Conservation development: how does this alternative to rural sprawl contribute to private land conservation and residential development in Colorado?

Over the past several decades, concerns about the environmental effects of low-density rural development have led to regulations that provide guidelines or incentives for conservation development. This alternative to rural sprawl is characterized by developments with smaller lots, clustered homes, and the preservation of a significant amount of open space (>50%). Examining the spatial relationship between conservation developments and protected areas (PAs) is an important first step towards understanding the degree to which these housing developments augment or diminish landscape-scale conservation efforts. We gathered parcel-level spatial data on 196 conservation developments, including private lots and open space, for 12 counties in Colorado (approximately 75% of the known conservation developments in the state). Although conservation development occurs on a fraction of the developable land (

The Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis) was restricted to the smallest known range for any vertebrate species, with an estimated historic wild population of 17,000 toads found within 2 hectares of waterfall spray zone in the Kihansi Gorge of the Udzungwa Mountains in south-central Tanzania. Discovered by scientists in 1996, the toad was believed to be extirpated from its small patch of habitat in 2004, and was officially declared Extinct in the Wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in October 2009. As the species was declining, the Government of Tanzania collaborated with the Wildlife Conservation Society to establish a captive assurance colony at the Bronx Zoo, and later at the Toledo Zoo and at facilities within Tanzania. In 2012, offspring produced at these institutions were used in a reintroduction effort that is ongoing and being coordinated amongst several stakeholders within Tanzania and internationally.

Blue Ventures is a marine conservation organisation that empowers coastal communities in Madagascar to sustainably manage their natural resources. In response to an expressed unmet need by the communities we partner with, we started providing family planning and other health services five years ago, then fully integrated these with our conservation work to form a Population-Health-Environment (PHE) programme. Longitudinal data from clinical records and household surveys show that this programme has resulted in a fourfold increase in contraceptive use and reduced birth rates by a third, slowing population growth to the extent that the population is now 5% less than it would have been without this intervention, thereby decreasing pressure on natural resources and supporting local conservation efforts. The programme is reaping the benefits of integration by sharing resources and skills between projects, strengthening community participation across the breadth of our activities, reaching wider audiences with combined health and conservation messages, and enabling communities to understand the complexity of environmental challenges by appreciating the links between reproductive health, food security and conservation. As a result, we are more effective in achieving both conservation and health goals than if either were tackled separately. By sharing our methods and lessons learned, we aim to inspire and empower other organisations to adopt this integrated approach.

One of the main threats to wild tigers Panthera tigris is poaching of natural prey yet information is lacking about this threat for most of the tiger's range. For tiger conservation in the Sundarbans Reserved Forest of Bangladesh, information is needed to assess the impact of prey poaching and the effectiveness of conservation actions to reduce this threat. This study used an interview survey of people living close to the Sundarbans to estimate the scale of prey poaching, investigate factors driving prey poaching, and capture information on the nature of prey consumption. Half of the households reported consuming deer meat, with mean consumption of 1.13 kg/household/yr; equivalent to 11195 deer killed. Deer meat was generally consumed for its good taste, with households closer to the forest boundary and with higher income levels with relatively higher levels of consumption. Although cost of deer meat was higher than other available meat, 29% of households obtained deer meat for free. Deer meat tended to be obtained from personal contacts, and consumed in private. Most respondents (91.5%) knew deer consumption was illegal, but 69.4% viewed the law as ineffective. The study findings will be used to design focused regulation and awareness activities to reduce prey consumption in the area. The approach used to evaluate prey poaching through investigation of prey consumption follows studies of wild meat consumption in Africa, and can potentially be applied to all tiger landscapes.

The idea that nature delivers benefits to humans is an easy sell. Turning that idea into changes in business practices is not so simple. It is clear what conservationists think they are achieving by pushing for the valuation of ecosystem services. What businesses hope to gain from ecosystem valuation is not going to be easy to achieve. To address these challenges, we've evaluated 3 ecosystem services at The Dow Chemical Company's facility at Freeport, TX: freshwater supply, natural hazard protection, and air quality maintenance. Our approach demonstrates how ecological information can be tied to economics and used by a company. Our results make a business case for investing in nature to meet a business need: that reforestation can be a cost-comparative alternative for air quality compliance, before accounting for public and ecosystem benefits. We also showed that natural solutions aren't always enough: we modeled how coastal habitats reduce flood heights and economic damages from storms, but not enough to reduce a planned levee's height 10km inland. And we assessed public and ecosystem values, not just the private benefits: coastal habitats provide large benefits to local communities and habitat for wildlife, in addition to supplementing the levee's storm protection. Conservation isn't going to be a win-win solution for business and nature in every case on its own, but this methodology significantly advanced business's ability to account for nature and understand tradeoffs.

The conservation practitioner habitat is home to diverse populations of scientists, managers, funders, governance bodies and the public. When this practitioner ecosystem is functioning well, information and other resources flow easily among these populations. Conflict occurs when investments in conservation science are not commensurate with information needs, leading to monitoring programs that flounder unbudgeted, marooned datasets that are analyzed only in salvage sessions, and management and policy decision-makers feeling stood-up by science. One solution to placing science and management on more of a “collusion” rather than “collision” course is selecting the most important conservation interventions to invest in high-inference science using risk and leverage potential as guideposts. Ongoing conservation projects involving The Nature Conservancy and partners from a broad array of geographies and ecosystems illustrate this approach. Decisions to invest in conservation science may be based on additional management rationale including information needs directed by legal entities, partners and funder interests, as well as the need to assess pervasive interventions at multiple independent field sites that would not individually have potential for risk or leverage. These social processes provide challenges and opportunities for public agency, non-profit, academic, government and funders to invest resources in science that is a keystone in the conservation practitioner ecosystem.

Our studies of endangered Pampas deer (Moore 2001, Sturm 2001) took place on Uruguayan private ranches where this "National Historic Monument" was protected by local landowners as part of their personal commitment to protecting national patrimony. Since that time, we have remained associated with stakeholders including ranchers' associations, Ministries and Institutes as well as many NGOs operating throughout the historic range of Pampas deer, and wildlife managers and academics who are consistently in-country and committed to understanding and sustaining Pampas grassland and species. Our collaborative capacity-building activities have included outreach to ranchers' association meetings, using WCS-NPS-SUNY support to host an IUCN-DSG co-sponsored, Uruguay-based Distance Sampling workshop (2002), leading a Smithsonian-led behavior workshop in Argentina (2010), and helping to anchor a Uruguayan ecotourism workshop via our NPS and Smithsonian bases of operation (2010). The positive, professional results of this interdisciplinary, collaborative capacity-building are evidenced in the all-Uruguayan-authored works by Gonzalez for adults (2010) and children (2011), as well as our assistance in PhD thesis defense by Cosse (2010). This persistent collaboration over more than two decades, with and by many of our committed colleagues from various disciplines in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, has the single intent of conserving one of Earth's most important grasslands and native wildlife

Renewable energy development in the California Desert Region is advancing at a rapid pace driving a pressing need for biological information on rare species to guide conservation and mitigation. This region is home to diverse and idiosyncratic rare plants that have poorly documented biology and distributions. How can we rapidly collect the information necessary on species- and site-specific population dynamics to design mitigation and conservation measures? We have developed an integrated approach to assessing the vulnerability of a suite of representative rare plant species. We have implemented a prioritized series of demographic and experimental studies to determine the types of species and life stages most vulnerable to impact or prone to conservation efforts. We have found substantial variation in vegetative and sexual reproduction between study populations for several rare plants, including between populations that vary in putative impact by development. For a subset of species for which we are able to conduct population viability analysis, we have identified sensitive vital rates and determined and compare quasi-extinction probability under different scenarios. By utilizing practical experiments to test for the effects of real or simulated impacts, we have found differences in vital rates between natural and disturbed populations adjacent to and within solar installations and significant negative effects of panel shade on rare plant communities.

Google Earth Engine is a new technology platform that enables monitoring and measurement of the earth’s environment at global scale. The platform includes a large catalog of earth observation data and offers intrinsically-parallel computational access to thousands of computers in Google’s data centers. Earth Engine includes an application programming framework, or “API”, that allows scientists access to these computational and data resources, to scale their current algorithms or develop new ones. Methods previously developed for road disturbance mapping at small (city) scale are being implemented in Google Earth Engine, on Google’s large database of road information, to generate roadless area and road disturbance maps at country, continent and global scale. Combining science with massive data and technology resources in a cloud-computing framework can offer advantages of computational speed, ease-of-use and collaboration, as well as transparency in data and methods. This can aid in supporting a more informed and systematic global approach to conservation planning and policy.

Engaging an apathetic public in the conservation of less charismatic creatures can be a tricky business. But if we are to scale up conservation efforts for the most threatened vertebrate group, the amphibians, this is exactly what we need to be doing. So how do we engage a public that is increasingly jaded by prophecies of inevitable doom and gloom? I will discuss two campaigns designed to deliver a serious message about amphibian conservation in an unconventional package: The Search for Lost Frogs and Metamorphosis. The Search for Lost Frogs dispatched more than thirty teams in twenty countries in search of species ‘lost’ to science. The campaign was quickly picked up by the media and generated over 650 news articles in 20 countries with a potential viewership of over a billion. The initiative resonated with the public, tapping into a sense of adventure and exploration, and rediscoveries transformed amphibians from symbols of extinction to symbols of hope in Israel, Borneo and beyond. The campaign reinforced the potential of rediscoveries as a policy and publicity tool, and of amphibians as flagship species for conservation. Secondly, I will present Metamorphosis, a unique visual campaign blending science and art to explore our connection with amphibians. The series picked up first place in an International Photography Contest and continues to draw attention and stimulate discussion among a diverse audience.

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest has an extraordinary terrestrial biodiversity. Large mammals might be the most well-known species, but they are still poorly known when it comes to the status of their conservation. Most medium and large sized mammals are threatened, a consequence of extensive habitat destruction. This brings up the question: How many of these species are likely to be prone to regional extinction in the Atlantic Forest? We address these issues for 24 species of mammals listed as threatened. We gathered historical and current observation points from naturalists' and scientific publications and through interviews with experts. We then calculated the density of forest fragments to identify remaining suitable habitat within the species' ranges. Observation points were divided into historical (before 1990) and current records (after 1990) and then superimposed on the density maps. Mammals are currently present mostly where the forest density is higher. For some species, such as the lowland tapir, giant otter, and giant anteater, no current records were present in some areas of higher forest density. Ten species do not have current reports for the last 20 years for some regions, meaning they are very likely to become regionally extinct, if they are not already. Historical analyses like this reveal possible regional extinction of species in a simple way, especially when they are not readily apparent.

The Guyana Lesley Abroad Service Semester is a novel university program that models the kinds of integrative efforts needed today for effective biodiversity conservation. GLASS simultaneously leverages assets and integrates interests of various stakeholders across multiple systems in one of Earth's most biologically diverse landscapes, the Rupununi of Guyana, South America, at a time of great and rapid change. Specifically, GLASS links the goals of indigenous Guyanese villagers seeking employment, cultural preservation, and natural resource management with those of a local NGO pursuing educational development, a social enterprise looking for ways to sustain its village-based research, education, conservation, and development programs, a university in search of students questing to enlarge and contribute to their world, and faculty with a passion for engaging students in place-based learning about the complexity of living systems and the challenges of conservation. Through four integrated classes students engage in mutual education and genuine service projects with villagers who become teachers, students, leaders, and empowered stakeholders. Students immersed in village life gain Indigenous Knowledge as they learn formally about tropical ecology and conservation, and they apply what they learn and teach across various disciplines through village-based collaborative projects focused on cultural preservation, natural resource management, conservation, education, and research.

This study investigated the effect of the presence of an introduced predator, environmental quality and habitat on the distribution of native and endemic birds on 16 small islands within Fiji. Previous studies attribute bird declines and extirpation anecdotally to the mongoose. In total, 9055 birds representing 45 species were observed within four key habitats (forest, villages, crop land and coastal vegetation) on the 16 islands, half of which had mongoose present. The presence of mongoose, environmental quality and habitat type had a measurable influence on observed extant native and endemic bird communities. We conclude that three ground birds were negatively influenced by the presence of mongoose and that eight birds were particularly dependent on good quality forest habitat. Conservation priorities in relation to protecting Fiji's endemic birds (and other endemic species)from the effect of mongoose and habitat modification are discussed and preventative measures suggested.

When management is done under uncertainty, monitoring or experimentation can facilitate management decisions with greater expected benefits. But it is only rational to monitor if the expected net gain of sampling is positive. A value of information analysis can a priori assess the efficacy of reducing uncertainty via sampling. We performed value of information analyses for Box-Ironbark Forests and Woodland management in central Victoria, Australia. These analyses revealed whether to experiment and monitor to reduce uncertainty in a system model, as well as which aspects of model uncertainty and sampling strategies are most cost-effective to address. We found that the outcome of forest management was much more sensitive to some model parameters such as the rate at which harvested or thinned trees coppiced, than it was to others, like the rate of wildfire disturbance. Of a set of plausible sampling strategies there were clear winners in terms of which aspects of the system should be the focus of monitoring to achieve the greatest cost effectiveness. Our analyses show it is more cost-effective to monitor certain aspects of the system and employ a targeted sampling design than monitoring with a view to reducing uncertainty in all dimensions of model space simultaneously.

Atlantic sturgeon belong to a prehistoric group of fishes that existed for more than 70 million years. A principal fishery in the Delaware Estuary was supported in the late 1800s and early1900s. Populations of Atlantic sturgeon are at historically low levels along the Atlantic coast of North America. Considerable research on the biology of sturgeon in the Delaware River and Bay has been performed. However, little is known regarding the occurrence, distribution, and movements of juveniles. Knowledge of the seasonal utilization of different parts of the estuary by, and habitat requirements of juvenile sturgeon is critical to the species' protection, management, and recovery. The lack of informed knowledge of their essential habitats precludes the implementation of appropriate protection and enhancement management strategies. In order to address this we collected and acoustically tagged juvenile Atlantic sturgeon (n =56) in the Delaware estuary. Sturgeon tagging took place between October 2008 and November 2011. Sturgeon movements were monitored using a network of 127 receivers throughout the estuary from October 2008 through January 2012. Atlantic sturgeon utilized different parts of the estuary at different stages of juvenile development. The implications of these findings for management strategies of Atlantic sturgeon in the Delaware estuary are discussed.

Arid Recovery is an Australian conservation organisation that benefits from long term support from mining, government, community and university partners. This strong partnership provided rare logistical support to enable long term post-release monitoring of four species of IUCN- listed reintroduced mammals. Population indices of the bilby, burrowing bettong, stick-nest rat and western barred bandicoot were measured up to 39 times over 12 years after release and compared with environmental variables using generalised additive models. Interestingly, even over a 12 year timeframe, there was strong evidence for an overall temporal increase in density for three out of four species, suggesting that reintroduced populations may take decades to stabilise. Interspecific differences in population fluctuations were due to varied responses to rainfall, summer temperatures and time since release. These differences helped formulate species-specific future release strategies including release timing and size of release sites. We suggest that after the initial intensive monitoring of reintroduced individuals to determine short term success, a second phase of population monitoring should be conducted seasonally until strong temporal population increases after release are no longer apparent. Long term monitoring should also encompass several cycles of environmentally-induced fluctuations to enable reintroduction success to be effectively evaluated.

The Caatinga is the only tipically Brazillian biome and it occupies 11% of the country, located in the Northeast, one of Brazil's poorest area. The Caatinga displays a wealth of species and environments, with a unique biodiversity. It is the most populous semiarid region of the worlds and most of its 27 million habitants use natural resources to survive. The Brazilian semiarid region is known for its adversities of climate order, low water availability and irregular rainfall distribution. There is a process of desertification as a result of climatic factors and inadequate management of land that require social policies for benefiting the population and, at the same time, to preserve the Caatinga. In this context, this paper analyzes the Conservation Units under the governmental administration and focuses on the impacts of these protected areas in the socio-environmental agenda of Brazil and its contribution to improving the quality of life of local population.

The prospects for an ambitious and binding global agreement on climate change have grown increasingly uncertain, even as the evidence of serious climate impacts grows around the world. These impacts are being felt from Arctic communities to African villages to small island nations, many of which are struggling for their very survival. As political processes have stalled, State and non-State actors are exploring new legal strategies to transform the climate debate and drive meaningful policy change to address the climate threat. These strategies involve a huge array of forums, plaintiffs and defendants—from legal opinions at the International Court of Justice, to appeals to human rights bodies by individuals and communities, to consideration of transboundary climate impacts in environmental impact assessments under regional treaties. Along with the traditional legal hurdles faced in all litigation, potential plaintiffs in transboundary climate litigation must confront intense diplomatic and economic pressures, the limited jurisdiction of tribunals and the complexities of proving cause and effect in the climate context. International trade law and its fora must learn to accommodate climate policies as well. By building our understanding of the linkages between global trends and local impacts, scientists will play an important role in the development and utilization of these new legal approaches to addressing climate change, and in their outlooks for success.

Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are widely distributed throughout the Atlantic Ocean, however spawning is mostly restricted to the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Historical cruise data from the Gulf of Mexico show that bluefin tuna larvae have primarily been collected between early May and mid June, within a defined temperature range. In contrast, spawning of tropical tunas such as yellowfin tuna (T.albacares), blackfin tuna (T. atlanticus) and skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) commences in spring and continues through summer, without a strong upper temperature limit. Given their different thermal tolerances and spawning requirements, it is likely that bluefin tuna and tropical tunas will show different responses to the effects of climate change. To investigate this, we applied future predictions of water temperature sourced from a dynamically downscaled climate model for the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to spawning habitat models. Potential changes in spawning habitat for each species in the Gulf of Mexico were then quantified for the middle and end of the 21st century. While spring spawning grounds for bluefin tuna were predicted to increase slightly in March, and decrease through April, May and June, spawning grounds of tropical tunas were predicted to increase. These results have significant implications for the future management of highly migratory tunas in the north Atlantic. In addition, our work also serves as a useful test case showing the advantages and disadvantages of using correlative, temperature-based models to predict future impacts of climate change on marine species.

Although Great Lakes fisheries management has expanded to include multiple governmental jurisdictions and stakeholders, an understanding of how many organizations are involved in governance and the relationships among those organizations remains unknown. Based on an email survey of policy and decision makers from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC), we investigated the affiliation network of formal and informal relationships with organizations throughout the Great Lakes region. The respondents identified relationships with 149 organizations. This large number of organizations could provide many opportunities for sharing information with and soliciting information from stakeholder and research organizations, but it could also add political pressures from these groups. The GLFC network has specific communication roles including the important coordinating role of the GLFC staff and connections to fishing organizations through stakeholder representatives. In addition to formal relationships, informal relationships are an important component of the affiliation network with more than 1/3 of all relationships identified as informal and 16 organizations identified only through informal relationships. Affiliation networks are just beginning to be utilized in natural resource governance, but could be a useful tool for understanding the connection between diverse stakeholder organizations and natural resource managers.

Are nascent "megaregional" demarcating efforts guided by economic development considerations with minimal concern for environmental issues? Do megaregional delineations materially reflect patterns of population agglomeration and density, transportation and transit infrastructure, and political borders, but ignore natural and ecological boundaries? Do they offer an effective platform for managing anthropogenic and natural threats to the environment and implementing sustainable and resilient growth strategies? This study uses GIS overlay mapping techniques to identify intersections of megaregions and Level I, II, and III Omnerik ecoregions. It uses the megaregion boundaries identified by America 2050 (a joint project of Regional Planning Association and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy) and the ecoregional delineations espoused by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The results of overlay mapping are subjected to a battery of descriptive statistics to determine the viability of each megaregion for future environmental management efforts.

Monitoring of human disturbances is important to assess the effectiveness of protected areas (PA). Indicators for trail evolution, informal trails and trampling have been widely studied, but they rarely have been connected to the dispersion of recreational use in the PAs. Distance sampling of recreational cues allow for spatial analyzes of the non-consumptive disturbances in protected areas. We recorded cues of recreational use around point of interests (parking lots, cabins, lakes) and trails (formal and informal), using a distance sampling design in 12 protected areas in Norway. In general there were few recreational cues in the Norwegian parks; only 4020 cues were recorded in the 426.7 km line transects sampled. Most of the cues were found in the frontcounty (

Deforestation,human encroachment,use of pesticide has seriously affected and threatened spider species. An attempt was made to investigate spider fauna from Sanjay Gandhi National park area to study its distribution and abundance. Spiders in its natural habitats were surveyed according to Tikader (1962,1973 ,1982.).The spider fauna was rich. Present study could study 88 spider species from 16 Families belonging to 40 genera.Family Araneidae represented 18 species belonging to8 genera,Family Salticidae, including 16 species under 8 genera, Family clubionidae consisted 5 species belonging to5 genera,Thomsidae 8 species under 5genera,Erasidae,Nephilidae,Oxyopidae,Pholeidae,Uloboridae,Lycosidae and Gnaphosidae of 3 species of 2 genera each.Tetragnathidae species of 3 genera was detected .One new species of spider was also detected. Rich diversity of spiders indicated species richness of ecosystem. Key words-spider,species,genera,diversity

In the intermountain west, energy development is a large driving force of landscape change that could be limited by potential listing of a species: the Greater-Sage Grouse. Our goal is to understand how habitat amount, configuration, and quality influence distribution and connectivity of sage-grouse leks in Northern Wyoming. We predicted lek distribution across the study area using 460 leks, 81 pseudo-absences, and important environmental (i.e., topography, percent sagebrush) and anthropogenic (i.e., well density) characteristics. To assess connectivity, we collected DNA samples from 68 sites and estimated genetic distance. We present a lek distribution prediction and population network model based on relating 2012 field data to limiting factors across the landscape. Both amount and configuration of disturbance surrounding leks decreases probability of lek occurrence. Connectivity of sage-grouse leks is positively associated with undisturbed areas of contiguous sagebrush habitat and negatively associated with disturbance. Clumped configuration of development reduces connectivity of leks. The lek distribution and population network model will be used to predict changes in lek occurrence and functional connectivity in the face of different scenarios of landscape change. Our research will provide a scientifically-based decision-making tool for prioritizing development, protection, and restoration that will drive stakeholders to work together for a successful outcome.

Comparative extinction risk analysis is a common approach for assessing the relative plight of biodiversity and making conservation recommendations. However, the usefulness of such analyses for conservation practice has been questioned. One reason why comparative extinction risk analysis may underperform is that threats (e.g., habitat loss, invasive species) are often overlooked, despite being widely regarded as proximal drivers of species' endangerment. We review the use of threats in this field from the literature, and investigate via two case studies the practical effects of threat exclusion on the interpretation and application of model results. Threat variables are routinely (59%) identified as significant predictors of extinction risk, yet while most studies (78%) include extrinsic factors of some kind (e.g., geographic or bioclimatic information), the majority (63%) ignore threats. In our case studies, omitting threats reduced model predictive performance and management relevance of results, and lead to considerable disagreement in a downstream conservation application (species ranking). We conclude that the use of threats in comparative extinction risk analysis is important and increasing but currently in the early stages of development. Better threat quantification and the development of more appropriate conceptual and statistical frameworks are priorities for improving the practical value of future studies.

Emissions associated with the 2011 meeting of the Africa Section of SCB are being offset by the Kasigau Corridor Project located in southeast Kenya. The primary objective of the Kasigau Project is to conserve a wildlife corridor consisting of tropical dry forest that would otherwise be cleared or degraded for cattle grazing and agriculture. Thus, it is a project that generates credits primarily from avoided emissions, i.e. from reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Selling offset credits into the carbon market is one of numerous activities that the Project undertakes to ensure year-round supply of jobs and revenue conducive to community and conservation objectives. The Kasigau project is successful in many ways; it is the first REDD project to receive VCS accreditation. As with all projects it also faces challenges and those of the Kasigau are particularly interesting. In this presentation, we will introduce the audience to the interesting elements of the Kasigau Project and make the case for why we (SCB) would want projects we support so demonstrate some of these elements.

Given the precarious state of much of the world's biodiversity prioritising where and how to invest limited conservation resources is of the utmost importance. Here we present the key results from a review of the Conservation Leadership Programme, a 28 year old award scheme which currently operates as a partnership between BirdLife International, Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International, the Wildlife Conservation Society and BP plc. Since it began the programme has evolved from awarding one-off expedition grants for UK students to providing sustained support to developing world projects led by early-career, in-country nationals. Using a review of the programme's outputs and results from a 2010 survey of programme alumni we aimed to investigate what this evolution has meant both for biodiversity conservation and local capacity building. Results suggest that this shift has had a positive effect on in-country conservation capacity with 98% of county nationals currently working in conservation within their project's target country compared with 36% of non-country nationals, projects led by county nationals were also more likely to result in the creation of an NGO. A further result was that projects receiving the highest level of support were far more likely to deliver in terms of protected area designation, NGO creation and species discovery. These findings demonstrate the importance of sustained, targeted support in maximising the contribution of such projects.

Plant diversity is one of the fundamental cornerstones for human well-being and sustainable development particularly in developing countries where the majority of the household livelihoods are dependent on natural resources. This calls for increased efforts to conserve biodiversity ex-situ strategies like plant nurseries establishment and maintenance. We surveyed 70 urban road-side plant nurseries in Kampala District, with a view to understand their contribution to plant conservation and human livelihoods in the face of increasing natural habitats loss and climate change. A total of 79 species were recorded, of which 18 were indigenous and 61 exotics. However, the most frequent indigenous species across the nurseries were Musanga cecropioides, Lantana camara, Elaeis guinensis, Maesopsis eminii, and Encephalartos hildebrandtii. Customer demand appears to be the main factor influencing the choice of the plants species raised by the nursery owners/operators. The results further showed that 94% of the respondents interviewed relied mainly on the nursery business for their economic needs. If properly managed these road-side plant nurseries can enhance plant conservation as well as acting as green businesses that may contribute to improvement of the livelihoods of the low-income urban households. They may also contribute to achieving the assisted colonization as an adaptation strategy for plant conservation in the face of global climate change.

Eastern North American monarchs are well known for their long-distance annual migration to high elevation overwintering sites in Mexico, a journey that can cover over 4500 km. However, climate change models indicate these sites may not be suitable for monarchs within as little as 40 years. Citizen science reports from Gulf Coast states have shown some monarchs are now present and breeding throughout the winter, where immature monarchs may be exposed to freezing temperatures. To test immature monarch cold tolerance, I exposed monarchs to freezing temperatures and recorded both the supercooling point (SCP) and lower lethal temperature (LT50) for different developmental stages. Median SCPs for immature monarchs range from -26.1° to -9.6° C, with eggs having the coldest SCP and third instar larvae having the warmest SCP. Although the LT50s for larvae are below each stage's respective median SCP, no survival was observed below the lowest recorded SCP, suggesting that larvae are freeze-intolerant. However, eggs seem to be chill-intolerant, with an LT50 occurring at a temperature higher than their median SCP. While most monarchs tested were summer monarchs lab-reared in Southern US winter conditions, these results were further verified by testing wild winter monarchs raised on native milkweed in Texas. These findings can help inform future modeling and conservation efforts for monarchs throughout their life cycle, in particular guiding host plant restoration and habitat management.

The vast Freshkills site on Staten Island, NY, until recently the world's largest landfill, is being transformed into a park. Habitat alteration is the top threat to biodiversity globally, yet whether reclamation efforts like this one can reverse losses is poorly known. Turtles are relatively sedentary, long-lived reptiles capable of occupying high positions in the food web, and can be monitored to investigate restoration. Therefor in 2012 we initiated a comprehensive freshwater community research program at Freshkills and the nearby Long Pond Park reference site. Here we tested the null hypothesis of no differences in trophic position, habitat, or prey at the two study sites by analyzing stable isotope signatures from painted (n = 29) and snapping (n = 14) turtle blood. We rejected the null hypothesis and found that both turtle species had significantly higher trophic positions at the former landfill than the reference site, as revealed by δ15N signatures. Painted turtles at Freshkills also had higher δ13C values indicating they consumed more non-meat items and/or had different habitats than at Long Pond. However these values were not significantly different among snapping turtles at the two sites, nor was there variation among individual turtle values obtained at different times during the season. So little is known about these communities that we are providing entirely new information on this once destroyed but now reclaimed parkland, with management applications.

Seasonal migrants present a unique challenge for conservation planning under climate change. As migratory bird species rely on distinct breeding and nonbreeding habitats across their annual cycle, both threats to climate change and the cost of protecting lands may differ substantially depending on the seasonal range considered. Ultimately, these factors can influence the prioritization of lands for conservation. We used the potential range dynamics of Nearctic-Neotropical Parulidae migrants under future climate changes across both breeding and nonbreeding ranges to contrast static and dynamic conservation scenarios on conservation priorities. Using Marxan, we evaluated two climate change adaptation strategies: protection of climate refugia and the promotion of connectivity across environmental gradients. Inclusion of potential range shifts under climate change strongly influenced sites prioritized and emphasized the need to adopt a dynamic conservation planning framework. Differences between the two climate change adaptation scenarios were magnified depending on the seasonal range under consideration, in part related to smaller nonbreeding range size relative to the breeding range and the magnitude of northern projected shifts for breeding ranges. Our results highlight the importance of integrating habitats required across the annual cycle into systematic conservation planning scenarios as they result in stark regional differences in climate change vulnerabilities.

Nearly forty years after passage of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, recovery prospects for listed species remain mixed. Recovery requires that a species be sufficiently abundant and that threats are reduced such that it is neither “in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range” nor likely to become so “within the foreseeable future”. Achieving these goals is challenged from the outset because species are too severely imperiled by the time they receive the Act’s protection. Extreme data deficiency has been a major barrier to developing quantitative criteria and evidence indicates that traditional surrogate approaches are likely to fail. Individual and populations abundances (the most common recovery criteria) that have been required are criticized for being too low to provide high probability of persistence and for lacking a biological basis. Despite clear theoretical predictions for general risks of small and declining populations, there has been little scientific guidance for exactly how many individuals and populations are sufficient for recovery, and no specific abundance is appropriate across all taxa. We suggest holistic assessment of recovery based on habitat and range as well as individuals and populations is necessary for improvement of condition of species listed under the ESA. Further we suggest a means of evaluating how particular changes in these abundances that would result from threat abatement would translate into a change in extinction risk. Such an evaluation framework that can be used with varying amounts of data could support quantifying acceptable risk and yield objective and measurable criteria in a transparent manner.

The risk of water scarcity is a rising threat in a rapidly changing world. Communities and investors are using the new institution of water funds to enact conservation practices in watersheds to bolster a clean, predictable water supply for multiple stakeholders. We operationalize monitoring standards for ecosystem-service reporting, from experimental design to supporting field implementation, in two case studies: Quito, Ecuador, and Cali, Colombia. In the big picture, we ask: a) Do water funds' restoration and protection actions work at the plot scale? b) Does the suite of investments work at the basin scale or point of use? We partnered with nine water funds to move from theory to practice, from new monitoring standards to field implementation, in a statistically robust and cost-effective way. Capitalizing on a tool to optimize water funds' investments in nature (RIOS), we report on the process of creating the monitoring scheme and subsequent metrics for water fund performance. For example, model estimates suggest that the Quito Water Fund's restoration of all degraded floodplain areas would increase the annual dry-season base flow by 21 million cubic meters, with a 75% reduction in sediment loads. Previous monitoring plans have not matched the scale of desired results, due to resource constraints and access to land under different ownership types. Our results highlight the need to draw on innovative data collection and analytic methods to improve monitoring action.

Climate change is already impacting fishery resources and the communities that depend on them. Environmental changes have been implicated in the shifting distributions, abundances and phenology of fish stocks in many marine ecosystems. These impacts are expected to intensify in the future, increasing the need to understand which fishery resources are the most vulnerable to environmental change. We have developed a tool for conducting a rapid vulnerability assessment for a large number of stocks to create an index of relative vulnerability. The index can help fishery managers identify high vulnerability stocks and more effectively target limited research and assessment resources on stocks of highest concern. The vulnerability assessment uses expert elicitation methods to quantify a stock’s exposure and sensitivity to expected climate change. Pilot tests have found the methodology to be robust across temperate and tropical ecosystems.

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) is a watershed-based public agency dedicated to conserving, protecting and managing renewable natural resources within the largest metropolitan area in Canada. Over the last 30 years the TRCA approach to urban biodiversity management has evolved significantly, from an emphasis on rare species and significant natural features toward a holistic approach that considers the function, character and value of the entire landscape. This has been catalyzed by a recent re-examination of the goals of urban conservation management and a greater understanding of the role played by urban ecosystems in human well-being. The presentation will illustrate this progression in management practice by utilizing an urban forest spatial analysis case study, describing the methodology used to develop a decision-making tool that guides tree planting efforts of local conservation managers in both urban and natural areas. This tool aims to identify and prioritize spatially explicit tree planting locations that best satisfy local demands for ecosystem services based on the social-ecological characteristics of each unique neighborhood within the study area. While there are challenges associated with balancing stakeholder perspectives, the outcomes are an important first step towards managing urbanized landscape for optimum function and ecosystem services.

High Conservation Value (HCV) provides a framework for identifying, managing, and monitoring areas of critical importance or outstanding significance for biodiversity or ecosystem services or for supporting the basic needs or cultural identity of local communities. The concept of HCV originated as part of certification standards for sustainable forestry, but has seen increasing application in certification standards for sustainable agriculture, including the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards. The concept has also been applied in conservation planning, including an ongoing national-scale HCV assessment in Gabon. We will provide an overview of the six categories of HCV and a review of current issues (such as the application of the HCV concept to palm oil landscapes) and recent research. We will also discuss our own review of 20 national HCV toolkits, including a discussion of inconsistencies between toolkits and links to international biodiversity standards such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

In the United States, a substantial proportion of the country's renewable energy is expected to come from wind power. Despite rapid development, our understanding of wind facilities' environmental impact is poor. A particular source of apprehension is avian mortalities due to collisions with rotating turbine blades. A great deal of uncertainty surrounds the factors contributing to bird collision risk; environmental-decision making in this context is difficult. Yet, government agencies and project proponents will be faced with recurrent decisions on project operations, siting and design, compensatory mitigation and permits for lethal take. Adaptive management is beneficial in these circumstances, since it incorporates uncertainty into the decision making process in a structured way, and provides a mechanism by which it is possible to simultaneously learn about and manage natural systems. Using golden eagles, we show how pre-construction monitoring can be used to predict a project's annual eagle fatalities, how learning occurs through management and post-construction monitoring designed to address the known uncertainties, and how this information can be used to reassess and adjust management actions for individual projects and wind farm development as a whole. Although we focus on only one aspect of wind farms' environmental impact, our case study exhibits the broad potential for adaptive management to aid the progress of renewable energy development in the face of uncertainty.