Species richness and ecosystem functioning of southeast asian dung beetle fauna

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Using theory and evidence to design behaviour change interventions for reducing unsustainable wildlife consumption

Efforts to shift unsustainable human behaviour are at the crux of many conservation interventions, particularly when addressing illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade. These efforts, often in the form of behaviour change interventions, have proven largely unable to counteract this pervasive issue, however, leading to calls for more robust intervention designs. In behavioural science fields like public health, design processes that integrate human behaviour theory and evidence from data collection are often developed to ground behaviour change interventions within a strong understanding of the context, thus supporting interventions that are efficient and have a higher likelihood of success. Here we detail the foundational process of designing an intervention around the use of a wildlife product by a particular group: Singaporean consumers of saiga horn (from the Critically Endangered Saiga tatarica). We employ both qualitative and quantitative data, along with human behaviour theories and past literature on the study system, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the many influences driving this target audience to purchase saiga horn products. We use this insight to identify the key influences to leverage in a behaviour change intervention: those that are both the most powerful and the most amenable to change. This work provides a reproducible process which can be used by other intervention implementers, highlights the often complex intricacies of socially influenced behaviour, and demonstrates why a methodical understanding of these intricacies is invaluable when attempting to shift human behaviour for conservation goals. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article

Evaluating a large-scale online behaviour change intervention aimed at wildlife product consumers in Singapore.

Interventions to shift the behaviour of consumers using unsustainable wildlife products are key to threatened species conservation. Whether these interventions are effective is largely unknown due to a dearth of detailed evaluations. We previously conducted a country-level online behaviour change intervention targeting consumers of the Critically Endangered saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) horn in Singapore. To evaluate intervention impact, we carried out in-person consumer surveys with >2,000 individuals pre- and post-intervention (2017 and 2019), and 93 in-person post-intervention surveys with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shopkeepers (2019). The proportion of self-reported high-usage saiga horn consumers in the target audience (Chinese Singaporean women aged 35-59) did not change significantly from pre- to post-intervention (24.4% versus 22.6%). However, post-intervention the target audience was significantly more likely than the non-target audience to accurately recall the intervention message and to report a decrease in saiga horn usage (4% versus 1% reported a behaviour change). Within the target audience, high-usage consumers were significantly more likely than lower-usage consumers to recall the message and report a behaviour change. Across respondents who reported a decrease in saiga horn usage, they cited the intervention message as a specific reason for their behaviour change significantly more than other reasons. Additionally, across all respondents, the belief that saiga is a common species in the wild decreased significantly from pre- to post-intervention. TCM shopkeepers, however, cited factors such as price and availability as the strongest influences on saiga horn sales. In sum, the intervention did significantly influence some consumers but the reduction of high-usage consumer frequency was not significant at the population level. We explore reasons for these findings, including competing consumer influences, characteristics of the intervention, and evaluation timing. This work suggests our intervention approach has potential, and exemplifies a multi-pronged in-person evaluation of an online wildlife trade consumer intervention

Saiga horn user characteristics, motivations, and purchasing behaviour in Singapore.

Unsustainable wildlife trade is a pervasive issue affecting wildlife globally. To address this issue, a plethora of demand reduction efforts have been carried out. These necessitate consumer research which provides crucial knowledge for designing and evaluating targeted interventions. We implemented a rigorous consumer survey on saiga (Saiga tatarica) horn use in Singapore, where usage is legal and widely sold. Saiga are Critically Endangered antelopes from Central Asia with horns (often marketed as ling yang) used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Few past studies have assessed saiga horn consumers. This work is the most extensive consumer research to date specifically characterising saiga horn consumers and usage. We conducted 2294 in-person surveys on saiga horn use with Chinese Singaporeans, employing neutral questioning approaches. We found 19% of individuals reported saiga horn as a product they choose most often for themselves and/or others when treating fever and/or heatiness (a TCM state of illness), indicating a minimum estimate of high-frequency usage, not including possible low-frequency users. Overall saiga users were most characterised as middle-aged Buddhists and Taoists. However, saiga users were found in a range of demographic groups. Women preferred saiga shavings (the more traditional form), while men preferred saiga cooling water (the more modern form). About 53% of individuals who used saiga horn themselves also bought it for someone else. Buyers for others were most likely to be female middle-aged Buddhists or Taoists. Key motivating reasons for usage were "it works" and "someone recommended it to me." The top two reported recommenders were family and TCM shopkeepers. Saiga users were more likely than non-saiga users to perceive saiga as a common species in the wild. This research holds significance for interventions targeting saiga horn consumption within Singapore and throughout Asia, by identifying potential target audiences, product types, non-desirable alternatives, and motivations for use

Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change Mitigation: Challenges and Opportunities for the ASEAN Region

Nature-based climate solutions (NbS) are widely available, scalable, and cost-effective mechanisms to sequester carbon and safeguard Southeast Asia’s large carbon stocks. In addition, NbS provide ample co-benefits such a reducing haze, protecting biodiversity and shorelines, ecosystem services, and can provide economic opportunities through carbon credits and small-scale economies

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State-led agricultural subsidies drive monoculture cultivar cashew expansion in northern Western Ghats, India

Agricultural commodity production constitutes an important livelihood source for farmers but significantly contributes to tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss. While the socioecological effects of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, cocoa and coffee are well studied, the effects for commodities such as cashew (Anacardium occidentale) have received less attention. Global cultivated area for cashew increased rapidly from 526,250 ha in 1980 to ~5.9 million ha in 2018. India is the world's second largest cashew producer, with cashew farms often occurring adjacent to remnant forests. To mitigate deforestation for cashew expansion, it is necessary to understand present-day land use policies and management practices that drive this expansion. Through semi-structured interviews (n = 65) and a literature review on agricultural policies in India, we evaluated the role of state-led land use policies in cashew expansion and characterised present-day cashew farming systems in the Sawantwadi-Dodamarg landscape in India. Agricultural subsidies introduced from 1980s to 1990s encouraged cultivar cashew expansion and influenced land use conversion from rice and privately owned forest to cashew. Farmers preferred cultivar cashew as they produced higher yields faster, although they required more agrochemical inputs and were susceptible to pests and wildlife depredation. About 80% of farmers had planted cashew farms by clearing forests in the past 30 years and expressed interest to continue the same. Farmers avoided applying for government-sponsored compensation for crop losses due to wildlife depredation and chose instead to expand cultivar cashew into forested areas. Our study deepens the understanding of how government-led agricultural subsidies drive farmers' uptake of cashew cultivars, farmers' cashew management practices, and how these factors drive deforestation in this landscape at the state and farm level. We recommend further research with equitable stakeholder participation in cashew farming systems to devise sound planning for forest conservation and sustainability standards for the cashew industry.Ministry of Education (MOE)National Research Foundation (NRF)Published versionThis work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 RG145/19 Grant secured by J.S.H.L. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This research was supported by the Earth Observatory of Singapore via its funding from the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence initiative

Evaluating the social and environmental factors behind the 2015 extreme fire event in Sumatra, Indonesia

Fires in Indonesia release excessive carbon and are exacerbated during drier El Niño years. The recent 2015 fires were affected by an extended drought caused by a strong El Niño event. This led to severe haze conditions across Southeast Asia, resulting in adverse socioeconomic and health impacts. Here, we evaluate the social and environmental factors that contributed to the 2015 extreme fires in Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra. We developed proxy variables for plausible drivers of fire which contribute either as a predisposing condition or as an ignition source for fires. We evaluated how these variables influenced fire count at an administrative regency-level and fire occurrence at a pixel-level (1 km2). We used generalized linear mixed effect models to model fire count at the regency-level and boosted regression trees to model fire occurrence at the pixel-level. Rainfall, slope and population density were the most important variables predicting fires at both levels. Economic variables such as the proportion of small-scale (<10 ha) and medium-scale (10–100 ha) plantation landholdings, and the reported use of fires to clear agricultural lands in villages were important in explaining fire count at the regency-level. At the pixel-level, distance from roads and the number of recorded burns over peatlands were important in explaining fire occurrence. The main influence of rain on fires corroborates with previous studies, and highlights the importance of establishing an early warning system for droughts to better prevent and manage future extreme fire events. Mitigation efforts for future fires, especially during El Niño years, can focus on identifying high-risk areas using environmental data on rainfall, slope, peatlands, and previously burnt peat areas, as well as social data related to population density, access to roads, extents of small- and medium-plantation landholdings, and village-level propensity to burn land for agriculture.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)Published versio

Mapping cashew monocultures in the Western Ghats using optical and radar imagery in Google Earth Engine

Tropical deforestation is increasingly driven by the expansion of agricultural commodity production. Mapping commodity crops is an important step towards monitoring commodity-driven deforestation. Advances in remote sensing technology, such as the availability of high-resolution imagery and the combination of optical and radar imagery have enabled the detection of the tree-like crops which are difficult to distinguish from forest cover. Cashew is an example of a tree-like crop that grows in areas with high forest cover and biodiversity. Cashew is reported to occupy ∼7.1 million ha globally yet mapping it has been constrained by unclear boundaries due to spatial mixing with forests, an indistinct spectral signature, and structural composition that resembles forests. We employed optical, radar, and a combination of the two imagery types to detect and map cashew monocultures in south Maharashtra, India for 2020. We performed a land cover classification on Google Earth Engine using Random Forest, Classification And Regression Trees and Support Vector Machine algorithms. The combination of Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 SAR imagery using Random Forest algorithm yielded the highest unbiased overall accuracy (83%) and unbiased producer's and user's accuracies of 71% and 86% respectively for cashew land cover and was considered the best approach. According to our best approach, monoculture cashew plantations occupy 53,350.37 ha of total land area in the Sawantwadi- Dodamarg landscape in India. This study shows that a combination of optical and radar imagery can be used for cashew land cover classification in the Western Ghats, and future studies could modify these methods for cashew mapping in other landscapes. This study contributes to a growing body of literature supporting the use of both optical and radar imagery for detecting tree-like crop cover.Ministry of Education (MOE)National Research Foundation (NRF)Published versionFunding for the study was provided by the Singaporean Ministry of Education Academic Tier 1 Research Funds (RG145/19 (NS)) and the Navjot Sodhi Conservation Research Award 2021. This research was supported by the Earth Observatory of Singapore via its funding from the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence initiative

Geophysical and anthropogenic drivers for global and regional fire emission trends from 2001 to 2019

Fire plays an important role in the earth system. While some aspects of fire including burnt area and fire frequencies have been extensively studied; fire carbon emissions, which could exert significant influence on the carbon cycle and a wide range of geophysical processes relating to ecosystem services and human well-being, are relatively understudied in terms of its global trends and drivers. We investigated fire emission trends from 2001 to 2019 at global and regional scales using total carbon emission data from the fourth generation Global Fire Emission Database (GFED4s). We identified geophysical and anthropogenic drivers for fire emission trends for regions defined by geographical regions and biomes with a causal model; and quantified driver importance with machine learning models by estimating their impact on fire emissions. We observed an insignificant global fire emission trend; mainly caused by conflicting fire emission trends in tropical savanna/grasslands and boreal forests. The two biomes were the largest sources for global fire emissions. Tropical savanna/grasslands contributed 60% to global fire emissions and showed a decreasing fire emission trend at a rate of -9.7±1.4 ×10 12 gC/year; boreal forests contributed around 8% and increased at a rate of 7.4±2.2 × 10 12 gC/year (rates estimated by Huber robust regression). At the regional scale, we found that fire emission trends were driven by geophysical factors for all regions. Anthropogenic interventions only caused changes in fire emissions in limited regions, including all biomes in Africa, and some biomes in Boreal Asia, Central Asia and North America. Decreasing fire emission trends in tropical savanna/grasslands mainly occurred in Africa; and the most dominant drivers were anthropogenic interventions, namely agriculture expansion and the subsequent declines in vegetation. Increasing fire emissions from boreal forests largely came from Boreal Asia, where anthropogenic interventions were also important drivers, and climatic drivers relating to moisture, drought, and temperature played a vital role as well, especially moisture. Vegetation indices were also identified as drivers for this region but were the least important ones. Our results suggested future fire emission trend for boreal forests in Boreal Asia could be highly vulnerable to climate change. It is possible that fire emissions in this region continue to increase if the climate becomes drier since drivers relating to moisture were highly important. On the other hand, further decrease for fire emissions in African savanna/grasslands is limited by the already shrunk vegetation. Therefore, at the global scale, risks of increasing fire carbon emissions are rather high. Increasing carbon emissions and the slow recovery of carbon sink capacity in burnt forests imply long-term net carbon source from boreal forests, which could be challenging for climate mitigation.Nanyang Technological UniversityS.W., S.W.S. and J.S.H.L. 598 receive financial support from an Imperial-NTU Seed Grant (INCF-2021-006) for this study. S.W. is 599 supported by NTU Research Scholarship (PhD)