Using Strategic Foresight to Assess Conservation Opportunity

The nature of conservation challenges can foster a reactive, rather than proactive approach to decision making. Failure to anticipate problems before they escalate results in the need for more costly and time‐consuming solutions. Proactive conservation requires forward‐looking approaches to decision making that consider possible futures without being overly constrained by the past. Strategic foresight provides a structured process for considering the most desirable future and for mapping the most efficient and effective approaches to promoting that future with tools that facilitate creative thinking. The process involves 6 steps: setting the scope, collecting inputs, analyzing signals, interpreting the information, determining how to act, and implementing the outcomes. Strategic foresight is ideal for seeking, recognizing, and realizing conservation opportunities because it explicitly encourages a broad‐minded, forward‐looking perspective on an issue. Despite its potential value, the foresight process is rarely used to address conservation issues, and previous attempts have generally failed to influence policy. We present the strategic foresight process as it can be used for proactive conservation planning, describing some of the key tools in the foresight tool kit and how they can be used to identify and exploit different types of conservation opportunities. Scanning is an important tool for collecting and organizing diverse streams of information and can be used to recognize new opportunities and those that could be created. Scenario planning explores how current trends, drivers of change, and key uncertainties might influence the future and can be used to identify barriers to opportunities. Backcasting is used to map out a path to a goal and can determine how to remove barriers to opportunities. We highlight how the foresight process was used to identify conservation opportunities during the development of a strategic plan to address climate change in New York State. The plan identified solutions that should be effective across a range of possible futures. Illustrating the application of strategic foresight to identify conservation opportunities should provide the impetus for decision makers to explore strategic foresight as a way to support more proactive conservation policy, planning, and management.     

Clarifying values,risk perceptions,and attitudes to resolve or avoid social conflicts in invasive species management

Decision makers and researchers recognize the need to effectively confront the social dimensions and conflicts inherent to invasive species research and management. Yet, despite numerous contentious situations that have arisen, no systematic evaluation of the literature has examined the commonalities in the patterns and types of these emergent social issues. Using social and ecological keywords, we reviewed trends in the social dimensions of invasive species research and management and the sources and potential solutions to problems and conflicts that arise around invasive species. We integrated components of cognitive hierarchy theory and risk perceptions theory to provide a conceptual framework to identify, distinguish, and provide understanding of the driving factors underlying disputes associated with invasive species. In the ISI Web of Science database, we found 15,915 peer‐reviewed publications on biological invasions, 124 of which included social dimensions of this phenomenon. Of these 124, 28 studies described specific contentious situations. Social approaches to biological invasions have emerged largely in the last decade and have focused on both environmental social sciences and resource management. Despite being distributed in a range of journals, these 124 articles were concentrated mostly in ecology and conservation‐oriented outlets. We found that conflicts surrounding invasive species arose based largely on differences in value systems and to a lesser extent stakeholder and decision maker's risk perceptions. To confront or avoid such situations, we suggest integrating the plurality of environmental values into invasive species research and management via structured decision making techniques, which enhance effective risk communication that promotes trust and confidence between stakeholders and decision makers. Clarificar los Valores, Percepciones de Riesgo y Actitudes para Resolver o Evitar Conflictos Sociales en el Manejo de Especies Invasoras     

The theory behind,and the challenges of,conserving nature's stage in a time of rapid change

Most conservation planning to date has focused on protecting today's biodiversity with the assumption that it will be tomorrow's biodiversity. However, modern climate change has already resulted in distributional shifts of some species and is projected to result in many more shifts in the coming decades. As species redistribute and biotic communities reorganize, conservation plans based on current patterns of biodiversity may fail to adequately protect species in the future. One approach for addressing this issue is to focus on conserving a range of abiotic conditions in the conservation‐planning process. By doing so, it may be possible to conserve an abiotically diverse “stage” upon which evolution will play out and support many actors (biodiversity). We reviewed the fundamental underpinnings of the concept of conserving the abiotic stage, starting with the early observations of von Humboldt, who mapped the concordance of abiotic conditions and vegetation, and progressing to the concept of the ecological niche. We discuss challenges posed by issues of spatial and temporal scale, the role of biotic drivers of species distributions, and latitudinal and topographic variation in relationships between climate and landform. For example, abiotic conditions are not static, but change through time—albeit at different and often relatively slow rates. In some places, biotic interactions play a substantial role in structuring patterns of biodiversity, meaning that patterns of biodiversity may be less tightly linked to the abiotic stage. Furthermore, abiotic drivers of biodiversity can change with latitude and topographic position, meaning that the abiotic stage may need to be defined differently in different places. We conclude that protecting a diversity of abiotic conditions will likely best conserve biodiversity into the future in places where abiotic drivers of species distributions are strong relative to biotic drivers, where the diversity of abiotic settings will be conserved through time, and where connectivity allows for movement among areas providing different abiotic conditions.     

Integrated models to support multiobjective ecological restoration decisions

Many objectives motivate ecological restoration, including improving vegetation condition, increasing the range and abundance of threatened species, and improving species richness and diversity. Although models have been used to examine the outcomes of ecological restoration, few researchers have attempted to develop models to account for multiple, potentially competing objectives. We developed a combined state‐and‐transition, species‐distribution model to predict the effects of restoration actions on vegetation condition and extent, bird diversity, and the distribution of several bird species in southeastern Australian woodlands. The actions reflected several management objectives. We then validated the models against an independent data set and investigated how the best management decision might change when objectives were valued differently. We also used model results to identify effective restoration options for vegetation and bird species under a constrained budget. In the examples we evaluated, no one action (improving vegetation condition and extent, increasing bird diversity, or increasing the probability of occurrence for threatened species) provided the best outcome across all objectives. In agricultural lands, the optimal management actions for promoting the occurrence of the Brown Treecreeper (Climacteris picumnus), an iconic threatened species, resulted in little improvement in the extent of the vegetation and a high probability of decreased vegetation condition. This result highlights that the best management action in any situation depends on how much the different objectives are valued. In our example scenario, no management or weed control were most likely to be the best management options to satisfy multiple restoration objectives. Our approach to exploring trade‐offs in management outcomes through integrated modeling and structured decision‐support approaches has wide application for situations in which trade‐offs exist between competing conservation objectives.     

Effectiveness of amphibians as biodiversity surrogates in pond conservation

Amphibian decline has led to worldwide conservation efforts, including the identification and designation of sites for their protection. These sites could also play an important role in the conservation of other freshwater taxa. In 89 ponds in Switzerland, we assessed the effectiveness of amphibians as a surrogate for 4 taxonomic groups that occur in the same freshwater ecosystems as amphibians: dragonflies, aquatic beetles, aquatic gastropods, and aquatic plants. The ponds were all of high value for amphibian conservation. Cross‐taxon correlations were tested for species richness and conservation value, and Mantel tests were used to investigate community congruence. Species richness, conservation value, and community composition of amphibians were weakly congruent with these measures for the other taxonomic groups. Paired comparisons for the 5 groups considered showed that for each metric, amphibians had the lowest degree of congruence. Our results imply that site designation for amphibian conservation will not necessarily provide protection for freshwater biodiversity as a whole. To provide adequate protection for freshwater species, we recommend other taxonomic groups be considered in addition to amphibians in the prioritization and site designation process.     

Understanding public perceptions of risk regarding outdoor pet cats to inform conservation action

Free‐ranging domestic cats (Felis catus) incur and impose risks on ecosystems and represent a complex issue of critical importance to biodiversity conservation and cat and human health globally. Prior social science research on this topic is limited and has emphasized feral cats even though owned cats often comprise a large proportion of the outdoor cat population, particularly in urban areas. To address this gap, we examined public risk perceptions and attitudes toward outdoor pet cats across varying levels of urbanization, including along the wildland–urban interface, in Colorado (U.S.A.), through a mail survey of 1397 residents. Residents did not view all types of risks uniformly. They viewed risks of cat predation on wildlife and carnivore predation on cats as more likely than disease‐related risks. Additionally, risk perceptions were related to attitudes, prior experiences with cats and cat–wildlife interactions, and cat‐owner behavior. Our findings suggest that changes in risk perceptions may result in behavior change. Therefore, knowledge of cat‐related risk perceptions and attitudes could be used to develop communication programs aimed at promoting risk‐aversive behaviors among cat owners and cat‐management strategies that are acceptable to the public and that directly advance the conservation of native species.     

Current Practice and Future Prospects for Social Data in Coastal and Ocean Planning

Coastal and ocean planning comprises a broad field of practice. The goals, political processes, and approaches applied to planning initiatives may vary widely. However, all planning processes ultimately require adequate information on both the biophysical and social attributes of a planning region. In coastal and ocean planning practice, there are well‐established methods to assess biophysical attributes; however, less is understood about the role and assessment of social data. We conducted the first global assessment of the incorporation of social data in coastal and ocean planning. We drew on a comprehensive review of planning initiatives and a survey of coastal and ocean practitioners. There was significantly more incorporation of social data in multiuse versus conservation‐oriented planning. Practitioners engaged a wide range of social data, including governance, economic, and cultural attributes of planning regions and human impacts data. Less attention was given to ecosystem services and social–ecological linkages, both of which could improve coastal and ocean planning practice. Although practitioners recognize the value of social data, little funding is devoted to its collection and incorporation in plans. Increased capacity and sophistication in acquiring critical social and ecological data for planning is necessary to develop plans for more resilient coastal and ocean ecosystems and communities. We suggest that improving social data monitoring, and in particular spatial social data, to complement biophysical data, is necessary for providing holistic information for decision‐support tools and other methods. Moving beyond people as impacts to people as beneficiaries, through ecosystem services assessments, holds much potential to better incorporate the tenets of ecosystem‐based management into coastal and ocean planning by providing targets for linked biodiversity conservation and human welfare outcomes. La Práctica Actual y los Prospectos Futuros para los Datos Sociales en la Planeación Costera y Oceánica     

Sex‐Biased Inbreeding Effects on Reproductive Success and Home Range Size of the Critically Endangered Black Rhinoceros

A central premise of conservation biology is that small populations suffer reduced viability through loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding. However, there is little evidence that variation in inbreeding impacts individual reproductive success within remnant populations of threatened taxa, largely due to problems associated with obtaining comprehensive pedigree information to estimate inbreeding. In the critically endangered black rhinoceros, a species that experienced severe demographic reductions, we used model selection to identify factors associated with variation in reproductive success (number of offspring). Factors examined as predictors of reproductive success were age, home range size, number of nearby mates, reserve location, and multilocus heterozygosity (a proxy for inbreeding). Multilocus heterozygosity predicted male reproductive success (p< 0.001, explained deviance >58%) and correlated with male home range size (p < 0.01, r² > 44%). Such effects were not apparent in females, where reproductive success was determined by age (p < 0.01, explained deviance 34%) as females raise calves alone and choose between, rather than compete for, mates. This first report of a 3‐way association between an individual male's heterozygosity, reproductive output, and territory size in a large vertebrate is consistent with an asymmetry in the level of intrasexual competition and highlights the relevance of sex‐biased inbreeding for the management of many conservation‐priority species. Our results contrast with the idea that wild populations of threatened taxa may possess some inherent difference from most nonthreatened populations that necessitates the use of detailed pedigrees to study inbreeding effects. Despite substantial variance in male reproductive success, the increased fitness of more heterozygous males limits the loss of heterozygosity. Understanding how individual differences in genetic diversity mediate the outcome of intrasexual competition will be essential for effective management, particularly in enclosed populations, where individuals have restricted choice about home range location and where the reproductive impact of translocated animals will depend upon the background distribution in individual heterozygosity. Efectos de la Endogamia Sesgada por el Sexo sobre el Éxito Reproductivo y el Rango del Tamaño de Hábitat del Rinoceronte Negro, Especie en Peligro Crítico     

Investment and the Policy Process in Conservation Monitoring

Despite decades of discussion and implementation, conservation monitoring remains a challenge. Many current solutions in the literature focus on improving the science or making more structured decisions. These insights are important but incomplete in accounting for the politics and economics of the conservation decisions informed by monitoring. Our novel depiction of the monitoring enterprise unifies insights from multiple disciplines (conservation, operations research, economics, and policy) and highlights many underappreciated factors that affect the expected benefits of monitoring. For example, there must be a strong link between the specific needs of decision makers and information gathering. Furthermore, the involvement of stakeholders other than scientists and research managers means that new information may not be interpreted and acted upon as expected. While answering calls for sharply delineated objectives will clearly add focus to monitoring efforts, for practical reasons, high‐level goals may purposefully be left vague, to facilitate other necessary steps in the policy process. We use the expanded depiction of the monitoring process to highlight problems of cooperation and conflict. We critique calls to invest in monitoring for the greater good by arguing that incentives are typically lacking. Although the benefits of learning accrued within a project (e.g., improving management) provide incentives for investing in some monitoring, it is unrealistic, in general, to expect managers to add potentially costly measures to generate shared benefits. In the traditional linear model of the role of science in policy decisions, monitoring reduces uncertainty and decision makers are rational, unbiased consumers of the science. However, conservation actions increasingly involve social conflict. Drawing insights from political science, we argue that in high‐conflict situations, it is necessary to address the conflict prior to monitoring. Las Inversiones y el Proceso de Políticas en el Monitoreo de la Conservación Sanchirico et al.     

Estimation of Body‐Size Traits by Photogrammetry in Large Mammals to Inform Conservation

Abstract: Photography, including remote imagery and camera traps, has contributed substantially to conservation. However, the potential to use photography to understand demography and inform policy is limited. To have practical value, remote assessments must be reasonably accurate and widely deployable. Prior efforts to develop noninvasive methods of estimating trait size have been motivated by a desire to answer evolutionary questions, measure physiological growth, or, in the case of illegal trade, assess economics of horn sizes; but rarely have such methods been directed at conservation. Here I demonstrate a simple, noninvasive photographic technique and address how knowledge of values of individual‐specific metrics bears on conservation policy. I used 10 years of data on juvenile moose (Alces alces) to examine whether body size and probability of survival are positively correlated in cold climates. I investigated whether the presence of mothers improved juvenile survival. The posited latter relation is relevant to policy because harvest of adult females has been permitted in some Canadian and American jurisdictions under the assumption that probability of survival of young is independent of maternal presence. The accuracy of estimates of head sizes made from photographs exceeded 98%. The estimates revealed that overwinter juvenile survival had no relation to the juvenile's estimated mass (p < 0.64) and was more strongly associated with maternal presence (p < 0.02) than winter snow depth (p < 0.18). These findings highlight the effects on survival of a social dynamic (the mother‐young association) rather than body size and suggest a change in harvest policy will increase survival. Furthermore, photographic imaging of growth of individual juvenile muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) over 3 Arctic winters revealed annual variability in size, which supports the idea that noninvasive monitoring may allow one to detect how some environmental conditions ultimately affect body growth.