Introducing Elinor for monitoring the governance and management of area-based conservation.

Monitoring the governance and management effectiveness of area-based conservation has long been recognized as an important foundation for achieving national and global biodiversity goals and enabling adaptive management. However, there are still many barriers that prevent conservation actors, including those affected by governance and management systems from implementing conservation activities and programs and from gathering and using data on governance and management to inform decision-making across spatial scales and through time. We explored current and past efforts to assess governance and management effectiveness and barriers actors face in using the resulting data and insights to inform conservation decision-making. To help overcome these barriers, we developed Elinor, a free and open-source monitoring tool that builds on the work of Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom to facilitate the gathering, storing, sharing, analyzing, and use of data on environmental governance and management across spatial scales and for areas under different governance and management types. We consider the process of codesigning and piloting Elinor with conservation scientists and practitioners and the main components of the assessment and online data system. We also consider how Elinor complements existing approaches by addressing governance and management in a single assessment at a high level for different types of area-based conservation, providing flexible options for data collection, and integrating a data system with an assessment that can support data use and sharing across different spatial scales, including global monitoring of the Global Biodiversity Framework. Although challenges will continue, the process of developing Elinor and the tool itself offer tangible solutions to barriers that prevent the systematic collection and use of governance and management data. With broader uptake, Elinor can play a valuable role in enabling more effective, inclusive, and durable area-based conservation.

Introducción de Elinor para el monitoreo de la gobernanza y la gestión de la conservación con base en zonas geográficas Resumen El monitoreo de la efectividad de la gobernanza y de la gestión de la conservación basada en zonas geográficas ha sido reconocido durante mucho tiempo como una base importante para alcanzar las metas nacionales y mundiales de la biodiversidad y permitir un manejo adaptativo. Sin embargo, todavía existen barreras que evitan que los actores de la conservación, incluidos aquellos afectados por los sistemas de gobernanza y gestión, implementen actividades y programas de conservación y recopilen y usen datos de la gobernanza y la gestión para informar las decisiones a lo largo de las escalas espaciales y a través del tiempo. Exploramos los esfuerzos hechos en la actualidad y en el pasado para evaluar la efectividad de la gobernanza y la gestión así como las barreras que los actores enfrentan al usar los datos y el conocimiento resultantes para informar la toma de decisiones de conservación. Para ayudar a derribar estas barreras desarrollamos Elinor, una herramienta de monitoreo gratuita y de software libre que parte del trabajo de la ganadora del Premio Nobel Elinor Ostrom, para facilitar la recopilación, almacenamiento, divulgación, análisis y uso de los datos sobre la gobernanza y la gestión ambiental en las escalas espaciales y para las zonas con diferentes tipos de gobernanza y gestión. Planteamos co­diseñar y pilotear Elinor con los científicos y practicantes de la conservación y usando los componentes principales del sistema de evaluación y de datos en línea. También planteamos cómo Elinor complementa las estrategias existentes al abordar la gobernanza y la gestión en una sola evaluación a un nivel elevado para diferentes tipos de conservación basada en zonas geográficas, lo que proporciona opciones flexibles para la colecta de datos, e integramos un sistema de datos con una evaluación que soporta el uso y divulgación de datos en diferentes escalas espaciales, incluido el Marco Mundial para la Biodiversidad. Aunque los retos seguirán existiendo, el proceso de desarrollo de Elinor y la propia herramienta ofrecen soluciones tangibles a las barreras que previenen la colecta sistemática y el uso de datos de la gobernanza y la gestión. Con una mayor aceptación, Elinor puede tener un papel importante en el momento de hacer posible una conservación basada en zonas geográficas más eficaz, integradora y duradera.

Politics of vulnerability: Impacts of COVID-19 and Cyclone Harold on Indo-Fijians engaged in small-scale fisheries.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of our health, social, and economic systems. While responding to the health crisis, governments are scrambling to understand and address the knock-on economic effects from market disruptions, and respond to other major disturbances (e.g. natural disasters). We conducted 61 key informant interviews with Indo-Fijian small-scale fisheries (SSF) actors (i.e. fishers, boat owners (that may or may not fish), crew members, and traders) in May 2020, two months after Fiji got its first case of COVID-19 and a month after Cyclone Harold hit the country. We examined how these SSF groups whose access to resources depends on their ability to navigate existing social relations of power, have lived through, experienced, and responded to the two stresses. We found the main impact of COVID-19 on SSF actors was the reduction in sales of fish (73.8 % of respondents) likely a result of reduction in local consumption and/or the loss of tourism markets. Loss of purchasing power meant almost a fifth of Indo-Fijian SSF actors interviewed (comprising 44.4 % of crew members, 16.4 % fishers, 11.5 % boat owners, 8.3 % traders) were unable to obtain sufficient food to meet their families' daily needs. Many of these SSF actors do not have access to social security or similar safety nets leaving them vulnerable to the current crisis as well as to other shocks and changes. Furthermore, social inequities and power relations surrounding access to fisheries resources and government aid contributed to their vulnerability to economic stresses from COVID-19 and a severe cyclone. An understanding of early impacts of COVID-19 on SSF through an intersectional lens can assist decision-makers to quickly mobilise assistance to help people who are most vulnerable, and avoid widening inequities among social groups.

Five lessons for avoiding failure when scaling in conservation.

Many attempts to scale conservation actions have failed to deliver their intended benefits, caused unintended harm or later been abandoned, hampering efforts to bend the curve on biodiversity loss. Here we encourage those calling for scaling to pause and reflect on past scaling efforts, which offer valuable lessons: the total impact of an action depends on both its effectiveness and scalability; effectiveness can change depending on scale for multiple reasons; feedback processes can change socio-ecological conditions influencing future adoption; and the drive to scale can incentivize bad practices that undermine long-term outcomes. Cutting across these themes is the recognition that monitoring scaling can enhance evidence-informed adaptive management, reporting and research. We draw on evidence and concepts from disparate fields, explore new linkages between often isolated concepts and suggest strategies for practitioners, policymakers and researchers. Reflecting on these five lessons may help in the scaling of effective conservation actions in responsible ways to meet the triple goals of reversing biodiversity loss, combating climate change and supporting human wellbeing.

Assessing evidence on the impacts of nature-based interventions for climate change mitigation: a systematic map of primary and secondary research from subtropical and tropical terrestrial regions.

BACKGROUND: Nature-based interventions (NbIs) for climate change mitigation include a diverse set of interventions aimed at conserving, restoring, and/or managing natural and modified ecosystems to improve their ability to store and sequester carbon and avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Recent projections estimate that terrestrial NbIs can lead to more than one-third of the climate change mitigation necessary to meet the Paris Climate Agreement by 2030. Further, these interventions can provide co-benefits in the form of social and ecological outcomes. Despite growing recognition of the potential benefits, a clear characterization of the distribution and occurrence of evidence which supports linkages between different types of NbIs and outcomes for climate change mitigation, ecosystems, and people remains poorly understood. METHODS: This systematic map assesses the evidence base on the links between NbIs and climate change mitigation, social, and ecological outcomes in tropical and subtropical terrestrial regions. We searched three bibliographic databases, 65 organization websites, and conducted backward citation chasing within 39 existing evidence syntheses to identify relevant articles. Additionally, we reached out to key informants for additional sources of evidence. We then used machine learning to rank returned results by relevance at the title and abstract stage and manually screened for inclusion using predefined criteria at the title, abstract, and full text stages. We extracted relevant meta-data from included articles using an a priori coding scheme. Lastly, we conducted a targeted, complementary search to identify relevant review and synthesis articles to provide broader context for the findings of the systematic map. REVIEW FINDINGS: We included 948 articles in this systematic map. Most of the evidence base (56%) examined links between protection, natural resource management, and restoration interventions with changes to 'proxy' outcomes for climate change mitigation (changes to land condition, land cover, and/or land use). Other areas with high occurrence of articles included linkages between interventions within natural resource management and trees in croplands categories and changes to aboveground carbon storage and/or sequestration (17% of articles). A key knowledge gap was on measured changes in GHG emissions across all intervention types (6% of articles). Overall, articles in the evidence base did not often assess changes in co-benefits alongside direct or indirect changes for climate change mitigation (32%). In most cases, the evidence base contained studies which did not explicitly test for causal linkages using appropriate experimental or quasi-experimental designs. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence base for NbIs is significant and growing; however, key gaps in knowledge hamper the ability to inform ongoing and future investment and implementation at scale. More comprehensive evidence is needed to support causal inference between NbIs and direct outcomes for climate change mitigation to better determine additionality, permanence, leakage, and other unintended consequences. Similarly, priorities emerging from this map include the need for coordinated and harmonized efforts to collect diverse data types to better understand whether and how other outcomes (e.g. social, ecological) of NbIs can be achieved synergistically with mitigation objectives. Understanding potential benefits and trade-offs of NbIs is particularly urgent to inform rapidly expanding carbon markets for nature.

What evidence exists on the links between natural climate solutions and climate change mitigation outcomes in subtropical and tropical terrestrial regions? A systematic map protocol.

Background: Natural climate solutions (NCS)-actions to conserve, restore, and modify natural and modified ecosystems to increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-are increasingly regarded as important pathways for climate change mitigation, while contributing to our global conservation efforts, overall planetary resilience, and sustainable development goals. Recently, projections posit that terrestrial-based NCS can potentially capture or avoid the emission of at least 11 Gt (gigatons) of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, or roughly encompassing one third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goals by 2030. NCS interventions also purport to provide co-benefits such as improved productivity and livelihoods from sustainable natural resource management, protection of locally and culturally important natural areas, and downstream climate adaptation benefits. Attention on implementing NCS to address climate change across global and national agendas has grown-however, clear understanding of which types of NCS interventions have undergone substantial study versus those that require additional evidence is still lacking. This study aims to conduct a systematic map to collate and describe the current state, distribution, and methods used for evidence on the links between NCS interventions and climate change mitigation outcomes within tropical and sub-tropical terrestrial ecosystems. Results of this study can be used to inform program and policy design and highlight critical knowledge gaps where future evaluation, research, and syntheses are needed. Methods: To develop this systematic map, we will search two bibliographic databases (including 11 indices) and 67 organization websites, backward citation chase from 39 existing evidence syntheses, and solicit information from key informants. All searches will be conducted in English and encompass subtropical and tropical terrestrial ecosystems (forests, grasslands, mangroves, agricultural areas). Search results will be screened at title and abstract, and full text levels, recording both the number of excluded articles and reasons for exclusion. Key meta-data from included articles will be coded and reported in a narrative review that will summarize trends in the evidence base, assess gaps in knowledge, and provide insights for policy, practice, and research. The data from this systematic map will be made open access. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13750-022-00268-w.

What evidence exists on the links between natural climate solutions and climate change mitigation outcomes in subtropical and tropical terrestrial regions? A systematic map protocol.

BACKGROUND: Natural climate solutions (NCS)-actions to conserve, restore, and modify natural and modified ecosystems to increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-are increasingly regarded as important pathways for climate change mitigation, while contributing to our global conservation efforts, overall planetary resilience, and sustainable development goals. Recently, projections posit that terrestrial-based NCS can potentially capture or avoid the emission of at least 11 Gt (gigatons) of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, or roughly encompassing one third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goals by 2030. NCS interventions also purport to provide co-benefits such as improved productivity and livelihoods from sustainable natural resource management, protection of locally and culturally important natural areas, and downstream climate adaptation benefits. Attention on implementing NCS to address climate change across global and national agendas has grown-however, clear understanding of which types of NCS interventions have undergone substantial study versus those that require additional evidence is still lacking. This study aims to conduct a systematic map to collate and describe the current state, distribution, and methods used for evidence on the links between NCS interventions and climate change mitigation outcomes within tropical and sub-tropical terrestrial ecosystems. Results of this study can be used to inform program and policy design and highlight critical knowledge gaps where future evaluation, research, and syntheses are needed. METHODS: To develop this systematic map, we will search two bibliographic databases (including 11 indices) and 67 organization websites, backward citation chase from 39 existing evidence syntheses, and solicit information from key informants. All searches will be conducted in English and encompass subtropical and tropical terrestrial ecosystems (forests, grasslands, mangroves, agricultural areas). Search results will be screened at title and abstract, and full text levels, recording both the number of excluded articles and reasons for exclusion. Key meta-data from included articles will be coded and reported in a narrative review that will summarize trends in the evidence base, assess gaps in knowledge, and provide insights for policy, practice, and research. The data from this systematic map will be made open access.