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.     

Shared ways of thinking in Brazil about the science–practice interface in ecology and conservation

The debate in the literature on the science–practice interface suggests a diversity of opinions on how to link science and practice to improve conservation. Understanding this diversity is key to addressing unequal power relations, avoiding the consideration of only dominant views, and identifying strategies to link science and practice. In turn, linking science and practice should promote conservation decisions that are socially robust and scientifically informed. To identify and describe the viewpoints of scientists and decision makers on how the science–practice interface should work in order to improve conservation decisions, we interviewed Brazilian scientists (ecologists and conservation scientists, n = 11) and decision makers (n = 11). We used Q methodology and asked participants to rank their agreement with 48 statements on how the science–practice interface should work in order to improve conservation decisions. We used principal component analysis to identify shared viewpoints. The predominant viewpoint, shared by scientists and decision makers, was characterized by valuing the integration of scientific and strategic knowledge to address environmental problems. The second viewpoint, held mostly by decision makers, was distinguished by assigning great importance to science in the decision-making process and calling for problem-relevant research. The third viewpoint, shared only by scientists, was characterized by an unwillingness to collaborate and a perception of scientists as producers of knowledge that may help decision makers. Most participants agreed organizations should promote collaboration and that actors and knowledge from both science and practice are relevant. Disagreements concerned specific roles assigned to actors, willingness to collaborate, and organizational and institutional arrangements considered effective to link science and practice. Our results suggest there is ample room for collaborations and that impediments lie mainly in existing organizations and formal institutional arrangements rather than in negative attitudes between scientists and decision makers.