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Many nations are struggling to reduce deforestation, despite having extensive environmental protection laws in place and commitments to international agreements that address the biodiversity and climate crises. We developed a novel framework to quantify the extent to which contemporary deforestation is being captured under national and subnational laws. We then applied this framework to northern Australia as a case study, a development and deforestation hotspot with ecosystems of global significance. First, deforestation may be compliant under all relevant legislation, either through assessment and approval or because of exemptions in the legislation. Second, deforestation may be compliant under at least one relevant law, but not all. Third, there may be no evidence of deforestation assessment or exemption from assessment, despite their apparent requirement, which could mean the deforestation is potentially noncompliant. Finally, deforestation may occur in an area or under circumstances that are beyond the intended scope of any relevant legislation. All deforestation that we analyzed was hypothetically covered by one or more laws. However, 65% of deforestation was potentially noncompliant with at least one law. Because multiple laws could be relevant to a given clearing event, the majority of clearing was still compliant with at least one law, but of these events, only a small proportion was explicitly approved (19%). The remaining were permitted under various exemptions. Of all the legislation we analyzed, most of the exempt clearing occurred under one subnational law and most potentially noncompliant clearing occurred under one national law. Our results showed that even a nation with a suite of mature environmental protection laws is falling well short of achieving international commitments regarding deforestation. Our framework can be used to pinpoint the pathways of policy change required for nations to align local laws with these international accords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 40 years, biotechnology and genetic engineering (GE) have been used in the development of medicines and biologic agents important in protecting and augmenting human health and have been met with broad public acceptance in the health care arena. GE has also been used to improve and develop plants important to agriculture and forestry, but in these areas, it has often encountered intense opposition that has prevented or delayed the introduction of potentially useful plants. Much of the opposition to GE's application in agriculture and forestry may be driven by concerns that GE plants will serve primarily to encourage the domination of the food and wood products industries by monopolistic corporations or will be disruptive to the environment. But to conflate genetic modifications intended to promote healthy ecosystems or preserve threatened species with GE projects aimed at benefiting corporate agriculture and forestry is misleading and illogical. Further, the pervasive human disruption and damage to forest ecosystems makes it prudent to bring the best that science can offer to the protection and restoration of critical woodland denizens and broader ecosystem health. The notion that minimal human intervention in the forest environment may be the best approach ignores humanity's responsibility to help manage and protect some of the very places that have been most damaged by human intrusion. GE intended to improve forest health should be afforded the same consideration, acceptance, and support as GE intended to improve human health. These efforts should include the use of GE technology such as carefully developed transgenic trees to cure ongoing forest pathogenesis, such as the chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), which threatens to drive the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) to extinction. Article impact statement: Genetic engineering used to protect forest health should be afforded the same support as genetic engineering used to protect human health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human communities and ecosystems of island and coastal southeast Africa face significant and linked ecological threats. Socioecological conditions of concern to communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and researchers include declining agricultural productivity, deforestation, introductions of non‐native flora and fauna, coastal erosion and sedimentation, damage to marine environments, illegal fishing, overfishing, waste pollution, salinization of freshwater supplies, and rising energy demands, among others. Human–environment challenges are connected to longer, often ignored, histories of social and ecological dynamics in the region. We argue that these challenges are more effectively understood and addressed within a longer‐term historical ecology framework. We reviewed cases from Madagascar, coastal Kenya, and the Zanzibar Archipelago of fisheries, deforestation, and management of human waste to encourage increased engagement among historical ecologists, conservation scientists, and policy makers. These case studies demonstrate that by widening the types and time depths of data sets we used to investigate and address current socioecological challenges, our interpretations of their causes and strategies for their mitigation varied significantly. Article impact statement: Past human–environment dynamics are key to addressing today's threats to livelihoods and ecosystems in island and coastal southeast Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapidly changing landscapes have spurred the need for quantitative methods for conservation assessment and planning that encompass large spatial extents. We devised and tested a multispecies framework for conservation planning to complement single-species assessments and ecosystem-level approaches. Our framework consisted of 4 elements: sampling to effectively estimate population parameters, measuring how human activity affects landscapes at multiple scales, analyzing the relation between landscape characteristics and individual species occurrences, and evaluating and comparing the responses of multiple species to landscape modification. We applied the approach to a community of terrestrial birds across 25,000 km2 with a range of intensities of human development. Human modification of land cover, road density, and other elements of the landscape, measured at multiple spatial extents, had large effects on occupancy of the 67 species studied. Forest composition within 1 km of points had a strong effect on occupancy of many species and a range of negative, intermediate, and positive associations. Road density within 1 km of points, percent evergreen forest within 300 m, and distance from patch edge were also strongly associated with occupancy for many species. We used the occupancy results to group species into 11 guilds that shared patterns of association with landscape characteristics. Our multispecies approach to conservation planning allowed us to quantify the trade-offs of different scenarios of land-cover change in terms of species occupancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide efforts have concentrated on developing monitoring methods that would enhance the assessment of progress toward achieving the 2010 conservation objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Threat reduction assessment is one such method. It provides an indirect measure of the effects of a conservation project by evaluating changes in human-induced direct threats to protected areas. We applied modified threat reduction assessments and the 2008 International Union for Conservation of Nature standardized lexicon for classification of threats to Horsh Ehden and Al-Shouf Cedar nature reserves in Lebanon. Our goal was in part to test the suitability of this tool for improving monitoring and management effectiveness of protected forests in Lebanon. In Horsh Ehden, composite threats decreased by 24% from 1997 to 2002, and then increased from 2002 to 2009 by 78% in the core area of the reserve and by 118% in the reserve's buffer zone (surrounds core area, conservation and recreational activities allowed). In Al-Shouf Cedar reserve threats decreased by 51% from 2006 to 2009. Management teams from both reserves have integrated the use of this method to prioritize actions for new management plans. We believe that in Lebanon and other countries with limited resources and weak monitoring programs or that are experiencing political instability threat reduction assessments could be used to improve the effectiveness of protected areas management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With about half the world's human population and booming economies, Asia faces numerous challenges to its biodiversity. The Asia Section of the Society for Conservation Biology has identified some key policy issues in which significant progress can be made. These include developing new sources of funding for forest conservation; identifying potential impacts of energy alternatives on the conservation of biodiversity; curbing the trade in endangered species of plants and animals; a special focus on the conservation of mountain biodiversity; enhancing relevant research; ensuring that conservation biology contributes to major international conventions and funding mechanisms; using conservation biology to build a better understanding of zoonotic diseases; more effectively addressing human–animal conflicts; enhancing community-based conservation; and using conservation biology to help address the pervasive water-deficit problems in much of Asia. These challenges can be met through improved regional cooperation among the relevant stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that two problems weaken the claims of those who link corruption and the exploitation of natural resources. The first is conceptual and the second is methodological. Studies that use national-level indicators of corruption fail to note that corruption comes in many forms, at multiple levels, that may affect resource use quite differently: negatively, positively, or not at all. Without a clear causal model of the mechanism by which corruption affects resources, one should treat with caution any estimated relationship between corruption and the state of natural resources. Simple, atheoretical models linking corruption measures and natural resource use typically do not account for other important control variables pivotal to the relationship between humans and natural resources. By way of illustration of these two general concerns, we used statistical methods to demonstrate that the findings of a recent, well-known study that posits a link between corruption and decreases in forests and elephants are not robust to simple conceptual and methodological refinements. In particular, once we controlled for a few plausible anthropogenic and biophysical conditioning factors, estimated the effects in changes rather than levels so as not to confound cross-sectional and longitudinal variation, and incorporated additional observations from the same data sources, corruption levels no longer had any explanatory power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To evaluate the efficiency by which fine-scale diversity hotspots capture threatened species in northern forests, we investigated the spatial distribution of vascular plants, bryophytes, macrolichens, and polypore fungi with 1-ha resolution (in 0.25-ha plots) within six approximately 2-km2 forest landscapes in Norway. Of 1295 recorded species (118,000 records), 62 species (842 records) were on the Norwegian Red List, of which 7 species (12 records) were new to Norway. We studied the degree of clustering of different red-listed species among plots by comparing observed co-occurrence of red-listed species to a null model of random co-occurrence. Red-listed species were moderately clustered within study areas but less so within each forest type. Clustering was similar for areas with high and low densities of red-listed species. However, the proportion of records captured in rarity hotspots (plots with the highest number of red-listed species) depended on both the total number of records of red-listed species per area and the degree of clustering of species among plots. The 5% highest-ranking rarity hotspots captured, on average, 59% of red-listed species and 23% of all records of red-listed species in study areas, compared with 56% and 18% captured by hotspots selected from a random distribution of species, respectively. Hotspots based on the most species-rich plots (richness hotspots) were significantly less effective than rarity hotspots in capturing red-listed species and their records. Based on the observed pattern of species co-occurrence and the high proportion of area seemingly occupied by red-listed species in mature forest, we hypothesize that 20–25% of the populations of red-listed species may be located within rarity hotspots constituting 5% at the scale of 1 ha. We conclude that limited spatial overlap of species constitutes an important constraint on the efficiency of a fine-scale hotspot conservation strategy, such as the “woodland key habitats” (0.1–10 ha) currently mapped and protected in northern European forests. Para evaluar la eficiencia de la captación de especies amenazadas en bosques boreales, investigamos la distribución espacial de plantas vasculares, briofitas, macrolíquenes y un hongo poliporáceo con una resolución de 1 ha (parcelas de 0.25 ha) en seis paisajes boscosos de ∼2-km2 en Noruega. De 1295 especies registradas (118,000 registros), 62 especies (842 registros) estaban en La Lista Roja Noruega, de las cuales 7 especies (12 registros) fueron nuevas para Noruega. Estudiamos el nivel de agrupamiento de las diferentes especies en listas rojas entre parcelas comparando la co-ocurrencia observada de especies en listas rojas con un modelo nulo de co-ocurrencia aleatoria. Las especies en listas rojas estaban moderadamente agrupadas dentro de las áreas de estudio, más que dentro de cada tipo de bosque. EL agrupamiento fue similar en áreas con densidades altas y bajas de especies en listas rojas. Sin embargo, la proporción de registros captados en áreas de rareza crítica (parcelas con el mayor número de especies en listas rojas) dependió tanto del número total de registros de especies en listas rojas por área y el nivel de agrupamiento de especies entre parcelas. El 5% de las áreas de rareza crítica de mayor categoría captaron, en promedio, al 59% de las especies en listas rojas y al 23% de todos los registros de especies en listas rojas en áreas de estudio, comparado con 56% y 18% captadas por áreas críticas seleccionadas de una distribución aleatoria de especies, respectivamente. Áreas críticas basadas en las parcelas con mayor riqueza de especies (áreas de riqueza crítica) fueron significativamente menos eficientes que áreas de rareza crítica en la captación de especies en listas rojas y sus registros. Con base en el patrón de co-ocurrencia de especies observado y en la alta proporción de área aparentemente ocupada por especies en listas rojas en bosques maduros, proponemos la hipótesis de que 20–25% de las poblaciones de especies en listas rojas pueden estar localizadas dentro de áreas de rareza crítica que constituyen 5% a la escala de 1 ha. Concluimos que el traslape espacial limitado de especies constituye una importante limitación para la eficiencia de una estrategia de conservación de áreas críticas a escala fina, tal como los “hábitats boscosos clave” (0.1–10 ha) mapeados y protegidos actualmente en bosques boreales de Europa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]