How the EAT-Lancet commission report 'Food in the Anthropocene' influenced discourse and research on food systems: a systematic review covering the first two years post-publication

In 2019, the EAT–Lancet Commission's report on food in the Anthropocene presented a planetary heath diet to improve health while reducing the environmental effect of food systems globally. We assessed EAT–Lancet's immediate influence on academic research and debate by conducting a systematic review of articles citing the Commission and others published from January, 2019, to April, 2021. The Commission influenced methods, results, or discourse for 192 (7·5%) of 2560 citing articles, stimulating cross-disciplinary research and debate across life sciences (47%), health and medical sciences (42%), and social sciences (11%). Sentiment analysis of 76 critiquing articles indicated that opinions were, on average, more positive than negative. Positive sentiments centred on benefits for informing policy, public health, and raising public awareness. Negative sentiments included insufficient attention to socioeconomic dimensions, feasibility, and environmental effects other than emissions. Empirical articles predominantly evaluated the effects of changed diets or food production on the environment and wellbeing (29%), compared current diets with EAT–Lancet recommendations (12%), or informed future policy and research agendas (20%). Despite limitations in EAT–Lancet's method, scope, and implementation feasibility, the academic community supported these recommendations. A broad suite of research needs was identified focusing on the effects of food processing, socioeconomic and political drivers of diet and health, and optimising consumption or production for environment and health

How to prioritize species recovery after a megafire

Due to climate change, megafires are increasingly common and have sudden, extensive impacts on many species over vast areas, leaving decision makers uncertain about how best to prioritize recovery. We devised a decision-support framework to prioritize conservation actions to improve species outcomes immediately after a megafire. Complementary locations are selected to extend recovery actions across all fire-affected species' habitats. We applied our method to areas burned in the 2019-2020 Australian megafires and assessed its conservation advantages by comparing our results with outcomes of a site-richness approach (i.e., identifying areas that cost-effectively recover the most species in any one location). We found that 290 threatened species were likely severely affected and will require immediate conservation action to prevent population declines and possible extirpation. We identified 179 subregions, mostly in southeastern Australia, that are key locations to extend actions that benefit multiple species. Cost savings were over AU$300 million to reduce 95% of threats across all species. Our complementarity-based prioritization also spread postfire management actions across a wider proportion of the study area compared with the site-richness method (43% vs. 37% of the landscape managed, respectively) and put more of each species' range under management (average 90% vs. 79% of every species' habitat managed). In addition to wildfire response, our framework can be used to prioritize conservation actions that will best mitigate threats affecting species following other extreme environmental events (e.g., floods and drought)

Incorporating uncertainty associated with habitat data in marine reserve design

One of the most pervasive forms of uncertainty in data used to make conservation decisions is error associated with mapping of conservation features. Whilst conservation planners should consider uncertainty associated with ecological data to make informed decisions, mapping error is rarely, if ever, accommodated in the planning process. Here, we develop a spatial conservation prioritization approach that accounts for the uncertainty inherent in coral reef habitat maps and apply it in the Kubulau District fisheries management area, Fiji. We use accuracy information describing the probability of occurrence of each habitat type, derived from remote sensing data validated by field surveys, to design a marine reserve network that has a high probability of protecting a fixed percentage (10-90%) of every habitat type. We compare the outcomes of our approach to those of standard reserve design approaches, where habitat-mapping errors are not known or ignored. We show that the locations of priority areas change between the standard and probabilistic approaches, with errors of omission and commission likely to occur if reserve design does not accommodate mapping accuracy. Although consideration of habitat mapping accuracy leads to bigger reserve networks, they are unlikely to miss habitat conservation targets. We explore the trade-off between conservation feature representation and reserve network area, with smaller reserve networks possible if we give up on trying to meet targets for habitats mapped with a low accuracy. The approach can be used with any habitat type at any scale to inform more robust and defensible conservation decisions in marine or terrestrial environments. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Realising the full potential of citizen science monitoring programs

Citizen science is on the rise. Aided by the internet, the popularity and scope of citizen science appears almost limitless. For citizens the motivation is to contribute to "real" science, public information and conservation. For scientists, citizen science offers a way to collect information that would otherwise not be affordable. The longest running and largest of these citizen science programs are broad-scale bird monitoring projects. There are two basic types of protocols possible: (a) cross-sectional schemes such as Atlases - collections of surveys of many species contributed by volunteers over a set period of time, and (b) longitudinal schemes such as Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS) - on-going stratified monitoring of sites that require more coordination. We review recent applications of these citizen science programs to determine their influence in the scientific literature. We use return-on-investment thinking to identify the minimum investment needed for different citizen science programs, and the point at which investing more in citizen science programs has diminishing benefits. Atlas and BBS datasets are used to achieve different objectives, with more knowledge-focused applications for Atlases compared with more management applications for BBS. Estimates of volunteer investment in these datasets show that compared to cross-sectional schemes, longitudinal schemes are more cost-effective, with increased BBS investment correlated with more applications, which have higher impact in the scientific literature, as measured by citation rates. This is most likely because BBS focus on measuring change, allowing the impact of management and policy to be quantified. To ensure both types of data are used to their full potential we recommend the following: elements of BBS protocols (fixed sites, long-term monitoring) are incorporated into Atlases; regional coordinators are in place to maintain data quality; communication between researchers and the organisations coordinating volunteer monitoring is enhanced, with monitoring targeted to meet specific needs and objectives; application of data to under-explored objectives is encouraged, and data are made freely and easily accessible. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Solving problems of conservation inadequacy for nomadic birds

Nomadic birds move around the landscape in complex, irregular patterns, making it difficult for conservation managers and planners to decide where and how to act to mitigate threatening processes. Because of this uncertainty, nomadic species are poorly represented in protected areas in Australia. We outline approaches to discover nomadic species distributions, their dynamics and their consequent vulnerability to extinction. Using citizen science initiatives like eBird Australia and the BirdLife Australia Atlas, combined with new ways of applying species distribution modelling that take into account temporal patterns of movement driven by weather and productivity, we demonstrate how to map and predict the key sites for conservation action for nomadic species. We explore recent advancements in decision-support tools to incorporate species movements into systematic conservation planning, and highlight challenges in traditional approaches for protected area designation for conserving nomads. Due to the spatio-temporal dynamism of nomadic species distributions, the projected costs of managing nomads across Australia using traditional, static, protected areas are prohibitive. Landholders, including graziers and indigenous landholders, will play a key role in safeguarding these species on pastoral lands into the future, and future conservation efforts should be focussed on these stakeholders, through a combination of community engagement, market-based incentives (such as biodiversity farming or payments for artificial water source and ephemeral wetland management), cross-boundary and cross-agency collaboration policies, and new legislative instruments. Accounting for the movements of nomadic species and incorporating new approaches to integrated land management will help design conservation solutions that are effective, cost-efficient, and robust to uncertainty in this rapidly changing world.</p

Ecological forecasts to inform near-term management of threats to biodiversity

Ecosystems are being altered by rapid and interacting changes in natural processes and anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. Uncertainty in historical, current and future effectiveness of actions hampers decisions about how to mitigate changes to prevent biodiversity loss and species extinctions. Research in resource management, agriculture and health indicates that forecasts predicting the effects of near-term or seasonal environmental conditions on management greatly improve outcomes. Such forecasts help resolve uncertainties about when and how to operationalize management. We reviewed the scientific literature on environmental management to investigate whether near-term forecasts are developed to inform biodiversity decisions in Australia, a nation with one of the highest recent extinction rates across the globe. We found that forecasts focused on economic objectives (e.g. fisheries management) predict on significantly shorter timelines and answer a broader range of management questions than forecasts focused on biodiversity conservation. We then evaluated scientific literature on the effectiveness of 484 actions to manage seven major terrestrial threats in Australia, to identify opportunities for near-term forecasts to inform operational conservation decisions. Depending on the action, between 30% and 80% threat management operations experienced near-term weather impacts on outcomes before, during or after management. Disease control, species translocation/reintroduction and habitat restoration actions were most frequently impacted, and negative impacts such as increased species mortality and reduced recruitment were more likely than positive impacts. Drought or dry conditions, and rainfall, were the most frequently reported weather impacts, indicating that near-term forecasts predicting the effects of low or excessive rainfall on management outcomes are likely to have the greatest benefits. Across the world, many regions are, like Australia, becoming warmer and drier, or experiencing more extreme rainfall events. Informing conservation decisions with near-term and seasonal ecological forecasting will be critical to harness uncertainties and lower the risk of threat management failure under global change.</p

Does scientific interest in the nature impacts of food align with consumer information-seeking behavior?

Global food supply has substantial impacts on nature including environmental degradation from chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss through agricultural land conversion. Over the past decade, public demand for information on sustainable consumption choices has increased. Meanwhile, development and expansion of the life cycle assessment literature has improved scientific evidence on supply chain impacts on the environment. However, data gaps and biases lead to uncertainty and undermine development of effective impact mitigation actions or behavior change policies. This study evaluates whether scientific research into the nature-related impacts of agri-food systems aligns with the needs of the public, as indicated by patterns of information seeking. We compare the relative volume of public Google queries to scientific articles related to agri-food systems and three major impacts: chemical pollution, greenhouse gas emissions or biodiversity loss. We discover that biodiversity is systematically overlooked in scientific studies on agri-food system impacts in favor of research on emissions and to a lesser extent chemical impacts. In contrast, total relative volumes of public queries on agri-food systems and biodiversity equal those for emissions impacts at global and Australian scales. Public interest in biodiversity impacts of agri-food systems increased significantly between 2009 and 2019, despite no significant change in the relative volume of biodiversity-focused scientific articles. Global public attention on chemical impacts declined significantly over this time period, with no significant change in the relative representation of this topic in scientific outputs. We recommend strategic investment into the biodiversity impacts of agri-food systems to build a knowledge base that allows the public to learn about the impacts of their choices and be inspired to change to more sustainable behaviors.</p

Dryland communities find little refuge from grazing due to long-term changes in water availability

Surface water availability in drylands has changed with the introduction of artificial water points. Despite known ecological impacts, detailed mapping of this change has not occurred in most drylands. We aimed to quantify the extent and distribution of changes in water availability. We tested whether water availability increased more in pastorally productive areas than less fertile areas, and whether remaining water remote areas are restricted to low productivity landscapes. Our new spatially-explicit method mapped access to water at fine spatial scale, weighting locations by their distance to water and the permanence of those water sources. We demonstrated our method in a study area of over 700,000 km2 in Queensland, Australia, with our mapping showing large changes in water availability since pastoral development. Less than 5% of the study area is now more than 10 km from water, compared with almost 60% previously. Few refuges for grazing-vulnerable communities remain. Even low fertility landscapes showed marked increases in water availability. This has conservation implications for managing production landscapes. Our approach can be applied in any dryland landscapes that have experienced changes in water availability, and can help guide actions such as removing artificial water points to recreate ecological refuges

Understanding the effects of different social data on selecting priority conservation areas

Conservation success is contingent on assessing social and environmental factors so that cost-effective implementation of strategies and actions can be placed in a broad social–ecological context. Until now, the focus has been on how to include spatially explicit social data in conservation planning, whereas the value of different kinds of social data has received limited attention. In a regional systematic conservation planning case study in Australia, we examined the spatial concurrence of a range of spatially explicit social values and land-use preferences collected using a public participation geographic information system and biological data. We used Zonation to integrate the social data with the biological data in a series of spatial-prioritization scenarios to determine the effect of the different types of social data on spatial prioritization compared with biological data alone. The type of social data (i.e., conservation opportunities or constraints) significantly affected spatial prioritization outcomes. The integration of social values and land-use preferences under different scenarios was highly variable and generated spatial prioritizations 1.2–51% different from those based on biological data alone. The inclusion of conservation-compatible values and preferences added relatively few new areas to conservation priorities, whereas including noncompatible economic values and development preferences as costs significantly changed conservation priority areas (48.2% and 47.4%, respectively). Based on our results, a multifaceted conservation prioritization approach that combines spatially explicit social data with biological data can help conservation planners identify the type of social data to collect for more effective and feasible conservation actions.</p

Using empirical models of species colonization under multiple threatening processes to identify complementary threat-mitigation strategies

Approaches to prioritize conservation actions are gaining popularity. However, limited empirical evidence exists on which species might benefit most from threat mitigation and on what combination of threats, if mitigated simultaneously, would result in the best outcomes for biodiversity. We devised a way to prioritize threat mitigation at a regional scale with empirical evidence based on predicted changes to population dynamics-information that is lacking in most threat-management prioritization frameworks that rely on expert elicitation. We used dynamic occupancy models to investigate the effects of multiple threats (tree cover, grazing, and presence of an hyperaggressive competitor, the Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) on bird-population dynamics in an endangered woodland community in southeastern Australia. The 3 threatening processes had different effects on different species. We used predicted patch-colonization probabilities to estimate the benefit to each species of removing one or more threats. We then determined the complementary set of threat-mitigation strategies that maximized colonization of all species while ensuring that redundant actions with little benefit were avoided. The single action that resulted in the highest colonization was increasing tree cover, which increased patch colonization by 5% and 11% on average across all species and for declining species, respectively. Combining Noisy Miner control with increasing tree cover increased species colonization by 10% and 19% on average for all species and for declining species respectively, and was a higher priority than changing grazing regimes. Guidance for prioritizing threat mitigation is critical in the face of cumulative threatening processes. By incorporating population dynamics in prioritization of threat management, our approach helps ensure funding is not wasted on ineffective management programs that target the wrong threats or species. </p