Robust study design is as important on the social as it is on the ecological side of applied ecological research

1. The effective management of natural systems often requires resource users to change their behaviour. This has led to many applied ecologists using research tools developed by social scientists. This comes with challenges as ecologists often lack relevant disciplinary training. 2. Using an example from the current issue of Journal of Applied Ecology that investigated how conservation interventions influenced conservation outcomes, we discuss the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary science. We illustrate our points using examples from research investigating the role of law enforcement and outreach activities in limiting illegal poaching and the application of the theory of planned behaviour to conservation. 3. Synthesis and applications. Interdisciplinary research requires equal rigour to be applied to ecological and social aspects. Researchers with a natural science background need to access expertise and training in the principles of social science research design and methodology, in order to permit a more balanced interdisciplinary understanding of social–ecological system

The effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services at delivering improvements in water quality: lessons for experiments at the landscape scale

Background Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) are used in impact evaluation in a range of fields. However, despite calls for their greater use in environmental management, their use to evaluate landscape scale interventions remains rare. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) incentivise land users to manage land to provide environmental benefits. We present the first RCT evaluation of a PES program aiming to improve water quality. Watershared is a program which incentivises landowners to avoid deforestation and exclude cattle from riparian forests. Using this unusual landscape-scale experiment we explore the efficacy of Watershared at improving water quality, and draw lessons for future RCT evaluations of landscape-scale environmental management interventions. Methods One hundred and twenty-nine communities in the Bolivian Andes were randomly allocated to treatment (offered Watershared agreements) or control (not offered agreements) following baseline data collection (including Escherichia coli contamination in most communities) in 2010. We collected end-line data in 2015. Using our end-line data, we explored the extent to which variables associated with the intervention (e.g. cattle exclusion, absence of faeces) predict water quality locally. We then investigated the efficacy of the intervention at improving water quality at the landscape scale using the RCT. This analysis was done in two ways; for the subset of communities for which we have both baseline and end-line data from identical locations we used difference-in-differences (matching on baseline water quality), for all sites we compared control and treatment at end-line controlling for selected predictors of water quality. Results The presence of cattle faeces in water adversely affected water quality suggesting excluding cattle has a positive impact on water quality locally. However, both the matched difference-in-differences analysis and the comparison between treatment and control communities at end-line suggested Watershared was not effective at reducing E. coli contamination at the landscape scale. Uptake of Watershared agreements was very low and the most important land from a water quality perspective (land around water intakes) was seldom enrolled. Discussion Although excluding cattle may have a positive local impact on water quality, higher uptake and better targeting would be required to achieve a significant impact on the quality of water consumed in the communities. Although RCTs potentially have an important role to play in building the evidence base for approaches such as PES, they are far from straightforward to implement. In this case, the randomised trial was not central to concluding that Watershared had not produced a landscape scale impact. We suggest that this RCT provides valuable lessons for future use of randomised experiments to evaluate landscape-scale environmental management interventions

Household economy, forest dependency & opportunity costs of conservation in eastern rainforests of Madagascar

The Government of Madagascar is trying to reduce deforestation and conserve biodiversity through creating new protected areas in the eastern rainforests. While this has many benefits, forest use restriction may bring costs to farmers at the forest frontier. We explored this through a series of surveys in five sites around the Corridor Ankeniheny Zahamena new protected area and adjacent national parks. In phase one a stratified random sample of 603 households completed a household survey covering demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and a choice experiment to estimate the opportunity costs of conservation. A stratified sub-sample (n = 171) then completed a detailed agricultural survey (including recording inputs and outputs from 721 plots) and wild-harvested product survey. The data have been archived with ReShare (UK Data Service). Together these allow a deeper understanding of the household economy on the forest frontier in eastern Madagascar and their swidden agricultural system, the benefits households derive from the forests through wild-harvested products, and the costs of conservation restrictions to forest edge communities

Quantifying the short-term costs of conservation interventions for fishers at Lake Alaotra, Madagascar

Artisanal fisheries are a key source of food and income for millions of people, but if poorly managed, fishing can have declining returns as well as impacts on biodiversity. Management interventions such as spatial and temporal closures can improve fishery sustainability and reduce environmental degradation, but may carry substantial short-term costs for fishers. The Lake Alaotra wetland in Madagascar supports a commercially important artisanal fishery and provides habitat for a Critically Endangered primate and other endemic wildlife of conservation importance. Using detailed data from more than 1,600 fisher catches, we used linear mixed effects models to explore and quantify relationships between catch weight, effort, and spatial and temporal restrictions to identify drivers of fisher behaviour and quantify the potential effect of fishing restrictions on catch. We found that restricted area interventions and fishery closures would generate direct short-term costs through reduced catch and income, and these costs vary between groups of fishers using different gear. Our results show that conservation interventions can have uneven impacts on local people with different fishing strategies. This information can be used to formulate management strategies that minimise the adverse impacts of interventions, increase local support and compliance, and therefore maximise conservation effectiveness

Statistical matching for conservation science

The awareness of the need for robust impact evaluations in conservation is growing and statistical matching techniques are increasingly being used to assess the impacts of conservation interventions. Used appropriately matching approaches are powerful tools, but they also pose potential pitfalls. We outlined important considerations and best practice when using matching in conservation science. We identified 3 steps in a matching analysis. First, develop a clear theory of change to inform selection of treatment and controls and that accounts for real‐world complexities and potential spillover effects. Second, select the appropriate covariates and matching approach. Third, assess the quality of the matching by carrying out a series of checks. The second and third steps can be repeated and should be finalized before outcomes are explored. Future conservation impact evaluations could be improved by increased planning of evaluations alongside the intervention, better integration of qualitative methods, considering spillover effects at larger spatial scales, and more publication of preanalysis plans. Implementing these improvements will require more serious engagement of conservation scientists, practitioners, and funders to mainstream robust impact evaluations into conservation. We hope this article will improve the quality of evaluations and help direct future research to continue to improve the approaches on offer.Peer reviewe

Net Gain: Seeking better outcomes for local people when mitigating biodiversity loss from development

Economic development projects are increasingly applying the mitigation hierarchy to achieve No Net Loss, or even a Net Gain, of biodiversity. Because people value biodiversity and ecosystem services, this can affect the wellbeing of local people, however these types of social impacts from development receive limited consideration. We present ethical, practical and regulatory reasons why development projects applying the mitigation hierarchy should consider related social impacts. We highlight risks to local wellbeing where projects restrict access to biodiversity and ecosystem services in biodiversity offsets. We then present a framework laying out challenges and associated opportunities for delivering better biodiversity and local wellbeing outcomes. Greater coordination between social and biodiversity experts, and early and effective integration of local people in the process, will ensure that efforts to reduce the negative impacts of development on biodiversity can contribute to, rather than detract from, local people’s wellbeing

Can REDD+ social safeguards reach the ‘right’ people? Lessons from Madagascar

AbstractThere is extensive debate about the potential impact of the climate mechanism REDD+ on the welfare of forest-dwelling people. To provide emission reductions, REDD+ must slow the rate of deforestation and forest degradation: such a change will tend to result in local opportunity cost to farmers at the forest frontier. Social safeguard processes to mitigate negative impacts of REDD+ are being developed and can learn from existing safeguard procedures such as those implemented by the World Bank. Madagascar has a number of REDD+ pilot projects with World Bank support including the Corridor Ankeniheny-Zahamena (CAZ). Nearly two thousand households around the corridor have been identified as ‘project affected persons’ (PAPs) and given compensation. We compare households identified as project affected persons with those not identified. We found households with more socio-political power locally, those with greater food security, and those that are more accessible were more likely to be identified as eligible for compensation while many people likely to be negatively impacted by the REDD+ project did not receive compensation. We identify three issues which make it difficult for a social safeguard assessment to effectively target the households for compensation: (a) poor information on location of communities and challenging access means that information does not reach remote households; (b) reluctance of people dependant on shifting agriculture to reveal this due to government sanctions; and (c) reliance by safeguard assessors on non-representative local institutions. We suggest that in cases where the majority of households are likely to bear costs and identification of affected households is challenging, the optimal, and principled, strategy may be blanket compensation offered to all the households in affected communities; avoiding the dead weight costs of ineffective safeguard assessments. The Paris Agreement in December 2015 recognised REDD+ as a key policy instrument for climate change mitigation and explicitly recognised the need to respect human rights in all climate actions. However, safeguards will be prone to failure unless those entitled to compensation are aware of their rights and enabled to seek redress where safeguards fail. This research shows that existing safeguard commitments are not always being fulfilled and those implementing social safeguards in REDD+ should not continue with business as usual

Who bears the cost of forest conservation?

Background While the importance of conserving ecosystems for sustainable development is widely recognized, it is increasingly evident that despite delivering global benefits, conservation often comes at local cost. Protected areas funded by multilateral lenders have explicit commitments to ensure that those negatively affected are adequately compensated. We make the first comparison of the magnitude and distribution of the local costs of a protected area with the magnitude and distribution of the compensation provided under the World Bank social safeguard policies (Performance Standard 5). Methods In the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor (a new protected area and REDD+ pilot project in eastern Madagascar), we used choice experiments to estimate local opportunity costs (n = 453) which we annualized using a range of conservative assumptions concerning discount rates. Detailed surveys covering farm inputs and outputs as well as off-farm income (n = 102) allowed us to explore these opportunity costs as a proportion of local incomes. Intensive review of publically available documents provided estimates of the number of households that received safeguard compensation and the amount spent per household. We carried out a contingent valuation exercise with beneficiaries of this compensation two years after the micro-development projects were implemented (n = 62) to estimate their value as perceived by beneficiaries. Results Conservation restrictions result in very significant costs to forest communities. The median net present value of the opportunity cost across households in all sites was US$2,375. When annualized, these costs represent 27–84% of total annual income for median-income households; significantly higher proportionally for poorer households. Although some households have received compensation, we conservatively estimate that more than 50% of eligible households (3,020 households) have not. Given the magnitude of compensation (based both on amount spent and valuation by recipients two years after the compensation was distributed) relative to costs, we argue that no one was fully compensated. Achieving full compensation will require an order of magnitude more than was spent but we suggest that this should be affordable given the global value of forest conservation. Discussion By analyzing in unprecedented depth both the local costs of conservation, and the compensation distributed under donor policies, we demonstrate that despite well-intentioned policies, some of the poorest people on the planet are still bearing the cost of forest conservation. Unless significant extra funding is provided by the global beneficiaries of conservation, donors’ social safeguarding requirements will not be met, and forest conservation in developing countries will jeopardize, rather than contribute to, sustainable development goals

Consumption of bushmeat around a major mine, and matched communities, in Madagascar

Mining can have serious biodiversity consequences and many mining operations take steps to mitigate their impacts. Evaluating their success poses a significant challenge because appropriate counterfactuals (what would have happened in the absence of the mine) are often unavailable. We aimed to estimate the effects of education and enforcement measures carried out by a large mine in eastern Madagascar on local consumption of illegal bushmeat. We adopt a quasi-experimental approach and use an interview technique designed to reduce sensitivity biases to compare levels of consumption amongst mine employees and people living within the mine�s intervention area with those of statistically matched control groups, and to relate differences to respondents� knowledge of relevant wildlife laws. Consumption was lower, and awareness of the law higher, amongst mine employees and those living in the mine�s intervention area. However caution should be applied in interpreting these results as evidence of the effectiveness of anti-bushmeat efforts by the mine due to potential confounding factors: for example abundance of bushmeat species may vary between the study areas, and our method may not have completely removed the sensitivity of questions about illegal consumption. This illustrates the challenges of evaluating conservation impacts. We highlight the low level of understanding of wildlife laws, including among mine employees, and suggest better communication of these laws, as part of an education programme, could be a useful first step towards reducing illegal hunting