Search

This deliverable D7.6 of the LIFT project is the final scientific deliverable of the project that was carried out during four years from May 2018 till April 2022. The deliverable summarises the methodologies used and the key results for the main research activities that were carried out in LIFT: definition of ecological agriculture; adoption of ecological approaches; farm performance of ecological agriculture; territorial sustainability of ecological agriculture; trade-offs and synergies across sustainability dimensions and scales; impact of policies; role of stakeholders. Recommendations in terms of policies, data and research needs, are then provided.

This Deliverable 5.2 of the LIFT project presents a territorial level sustainability assessment of alternative scenarios for the adoption of ecological farming approaches for 16 case study areas across Europe. Given that there are many approaches to sustainability assessment depending on the theoretical framework, the assessment’s aims, and data used, this deliverable begins with a review of the sustainability assessment literature in relation to agriculture and territorial scale issues, to identify the most appropriate methodology for this deliverable. The limited availability of landscape-scale data, the use of scenarios, and the need to rapidly apply a straightforward methodology across diverse case study areas, favoured a qualitative assessment of each adoption scenario in terms of their impacts against a set of regionally-specific sustainability objectives. Moreover, because territorial impacts can reflect many interacting cause-effect relationships, network analysis formed an optional extension to the assessment, to explore the patterns of influence underpinning scenario performance. In order to define the sustainability objectives for assessment, an initial long list of possible objectives was created through a review of the academic literature and relevant regional policy documents, followed by a round of stakeholder consultation to produce a final short list of objectives for each case study area. Performance against these objectives was assessed for four ecological farming adoption scenarios that differed in terms of the rate (either high or low) and distribution (clustered or dispersed) of adoption in 10 years’ time. The ecological practices being adopted in these scenarios were identified based on the output of Delphi exercises with stakeholder panels for each case study area, conducted as part of previous research in LIFT. Drawing on results from LIFT, local literature, and expert knowledge, each scenario was described as the product of a set of drivers of change. The drivers of change were tabulated against the objectives to produce an assessment matrix for each scenario. Groups of experts and stakeholders completed these matrices by deciding whether the state of each driver in each scenario had a positive or negative, strong or weak, impact on each objective. The different driver impacts on each objective were aggregated to show the scenario’s overall performance against each objective. For the High Weald case study area in England, the assessment matrices were also used to create network graphs to show the interacting cause-effect relationships between drivers and impacts, and network analysis was used to identify features of the system that were especially influential in determining overall sustainability performance. Based on this qualitative mapping of impacts against sustainability objectives, across case study areas, territorial sustainability performance was assessed to be strongest when the ecological farming adoption rate was high, and when adoption occurred in a clustered distribution (although the impact of adoption distribution was typically smaller than the impact of adoption rate). The same overall pattern was also reported when considering only the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability, but economic sustainability performance was only impacted by the rate, and typically not the distribution, of adoption. These results suggest that the practices identified by stakeholders as relevant to future ecological adoption scenarios for a given case study area tend to be appropriate for achieving the area’s specific sustainability objectives, and that the spread of ecological farming approaches, at least in some areas, has the potential to deliver ‘win-win-win’ outcomes that reconcile performance across different sustainability dimensions. However, no one scenario was best for every objective in a case study area, so even if high clustered adoption of ecological farming makes an overall positive contribution to sustainability at the territorial level, realising this scenario in practice will still involve navigating some trade-offs between objectives. By extending the methodology to include network analysis, the sustainability assessment for the High Weald highlighted pathways and barriers that could be important in accounting for differences in scenario performance. In particular, information exchange among farmers on the benefits of ecological practices (facilitated by strong organisational and advisory support, and the use of technology) was a key contributor to the strong territorial sustainability performance of a high clustered adoption scenario. The network graphs produced for the High Weald also provided some indication as to how the territorial sustainability performance of ecological farming is due to a combination of farm-level and landscape-level processes, and suggested areas of interaction between these farm and landscape-level processes. As an example, strong interpersonal relationships among farmers could enhance information exchange that promotes ecological practice uptake on individual farms, but also encourage greater coordination of land management and collaboration between farmers. While the combination of scenario analysis, qualitative impact mapping and network analysis has been used for sustainability assessment before, in this case scenario development was built around alternative outcomes for the spread of agricultural land management practices, rather than starting with particular philosophies about the direction of society or policy. A key challenge, and priority area for further innovation, could be to reconcile the approach presented here with farm-level sustainability assessments, helping to identify areas of alignment or disconnect between farm and territorial level performance.

In the present deliverable, D5.3 of the LIFT project we present a framework which evaluates the over-all sustainability performance by incorporating farm and territorial level. The framework considers the sustainability along the economic, social and environmental dimensions. Matches and mismatches between the two spatial levels are considered by weighting farm level performance across said three dimensions. Weights are context-specific and reflect the importance of each dimension at the territo-rial level. Further, by evaluating sustainability performance across three different dimensions we are able to assess the synergies and trade-offs that exist between each and consider how these drive overall sustainability performance. The framework may also be used to inform policy decision-making by identifying which farming approaches are most sustainable within a particular case study area, and by identifying areas of focus to increase adoption rates of said systems. The deliverable includes three components. First, we provide a brief overview of the literature on sustainability performance assessments and position the present framework within it. Following this we provide a detailed explanation of how the framework is constructed, highlighting the input data used. Second, we apply the framework to five LIFT case study areas, namely Flanders (Belgium), Aus-tria, Romania, the United Kingdom and France. Here we detail the process of applying the data and discuss the results and how these can be interpreted. We also demonstrate how these results can be linked to drivers of change to help inform policy decision-making and identify target areas for increas-ing adoption of sustainable farming approaches. Finally, we provide insights into the assumptions that underpin the framework, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed approach. We also provide insights and point of consideration for future application of the framework. The framework incorporates stakeholder’s sustainability objectives, multicriteria analysis, secondary data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) database, and further descriptive analysis to present an innovative multi-dimensional and multi-scale approach to evaluating farming approach sustainability performance. Though the framework has been developed within the LIFT project, it is highly flexible and can easily be adopted by interested parties outside of the LIFT project.

Supplemental material, Supplementary_material_2._Original_Data_Gathering_Instruments for Between concepts and experiences: understandings of climate change in southern Ecuador by Verónica Iniguez-Gallardo, Ian Bride and Joseph Tzanopoulos in Public Understanding of Science

Supplemental material, Title_Page_Suplemental for Between concepts and experiences: understandings of climate change in southern Ecuador by Verónica Iniguez-Gallardo, Ian Bride and Joseph Tzanopoulos in Public Understanding of Science

Supplemental material, Suplementary_material_1._Questionnare_and_Interview_Guide_English_Version for Between concepts and experiences: understandings of climate change in southern Ecuador by Verónica Iniguez-Gallardo, Ian Bride and Joseph Tzanopoulos in Public Understanding of Science

Ecological approaches to farming practices are gaining interest across Europe. As this interest grows there is a pressing need to assess the potential contributions these practices may make, the contexts in which they function and their attractiveness to farmers as potential adopters. In particular, ecological agriculture must be assessed against the aim of promoting the im-proved performance and sustainability of farms, rural environment, rural societies and econ-omies, together.The overall goal of LIFT is to identify the potential benefits of the adoption of ecological farm-ing in the European Union (EU) and to understand how socio-economic and policy factors im-pact the adoption, performance and sustainability of ecological farming at various scales, from the level of the single farm to that of a territory.To meet this goal, LIFT will assess the determinants of adoption of ecological approaches, and evaluate the performance and overall sustainability of these approaches in comparison to more conventional agriculture across a range of farm systems and geographic scales. LIFT will also develop new private arrangements and policy instruments that could improve the adop-tion and subsequent performance and sustainability of the rural nexus. For this, LIFT will sug-gest an innovative framework for multi-scale sustainability assessment aimed at identifying critical paths toward the adoption of ecological approaches to enhance public goods and eco-system services delivery. This will be achieved through the integration of transdisciplinary sci-entific knowledge and stakeholder expertise to co-develop innovative decision-support tools.The project will inform and support EU priorities relating to agriculture and the environment in order to promote the performance and sustainability of the combined rural system. At least 30 case studies will be performed in order to reflect the enormous variety in the socio-eco-nomic and bio-physical conditions for agriculture across the EU.

Supplemental material, ENE884890 Supplemetal Material for The rise and fall of biodiversity offsetting in the Lodge Hill large-scale housing development, South East England by Dimitrios Bormpoudakis Joseph Tzanopoulos and Evangelia Apostolopoulou in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

The concept of a ‘just transition’ is gaining traction in international policy discourses. It has particular significance in relation to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions and the need for ensuring rights and responsibilities of all actors in transitions to agroecological farming systems. Research plays an important role in accompanying this transformation. It explores pathways for more sustainable and fair food systems, barriers to them being achieved, and where and what risks arise for communities of interest and of place. Researchers and practitioners across levels and sectors were brought together in H2020 projects LIFT and UNISECO using processes of stakeholder engagement. Both projects analysed the perceptions of actors towards agroecological farming, and their active involvement in the transitions required. This article summarises lessons learnt regarding multi-actor engagement in different participatory settings in both projects, including a Multi-Actor Platform approach, Q method, DELPHI and Hybrid forum workshops. The interactions involved several hundred actors from 18 countries across Europe. The article reflects on implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the processes and effectiveness of multi-actor engagement, and assessments of the impacts on the empowerment of the actors. The findings are contextualised by contemporary European Union and national policy objectives of tackling climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and inequalities.

In this document, we present the results of the first meta-analysis of the spatial distribution of ecologically-friendly agriculture (EFA), incorporating systems (e.g. integrated production), bundles of practices (e.g. green control measures) and single practices (e.g. conservation tillage). We opted for a qualitative meta-analysis, as we are mainly concerned with the significance, extent and location of the phenomenon of spatial clustering and/or dispersal, and less so on its absolute quantitative magnitude. Our study has three aims. Firstly, we review the evidence on spatial clustering of EFA practices and systems. Secondly, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the variables that influence the spatial distribution of EFA systems and practices as ascertained using spatial models only. Thirdly, and finally, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the variables that have a spatial spillover effect, i.e. farmer or administrative unit characteristics that can influence neighbouring farmers or administrative units. We maintain a local and regional focus throughout the study. We performed a literature search on Scopus, and after retrieving circa 6000 documents, we narrowed down our sample to 39 relevant papers published in peer-reviewed journals. From this sample we reviewed the evidence on spatial clustering across EFA practices and systems, and recorded methodological aspects of the literature. To analyse the factors that influence the spatial distribution of EFA systems and practices, we focused on those studies that used some kind of formal spatial statistical test to study those processes, a total of 26 studies. Finally, we focused on eight studies that used spatial statistical models suited to the study of right-hand side spillover effects, to study the variables that have spatial neighbourhood effects. We found that geographical and farming system biases in the literature hinder global and regional/local understanding. We also found that spatial clustering is a prominent feature of EFA systems and practices, although perhaps not as universal as commonly presented - especially at the local and regional scales and modulated by crop, system, and geographical context. By reviewing the variables that influence EFA systems and practices adoption or uptake, we argue that while some variables do seem to have a clear effect, more research is needed for the majority of variables – especially regarding variables that might have spillover effects. Arguably, this is not just a case of more research along previously followed lines, but research that focuses on different locales and scales, diverse systems and practices, and using both (the right) quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

In this document, we present the results of the first meta-analysis of the spatial distribution of ecologically-friendly agriculture (EFA), incorporating systems (e.g. integrated production), bundles of practices (e.g. green control measures) and single practices (e.g. conservation tillage). We opted for a qualitative meta-analysis, as we are mainly concerned with the significance, extent and location of the phenomenon of spatial clustering and/or dispersal, and less so on its absolute quantitative magnitude. Our study has three aims. Firstly, we review the evidence on spatial clustering of EFA practices and systems. Secondly, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the variables that influence the spatial distribution of EFA systems and practices as ascertained using spatial models only. Thirdly, and finally, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the variables that have a spatial spillover effect, i.e. farmer or administrative unit characteristics that can influence neighbouring farmers or administrative units. We maintain a local and regional focus throughout the study. We performed a literature search on Scopus, and after retrieving circa 6000 documents, we narrowed down our sample to 39 relevant papers published in peer-reviewed journals. From this sample we reviewed the evidence on spatial clustering across EFA practices and systems, and recorded methodological aspects of the literature. To analyse the factors that influence the spatial distribution of EFA systems and practices, we focused on those studies that used some kind of formal spatial statistical test to study those processes, a total of 26 studies. Finally, we focused on eight studies that used spatial statistical models suited to the study of right-hand side spillover effects, to study the variables that have spatial neighbourhood effects. We found that geographical and farming system biases in the literature hinder global and regional/local understanding. We also found that spatial clustering is a prominent feature of EFA systems and practices, although perhaps not as universal as commonly presented - especially at the local and regional scales and modulated by crop, system, and geographical context. By reviewing the variables that influence EFA systems and practices adoption or uptake, we argue that while some variables do seem to have a clear effect, more research is needed for the majority of variables – especially regarding variables that might have spillover effects. Arguably, this is not just a case of more research along previously followed lines, but research that focuses on different locales and scales, diverse systems and practices, and using both (the right) quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

This questionnaire is for the survey to farmers that is to be carried out in the LIFT project, to at least 1,500 farms across the European Union (EU) in the LIFT case study areas. The LIFT large-scale farmer survey represents a key task that provides value added to the LIFT project and informs EU policy anal-ysis as a whole. The innovation is that it collects primary qualitative and quantitative data at the farm level, but also that data will be comparable across a large geographical area, across different produc-tion sectors, as well as across different farming practices/systems. The survey aims at collecting infor-mation that is not available in existing data sources, and that will be used in the analyses of the project.

Throughout the world an ever-burgeoning human population is putting increasing pressure on natural resources. One result of that pressure is an increasing loss of natural habitat through habitat destruction and change in land use. Currently the effects of change in land use are most strongly felt in tropical regions that also hold the highest levels of biodiversity. Significant gaps in our knowledge exist regarding how changes in land use affect faunal biodiversity and abundance, especially in the case of tropical amphibians and reptiles which can be particularly sensitive to environmental change and are often difficult to detect. Surveys were conducted in Laguna del Tigre National Park (LTNP) in Northern Guatemala with the aim of 1) comparing amphibian and reptile diversity in undisturbed forest and forest adjacent to land converted to agriculture; 2) determining predictors of diversity and finer scale effects of change in land use on assemblage structure; and 3) using the presence of common widespread species to predict hotspots of diversity on a wider regional level. Ninety-two species of amphibians and reptiles were detected from 2013 to 2016 representing 26 families and 5 orders. Eighteen percent of amphibian species and 50% of reptiles were found to be of regional conservation concern, considerably higher than when those species were considered at current national and global levels.\ud Diversity of amphibians and reptiles was significantly lower in forest adjacent to agriculture than in undisturbed habitat. Assemblage structure was significantly altered in disturbed habitat, with a few common species dominating other species that were present. Tolerance of dry environmental conditions and specialised diet were identified as traits that allowed for successful colonisation of disturbed forest. The presence of species with widespread distributions revealed more information about overall diversity of a location than did the presence of rare species. Moreover, the presence of species common to multiple locations in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (MBR) could be used to predict levels of diversity at under-sampled locations. Change in land use and resulting disturbance of adjacent forest could have a more significant impact on amphibians and reptiles than realized. Conservation policy for amphibians and reptiles within the MBR should take their local conservation status into consideration in addition to national and global assessments.

The importance of bridging diverse worldviews and knowledge systems to enhance conservation outcomes is increasingly recognized. Yet, the cultural, social and political dimensions of ecosystems are still largely overlooked in conservation sciences, following the premisses of prevalent nature:culture dichotomies within managerialist approaches. Building from an interrogation of the ontological and epistemological limitations of ecosystem assessment frameworks, namely Ecosystem Services (ES) and Nature's Contributions to People (NCP), this thesis elaborates the potential role of Cultural Ecosystem Assessments to foster culturally adequate, socially equitable and ecologically sustainable conservation responses. As ecosystem assessments are influential frameworks to diagnose environmental issues and inform conservation strategies, recognizing the shortcomings of monetary valuations and biodiversity offsetting strategies requires discarding their economic frameworks and develop relational and place-based approaches to human-environment relationships which support struggles for environmental justice. Thus, enquiring which overlooked dimensions of human-environment relationships need to be considered and how can these be systematically integrated in ecosystem assessments, this thesis seeks to develop a framework for Cultural Ecosystem Assessments which conveys the context-specific dimensions of human-environment relationships, unveils their influence on complex social-ecological dynamics and assists developing effective, equitable and representative community-based strategies for the conservation of biocultural diversity.\ud \ud Following an inductive approach, based on ethnographic and interpretive mixed methods research, the thesis explores the cultural, political and storied landscapes of local human-environment relationships in two contrasting case-studies: first, with local and indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon; and, second, with the provisional multi-ethnic communities of Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic. The results provide supporting evidence that (1) cultural practices (e.g. land management), benefits (e.g. identities) and values (e.g. ethical principles) are interdependent and mediate the co-production of all 'ecosystem services'; (2) relational values convey distinct articulations of reciprocity in human-environment relationships that regulate feedback processes between the social and ecological systems; (3) local and indigenous knowledge systems influence all dimensions of human-environment relationships, including cultural modes of production, consumption, representation and regulation of ecological processes; and (4) considering the sociocultural and spatio-temporal variability of human-environment relationships, including underlying social structures and power relationships, reveals the unequal social and geographical distribution of 'ecosystem services' supply and demand. The analysis demonstrates that Cultural Ecosystem Assessments may contribute to disclose complex socio-ecological dynamics from local to global scale, including ecosystem services flows, drivers of social and ecological change, feedback processes and emergent regulation mechanisms.\ud \ud Then, through developing a biocultural and relational approach to socio-ecological systems, the thesis advances a conceptual, analytical and methodological framework for Cultural Ecosystem Assessments which contributes to address key knowledge gaps in sustainability sciences, by revealing: (1) the role of diverse worldviews, knowledge systems and relational values influencing the co-production of ES/NCP and shaping wider socio-ecological dynamics; (2) the influence of social structures, governance systems and power relationships in the distribution of ES/NCP and their role driving socio-ecological changes; (3) the unequal social and geographical distribution of ES/NCP supply and demand which underlies ES/NCP flows both within and across regions and society; and (4) the spatial and temporal dynamics of socio-ecological change, including trade-offs between distinct ES/NCP, feedback process and direct or indirect drivers of socio-ecological change. Ultimately, the framework recasts ecosystem assessments around context-specific perspectives, fostering assessments' ability to bridge diverse worldviews and knowledge systems, support struggles for environmental justice and inform community-based strategies for the conservation of biocultural diversity.

The growth and expansion of human populations and resource demands is driving large scale fragmentation and loss of wildlife habitat, isolating wildlife populations and pushing many species towards extinction at local to global scales. Attempts to promote connectivity between wildlife managed areas at transboundary scales has been proposed as a solution to negative effects associated with population isolation. Such approaches commonly require the maintenance of wildlife populations throughout human-dominated landscapes subject to various degrees of effective protection. The aims of this study are to (1) assess the status of the large carnivore guild throughout ten wildlife managed areas comprising the Zambian component of Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area between Kafue National Park and the Simalaha Wildlife Recovery Sanctuary on the Zambezi River; (2) model habitat suitability and connectivity in this landscape for Lion, Leopard and Spotted hyena; and (3) develop a site-specific map of human footprint pressure for the landscape and test if it can be used a proxy for determining the occurrence of these three species. And further, explore if there are thresholds in human footprint pressure beyond which species are likely extirpated from wildlife managed areas. Methods included library studies to determine historical status of the large carnivore guild and twenty-six common prey species, spoor tracking in conjunction with qualitative surveys and supplemental data analysis to ascertain species current distribution, remote sensing with ground-truthing to build landcover maps, Maximum Entropy and Current Flow models, and extensive use of Geographic Information Systems. The findings conclude that there have been large scale losses in species assemblages throughout majority of southern wildlife managed areas, including the Simalaha Wildlife Recovery Sanctuary. However, no detectable changes were evident in Kafue National Park and surrounding Game Management Areas. Human activities are limiting habitat suitability and scope for occurrence in central southern areas of the landscape, with the likelihood of a connectivity bottleneck occurring. There is significant overlap in habitat requirements and scope for species movement. Human footprint pressure models appear to demonstrate utility as a proxy measure for occurrence of our large carnivore subset, though require some refinements and supplemental data layers to increase predictive power. Human footprint pressure at the wildlife managed area scale indicates threshold levels at which target species occur or are locally extirpated. Analyses have identified important additions to the existing wildlife managed area network in Open communal land that could provide valuable habitat and connectivity for target species given effective management and finance, including containment of negative human disturbance variables modelled (agro-pastoralist activities and infrastructure development). The effects of poaching are also hypothesized to be a significant driver limiting species persistence. Continued expansion of human population, settlement and agro-pastoralist activities will limit scope for expansion of large carnivores and their principle prey throughout the Kafue-Zambezi interface, effectively severing connectivity and isolating the Greater Kafue System from adjacent wildlife managed areas in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Narratives surrounding the development of wildlife-based land uses and species-level connectivity benefit from the application of conservation science and generation of empirical data to guide management.

Achieving sustainable use of natural resources is the greatest challenge facing humanity today. Rangelands, which cover one-third to one-half of the earth's ice-free surface, are frequently mismanaged, vulnerable to climate change, and in a degraded state, and their inhabitants are some of the poorest and most marginalized communities on earth. Despite over a century of scientific attention, we still lack an adequate understanding of how rangeland socio-ecological systems operate and how rangeland vegetation responds to abiotic and biotic variables.\ud The Dhofar Mountains represent a rather unique rangeland case study, with atypical social, cultural, political, economic and ecological situations, which could provide valuable insights for rangeland science. Moreover, the Dhofar mountain region is understudied, globally unique, supports a wealth of biodiversity and provides valuable ecosystem services to the local population, yet the threat of overstocking, despite being well-recognised, has received little scientific attention.\ud Therefore, this interdisciplinary research which utilises contemporary methods from the social, ecological and rangeland sciences, aims to firstly understand the social processes driving overstocking in rural Dhofar and secondly, assess the impacts of overstocking on vegetation communities. Data collection methods included interviews, questionnaires, participatory mapping exercises, vegetation sampling and remote sensing. Analytical procedures included qualitative coding, the application of a socio-ecological systems framework, multivariate analysis of vegetation communities and GIS spatial analysis.\ud The results provide the first detailed analysis of the socio-ecological system surrounding pastoralism in Dhofar. We find that livestock ownership is principally motivated by strong pastoral values rooted in cultural norms. But livestock ownership is expensive due to the requirement for daily feedstuff provisioning, which in turn makes local livestock prices uncompetitive against imported livestock. Few livestock are sold and the expense means some better-educated or wealthier individuals are losing interest. By applying a socio-ecological system framework we identify variables inhibiting self-organization, which can be summarised as too many resource users in an unproductive system with undervalued resources.\ud Feedstuff provision is found to be a critical variable which deems many rangeland concepts inapplicable and maintains livestock populations beyond the carrying capacity of the environment. Subsequently, the rangelands, which receive reliable precipitation, exhibit equilibrium properties. Several decades of overbrowsing has increased the frequency of unpalatable species, decreased plant density, reduced advanced growth, altered population age structures, and altered plant phytomorphology through the damaging effects of management practises, bark stripping and browsing.\ud We identify six new variants and a pre-described seventh variant of the Anogeissus forest. Our results suggest that two variants are the result of historical agricultural practises and deforestation, and long-term stocking rates are the primary driver of vegetation change across all variants. Finally, using a novel method, we calculate that seventeen percent of continuous-canopy forest has been lost in the study area and provide further evidence that unforested areas are the result of anthropogenic deforestation.\ud Our findings contribute valuable insights for rangeland science and demonstrate the need for new case studies, and synthesis of concepts and theories, specific to pastoralism in the Middle East. Our findings highlight a requirement for an intervention to reduce livestock pressure on the rangelands in Dhofar. We propose a shift away from the status quo of unmanaged and unproductive overstocking to an economically and environmentally sustainable rural livestock production system through certification, sustainable intensification and marketization.

Biodiversity is an important provider of ecosystem services. There is a sense of urgency running through the scientific community regarding its protection and conservation. This urgency is fuelled by a wealth of research into the effects of habitat destruction, intensive agriculture, destructive industries (such as mining and oil exploration) and the insidious threat of climate change. It might reasonably be suggested that the biodiversity crisis we are facing today is in large part due to a lack of regulation around human-activities with regard to biodiversity impacts. In order to impose regulations, protecting biodiversity has been incentivised through various governmental and non-profit private-sector certification initiatives that aim to minimise the negative impacts that industry can have on the environment. Agri-environment schemes are largely governmental initiatives that aim to enhance the biodiversity and societal values of farmland. Timber certification initiatives, such as the Forest Stewardship Council, promote woodland management that takes into account the economic, environmental and social aspects of forestry with equal measure. Protection and enhancement of biodiversity is integral to achieving the environmental aims of certification. However, several studies have highlighted that many schemes (notably agri-environment schemes and some timber certification schemes) ultimately fall short of their projected targets, which is often due to a lack of suitable monitoring with regard to biodiversity. This is unsurprising since biodiversity monitoring is not a straightforward process. Many considerations need to be made when choosing suitable indicators of ecosystem health such as whether to measure species diversity or functional diversity. But perhaps one of the biggest issues is the ability of landowners and managers to contribute to efficient, objective, standardised data collection.\ud Acoustic monitoring offers a means of producing unbiased data that can be analysed objectively and stored indefinitely. With significant advances in hardware and software technologies, the proliferation of acoustic monitoring is evident in the scientific literature.The field of soundscape ecology was in many respects borne out of these technological advances. It has since been usurped by the newer field of ecoacoustics (I use these two terms interchangeably throughout this thesis). Ecoacoustics offers a range of soundscape analytical techniques that aim to understand the spectral and temporal composition of the soundscape. As such a number of acoustic indices can be used to measure different facets of acoustic diversity. This study offers an overview of the current literature in bioacoustics and ecoacoustics. It applies several of these indices to studying the soundscape of Forest Stewardship Council certified plantation forests in the UK. Specifically it investigates the soundscape in relation to habitat and landscape metrics and explores temporal variation in acoustic activity. It offers insights into the relationship between man-made/machine noise (technophony) and biological sounds (biophony) and suggests future directions for research and large-scale monitoring of habitats. Finally it provides a set of instructions on how to build an automated recording unit using readily available parts and provides links to necessary software and guidance on types of hardware available. The key findings indicate that the use of acoustic indices for monitoring landscapes could be a useful tool. Clear relationships were observed between forest structure and stand age, and vegetation structure, with acoustic diversity in Thetford forest over two consecutive years. Although these relationships were not clear in Bedgebury forest, the effects of landscape structure were statistically significant, particularly when using automated recording units. Road proximity had a strong influence on the soundscape in all study sites. And the use of\ud ecoacoustic methods to explore this offers an insight into a new means of investigating the impact of roads on acoustic biodiversity. The development of a low-cost automated recording unit is a significant contribution to the field of soundscape ecology in terms of encouraging participation by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector. Likewise, the use of a handheld recording unit and the application of traditional ecological survey methods provide evidence that soundscape/ecoacoustic studies that yield interesting, informative and biologically meaningful results can be done on a relatively low budget. As such this thesis offers a significant contribution to the field of soundscape ecology in terms of both data and logistics. It may be particularly relevant to researchers on a limited budget and/or the NGO and citizen science sector.

Climate change is a global issue; one whose perception involves an ontological status whereby multiple perspectives enact its existence. Whilst biophysical scientific disciplines, such oceanography or conservation biology, have presented objective evidence of this climatic phenomenon, social science disciplines, such as sociology, politics, or psychology, have sought to explain how climate change is perceived and addressed by people. This thesis is about this subjective facet of climate change. It endeavours to engage with the worldwide interest in comprehending how people build their understanding and knowledge of climate change, but also takes a step further to investigate peoples' perception of climate change adaptation and look at emotional responses in respect to this climate issue. The specific aim of my research is therefore to provide insights that could be of value in enhancing our understanding of how people engage with climate change. \ud \ud Because most studies of peoples' knowledge and perceptions of climate change have been conducted with segments of the general public in the United States, Europe, and Australia, I decided to focus my study on a rather different society, namely that of my own nation, Ecuador. Moreover, here the interest was to investigate a rural community and to contrast the resulting data with those gathered from a sample of academic conservationists worldwide. \ud \ud In terms of the approach to the study, in being committed to allowing participants the agency to define how they themselves understand this climatic phenomenon, I employed a mixed-mode approach that incorporated qualitative and quantitative data gathering instruments, including face-to-face and online questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and participant observation.\ud \ud My findings provide a unique insight into the perspectives and realities that form the study populations' understandings of climate change. They suggest that despite the global nature of climate change, it is multiple local and individual realities that ultimately determine peoples' engagement with it. I conclude that action preferences, namely mitigation or adaptation to climate change, tend to be predominantly moderated by people's demographic background. I also suggest a tendency among urban dwellers to perceive climate change as an issue that cannot be tackled individually. Furthermore, because the international trend to cope with climate change highlights the relevance of 'resilience thinking', I argue that the results of my thesis can usefully inform the process of advising policy makers and when developing awareness-raising and educational programmes on climate change.

This thesis explores how the Maltese fishing sector has been affected by the regulatory framework emanating from the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Habitats' Directive. An interdisciplinary approach was adopted to identify how the multi-scalar governance structures and management system have influenced the social, economic, political and environmental elements of the Maltese fisheries sector. Management frameworks hailing from the CFP and the Habitats' Directive were analysed to elicit knowledge about the resource governance, socio-economic and socio-ecological resilience, and sustainable livelihoods in the context of small-scale and artisanal fisheries. By focusing on Malta's two main fishing villages - Marsaxlokk and Mgarr (Gozo), I seek to highlight how the ratification of the various policies has affected the sustainability of the heterogeneous fishing communities that inhabit the island. To do this, I have used a grounded theory approach to investigate the incremental implications deriving from the policy changes dawning onto the endogenous Maltese fishing patterns since EU accession in 2004. The research, which is based on a year of contact, interaction and participant observation with fishers, explores and describes how fishers experience and respond to conservation and neo-liberal policy shifts, and such findings are represented through a series of publishable case studies (chapters). In Chapter 4, I describe how the capitalistic nature of the Bluefin tuna fishery policy has facilitated the plight of the artisanal fishing sector due to privatisation schemes that enabled the concentration of quotas into fewer hands. In Chapter 5, I investigate the role of the Maltese open-access fisheries policy on the livelihood of fishers, and ultimately, in Chapter 6, I look into the sustainability implications of marine protected areas on the inshore fishing communities. Through these case studies, I provide a wide-ranging and analytical outlook of how small-scale fishers are implicated in the dynamics of fisheries management and governance. Based on these observations I provide feasible context-specific recommendations for the continuation of small-scale fishing communities.

More than one billion people, mostly from developing countries, rely on fish as their primary source of income and protein. With fishing pressure increasing rapidly, fish stocks across the world are fast declining. The consequences are already visible; nearly two-thirds of the global fish stocks have been overexploited, leaving disruption to food webs and marine ecosystems, and declining income for fishermen dependent on fisheries for their livelihoods. With predictions of further decline in fish stocks in the near future, it is crucial to reinforce marine environment protection. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been recognized as an effective management tool to protect fish populations, showing benefits beyond areas delimited by the MPA, thus adding further valuable support to local fisheries. The presence of MPAs is particularly important in areas with coral reef systems. With more than 30% of the world’s coral reefs negatively affected by ocean acidification, combined with the broader effect of global climate change and overfishing, resulting predictions indicate that 60% of the world’s reefs will be lost by 2030. MPAs are regarded as a useful tool in mitigating these impacts. With the prominent role MPAs play in marine conservation, monitoring and evaluating their status is necessary to ensure that marine management measures are effective and efficient. \ud This research explores the role of an MPA established in the vicinity of Kia Island, a remote island off the North coast of Vanua Levu, Fiji, and enveloped by the world’s third longest continuous barrier reef system. Semi- structured interviews and focus groups were conducted in the 3 villages of Daku, Ligau, and Yaro, in order to investigate stakeholders’ perceptions on ecological, financial, and social changes occurring after the establishment of the MPA. \ud Participants observed that since its establishment, the marine environment appears to be healthier inside and outside the MPA. Fish species, previously absent from the area have been observed, fish populations appear more abundant, and fish size may also have increased. Stakeholders also reported that they believe corals are recovering, and sea grass is now more prosperous. \ud The improved health of the ecosystem means that fish catches are more abundant, and fishermen’s income has consequently increased. The access to better finances has driven women to undertake fishing on a regular basis, empowering them to become breadwinners alongside their family’s men. The role of women is slowly changing both within their family structure and at community level. However, in a society like the Fijian’s, where patriarchy has strong roots, it is currently too early to assess what the consequences of women’s new role may be within the traditional society. \ud Recommendations to further assess the impact of the MPA include an assessment of income versus expenditure, landing site surveys, and ecological sampling to monitor change occurring inside and outside the MPA. Combined, these assessments will support efficient planning of future resource management. Social research on the change in women’s role and consequences on the family and wider community should also be developed.

'Conservation is about people, not just animals' argued Prince William in a letter to The Financial Times , written to gather support for ending ivory poaching and trading. This truism is often repeated by conservationists; we are frequently reminded that what we do - as humans - influences nature 'out there'.\ud Nevertheless, conservation science often hesitates to interrogate what we do as organised human societies. Time and again, that leads to somewhat simplifying analyses of humanity's enormous power in shaping the whole Earth System -currently argued to surpass the power of geological forces. A case in point could be the isolation of corruption in Africa as the main driver for ivory market explosion in the last decade. Without considering the political-economy not just of ivory, but of the global-to-local societal organisation that allows for thousands of elephants and rhinos to be killed - for something of so low use-value such as ivory - little understanding can be shed on this alarming trend. I argue, and hope I have shown in this thesis, that we should aim towards enriching what conservation understands as its field of vision and allow the latter to encompass not just human and nonhuman nature and societies, as Prince William rightfully argues, but also the political and societal. I would be satisfied if by going through this thesis the reader would be convinced of just this argument.\ud I am not claiming to be the first to identify this contradiction within conservation, but contra a sizeable number of scientists who work on similar subjects, I am normatively for conservation. A wealth of research has been published on conservation-society relationships that interrogates wider political, societal and economic constrains and opportunities as they relate to conservation. Usually though, research on what could be called critical conservation studies is (a) published in journals that conservationists do not read, and (b) is conducted by non-conservationists, often critical of conservation as a science and praxis per se. Thus all this wealth has little import to wider discussions about the future of conservation science and practice, and is even considered by conservationists as hostile to their agenda. I hope it is obvious from the above that I place this piece of research within the wide field of conservation science - despite drawing from a variety of disciplines.\ud In essence, this piece of work looks at the relation between political-economic transformations and the way societies think about, manage and regulate nature. Geographically, my focus is on England, but with a sideways glance to developments at the EU level. Historically, the scope is circumscribed by two years: 1981, the year of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool, and 2015, the year I submitted. Naturally, in this country-wide, 24 year study I have not even attempted to include 'everything'. I focused on what after examination of empirical data I considered to be key moments and places in the evolution of English conservation. \ud I begin with a section that introduces the reader into the area of study , followed and a brief literature-based summary of conservation in England from the beginning of the 20th century. The next three chapters should be read as a small trilogy that discusses the general trends in conservation policy and governance in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis (Chapter 3), followed by two smaller chapters (vignettes) that study post-financial crisis landscape scale conservation from: (a) a policy and governance perspective (Chapter 4); a use of science and scientific metaphors perspective (Chapter 5). The following two chapters try to reconstruct the where and when (geography and history are important) specific conservation policies and practices emerge, always in relation to economic and political changes. Chapter 6 is a genealogy of green infrastructure, from its emergence in the post-riot Liverpool landscape of 1981, to its current amalgamation with ecosystem services and monetary-valuation-of-nature milieu. Chapter 7 looks at biodiversity offsetting and argues that changing economic and transport geographies are crucial in understanding why biodiversity offsetting emerged as a solution to wildlife-development conflict in this instance and in the South East of England in particular. I conclude with a proposal for a new conservation that places utopia at the centre of its methodology (Chapter 8).

Many carnivore populations were in decline throughout much of the 20th century, but due to recent conservation policies, their numbers are stabilising or even increasing in\ud some areas of the world. This, compounded with human population growth, has caused increased livestock depredation by carnivores, which threatens farmer livelihoods, particularly those in developing countries such as Namibia. How to resolve this so-called “conflict” between carnivores and livestock farmers remains challenging, in part because some mitigation strategies have proven somewhat ineffective or unacceptable. By using a case-study approach on the commercial farmlands of northcentral Namibia, I aimed to understand the complexity of the human dimensions affecting coexistence between carnivores and people in an unprotected working landscape. Specifically, my objectives were to 1) develop a participatory decisionmaking exercise to analyse the views of stakeholders on how they would like carnivores to be managed in unprotected lands, 2) understand how the media framed\ud financial incentives to improve human-carnivore coexistence, and 3) determine if there were any underlying social, economic or political causes of negative human-carnivore\ud interactions on commercial livestock farms.\ud \ud To answer objective 1, I developed a new decision-making exercise that combined Q-methodology and the Delphi technique to determine whether a diverse group of stakeholders could agree on how to manage carnivores on commercial farmland. A strong agreement was reached by participants: providing conservation education and training on livestock husbandry were acceptable and effective ways to improve coexistence with carnivores. This new also method highlighted areas of disagreement between stakeholders and showed that there were two different narratives on how carnivores should be managed. This method could be used by policy makers to help with participatory decision-making for resolving other\ud conservation conflicts.\ud \ud To answer objective 2, I undertook content analysis of national newspapers to determine how the media framed articles on financial incentives to mitigate this conservation conflict. The most common (30%) financial incentive discussed was compensation - many (61%) of these articles framed compensation positively.\ud \ud However, upon categorising these articles into those where respondents were enrolled in compensation schemes compared with those who were not, a clear pattern emerged: articles were more likely (89%) to be framed ambivalently or negatively when respondents had experience of this financial incentive compared with respondents that did not. These results can help conservationists plan more effective communication interventions and anticipate issues that can affect the success of mitigation strategies.\ud \ud To answer objective 3, I undertook eight months of participant observation on livestock farms and interviewed 69 respondents and found that reported livestock depredation was associated with increased instances of poaching of wildlife and stealing of livestock. This association appeared to be partly due to farmer-worker relations: when employees felt happy, respected and were paid a liveable wage, they were incentivised to perform well in their job. This resulted in livestock that were managed more effectively and therefore less likely to be killed by predators. Furthermore, these well-paid employees were not incentivised to steal or poach to supplement their income, which limited the extent of game poaching and livestock theft on the farm. These findings underline the fact that this conservation conflict is extremely complicated, driven by many social, economic and political factors that may not be apparent initially.\ud \ud In conclusion, this thesis has found that the conflict between carnivores and livestock farmers is a truly wicked problem, affected by a multitude of complex layers.\ud Only by exploring the entangled web of drivers will we ever begin to create positive, lasting change for both people and predators. Niki Rust © 2015

Climate change has been recognized as one of the causes of global amphibian population declines. Amphibians may be particularly susceptible to climatic changes, as a result of their ectothermic life style and dependence on moisture. Climatic factors may affect amphibian population dynamics deterministically or stochastically, and can act at both local and regional levels. Using capture-mark- recapture (CMR) methods, population dynamics of great crested newts over two decades were compared between two separate populations in Canterbury, Kent in order to explore local and regional drivers of population change. Accurate individual identification is a basic assumption of capture-mark-recapture methods. A comparison of manual and computer-assisted photo identification programs verified that the spot patterns of individual newts did not change significantly through time, and were sufficiently varied to reliably identify individual newts. At a metapopulation located within an agricultural landscape, capture-mark-recapture modelling revealed variations in survival, detectability, and population size between years. Low annual survival of adult newts was related to mild, wet winters which impacted the metapopulation at the regional level. Therefore, survival varied between years but not between subpopulations. Regardless of this regional effect, the four subpopulations were generally asynchronous in their dynamics, but the persistence of the metapopulation depended on a single source pond that was the smallest water body within the system. At a further population two miles away, survival since 2001 was constant and high every year despite mild, wet winters. Management practised through draining and refilling the ponds did have an apparent effect on the number of newts captured over the subsequent years. Population increase could be due to the decrease in predatory invertebrates following pond desiccation and a subsequent increase in recruitment levels. Body condition may be linked to the survival of amphibians. However, there was no influence of climatic conditions on the body condition at either of the populations studied. Nevertheless, body condition was related to survival at one of the populations, and body condition was lower in ponds with high densities of newts. Consequently, the persistence of the two populations relies on a combination of (1) local, population-specific factors - such as population density and pond desiccation, and (2) regional factors, such as climate that affect recruitment and survival from each pond. However, conservation actions at the local scale may offset reduced larval recruitment and adult survival at the regional scale.

This research aims to study the social, historical and environmental dynamics around forests fires in Serra de Tramuntana, a protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site in the island of Mallorca, in the Spanish state. From the second half of the twentieth century, and like in other Mediterranean rural areas, Serra de Tramuntana entered into a process of de-agrarisation, which led to the abandonment of many cultivated, pasture and forest lands. Moreover, in 2007, Serra de Tramuntana was conferred the status of Natural Site (Paratge Natural), resulting in the implementation of new land-use regulations and prohibitions which often conflict with local people's land-uses and agroforestry management practices. Due to the changes in land-use and management, the landscape of Serra de Tramuntana has transformed by increased woodland and accumulated dead and living forest biomass. This combination of factors, together with the hot and dry summers, have enhanced an upsurge of large forest fires. In 2013, the largest forest fire ever recorded in the Balearic Islands burned 2,400 hectares of Serra de Tramuntana. Large forest fires, particularly from the 2013 fire, have galvanised public, media, scientific and governmental attention, highlighting the diversity and conflict of perspectives between a wide range of social actors. They have also become a focus for social conflict, and a locus for broader processes of social contestation, negotiation and cooperation linked to environmental change, to land-use and environmental management of the protected area. Combining an analysis of ethnographic, historical and geographical data, this research project aims to understand the social, historical and environmental dimensions of forest fires in Serra de Tramuntana. My research seeks to understand (1) the varying social perspectives about the factors that today contribute to the incidence of large forest fires in Serra de Tramuntana and the possible management solutions for this issue; and (2) how the presence of fire reflects the convergence of multiple social perspectives and actions associated with the use and management of the protected area.