Persistence of Carex bigelowii–Racomitrium lanuginosum moss heath under sheep grazing in the Grampian Mountains, Scotland

Carex bigelowii–Racomitrium lanuginosum moss heath has been monitored on the summit of Glas Maol, Grampian Mountains, Scotland since 1990 to assess the impact of herbivores and snow-lie. This vegetation community has high conservation value in Britain, being near-natural and the habitat of some rare arctic-alpine birds. In recent decades, it has decreased in extent in British uplands, and changed in composition due to declining Racomitrium cover, with the main drivers believed to be heavy grazing and nitrogen deposition. Permanent plots were established for the monitoring, laid out at fixed distances from a ski corridor built in 1986. Sheep grazing was assessed by pellet-group counts, and botanical composition by point-quadrat analysis. Monitoring was in summer annually between 1990 and 1996, but less frequently since. The moss heath was found to retain its main characteristics from 1990 to 2008/09, with Carex bigelowii Torr. ex Schwein dominant and Racomitrium lanuginosum (Hedw.) Brid. having much cover. There was a small but significant increase in grasses, and lichens declined, but the community remained species-poor. Some ground experienced increased grazing pressure and suffered a temporary decline of Racomitrium, but recovery followed despite continuing substantial grazing. The species experiencing greatest change was Dicranum fuscescens Turner, which first increased but later lost most of its cover; its relationships to Racomitrium lanuginosum are discussed

A conflict management tool for conservation agencies

1. Growing pressure on natural resources is leading to more conservation conflicts. Governments and their statutory agencies devote increasing financial and human resources to this subject, but tend to adopt reactive, ad hoc approaches to management. 2. We combined theory and empirical data about five conservation conflicts in a transdisciplinary collaboration to co-develop a novel decision-making tool. 3. This tool uses a systematic stepwise approach with six distinct decision stages: (i) establishing whether there is a conflict or an impact; (ii) understanding the context of the conflict, including the stakeholders affected; (iii) developing shared understanding of the conflict and goals; (iv) building a consensus on how to reach the goals; (v) implementing measures; and (vi) monitoring the outcomes. 4. Policy implications. We argue this new tool has wide applicability and democratic legitimacy and offers an exciting and practical approach to improve the management of conservation conflicts

Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation

Mountain areas of Europe have been managed by humans for a long time, leading to a prevalence of semi-natural habitats in mountain landscapes today. These landscapes contain both natural and cultural heritage; however, natural and cultural heritage are rarely considered together when valuing landscapes and developing management plans in protected areas. Here we present a case study of seven protected areas in the mountains of Great Britain and Norway. We take a long-term perspective on landscape and land-use change and propose an integrated model of landscape valuation on the basis of combined natural and cultural heritage. Our model plots indicators of natural and cultural heritage along a gradient of land-use intensity, allowing simultaneous assessment and highlighting how valuation depends on what type of heritage is considered. We show that while contemporary land-use changes follow similar trajectories in Norway and Britain, different land-use histories mean that the loss of heritage differs between the regions. The model presented here thus allows for the consolidation of valuation based on both cultural and natural heritage in landscapes.publishedVersio

The impact of uncertainty on cooperation intent in a conservation conflict

1. Stakeholder cooperation can be vital in managing conservation conflicts. Laboratory experiments show cooperation is less likely in the presence of uncertainty. Much less is known about how stakeholders in real‐life conservation conflicts respond to different types of uncertainty. 2. We tested the effects of different sources of uncertainty on cooperative behaviour using a framed field experiment and interviews. The experiment compared a baseline scenario of perfect certainty with scenarios including either: (a) scientific uncertainty about the effectiveness of a conflict‐reduction intervention; (b) administrative uncertainty about intervention funding; or (c) political uncertainty about the extent of community support. We applied these scenarios to a conservation conflict in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, involving the management of geese to simultaneously meet both conservation and farming objectives. We asked 149 crofters (small‐scale farmers) if they would commit to cooperate with others by helping fund a goose management plan given the three sources of uncertainty. 3. On average, intention to cooperate was highest (99%) in scenarios without uncertainty, and lowest under administrative uncertainty (77%). Scientific uncertainty and political uncertainty both had less of an effect, with over 95% of crofters predicted to be willing to cooperate in these scenarios. Crofters who indicated concern for other crofters suffering the impact of geese were more likely to cooperate. The longer an individual had been a crofter, the less likely they were to cooperate. 4. Synthesis and applications. Crofters’ intention to cooperate is high but lessened by uncertainty, especially over the commitment from other stakeholders such as government, to cooperate on goose management. Existing cooperation on goose management may be at risk if uncertainty is not reduced outright or commitments between parties are not strengthened. This has wide applicability, supporting the need for researchers and government advisers to: (a) determine how uncertainty will impact intention of stakeholders to cooperate; and (b) take steps (such as uncertainty reduction, communication or acceptance) to reduce the negative impact of uncertainty on cooperation

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

BACKGROUND: Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. METHODS: The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systems, sample registration systems, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. FINDINGS: Globally, 18·7% (95% uncertainty interval 18·4–19·0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58·8% (58·2–59·3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48·1 years (46·5–49·6) to 70·5 years (70·1–70·8) for men and from 52·9 years (51·7–54·0) to 75·6 years (75·3–75·9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49·1 years (46·5–51·7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87·6 years (86·9–88·1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216·0 deaths (196·3–238·1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38·9 deaths (35·6–42·83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5·4 million (5·2–5·6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult males, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. INTERPRETATION: This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, women, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing

Effects of conservation management of landscapes and vertebrate communities on Lyme borreliosis risk in the United Kingdom

Landscape change and altered host abundance are major drivers of zoonotic pathogen emergence. Conservation and biodiversity management of landscapes and vertebrate communities can have secondary effects on vector-borne pathogen transmission that are important to assess. Here we review the potential implications of these activities on the risk of Lyme borreliosis in the United Kingdom. Conservation management activities include woodland expansion, management and restoration, deer management, urban greening and the release and culling of non-native species. Available evidence suggests that increasing woodland extent, implementing biodiversity policies that encourage ecotonal habitat and urban greening can increase the risk of Lyme borreliosis by increasing suitable habitat for hosts and the tick vectors. However, this can depend on whether deer population management is carried out as part of these conservation activities. Exclusion fencing or culling deer to low densities can decrease tick abundance and Lyme borreliosis risk. As management actions often constitute large-scale perturbation experiments, these hold great potential to understand underlying drivers of tick and pathogen dynamics. We recommend integrating monitoring of ticks and the risk of tick-borne pathogens with conservation management activities. This would help fill knowledge gaps and the production of best practice guidelines to reduce risks

Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services in an alpine ecosystem grazed by sheep – An experimental approach

Domestic livestock drives ecosystem changes in many of the world’s mountain regions, and can be the dominant influenceon soil, habitat and wildlife dynamics. Grazing impacts on ecosystem services (ES) vary according to densities of sheep, butan ES framework accounting for these is lacking. We devised an experiment to evaluate synergies and trade-offs of ESs andcomponents of biodiversity affected by sheep density at the alpine landscape scale in southern Norway. We examined the effectsof increased (80 per km2), decreased (0 per km2) and maintained sheep densities (25 per km2) on ‘supporting’, ‘regulating’and ‘provisioning’ services and biodiversity (plants, invertebrates and birds). Overall, ESs and biodiversity were highest atmaintained sheep density. Regulating services, including carbon storage and habitat openness, were particularly favoured bymaintained densities of sheep. There was no overall decline in ESs from maintained to increased sheep densities, but severalservices, such as runoff water quality, plant productivity and carbon storage, declined when grazing increased. Our study providesexperimental evidence for a positive effect of grazing on ES, but only at maintained low sheep densities. By identifying ESand biodiversity components that are traded-off at decreased and increased grazing, our study also demonstrates some of thenegative impacts on ecosystems that can occur in mountain regions if management does not regulate herbivore densities. Herbivory; Ecosystem services; Livestock; Management; Optimal stocking levels; Overgrazing; Threshol

Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation

Mountain areas of Europe have been managed by humans for a long time, leading to a prevalence of semi-natural habitats in mountain landscapes today. These landscapes contain both natural and cultural heritage; however, natural and cultural heritage are rarely considered together when valuing landscapes and developing management plans in protected areas. Here we present a case study of seven protected areas in the mountains of Great Britain and Norway. We take a long-term perspective on landscape and land-use change and propose an integrated model of landscape valuation on the basis of combined natural and cultural heritage. Our model plots indicators of natural and cultural heritage along a gradient of land-use intensity, allowing simultaneous assessment and highlighting how valuation depends on what type of heritage is considered. We show that while contemporary land-use changes follow similar trajectories in Norway and Britain, different land-use histories mean that the loss of heritage differs between the regions. The model presented here thus allows for the consolidation of valuation based on both cultural and natural heritage in landscapes

Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation

Mountain areas of Europe have been managed by humans for a long time, leading to a prevalence of semi-natural habitats in mountain landscapes today. These landscapes contain both natural and cultural heritage; however, natural and cultural heritage are rarely considered together when valuing landscapes and developing management plans in protected areas. Here we present a case study of seven protected areas in the mountains of Great Britain and Norway. We take a long-term perspective on landscape and land-use change and propose an integrated model of landscape valuation on the basis of combined natural and cultural heritage. Our model plots indicators of natural and cultural heritage along a gradient of land-use intensity, allowing simultaneous assessment and highlighting how valuation depends on what type of heritage is considered. We show that while contemporary land-use changes follow similar trajectories in Norway and Britain, different land-use histories mean that the loss of heritage differs between the regions. The model presented here thus allows for the consolidation of valuation based on both cultural and natural heritage in landscapes