Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) were originally defined as linking biodiversity conservation in protected areas with local socioeconomic development (Wells & Brandon 1992); they have become management and conservation approaches linking biodiversity conservation with the socioeconomic development interests of different stakeholders at local, regional and national levels (Franks & Blomley 2004). ICDPs rely upon integrated management techniques that bring together stakeholders from different sectors in the creation and implementation of management plans with the long-term objective of managing the natural resources in a rational and sustainable manner (Cicin-Sain & Knecht, 1988). The involvement of major stakeholders, including local community members, is a key element in assessing the success of ICDPs (Brown & Wyckoff-Baird, 1992). Here we demonstrate adaptive improvements that have been successfully implemented in two ICDPs in the Moulouya Estuary of north-east Morocco (35°07'N 2°20'W). The work is based on nine years of continual experience in ICDP implementation, the results from key informant interviews and an internal evaluation.

Study of the ecological and economic effects of invasive species has paralleled their progressively pervasive influence worldwide, yet their cultural impacts remain largely unexamined and therefore unrecognized. Unlike biological systems, where the ecological consequences of biological invasions are primarily negative, from an ethnoscientific standpoint, invasive species' impacts on cultural systems span a range of effects. Biological invasions affect cultural groups in myriad, often unpredictable and at times contradictory ways. This review groups case studies into a conceptual matrix suggesting three categorically different cultural impacts of invasive species. Culturally impoverishing invasive species precipitate the loss or replacement of culturally important native species and their associated cultural practices. Culturally enriching invasive species augment cultural traditions, through their inclusion in lexicons, narratives, foods, pharmacopoeias and other tangible and intangible ends. Culturally facilitating invasive species can provide continuity and reformulation of traditional ethnobiological practices. An understanding of the processes by which invasive biota become culturally enriching, facilitating, or impoverishing can contribute to articulating interdisciplinary programmes aimed at simultaneously conserving biological and cultural diversity.

Rapid growth in demand for tourist interactions with cetaceans in the wild constitutes a challenge to management. Short-term animal behaviour changes can have long-term biological consequences for individual animals and populations. This paper reviews the whale-watching management context, describing the interplay of the macro (global), meso (national/regional) and micro-level (local/site specific) policy, planning and management settings. Here, an integrated and adaptive management model based largely upon the delineation and monitoring of limits of acceptable change (LAC) parameters is proposed to address current shortcomings in the long-term sustainable management of whale-watching activities. Although no integrated management framework currently exists, a comprehensive management approach must be developed and applied in the interests of the long-term sustainable management of tourist interactions with cetaceans in the wild. The proposed management model highlights the importance of integrating multiple stakeholder perspectives in a way that is both research-informed and adaptive. Beyond tourist interactions with cetaceans, this management framework could be applied to a wide range of wildlife management contexts.

Tropical deforestation is one of the most important components of global change. Rates of deforestation in Brazil, the nation with the single largest concentration of tropical forest on Earth, have fluctuated widely over the last twenty years. Based on local knowledge, such fluctuations have been variously attributed to a wide range of factors such as the expansion of cattle ranching and soybean farming, infrastructural expansion and the proliferation of paved and unpaved roads, macroeconomic shocks to the Brazilian economy and international exchange rates. Many, if not all, of these arguments are plausible explanations for temporal variation in deforestation rates, but have to date not been subjected to rigorous statistical testing; this study investigates the potential impact of these variables on Brazilian tropical deforestation over the period 1990–2005. When analysed at the basin-wide scale, nearly all variables were highly inter-correlated through time and were also closely correlated with deforestation rate, but appropriate time-series analysis found no statistical evidence that any of the variables have systematically caused variation in deforestation rates. Power analysis showed that the variables may exert small or medium influences on deforestation rates, but the impacts, if present, are not strong. Future analyses of time series data at finer spatial scales that exploit spatiotemporal variation in deforestation rates and in the hypothesized predictor variables may find significant causal processes that are overlooked when analysed at the basin-wide scale.

Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems, but few studies have objectively quantified their status and threats. This study analysed Venezuelan dry forests at multiple scales, assessing status, present threats and the policy context shaping their future. Historical and current dry forest cover at both national and local scales were contrasted, and a set of quantitative risk assessment criteria applied. While dry forests were vulnerable nationally, in northern-central locations they were endangered. Clearing for cattle ranching and for intensive and subsistence agriculture were the principal factors driving dry forest loss at the national scale, while at a local level, urbanization and fire seemed to be the primary threats. The analysis emphasized the separation of risk assessment from the very different task of establishing conservation priorities; high risk areas may not necessarily be the highest priority for investment, and policy makers may become explicitly aware of the spatial scale at which their policies are implemented, as well as how these policies may affect or be affected by the status of ecosystems beyond their area of influence. The main challenge to future dry forest conservation is a paucity of explicit policies for management and use. However, scientifically-based management can support positive dry forest policies in many ways, including identifying locations and protocols for ecological restoration, maintaining seed banks, quantifying baseline conditions, and monitoring genetic diversity and other indicators.

Nature-based recreation can have deleterious impacts on biodiversity, even at low levels of habitat use. Such impacts can arise from a variety of sources such as trampling of vegetation or disturbance of nesting birds. Sensitive, yet highly visited, environments such as the coast are particularly vulnerable. It is predicted that levels of coastal recreation may increase in some areas as a result of climate change, but little is known about the potential implications for flora and fauna. This study is based on a case study of two beaches, Holkham and Cley, on the coast of East Anglia, UK. Visitor surveys were undertaken across a year to obtain information on visitors' habitat use at these sites, including an analysis of the routes they walked. From this, estimates of their current impacts on vegetation cover, vegetation species richness and ringed plover populations were made by applying known relationships between visitor passes and disturbance. Future changes in levels of recreation were modelled under two climate change scenarios, and the biodiversity implications were estimated. This study finds that overall levels of vegetation cover and diversity are likely to decline, although only by a small amount, if future visitor numbers increase due to warmer and drier weather conditions. However, these declines will be differential with dunes and areas close to entrances receiving the strongest magnitude impacts. Disturbance from visitors is found to already strongly restrict the distribution of ringed plovers at the study beaches, yet the few remaining areas of suitable habitat may disappear if tourism levels increase. Management strategies which limit the spatial extent of visitor impacts, possibly by the use of beach zoning, may help to minimize any additional reductions in biodiversity that accompany changes in recreation.

Independent evaluations of the impact and legacy of large donor-funded integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) are critically important but rarely undertaken. The India Eco-Development Project around Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR-IEDP) in southern India received US$ 6.0 million, of which 43.2% was spent on community-based conservation activities. The PTR-IEDP was internally evaluated as ‘successful’. Questionnaire surveys and on-site visits were used to independently evaluate its development impact and legacy, two years after the IEDP ended. Questionnaire surveys were administered to a random sample of 90 respondents from a treatment group who participated in and benefited from IEDP, and to 90 respondents from a control group who did not participate in IEDP. Among the treatment group, 71.1% of respondents were aware of IEDP's objectives, but receipt of community benefits did not influence their attitudes to conservation. Instead, their attitudes were best explained by previous experience of human-wildlife conflict, their age and their participation in an ecotourism-based profession. Furthermore, only 36.4% of the 55 community benefits sampled were still being used or maintained. Future investments in ICDPs, or any similar conservation and developmental projects need to carefully justify any of the developments they implement, and to use appropriate indicators and study design to measure project legacy.

Conflicts between resource users and managers are common and well documented on Mafia Island (Tanzania), where there has been a history of unresolved conflict over marine conservation initiatives. The perceptions of fisheries and park restrictions among resource users and managers were evaluated to try to understand the underlying causes of these conflicts. Responses concerning management preferences of government officials employed by the Mafia Island Marine Park (MIMP), personnel of the fisheries department, and heads of households in three villages in and out of the Park were compared. The largest differences in perceptions were found between villagers and managers, but all respondents agreed that minimum fish lengths and gear restrictions were beneficial and that benefits increased along the scale of the individual – community – national government. Villagers and government officials differed most in their perceptions towards area-based management, spatial and temporal closures, and species restrictions. Perceptions of management restrictions and benefits were only weakly correlated with the socioeconomic status of the villagers, but more strongly correlated with their living in or out of the Park and their family's economic options. The most negative perceptions towards restrictions were found in villages near fisheries closures, where there was a heavy reliance on marine resources and a higher numbers of jobs per household, but less reliance on cash crops, animal husbandry and tourism. The lack of these three options appears to have produced lower levels of support for MIMP and associated restrictions, and might be overcome by (1) using gear and minimum size restrictions more than fisheries closures and (2) increasing access to tourism, cash crops, animal husbandry and salaried employment, rather than simply increasing livelihood diversity.

Stated preference valuation surveys, such as choice modelling, are the preferred choice for environmental valuation of water quality improvements. Such willingness to pay (WTP) surveys commonly rely on face-to-face interviews or mail-out questionnaires on a relatively large representative sample of the target population. There is increasing concern that survey respondents may have insufficient information and limited opportunity to deliberate prior to stating their preferences about their WTP. Citizens' juries have been proposed as a novel way to overcome these limitations, providing information from expert witnesses and facilitating informed discussion within the jury, which is composed of members of the affected community. A choice modelling survey, using a 23-person citizens' jury, was conducted to estimate WTP for improvements in water quality in the Bremer River, one of the most polluted waterways in south-east Queensland, Australia. The choice modelling survey conducted pre- and post-exposure of the jurors to expert information about water quality in the Bremer River evaluated the usefulness of the jury process. A significant improvement in juror understanding was found in their responses to the survey. Importantly, following exposure to information from expert witnesses, jurors' educational background ceased to be important in determining their WTP. These findings suggest that citizens' juries could be valuable in overcoming the information problems associated with standard WTP surveys.