Can existing assessment tools be used to track equity in protected area management under Aichi Target 11?

Aichi Target 11 (AT11) includes the commitment of 194 governments to equitably manage protected areas (PAs) by 2020. Here we evaluate whether existing PA Management Effectiveness (PAME) and social and governance assessment tools can be used to determine if AT11 meets equity goals. We find that PAME assessment conditions are insufficiently inclusive of relevant actors and do not satisfactorily allow for a diversity of perspectives to be expressed and accounted for, both of which are essential for equitable PA management. Furthermore, none of the analysed PAME tools fully cover multidimensional equity and thus they are inadequate for assessing progress towards equitable management in PAs. The available social and governance PA assessment tools stipulate more inclusive and participatory conditions within their guidelines, and the IUCN Governance Guidelines comprehensively capture equity dimensions in PA management, but results are not comparable across sites. We conclude that available assessment tools do not provide a reliable way to track equity in PAs at global scale. The IUCN Governance Guidelines could be adjusted to achieve this goal, providing that the information collected is made globally comparable, while ensuring transparency, accountability and room for contestation, including by communities whose livelihoods are directly implicated. Ultimately, developing and deploying globally comparable measures to evaluate equity is problematic, as the process of gathering comparable data inevitably obscures information that is highly relevant to resolving equity issues at local scales. This challenge must be met, however, if nations are to achieve and report on their success at meeting AT11 by 2020. © 2018 Elsevier LtdWe thank Jens Friis Lund from the University of Copenhagen for his great support in the writing of this publication. We also thank the following for their assistance in the data collection and analysis: April Eassom, Lauren Coad, Kathryn Knights, Jonas Geldmann, Murielle Misrachi and Naomi Kingston from UNEP-WCMC, PA Solutions, University of Oxford and University of Copenhagen, Phil Franks, Kate Schreckenberg and Dilys Roe from IIED, Marc Hockings, Fiona Leverington from IUCN WCPA/University of Queensland. N.Z-C. and N.B. acknowledge the funding provided by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 659881 to N.Z-C. and the Danish National Research Foundation for funding for the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate; grant number DNRF96 . We thank Jens Friis Lund from the University of Copenhagen for his great support in the writing of this publication. We also thank the following for their assistance in the data collection and analysis: April Eassom, Lauren Coad, Kathryn Knights, Jonas Geldmann, Murielle Misrachi and Naomi Kingston from UNEP-WCMC, PA Solutions, University of Oxford and University of Copenhagen, Phil Franks, Kate Schreckenberg and Dilys Roe from IIED, Marc Hockings, Fiona Leverington from IUCN WCPA/University of Queensland. N.Z-C. and N.B. acknowledge the funding provided by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 659881 to N.Z-C. and the Danish National Research Foundation for funding for the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate; grant number DNRF96

Climate Change Perceptions and Adaptations among Smallholder Farmers in the Mountains of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The warming rates in many mountain areas are higher than the global average, negatively impacting crop systems. Little is known about the climatic changes which are already being observed in eastern Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo, due to the lack of long-term meteorological data. Local perceptions could help us to understand not only the climatic changes and impacts but also which adaptation strategies are already being used by local smallholder farmers. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 300 smallholder Bafuliru (n = 150) and Lega (n = 150) farmers living in the Itombwe Mountains. The respondents reported climatic changes and impacts, with the Bafuliru—living on the eastern drier slopes—reporting more changes and impacts. While the Bafuliru were implementing several adaptation strategies (e.g., increased irrigation and use of inputs, more soil conservation, more income diversification), the Lega were implementing very few, due to soft limits (access to inputs, markets, and information) and culture (less interest in farming, less capacity to organize into groups). The results highlight important differences in sociocultural contexts, even for one ‘remote’ mountain, calling for a more collaborative approach to adaptation planning and action.We acknowledge funding from Ecole Régionale d’Aménagement et Gestion Intégrés des Forêts et Territoires Tropicaux (ERAIFT) and Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN)

Short communication: Application of site‐level assessment of governance and equity (sage) methodology to a candidate oecm: AndakÍ municipal natural park, caquetÁ, colombia.

Governance is a fundamental aspect and precondition for conservation strategies, such as protected areas or OECMs. A methodology for Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) has been proposed by IUCN to explore different aspects of governance, based on ten principles. This article describes the application of SAGE to a candidate OECM for what we believe is the first time: the Andakí Municipal Natural Park in the Amazon region of Colombia. The application of SAGE generated useful insights into different aspects of governance, including the importance of good communication and recognising and respecting the rights and responsibilities of different actors. Based on this experience, we believe that the SAGE methodology could be a useful tool not only to identify priorities for improving governance, but also to assess governance and equity in order to evaluate if an area meets the criteria for an OECM that it is governed and managed to achieve sustained and effective contributions to in situ conservation of biodiversity, associated ecosystem functions and services, and cultural, spiritual, socio-economic and other locally relevant values. © 2021, IUCN - International Union for the Conservation of Nature. All rights reserved.This process was made possible with the support of: a) the Local Protected Areas Regional Project implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft f?r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, ICLEI ? Local Governments for Sustainability and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); Environment ministries in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Protection and Nuclear Safety; b) the project adaptation of the OECM criteria to the Colombian context supported by PPD-GEF-PNUD, and implemented by Resnatur, Instituto Humboldt, Fundaci?n Natura and the Local Protected Areas Project; and c) the EUROCLIMA+ programme supported by Expertise France, GIZ and the International Institute for the Environment and Development (IIED); and d) Thora Amend, Vice Chair, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (thematic area: Governance)

Local Observations of Climate Change and Adaptation Responses: A Case Study in the Mountain Region of Burundi-Rwanda

Mountain regions and their communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. However, little is known on the impacts observed and adaptation responses used in Burundi’s mountain region and if these are different to those reported in the contiguous mountain region of Rwanda. This paper aims to fill in these knowledge gaps. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 300 smallholder farmers, 150 in northern Burundi and 150 in southern Rwanda. Farmers in both countries reported negative impacts on crops, animals, and human health, with small differences between countries driven by the main cultivated crops. More adaptation strategies were used in Burundi than in Rwanda, and more farmers in Burundi were using multiple strategies. In both countries, farmers’ wealth affected farmers’ adaptation responses and their food security. Notably, for all wealth groups (poor, average, rich), food security was lower in Rwanda than in Burundi. We relate our findings to current agricultural intensification policies in both countries and argue for the greater involvement of local farmers in adaptation planning using, for example, science-with-society approaches.We are deeply grateful to our study participants, who graciously shared their time, energy, and stories. We thank our field assistants and facilitators for making this research possible. We also acknowledge the Mountain Research Initiative for funding support

Cultural keystone species as a tool for biocultural stewardship. A global review

The cultural keystone species (CKS) concept (i.e. ‘species that shape in a major way the cultural identity of a people’ as defined by Garibaldi and Turner in 2004) has been proposed as part of a common framing for the multiple entangled relationships between species and the socioecological systems in which they exist. However, the blurred and prolific definitions of CKS hamper its univocal application. This work examines the current use of the term CKS to reconcile a definition and explore its practical applications for biocultural stewardship. We ran a search for the words ‘cultural’ AND ‘keystone’ AND ‘species’. Our search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1994 and 2022 (inclusive) and was conducted using Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. We extracted and analysed bibliometric information as well as information on (i) the CKS components, (ii) humans' support for CKS and (iii) the definitions of CKS. From the 313 selected documents, the CKS concept appears to be increasingly accepted, as evidenced by a growing corpus of literature. However, the absence of a systematic and precise way of documenting CKS precludes global cross-cultural comparisons. The geographical distribution of authors using the concept is biased. We found that 47% of all the CKS reported and 38% of the works identified in our review were located in North America. Beyond ‘supporting identity’, several other of nature's contributions to people are associated with the CKS definitions. However, the contributions of the sociocultural group to the survival and conservation of the CKS (i.e. stewardship) are made explicit only in one-third of the documents reviewed. To advance biocultural stewardship as a conservation paradigm, we suggest (a) defining CKS as an indissoluble combination of a non-human species and one or more sociocultural groups; (b) acknowledging that species and sociocultural group relations should be classified in a continuum, according to gradients of relationship intensity; and (c) explicitly acknowledging the reciprocal relationships between sociocultural groups and species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. © 2024 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.We would like to acknowledge Kelsey Leonard for her contribution to an early draft of this manuscript. G.M. acknowledges funding from the Margarita Salas grant MGSC2022-13. V.R.-G. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council under an ERC Consolidator Grant (FP7-771056-LICCI). R.C.-L. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation Starting Grant (TMSGI3_211659). N.Z.-C. acknowledges that this research is supported by María de Maeztu Excellence Unit 2023-2027 (CEX2021- 001201-M), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program. S.D. acknowledges funding from Redes Federales de Alto Impacto MinCyT Argentina (CONVE2023-102072649-APN-MCT). This work contributes to the ‘María de Maeztu’ Programme Excellence Unit of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CEX2019-000940-M

A quasi-experimental study of impacts of Tanzania’s Wildlife Management Areas on rural livelihoods and wealth

Since the 2000s, Tanzania’s natural resource management policy has emphasised Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), designed to promote wildlife and biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation and rural development. We carried out a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of social impacts of WMAs, collecting data from 24 villages participating in 6 different WMAs across two geographical regions, and 18 statistically matched control villages. Across these 42 villages, we collected participatory wealth ranking data for 13,578 households. Using this as our sampling frame, we conducted questionnaire surveys with a stratified sample of 1,924 household heads and 945 household heads’ wives. All data were collected in 2014/15, with a subset of questions devoted to respondents’ recall on conditions that existed in 2007, when first WMAs became operational. Questions addressed household demographics, land and livestock assets, resource use, income-generating activities and portfolios, participation in natural resource management decision-making, benefits and costs of conservation. Datasets permit research on livelihood and wealth trajectories, and social impacts, costs and benefits of conservation interventions in the context of community-based natural resource management

Plural valuation of nature for equity and sustainability: Insights from the Global South

Plural valuation is about eliciting the diverse values of nature articulated by different stakeholders in order to inform decision making and thus achieve more equitable and sustainable outcomes. We explore what approaches align with plural valuation on the ground, as well as how different social-ecological contexts play a role in translating plural valuation into decisions and outcomes. Based on a co-constructed analytical approach relying on empirical information from ten cases from the Global South, we find that plural valuation contributes to equitable and sustainable outcomes if the valuation process: 1) is based on participatory value elicitation approaches; 2) is framed with a clear action-oriented purpose; 3) provides space for marginalized stakeholders to articulate their values in ways that can be included in decisions; 4) is used as a tool to identify and help reconcile different cognitive models about human-nature relations; and 5) fosters open communication and collaboration among stakeholders. We also find that power asymmetries can hinder plural valuation. As interest and support for undertaking plural valuation grows, a deeper understanding is needed regarding how it can be adapted to different purposes, approaches, and social-ecological contexts in order to contribute to social equity and sustainability

Blue justice: A review of emerging scholarship and resistance movements

This is the final version. Available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record. The term “blue justice” was coined in 2018 during the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress. Since then, academic engagement with the concept has grown rapidly. This article reviews 5 years of blue justice scholarship and synthesizes some of the key perspectives, developments, and gaps. We then connect this literature to wider relevant debates by reviewing two key areas of research – first on blue injustices and second on grassroots resistance to these injustices. Much of the early scholarship on blue justice focused on injustices experienced by small-scale fishers in the context of the blue economy. In contrast, more recent writing and the empirical cases reviewed here suggest that intersecting forms of oppression render certain coastal individuals and groups vulnerable to blue injustices. These developments signal an expansion of the blue justice literature to a broader set of affected groups and underlying causes of injustice. Our review also suggests that while grassroots resistance efforts led by coastal communities have successfully stopped unfair exposure to environmental harms, preserved their livelihoods and ways of life, defended their culture and customary rights, renegotiated power distributions, and proposed alternative futures, these efforts have been underemphasized in the blue justice scholarship, and from marine and coastal literature more broadly. We conclude with some suggestions for understanding and supporting blue justice now and into the future.French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB

Safe and just Earth system boundaries.

This is the final version. Available from Nature Research via the DOI in this record. Data availability The data supporting Figs. 2 and 3 are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22047263.v2 and https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20079200.v2, respectively. We rely on other published datasets for the climate boundary16, N boundary72 (model files are at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6395016), phosphorus73,74 (scenario breakdowns are at https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d9676f6b-abba-48fd-8d94-cc8c0dc546a2, and a summary of agricultural sustainability indicators is at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5234594), current N surpluses129,130 (the repository at https://dataportaal.pbl.nl/downloads/IMAGE/GNM) with the critical N surplus limit72 subtracted, and estimated subglobal P concentration in runoff based on estimated P load to freshwater131 and local runoff data132,133. Current functional integrity is calculated from the European Space Agency WorldCover 10-metre-resolution land cover map (https://esa-worldcover.org/en). The safe boundary and current state for groundwater are derived from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (http://www2.csr.utexas.edu/grace/RL06_mascons.html) and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datacollection/GLDAS_NOAH025_3H_2.1.html). More information is available in ‘Code availability’ and Supplementary Methods. Source data for Fig. 2 are provided with this paper.Code availability: The code used to produce Figs. 2 and 3 are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22047263.v2 and https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20079200.v2, respectively. The code used to make the nutrient Earth system boundary layers in Fig. 3 is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7636716. The code used to make the surface water layer in Fig. 3 and derive the subglobal Earth system boundaries for surface water is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7674802. The code to estimate current functional integrity is available at https://figshare.com/articles/software/integrity_analysis/22232749/2. The code to derive the groundwater layer in Fig. 3 and derive the total annual groundwater recharge is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7710540.The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1-3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.Stockholm Universit