Stability and change in social values: The influence of culture and modernization on wildlife-related cognition

Social values and value orientations represent the core of human thought, guiding people's perceptions and driving their behaviors. Due to this value centrality, practitioners and scientists often suggest a need for educational appeals (e.g., pamphlets, advertisements, campaigns) to affect value change to facilitate conservation initiatives. However, values are proposed to be learned early in youth, to be culturally derived, and to change slowly and inter-generationally. If true, we would expect to find traces of nationality differences in the values of North Americans through their ancestry. Using data from a survey of residents from 19 states in the western U.S., we explore value stability and value shift with a focus on wildlife-related thought. We first test whether values found in countries today can be detected in the wildlife value orientations of Americans claiming ancestral origins from those countries. Second, we examine the effect of modernization, a prominent force proposed to produce culture change, on any potential ancestry effect. Results indicate that Americans' wildlife value orientations are similar to the values found in their "home" countries, indicating value stability. We also found that modernization links to a shift in wildlife-related values, independent of ancestry. Findings have theoretical implications for ecological modeling to include human cognition, and implications for practitioners developing programs aimed at influencing human behavior.

Although the potential for fisheries recovery is critical for predicting the potential biophysical outcomes of conservation and management interventions, success will ultimately be determined by the ability to shift human behaviors. Many conservation prioritization frameworks seek to strike a balance between threats caused by local people and a conservation target but few take into account the factors that indicate communities are well suited to adopting new behaviors. Review of prioritization approaches from social marketing and behavior change theory and the results from over 200 behavior change campaign sites were assessed. Certain factors including population and target audience size, local leadership, prior community engagement, and lack of external threats play a key role in creating an enabling environment for social change. By incorporating factors that indicate ‘a likelihood of behavior change’ in addition to biophysical, political, social, and economic factors of prioritization frameworks practitioners can improve conservation outcomes by working with communities that are more likely to adopt sustainable behaviors.

Citizen scientists are playing a key role to determine the legal status, distribution, and resource needs of wolverines in a changing landscape. Wolverines are listed as data deficient within Alberta which means there isn't enough data to determine their legal status. Trappers appear at first to be an unlikely ally for wolverine conservation. They're frequently regarded as fringe stakeholders who are highly suspicious of government or scientists, but they're also uniquely suited to collect data from wilderness areas over broad spatial extents. The Alberta Trappers Association asked scientists to collaborate to determine the status and habitat resource needs of wolverines in a rapidly changing landscape. Casting back, we conducted a trapper questionnaire and analyzed fur harvest data to better understand distribution at a province-wide scale. Casting forward, trappers are using non-invasive bait stations to collect hair samples and photos to detect occupancy in habitat among regions. We predicted harvest and occurrence to be greater in areas with consistent spring snowpack and in larger tracts of intact forest. Surprisingly, harvests since 1989 have been consistent in regions lacking predictable spring snowpack that is generally considered vital for recruitment. Grassroots participation is enabling essential steps in the conservation process to occur, while gaining ownership from a key consumptive user of wildlife.

For most Brazilians in the cities where policy is determined, Amazônia is nothing but a distant place and they have little connection to it. Attempts to save the forest have concentrated on creating protected areas but have mostly ignored the beliefs and attitudes of people on the deforestation frontier, most of whom are poor migrant farmers who need income, but lack fundamental knowledge of how to use the forest. Vitally, we established Escola da Amazônia in 2002 to research the human dimensions of the conservation crisis in Amazonia and to engage communities on the deforestation frontier - with a focus on students, teachers and schools - in conservation. Communication interventions and evaluation of results have been based on the charisma of the species that has a stronger presence in Brazilian youngsters' minds and hearts than does any other native mammal: the jaguar. We found that school-based communication interventions can have a powerful effect on perceptions of jaguars among students, and that students can effectively transfer that effect to their parents. In a different, more recent initiative - the Young Conservationist Award - we identify creative and influential teenagers in Amazonia and provide them with learning opportunities and incentives for them to create and disseminate conservation messages, which they do by using traditional and new communication technologies and by speaking as 'forest ambassadors' at schools in the major urban centers of Brazil.

For most Brazilians in the cities where policy is determined, Amazônia is nothing but a distant place and they have little connection to it. Attempts to save the forest have concentrated on creating protected areas but have mostly ignored the beliefs and attitudes of people on the deforestation frontier, most of whom are poor migrant farmers who need income, but lack fundamental knowledge of how to use the forest. Vitally, we established Escola da Amazônia in 2002 to research the human dimensions of the conservation crisis in Amazonia and to engage communities on the deforestation frontier – with a focus on students, teachers and schools – in conservation. Communication interventions and evaluation of results have been based on the charisma of the species that has a stronger presence in Brazilian youngsters’ minds and hearts than does any other native mammal: the jaguar. We found that school-based communication interventions can have a powerful effect on perceptions of jaguars among students, and that students can effectively transfer that effect to their parents. In a different, more recent initiative - the Young Conservationist Award - we identify creative and influential teenagers in Amazonia and provide them with learning opportunities and incentives for them to create and disseminate conservation messages, which they do by using traditional and new communication technologies and by speaking as ‘forest ambassadors’ at schools in the major urban centers of Brazil.

Traditional conservation practices, which focus on population size and species-level viability analyses, are missing a crucial component of conservation: the individual animals who make up these aggregates. Furthermore, invasive interventions such as culling, translocation, habitat restriction and “sustainable harvesting”, create more problems than they solve because these practices do not take into account the lives and welfare of individual animals. As a result, several conservation practices that rely upon “numbers” as a metric for success or invasive approaches have not only failed to protect certain populations, they have made matters worse. Examples include the ongoing problematic attempts to protect the African elephants, the justification of wild captures of cetaceans for “conservation “ purposes, and the culling of wolves to resolve human-animal conflicts. It is critical that conservation take a more scientifically – informed, and frankly, progressive, approach to nonhuman intelligence and sensitivities by acknowledging the data on the complexity of their social networks, families, cultural traditions, and psychosocial development and, thus, not only preserving numbers of individuals but the individuals themselves.

Agroforestry plantations provide habitat for biodiversity in tropical agricultural areas by maintaining structural and floristic complexity similar to forests. Third-party certification of shade-grown crops is promoted as a mechanism to ensure environmentally responsible management practices that promote biodiversity conservation. However, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of the impact of third-party certification on biodiversity conservation across geographic regions. Here we review the empirical evidence for the maintenance or increase in biodiversity as a result of third-party certifications such as Organic Crop Improvement Organization (OCIA), International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Rainforest Alliance, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly and UTZ. We also present results from interviews with coffee farmer and their perception of the impact of certification guidelines on management practices. While the presence of shade trees is positively related to measures of biodiversity, the benefit of certification is less clear. In many cases, existing management practices are more heavily influenced by historical and economic factors than certification. Clear and tangible changes in management practice and resulting ecological outcomes have been difficult to observe. We suggest approaches to future research in areas where there are little data in order to better evaluate the efficacy of third-party certification on biodiversity conservation.

Large-scale losses from nutrient and sediment loading, competition with non-native species, and loss of habitat connectivity cause concern for long-term persistence of submersed aquatic vegetation and the essential ecosystem services they provide. Extensive, connected habitats are more resilient due to higher probabilities of supporting large, genetically diverse populations that can tolerate, acclimate, or adapt to environmental changes. The aquatic angiosperm Vallisneria americana (wild celery) has large and extensive patches of habitat throughout the Potomac River, MD (USA), suggesting potential high resilience to perturbations. However, because the species reproduces both sexually and clonally, the extensive occupied habitat may not support the expected genetic diversity. We genotyped 758 samples from 29 sites using 10 microsatellites. We identified 401 multilocus genotypes (MLGs) from 726 samples for which we had completed genetic inforation. Genotypic diversity within sites ranged from 0.0-1.0. The largest clone spanned over 160 river km. Genetic distances among all MLGs were used in network analysis to quantify connectivity via dispersal. Breaks in geneflow across tidal vs. non-tidal waters were observed and could be associated with changes in dispersal regime (unidirectional vs. radial) or differences in selective environmental forces. Low genotypic diversity within some sites causes concern for resilience in changing conditions.

Since pledges to finance biodiversity preservation are a fraction of the identified needs, scientists must develop tools to help prioritize the many goals. Analysts and policy makers often describe this problem with the "Noah's Ark" metaphor to imply that society must choose how much biodiversity to save in aggregate and which specific components of it to save. Unfortunately, economic models proposed to answer these questions don't capture the complexity and interrelatedness that enriches ecological perspectives while ecological models often ignore the anthropogenic aspects that drive economic analysis. I develop a model for prioritizing species conservation policies that advances the integration of the economic and ecological perspectives. I start with Weitzman's (Econometrica 1998) basic Noah's Ark model that prioritizes species and build upon Perry's (EcolEcon 2010) and Arponen's (BiodiversConserv 2012) work to develop a model that includes economic and ecological concerns. I then show how this microeconomic ranking fits within Norgaard's (EcolEcon 2010) macro-oriented ecological economics framework. I demonstrate this methodology with two examples from current issues concerning protecting Keoladeo National Park (India). In the first example I compare protecting the Siberian crane, the Sarus crane, and the greater spotted eagle. In the second example, I compare providing water to the park via monsoon runoff in a pipeline to restoring the flow of the Gambhir River.

As global change science highlights, human activities dramatically impact biodiversity. Anthromes are geographical categories that extend biomes by representing significant ecological patterns created by sustained direct human interactions with ecosystems. We used anthromes to analyze the current global distribution of conservation efforts (priority, protection, study). We analyzed (1) the area encompassed by biodiversity hotspots in each anthrome, (2) the total protected area in each anthrome, and (3) the number of terrestrial ecological studies from 2005-2009 in each anthrome. These proxies served as a gap analysis, identifying anthromes that are under-prioritized, under-studied, or under-protected. We found that current efforts are not distributed evenly across anthromes, and that prioritization, protection, and study are not directly correlated with each other. For example, while a great density of ecological studies are conducted in the urban anthrome, the urban anthrome contains few protected areas or biodiversity hotspots. The remote woodland anthrome, meanwhile, encompasses much protected area, but had been less studied and less prioritized under the biodiversity hotspot framework. Our results demonstrate how anthromes can be used to visualize and communicate conservation opportunities in ecosystems that encompass humans. Anthromes promise to unite recent diverse proposals that call for "people friendly" conservation in "working landscapes."

Yupukari village in Region #9 Guyana is the hub for an 8 year mark recapture study of Melanosuchus niger (Black Caiman) and newly formed monitoring and headstarting program for Podocnemis unifilis (Yellow Side-necked turtle). While linkages with local efforts in education, ecotourism and conservation management grow these two community driven investigations in the pristine Rupununi environment have their roots within international cooperation and support. After 8 years and over 680 individuals caught and recorded the villager based "caiman crew" seeks collaborations to continue efforts within an open range of study areas (telemetry, dietary studies, management dialogs, genetics). In its second season the Yupukari turtle project introduced 57 "headstarted" turtles into the Rupununi river system and is working to expand to other communities past 2013. Yupukari also has a regionally recognized wildlife club, public library and community based ecotourism product that integrate the two studies.

So far, it has not been evaluated the influence of ecotones in conservation portfolios. Particularly important are subsidies between marine and terrestrial eco-regions. This has been implicitly recognized in the promotion of marine-terrestrial protected areas, although are not usually the result of a systematic conservation planning. But, how can we select land-sea joint areas for the integrated conservation? This study evaluates the inclusion of coastal fog (sea-land subsidy) as conservation object within a marine- terrestrial conservation portfolio for Chile. The coastal fog is known to allow the formation of very specific habitats in the coastal zone, promoting the maintenance of biodiversity and high local endemism. For the construction of this conservation object we use MODIS Aqua/Terra images, to develop conservation portfolios it was used the software MARXAN 2.1.1, and for information layer processing we used ArcGIS 10.1. We compared the conservation portfolios generated under different scenarios, with and without the explicit inclusion of the coastal fog as conservation object. We conclude that the coastal fog as a conservation object is a good proxy of terrestrial plant biodiversity in coastal areas and allows the proposal of the integrated protection of both coastal and marine systems.

Few studies have examined how buffer zone matrix type influences ecological processes in adjacent forest edge. The buffer zone surrounding Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda, has the opportunity to play an important role ecologically in the management of the protected area. Ourresearch looks at how different land uses in the buffer zone influence seed dispersal of large-seeded trees in forest edges. The distribution and abundance of seedlings of large-seeded trees are frequently controlled by the actions of frugivores. Changes in the composition or abundance of frugivores due to matrix effects could alter the pattern of seed removal, thus impacting regeneration processes. We used focal watches to test for differences in seed disperser visitations and dispersal of Chrysophyllum gorungosanum and Syzygium guineense, two large seeded species in forest edges adjacent to tea and pine buffer zones. Including interior control sites, we have a total of 663 observation hours in 2011-2012. Preliminary results indicate greater diversity and abundance of frugivores in forest edges adjacent to pine buffer vs. tea. Results from this research will contribute to the development of a holistic protected area buffer zone management approach that considers the ecological integrity of the protected area in addition to economic benefits of land use in the surrounding matrix.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an integral component of local, national, and international strategies for biodiversity conservation, but their impacts on human well-being remain contested. Advocates tout MPAs as win-win strategies for conservation and poverty alleviation, while opponents argue that MPAs place the welfare of fish above the well-being of impoverished fishing communities. To inform this debate, we are monitoring the social impacts of six MPAs in the Bird's Head Seascape (BHS). Using a quasi-experimental design, we examine social well-being across five social domains: economic well-being, health, political empowerment, education, and culture. Preliminary impact data from two MPAs and matched controls provides insights into the short-term impacts of MPA establishment on household well-being. We find that the social impacts of MPAs are far from uniform, with the magnitude and direction of impacts varying within and among social groups, across social domains, and between sites, resulting in complex arrays of impacts. In addition to providing insights for site-level adaptive management, the variable social impacts of MPA establishment in the BHS highlights the need for a more nuanced approach to evaluating the social impacts of conservation interventions as the foundation for analyzing protected area –poverty linkages.

Identifying the habitat preferences of large mammals is important for their conservation and management. The choice of habitat an animal makes will depend upon what resources it is selecting for and at which scale. We created multiple landscape scales by applying a smoothing kernel to each landscape variable, which averages all pixels within an increasing radius. We tested the difference in model fit between applying the smoothing kernel to all landscape variables together and individually. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate the likelihood of movement patterns of savannah elephants under different combinations of environmental variables at different scales. We compared the habitat preference predictions of maps created using only original, non-smoothed variables and maps created with additional smoothed variables. Smoothing different variables at different scales produced much better predictions of movement than a single scale for all variables. For elephants, maps of landscape quality based on multiple-scale smoothing match observed large-scale distributions of animals much more closely than maps based only on pixel-level selection. This analysis suggests that elephants select different habitat variables from the landscape at different scales, and the inclusion of multiple scales in habitat selection models will aid managers in identifying important habitat.