement and ongoing reforms of AES. We examined the change in effect size over time by merging the data sets of 3 recent meta‐analyses and found that schemes implemented after revision of the EU's agri‐environmental programs in 2007 were not more effective than schemes implemented before revision. Furthermore, schemes aimed at areas out of production (such as field margins and hedgerows) are more effective at enhancing species richness than those aimed at productive areas (such as arable crops or grasslands). Outstanding research questions include whether AES enhance ecosystem services, whether they are more effective in agriculturally marginal areas than in intensively farmed areas, whether they are more or less cost‐effective for farmland biodiversity than protected areas, and how much their effectiveness is influenced by farmer training and advice? The general lesson from the European experience is that AES can be effective for conserving wildlife on farmland, but they are expensive and need to be carefully designed and targeted.     

Constraints of philanthropy on determining the distribution of biodiversity conservation funding

Caught between ongoing habitat destruction and funding shortfalls, conservation organizations are using systematic planning approaches to identify places that offer the highest biodiversity return per dollar invested. However, available tools do not account for the landscape of funding for conservation or quantify the constraints this landscape imposes on conservation outcomes. Using state‐level data on philanthropic giving to and investments in land conservation by a large nonprofit organization, we applied linear regression to evaluate whether the spatial distribution of conservation philanthropy better explained expenditures on conservation than maps of biodiversity priorities, which were derived from a planning process internal to the organization and return on investment (ROI) analyses based on data on species richness, land costs, and existing protected areas. Philanthropic fund raising accounted for considerably more spatial variation in conservation spending (r² = 0.64) than either of the 2 systematic conservation planning approaches (r² = 0.08–0.21). We used results of one of the ROI analyses to evaluate whether increases in flexibility to reallocate funding across space provides conservation gains. Small but plausible “tax” increments of 1–10% on states redistributed to the optimal funding allocation from the ROI analysis could result in gains in endemic species protected of 8.5–80.2%. When such increases in spatial flexibility are not possible, conservation organizations should seek to cultivate increased support for conservation in priority locations. We used lagged correlations of giving to and spending by the organization to evaluate whether investments in habitat protection stimulate future giving to conservation. The most common outcome at the state level was that conservation spending quarters correlated significantly and positively with lagged fund raising quarters. In effect, periods of high fund raising for biodiversity followed (rather than preceded) periods of high expenditure on land conservation projects, identifying one mechanism conservation organizations could explore to seed greater activity in priority locations. Our results demonstrate how limitations on the ability of conservation organizations to reallocate their funding across space can impede organizational effectiveness and elucidate ways conservation planning tools could be more useful if they quantified and incorporated these constraints.     

Mapping legal authority for terrestrial conservation corridors along streams

Wildlife corridors aim to promote species’ persistence by connecting habitat patches across fragmented landscapes. Their implementation is limited by patterns of land ownership and complicated by differences in the jurisdictional and regulatory authorities under which lands are managed. Terrestrial corridor conservation requires coordination across jurisdictions and sectors subject to site-specific overlapping sources of legal authority. Mapping spatial patterns of legal authority concurrent with habitat condition can illustrate opportunities to build or leverage capacity for connectivity conservation. Streamside areas provide pragmatic opportunities to leverage existing policy mechanisms for riverine and terrestrial habitat connectivity across boundaries. Conservation planners and practitioners can make use of these opportunities by harmonizing actions for multiple conservation outcomes. We formulated an integrative, data-driven method for mapping multiple sources of legal authority weighted by capacity for coordinating terrestrial habitat conservation along streams. We generated a map of capacity to coordinate streamside corridor protections across a wildlife habitat gap to demonstrate this approach. We combined values representing coordination capacity and naturalness to generate an integrated legal-ecological resistance map for connectivity modeling. We then computed least-cost corridors across the integrated map, masking the terrestrial landscape to focus on streamside areas. Streamside least-cost corridors in the integrated, local-scale model diverged (∼25 km) from national-scale least-cost corridors based on naturalness. Spatial categories comparing legal- and naturalness-based resistance values by stream reach highlighted potential locations for building or leveraging existing capacity through spatial coordination of policy mechanisms or restoration actions. Agencies or nongovernmental organizations intending to restore or maintain habitat connectivity across fragmented landscapes can use this approach to inform spatial prioritization and build coordination capacity. Article impact statement: Combined mapping of legal authority and habitat condition reveals capacity to coordinate actions along streams for clean water and wildlife.     

Biodiversity Conservation and Indigenous Land Management in the Era of Self‐Determination

Abstract: Indigenous people inhabit approximately 85% of areas designated for biodiversity conservation worldwide. They also continue to struggle for recognition and preservation of cultural identities, lifestyles, and livelihoods—a struggle contingent on control and protection of traditional lands and associated natural resources (hereafter, self‐determination). Indigenous lands and the biodiversity they support are increasingly threatened because of human population growth and per capita consumption. Application of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to tribal lands in the United States provides a rich example of the articulation between biodiversity conservation and indigenous peoples' struggle for self‐determination. We found a paradoxical relationship whereby tribal governments are simultaneously and contradictorily sovereign nations; yet their communities depend on the U.S. government for protection through the federal‐trust doctrine. The unique legal status of tribal lands, their importance for conserving federally protected species, and federal environmental regulations' failure to define applicability to tribal lands creates conflict between tribal sovereignty, self‐determination, and constitutional authority. We reviewed Secretarial Order 3206, the U.S. policy on “American Indian tribal rights, federal–tribal trust responsibilities, and the ESA,” and evaluated how it influences ESA implementation on tribal lands. We found improved biodiversity conservation and tribal self‐determination requires revision of the fiduciary relationship between the federal government and the tribes to establish clear, legal definitions regarding land rights, applicability of environmental laws, and financial responsibilities. Such actions will allow provision of adequate funding and training to tribal leaders and resource managers, government agency personnel responsible for biodiversity conservation and land management, and environmental policy makers. Increased capacity, cooperation, and knowledge transfer among tribes and conservationists will improve biodiversity conservation and indigenous self‐determination.     

Effects of stewardship on protected area effectiveness for coastal birds

Evaluation of protected area effectiveness is critical for conservation of biodiversity. Protected areas that prioritize biodiversity conservation are, optimally, located and managed in ways that support relatively large and stable or increasing wildlife populations. Yet evaluating conservation efficacy remains a challenging endeavor. We used an extensive community science data set, eBird, to evaluate the efficacy of protected areas for birds across the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the United States. We modeled trends (2007–2018) for 12 vulnerable waterbirds that use coastal areas during breeding or wintering. We compared two types of protected areas—sites where conservation organizations implemented active stewardship or management or both to reduce human disturbance (hereafter stewardship sites) and local, state, federal, and private protected areas managed to maintain natural land cover (hereafter protected areas)—as well as unprotected areas. We evaluated differences in trends between stewardship, protected, and unprotected areas across the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as a whole. Similar to a background sample, stewardship was known to occur at stewardship sites, but unknown at protected and unprotected areas. Four of 12 target species—Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger), Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), Least Tern (Sternula antillarum), and Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus)—had more positive trends (two to 34 times greater) at stewardship sites than protected areas. Furthermore, five target species showed more positive trends at sites with stewardship programs than unprotected sites during at least one season, whereas seven species showed more positive trends at protected than unprotected areas. No species had more negative trends at stewardship sites than unprotected areas, and two species had more negative trends at protected than unprotected areas. Anthropogenic disturbance is a serious threat to coastal birds, and our findings demonstrate that stewardship to reduce its negative impacts helps ensure conservation of vulnerable waterbirds.     

The place of nature in conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts are gaining importance in contemporary conservation scholarship such that conservation may have entered a conflict hype. We attempted to uncover and deconstruct the normative assumptions behind such studies by raising several questions: what are conservation conflicts, what justifies the attention they receive, do conservation-conflict studies limit wildlife conservation, is scientific knowledge stacked against wildlife in conservation conflicts, do conservation-conflict studies adopt a specific view of democracy, can laws be used to force conservation outcomes, why is flexibility needed in managing conservation conflicts, can conservation conflicts be managed by promoting tolerance, and who needs to compromise in conservation conflicts? We suggest that many of the intellectual premises in the field may defang conservation and prevent it from truly addressing the current conservation crisis as it accelerates. By framing conservation conflicts as conflicts between people about wildlife or nature, the field insidiously transfers guilt, whereby human activities are no longer blamed for causing species decline and extinctions but conservation is instead blamed for causing social conflicts. When the focus is on mitigating social conflicts without limiting in any powerful way human activities damaging to nature, conservation-conflict studies risk keeping conservation within the limits of human activities, instead of keeping human activities within the limits of nature. For conservation to successfully stop the biodiversity crisis, we suggest the alternative goal of recognizing nature's right to existence to maintenance of ecological functions and evolutionary processes. Nature being a rights bearer or legal person would imply its needs must be explicitly taken into account in conflict adjudication. If, even in conservation, nature's interests come second to human interests, it may be no surprise that conservation cannot succeed.     

Bushmeat Supply and Consumption in a Tropical Logging Concession in Northern Congo

Abstract: Unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food empties tropical forests of many species critical to forest maintenance and livelihoods of forest people. Extractive industries, including logging, can accelerate exploitation of wildlife by opening forests to hunters and creating markets for bushmeat. We monitored human demographics, bushmeat supply in markets, and household bushmeat consumption in five logging towns in the northern Republic of Congo. Over 6 years we recorded 29,570 animals in town markets and collected 48,920 household meal records. Development of industrial logging operations led to a 69% increase in the population of logging towns and a 64% increase in bushmeat supply. The immigration of workers, jobseekers, and their families altered hunting patterns and was associated with increased use of wire snares and increased diversity in the species hunted and consumed. Immigrants hunted 72% of all bushmeat, which suggests the short‐term benefits of hunting accrue disproportionately to “outsiders” to the detriment of indigenous peoples who have prior, legitimate claims to wildlife resources. Our results suggest that the greatest threat of logging to biodiversity may be the permanent urbanization of frontier forests. Although enforcement of hunting laws and promotion of alternative sources of protein may help curb the pressure on wildlife, the best strategy for biodiversity conservation may be to keep saw mills and the towns that develop around them out of forests.     

National Red Listing Beyond the 2010 Target

Abstract: Following creation of the 2010 Biodiversity Target under the Convention on Biological Diversity and adoption of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, information on status and trends of biodiversity at the national level has become increasingly important to both science and policy. National red lists (NRLs) of threatened species may provide suitable data for reporting on progress toward these goals and for informing national conservation priority setting. This information will also become increasingly important for developing species‐ and ecosystem‐based strategies for climate change adaptation. We conducted a thorough global review of NRLs in 109 countries and analyzed gaps in NRL coverage in terms of geography and taxonomy to determine priority regions and taxonomic groups for further investment. We then examined correlations between the NRL data set and gross domestic product (GDP) and vertebrate species richness. The largest geographic gap was in Oceania, followed by middle Africa, the Caribbean, and western Africa, whereas the largest taxonomic gaps were for invertebrates, fungi, and lichens. The comprehensiveness of NRL coverage within a given country was positively correlated with GDP and negatively correlated with total vertebrate richness and threatened vertebrate richness. This supports the assertion that regions with the greatest and most vulnerable biodiversity receive the least conservation attention and indicates that financial resources may be an integral limitation. To improve coverage of NRLs, we propose a combination of projects that target underrepresented taxa or regions and projects that provide the means for countries to create or update NRLs on their own. We recommend improvements in knowledge transfer within and across regions as a priority for future investment.     

Toward a new understanding of the links between poverty and illegal wildlife hunting

Conservation organizations have increasingly raised concerns about escalating rates of illegal hunting and trade in wildlife. Previous studies have concluded that people hunt illegally because they are financially poor or lack alternative livelihood strategies. However, there has been little attempt to develop a richer understanding of the motivations behind contemporary illegal wildlife hunting. As a first step, we reviewed the academic and policy literatures on poaching and illegal wildlife use and considered the meanings of poverty and the relative importance of structure and individual agency. We placed motivations for illegal wildlife hunting within the context of the complex history of how wildlife laws were initially designed and enforced to indicate how hunting practices by specific communities were criminalized. We also considered the nature of poverty and the reasons for economic deprivation in particular communities to indicate how particular understandings of poverty as material deprivation ultimately shape approaches to illegal wildlife hunting. We found there is a need for a much better understanding of what poverty is and what motivates people to hunt illegally.     

Wildlife Connectivity Approaches and Best Practices in U.S. State Wildlife Action Plans

As habitat loss and fragmentation threaten biodiversity on large geographic scales, creating and maintaining connectivity of wildlife populations is an increasingly common conservation objective. To assess the progress and success of large‐scale connectivity planning, conservation researchers need a set of plans that cover large geographic areas and can be analyzed as a single data set. The state wildlife action plans (SWAPs) fulfill these requirements. We examined 50 SWAPs to determine the extent to which wildlife connectivity planning, via linkages, is emphasized nationally. We defined linkage as connective land that enables wildlife movement. For our content analysis, we identified and quantified 6 keywords and 7 content criteria that ranged in specificity and were related to linkages for wide‐ranging terrestrial vertebrates and examined relations between content criteria and statewide data on focal wide‐ranging species, spending, revenue, and conserved land. Our results reflect nationwide disparities in linkage conservation priorities and highlight the continued need for wildlife linkage planning. Only 30% or less of the 50 SWAPs fulfilled highly specific content criteria (e.g., identifying geographic areas for linkage placement or management). We found positive correlations between our content criteria and statewide data on percent conserved land, total focal species, and spending on parks and recreation. We supplemented our content analysis with interviews with 17 conservation professionals to gain specific information about state‐specific context and future directions of linkage conservation. Based on our results, relevant literature, and interview responses, we suggest the following best practices for wildlife linkage conservation plans: collect ecologically meaningful background data; be specific; establish community‐wide partnerships; and incorporate sociopolitical and socioeconomic information. Acercamientos a la Conectividad de Vida Silvestre y las Mejores Prácticas en los Planes de Acción de Vida Silvestre Estatales en los Estados Unidos     

Understanding the Diversity of Public Interests in Wildlife Conservation

Abstract:  North American state wildlife agencies are increasingly faced with the challenge of effectively representing a diverse public. With increasing social conflict over wildlife issues, the future of wildlife conservation hinges on preparedness of the profession to respond to this challenge. In the interest of finding ways to improve response, 19 agencies in the western U.S. joined forces to initiate an investigation that would provide a better understanding of the diversity of wildlife-related interests in the region. Specific objectives, accomplished through use of a mail survey administered in 2004, were to categorize people on the basis of their value orientations toward wildlife and explore how different groups were distributed across states and to examine differences on sociodemographic characteristics and attitudes toward wildlife-related topics among groups. The focus was on two orientations: domination (view of wildlife that prioritizes human well-being over wildlife and treats wildlife in utilitarian terms); and mutualism (view of wildlife as capable of relationships of trust with humans and defined by a desire for companionship with wildlife). Four types of people were identified on the basis of these orientations. Types differed in their geographic distribution and wildlife-related attitudes and behaviors, revealing how value orientations can form the foundation for conflict on wildlife issues. Our characterizations of stakeholder groups offer a framework that can be applied over time and across geographic scales to improve conservation planning efforts and inform broader thinking about the social aspects of wildlife conservation .