Forests are an important source of environmental services and livelihoods in Africa, thus it is important to determine potential drivers of forest loss. Over recent decades, forest cover has been declining steadily in Malawi. This paper attempts to evaluate the influence of agricultural input subsidies on forest conversion in Malawi. A two-stage regression model analysis of 2009 farm survey data from Chimaliro and Liwonde Forest reserves in Kasungu and Machinga districts, respectively, did not reveal direct evidence of policy-induced forest clearing for agricultural expansion. Instead, subsidy-induced agricultural intensification of food crops, especially maize, appeared to have reduced the rate and extent of forest clearing among households in Malawi compared with households not benefiting from subsidies. However, indirect negative impacts on forests arose due to offtake of trees to construct drying sheds for tobacco, a local cash crop. These findings have implications for designing strategies for simultaneously conserving forests while promoting food security in rural areas, and shed light on the direct and indirect effects of input subsidies.

International aid projects in post-communist countries were meant to support environmental protection during the transition period and to introduce new standards of environmental governance. While the outcomes of the World Bank biodiversity project in the Belavezhskaya Pushcha National Park in Belarus were evaluated positively after its delayed completion, an assessment using the same criteria 10 years later questioned its long-term effectiveness. This paper links current project outcomes with the implementation process, and uses this knowledge to deduce lessons for designing and implementing future international initiatives in Belarus and other post-communist contexts. There are four interlinked and project-specific reasons for the observed unsustainability of project outcomes are identified: (1) the predominance of the natural sciences, (2) an unbalanced representation of actors within the hierarchical system of governance, (3) powerful implementation by official high-level actors, and (4) insufficient knowledge of participatory methods and principles of multi-level governance. In order to introduce new standards for environmental governance, international aid projects should (1) streamline communications between the actors at different scales, including donor organizations, local agencies and stakeholders in the receiving countries; and (2) use ongoing project and, in particular, process assessment to reflect on the project progress to achieve longer term effectiveness of project outcomes.

For fisheries with multiple, competing objectives, identifying and applying reference points for management can present difficult trade-offs between long-term biological and shorter-term socioeconomic considerations. The term biological benchmarks is proposed to demarcate zones of population status based on conservation and production considerations. These scientifically derived benchmarks contrast with management reference points that generally require additional shorter-term socioeconomic information best obtained through public consultations. This paper illustrates the distinction between biological benchmarks and management reference points with a case study on Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.). In Canada, the management and assessment of wild Pacific salmon are guided by a major 2005 conservation policy, which calls for the identification of biological benchmarks to categorize status of demographically isolated populations, and decision-support tools, such as management reference points, to integrate biological information with appropriate social and economic information. In the Fraser River (British Columbia, Canada), the selection of management reference points for sockeye salmon (O. nerka) fisheries explicitly considered trade-offs between the probability of meeting long-term biological objectives on component populations and harvest objectives on population aggregates. Decisions about reference points were made in a consultative process that included extensive stakeholder engagement. Other agencies are urged to distinguish biological benchmarks from management reference points to ensure transparency in the relative influence of biological versus socioeconomic information in decision making.

Carbon-based forest conservation requires the establishment of ‘reference emission levels’ against which to measure a country or region's progress in reducing their carbon emissions. In East Africa, landscape-scale estimates of carbon fluxes are uncertain and factors such as deforestation poorly resolved due to a lack of data. In this study, trends in vegetation cover and carbon for East Africa were quantified using moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover grids from 2002 to 2008 (500-m spatial resolution), in combination with a regional carbon look-up table. The inclusion of data on rainfall and the distribution of protected areas helped to gauge impacts on vegetation burning (assessed using 1-km spatial resolution MODIS active fire data) and biome trends. Between 2002 and 2008, the spatial extents of forests, woodlands and scrublands decreased considerably and East Africa experienced a net carbon loss of 494 megatonnes (Mt). Most countries in the area were sources of carbon emissions, except for Tanzania and Malawi, where the areal increase of savannah and woodlands counterbalanced carbon emissions from deforestation. Both Malawi and Tanzania contain large areas of planted forest. Vegetation burning was correlated with rainfall (forest only) and differed depending on land management. Freely available global earth observation products have provided ways to achieve rapid assessment and monitoring of carbon change hotspots at the landscape scale.

While management according to biological reference points is well established for many commercial marine fisheries, similar systems for more leisure based fisheries for freshwater fishes are less common. This paper describes the scientific foundation for management according to conservation limits and management targets for Norwegian populations of Atlantic salmon, a highly valued and heavily exploited anadromous fish species. Based on stock recruitment relationships during the freshwater phase, the biomass of females necessary to attain the carrying capacity (yielding average maximum recruitment) has been established as conservation limits for each of the 439 Norwegian populations. Using a simulation model based on reported catch and estimates of exploitation rates, the probability and percentage attainment of the conservation limits have been assessed annually since 2008, and exploitation advice provided for 176 of the largest populations. The number of populations that attained their conservation limits increased substantially after the new management scheme was introduced, despite that the number of returning salmon remained at historical low levels. Overall the populations evaluated in 2011 were at 95% of their conservation limits compared to 91% in 2008 and 85% in 2005. The improvement could largely be attributed to reduced exploitation rates, due to new restrictions in both the marine and river fisheries. The new management scheme also improved the catch statistics and stimulated data acquisition for management. Implementation of management according to conservation limits has been a success in terms of attaining the main management goal of protecting the Atlantic salmon populations by ensuring that an increasing number of the populations likely are at their maximum reproductive capacity. Long-term increases in fisheries yield, the secondary management goal, are likely to be attained, but remain to be documented. Reference point based management of Atlantic salmon exemplifies management within the intersection of fisheries management and conservation biology, borrowing principles from both sides.

The Biosphere Reserve (BR) concept is an approach that simultaneously reconciles and promotes conservation of natural and cultural diversity, environmentally and socioculturally sustainable economic development, and research. This study focuses on the legal recognition of the BR concept as a tool for sustainable development (SD) in Ukraine, and what impact legislation has had on BR implementation. The BR concept has been incorporated into Ukrainian nature conservation legislation. However, interviews with locals engaged with the Roztochya BR initiative revealed that the aim to promote sustainability through stakeholder collaboration was poorly implemented. Legislative misplacement of the BR concept created misunderstandings among local people during the emergence of the Roztochya BR initiative. BR implementation may be improved by (1) choosing national terminology describing the concept carefully, because this affects stakeholder perceptions, (2) ensuring that legislation for BRs has a multi-sectoral character, and (3) ensuring that those who implement BR initiatives have the understanding, knowledge and will to lead and facilitate SD as a collaborative social learning process towards ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability.

Fuelwood is the dominant source of energy used by most rural households in southern Africa to meet daily domestic energy requirements. Due to limited financial resources, most rural households are unable to make the transition to electricity thus they remain dependant on the woodlands surrounding their settlements as a source of cheap energy. Unsustainable fuelwood harvesting due to increasing demand as a result of growing human populations may result in environmental degradation particularly in the high-density, communal savannah woodlands of South Africa. Evaluating the sustainability of current fuelwood harvesting patterns requires an understanding of the environmental impacts of past logging practices to establish patterns of woodland degradation. This study evaluates impacts of fuelwood harvesting from 1992–2009 on the woodland structure and species composition surrounding two rural villages located within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (Mpumalanga Province, South Africa). Both villages (Welverdiend and Athol) were of similar spatial extent and exhibited similar socioeconomic characteristics. The total wood stock in the communal woodlands of both villages declined overall (with greater losses seen in Welverdiend) and, in Welverdiend, there were also changes in the woodland structure and species diversity of the species commonly harvested for fuelwood over this period. The woodlands in Welverdiend have become degraded and no longer produce fuelwood of preferred species and stem size in sufficient quantity or quality. The absence of similar negative impacts in Athol suggests more sustainable harvesting regimes exist there because of the lower human population and lower fuelwood extraction pressure. The Welverdiend community has annexed neighbouring unoccupied private land in a social response to fuelwood scarcity. Athol residents behaved similarly during drought periods. The potential for future conflict with neighbouring conservation areas within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere is high if current land uses and fuelwood extraction patterns are maintained.

Sharing of benefits from nature conservation is widely regarded as a way to enhance local residents’ support for protected areas. While in past years, the effectiveness of such approaches has been investigated in detail, governance processes underpinning benefit sharing have received less attention. This study examines the legislation and implementation practice of a revenue sharing scheme in southern Ethiopia, an area that is currently undergoing substantial social and environmental changes that threaten livelihoods and ecosystems. Based on qualitative data from interviews, group discussions and workshops, four main areas of shortcomings in the current legislation and implementation practice were identified: information provision; imbalanced roles and responsibilities; compromised accountability; and the lack of connection between revenue and wildlife tourism in the minds of the recipients. While some of these factors fostered misunderstandings and misuse of the monies, others meant that even where revenue was disbursed it was not connected with wildlife conservation, and thus did not have the intended effect. A comparison between these factors and those in the literature on the evaluation of comanagement arrangements revealed substantial overlap. Revenue sharing may be regarded as part of the comanagement of wildlife areas, but to be successful the management of these areas needs to be shared, and not just the financial benefits.

Biodiversity conservation in the Ukrainian Carpathians cannot be accomplished without a clear understanding of the factors negatively impacting habitats and species, and long-term projection of these impacts. One factor that may severely alter the ecosystems involved is the introduction and spread of invasive plant species, but the potential distribution and spatial aggregation of suitable habitats for several invaders have not been quantified. The Maxent approach was used to model the potential establishment within the entire mountain range of 11 alien invasive plant species based on stratified sampling and herbaria records and six variables representing climatic extremes, topography, and anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Predictions of habitat suitability were projected to two future change scenarios depicting increasing rates of climate warming and anthropogenic disturbances in 2050 and 2100. Under current climate and disturbance patterns, the models predicted suitable habitats for invasive species establishment to be aggregated in the south-west, east and north-east of the Ukrainian Carpathians, along major rivers and roads at altitudes of up to c. 700 m. Eight per cent of the total area within protected areas was predicted to be potentially susceptible to invasion by at least one species, with 13% of these susceptible habitats being suitable for all 11 species. Under the future change scenarios, suitable habitat ranges increased significantly in the entire study area and within regions of high conservation value. All species were projected to gain suitable habitats at higher altitudes along linear habitats and to potentially expand their ranges laterally from habitats predicted as suitable for current conditions along small rivers and roads. Under the scenario solely of increased average seasonal temperatures, suitable habitats for the establishment of at least one species within protected areas and a proposed ecological network increased by more than 15 percentage points by 2050 and by more than 30 percentage points by 2100 when compared with predictions for current conditions. Similar future patterns were discernible for the aggregation of suitable habitats for all 11 species. Incorporating increases in anthropogenic pressures into climatic-change projections led to a significantly greater projected expansion of suitable habitats for establishment as compared to scenarios considering only climatic changes. As the 11 species have already established viable populations within protected areas, further spread of at least one species is likely if conservation planning is not changed to include the management of invasive species in such areas.

Minimizing the inherent conflict between protecting fauna and flora and accommodating the needs of the local communities is one of the greatest challenges facing protected area (PA) management in developing countries of the world. Allowing pastoralists access to PAs and their resources remains a contentious issue in southern Kenya, where retaliatory killing of African lions (Panthera leo) by Maasai pastoralists has caused a steep decline in the lion population, threatening local extinction. Previous studies that have shown that local people often have negative attitudes toward PAs; here PA policy during times of hardship is linked to attitudes toward lions and behavioural intentions. Different access policies to grazing inside Tsavo and Nairobi National Parks during the 2008/2009 drought influenced Maasai attitudes toward lions and their propensity to kill them. A semi-structured questionnaire (n = 206) and a multivariate model examine the relative importance of PA access and 11 additional predictors on individuals’ attitudes and reported inclination to kill lions. Access for livestock to PAs, benefits from wildlife and higher education were associated with positive attitudes toward lions and a lower reported propensity to kill. The success of lion conservation in Maasailand may depend upon recognizing and accommodating pastoralists’ inherent vulnerability to drought-induced livestock mortality.

Many sea cucumber fisheries have dramatically declined worldwide due to rapid overexploitation and ineffective management. This study designed an innovative management strategy for small-scale, data-limited sea cucumber fisheries in Pacific Island countries. Firstly, a local quota-based comanagement system was implemented in New Caledonia to manage a small-scale sandfish Holothuria scabra fishery. A habitat map derived from high-resolution satellite imagery was used to stratify survey sampling and assess the harvestable stock biomass. The latter has been monitored as the reference biomass (RB) since 2008 and repeatedly used by the local fishers’ organization and Fisheries Department officers to set adaptive total allowable catches and regulations of fishing effort. Results showed the excellent performance of this fishery between 2008 and 2012, both biologically (167% increase in total stock biomass) and economically (146% increase in annual returns from catches). Secondly, the assessment of the RB was generalized to multispecies sea cucumber fisheries in Vanuatu in 2011 before the proposed lifting of a five-year national moratorium. Building upon these practical case studies in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, this paper outlines an operational framework to inform sea cucumber fisheries policy in these two countries and discusses the upscaling of the proposed management strategy.

Effective conservation planning must anticipate the rates and patterns of dynamic threats to biodiversity, such as rapid changes in land use. Poor understanding and prediction of drivers and patterns of conversion of habitat can hinder assessments of the relative vulnerability of areas of remaining indigenous habitat to conversion, and identification of habitats in most immediate need of protection. Methods developed to model vulnerability to conversion vary in their complexity and applicability to conservation management. Generalized additive models provide a simple robust method to explore predictors and patterns of land-use conversion, and may be used to predict future patterns of conversion using recent land conversion data. This paper provides the first data-derived and statistically validated measurement of the vulnerability of New Zealand's indigenous grasslands to conversion. Higher altitude and more marginal (for agriculture and forestry) land showed greater conversion, and models based on earlier conversion patterns performed more poorly in predicting current patterns of conversion. Up-to-date land conversion data appear crucial for accurately predicting future vulnerability to habitat conversion.

The ultimate measure of the success or failure of conservation initiatives in an area will be the ecological health of that area and the sustainability of institutions which support that ecological health. Heretofore, no comprehensive data has been presented about the current conservation state of the area known as the Heart of Borneo (HoB), a mostly intact subset of the island of Borneo, which is an international conservation priority. This paper identifies a set of indicators representative of the biodiversity status of the HoB; collecting and analysing data concerning these indicators and combining these data with supplemental conservation information should provide an accurate assessment of the overall conservation state of the HoB. Based on the indicators identified in this study, the general biodiversity status of the HoB is rated as good, or viable, although there are specific elements of concern. Using the threat indicators identified in this study, the overall threat level is medium. Major threats from industrial forest conversion and mining currently exist mainly on the edges of the HoB, but are likely to expand further inland without any intervention simply based on proximity. Though most habitats within (but not outside) the HoB are generally intact, the current protected area system is insufficiently representative of the natural ecosystems of the HoB area and its management effectiveness is as yet unknown.

Human demands for food and fish meal are often in direct competition with forage needs of marine mammals, birds and piscivorous harvested fish. Here, two well-developed ecosystem models for the California Current on the West Coast of the USA were used to test the impacts on other parts of the ecosystem of harvesting euphausiids, forage fish, mackerel and mesopelagic fish such as myctophids. Depleting individual forage groups to levels that led to maximum sustainable yield of those groups may have both positive and negative effects on other species in the California Current. The most common impacts were on predators of forage groups, some of which showed declines of >20% under the scenarios that involved depletion of forage groups to 40% of unfished levels. Depletion of euphausiids and forage fish, which each comprise >10% of system biomass, had the largest impact on other species. Depleting euphausiids to 40% of unfished levels altered the abundance of 13–30% of the other functional groups by >20%; while depleting forage fish to 40% altered the abundance of 20–50% of the other functional groups by >20%. There are clear trade-offs between the harvest of forage groups and the ability of the California Current to sustain other trophic levels. Though higher trophic level species, such as groundfish, are often managed on the basis of reference points that can reduce biomass to below half of unfished levels, this level of forage species removal is likely to impact the abundance of other target species, protected species and the structure of the ecosystem.

Old-growth forests around the world are vanishing rapidly and have been lost almost completely from the European temperate forest region. Poor management practices, often triggered by socioeconomic and institutional change, are the main causes of loss. Recent trends in old-growth forest cover in Romania, where some of the last remaining tracts of these forests within Europe are located, are revealed by satellite image analysis. Forest cover declined by 1.3 % from 2000 to 2010. Romania's protected area network has been expanded substantially since the country's accession to the European Union in 2007, and most of the remaining old-growth forests now are located within protected areas. Surprisingly though, 72% of the old-growth forest disturbances are found within protected areas, highlighting the threats still facing these forests. It appears that logging in old-growth forests is, at least in part, related to institutional reforms, insufficient protection and ownership changes since the collapse of communism in 1989. The majority of harvesting activities in old-growth forest areas are in accordance with the law. Without improvements to their governance, the future of Romania's old-growth forests and the important ecosystem services they provide remains uncertain.

Semi-natural hay meadows are among the most biodiversity-rich terrestrial ecosystems, and are managed for conservation purposes in most of Europe, including Sweden. Romania has some of Europe's largest areas of grasslands still managed with traditional methods. Through interviews and field studies, current management practices were investigated in two Romanian villages, and compared with CAP-generated grassland management in Swedish hay meadows and historical Swedish management of grasslands. The study evaluated the effect of the eligibility criteria within both countries’ National Rural Development Programmes (NRDPs) on different ecologically important components of hay meadow management. The success of Swedish management was measured by assessing population trends for 25 grassland plant species. Current management proved to be considerably more diverse in Romania than in Sweden, but historical Swedish management was similar to management in Romania. Both countries’ NRDPs provide support for some management components, but create barriers against other components. The Romanian NRDP contained more barriers than the Swedish NRDP, yet Swedish management showed little success in preserving grassland plants. NRDPs should nourish the use of local and traditional knowledge in order to preserve biodiversity in semi-natural grasslands. There are major limitations in both countries’ NRDPs.

Conservation practitioners are increasingly faced with the need to compensate resource users because of restrictions imposed on access and use of natural resources. The idea that direct payments may facilitate compensation more effectively than a programme based upon income substitution is questioned through examining two direct payments initiatives in an Indonesian marine national park. Elite capture of the direct payments process was facilitated in a context characterized by malleable state institutions and powerful private business interests, thereby disadvantaging key resource-dependent groups. The ecological benefits of direct payments initiatives and of protected areas were compromised through the emphasis on business priorities rather than environmental criteria. These difficulties were mitigated through taking account of existing practices regarding resource access, ensuring equal distribution of benefits and introducing new systems gradually over a period of time through trusted individuals, thereby facilitating the acceptance of direct payments initiatives amongst key user groups.

The goals of ecosystem based management (EBM) are strategically ambiguous, meaning that they require interpretation to identify objectives for ecosystem state. Ecosystem states that are useful for achieving such objectives are known as reference points. Soft reference points specify both a state and a probability of the ecosystem being in that state. They are used with simulation models to identify management measures for which the risk of the ecosystem entering an undesirable state is below a specified level. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is responsible for the EBM of Antarctic krill fisheries. CCAMLR used soft reference points for the krill stock in the Scotia Sea and southern Drake Passage to set a regional catch limit. However, this catch limit needs spatial subdivision to protect predators from localized depletion. Model-based evaluations of different options for subdividing the catch limit used illustrative reference points to assess the depletion risk to multiple predators. This study demonstrates that the apparent risk is sensitive to the choice of reference point and method for aggregating modelled predators. EBM practitioners and stakeholders need to be aware that these factors could therefore bias comparisons of management measures. Nonetheless, qualitative distinctions between different spatial subdivision options are relatively consistent except at high levels of aggregation and extreme reference points. This study also demonstrates a lack of generality in the relationship between current and future ecosystem state. Thus, the EBM goal of maintaining ecosystem resilience implies different reference points for the current state of different ecosystem components. Despite early progress in defining soft reference points for the krill stock, CCAMLR has not yet defined reference points for krill predators. Structured dialogue aimed at identifying collective objectives might be necessary to achieve further progress in CCAMLR and other EBM organizations.