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Conservation policy sits at the nexus of natural science and politics. On the one hand, conservation scientists strive to maintain scientific credibility by emphasizing that their research findings are the result of disinterested observations of reality. On the other hand, conservation scientists are committed to conservation even if they do not advocate a particular policy. The professional conservation literature offers guidance on negotiating the relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging conservation science's credibility. The value of this guidance, however, may be restricted by limited recognition of credibility's multidimensionality and emergent nature: it emerges through perceptions of expertise, goodwill, and trustworthiness. We used content analysis of the literature to determine how credibility is framed in conservation science as it relates to apparent contradictions between science and advocacy. Credibility typically was framed as a static entity lacking dimensionality. Authors identified expertise or trustworthiness as important, but rarely mentioned goodwill. They usually did not identify expertise, goodwill, or trustworthiness as dimensions of credibility or recognize interactions among these 3 dimensions of credibility. This oversimplification may limit the ability of conservation scientists to contribute to biodiversity conservation. Accounting for the emergent quality and multidimensionality of credibility should enable conservation scientists to advance biodiversity conservation more effectively., (© 2015 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

Anthropogenic climate change is widely considered a major threat to global biodiversity, such that the ability of a species to adapt will determine its likelihood of survival. Egg‐burying reptiles that exhibit temperature‐dependent sex determination, such as critically endangered hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), are particularly vulnerable to changes in thermal regimes because nest temperatures affect offspring sex, fitness, and survival. It is unclear whether hawksbills possess sufficient behavioral plasticity of nesting traits (i.e., redistribution of nesting range, shift in nesting phenology, changes in nest‐site selection, and adjustment of nest depth) to persist within their climatic niche or whether accelerated changes in thermal conditions of nesting beaches will outpace phenotypic adaption and require human intervention. For these reasons, we estimated sex ratios and physical condition of hatchling hawksbills under natural and manipulated conditions and generated and analyzed thermal profiles of hawksbill nest environments within highly threatened mangrove ecosystems at Bahía de Jiquilisco, El Salvador, and Estero Padre Ramos, Nicaragua. Hawksbill clutches protected in situ at both sites incubated at higher temperatures, yielded lower hatching success, produced a higher percentage of female hatchlings, and produced less fit offspring than clutches relocated to hatcheries. We detected cooler sand temperatures in woody vegetation (i.e., coastal forest and small‐scale plantations of fruit trees) and hatcheries than in other monitored nest environments, with higher temperatures at the deeper depth. Our findings indicate that mangrove ecosystems present a number of biophysical (e.g., insular nesting beaches and shallow water table) and human‐induced (e.g., physical barriers and deforestation) constraints that, when coupled with the unique life history of hawksbills in this region, may limit behavioral compensatory responses by the species to projected temperature increases at nesting beaches. We contend that egg relocation can contribute significantly to recovery efforts in a changing climate under appropriate circumstances. In this study, we estimated sex ratios and physical condition of hatchling hawksbill turtles under natural and manipulated conditions and generated and analyzed thermal profiles of hawksbill nest environments within mangrove ecosystems at Bahía de Jiquilisco, El Salvador, and Estero Padre Ramos, Nicaragua. Hawksbill clutches protected in situ at both sites incubated at higher temperatures, obtained lower hatching success, produced a higher percentage of female hatchlings, and produced less fit offspring than clutches relocated to hatcheries. We detected cooler sand temperatures in woody vegetation (i.e., coastal forest and small‐scale plantations of fruit trees) and hatcheries than in other monitored nest environments, with higher temperatures at the deeper depth, suggesting that egg relocation can contribute to recovery efforts in a changing climate under appropriate circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Superstorm Sandy hit the northeastern United States in October 2012, knocking out power to 10 million people and highlighting energy and critical infrastructure system vulnerabilities in the face of a changing climate. The increased frequency and intensity of such disruptive events is shifting priorities in electricity system planning around the world, including how multiple stakeholders consider linkages between climate vulnerability and energy. This research links smart grid development with adaptation to changing climates and explores how different stakeholders grapple with system vulnerabilities and climate disruptions. To illustrate this, the in-depth case study assesses post-Sandy discourse to compare how electricity sector stakeholder groups in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont associate energy, smart grid, and climate change. To explore how different energy system stakeholders frame the impacts of Superstorm Sandy on energy system planning, we conducted 22 focus groups with a broad range of organizations representing diverse aspects of the electricity system including utilities, regulatory authorities, research and development agencies, regional transmission organizations, academic research institutions, consumer advocacy and environmental organizations across the three states. We used these data to examine post-Sandy discourse about climate mitigation and climate adaptation, routine system management, and the potential value of “smart grid” for future energy system planning. We found that both New York and Massachusetts stakeholders focused more on climate adaptation than climate mitigation, while stakeholders in Vermont focused more on mitigation. In all three states stakeholder discussions of adaptation focused most heavily on system resilience and reliability, whereas discussions of mitigation focused on demand-side management and demand response followed by alternative energy strategies. These results suggest that extreme weather and climate disruptions will differentially shape discourse around smart grid and energy system change and shift the focus among energy system stakeholders on climate adaptation compared to climate mitigation. This research demonstrates variation between political jurisdictions (states) and energy system stakeholders in energy system planning in the face of new challenges related to an uncertain and rapidly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human–wildlife conflict has emerged as the central vocabulary for cases requiring balance between resource demands of humans and wildlife. This phrase is problematic because, given traditional definitions of conflict, it positions wildlife as conscious human antagonists. We used content analysis of wildlife conservation publications and professional meeting presentations to explore the use of the phrase, human–wildlife conflict, and compared competing models explaining its usage. Of the 422 publications and presentations using human–wildlife conflict, only 1 reflected a traditional definition of conflict, >95% referred to reports of animal damage to entities human care about, and <4% referred to human–human conflict. Usage of human–wildlife conflict was related to species type (herbivores with human food, carnivores with human safety, meso-mammals with property), development level of the nation where the study occurred (less developed nations with human food and more developed nations with human safety and property damage), and whether the study occurred on private lands or protected areas (protected areas with human–human conflict and other areas with property damage). We argue that the phrase, human–wildlife conflict, is detrimental to coexistence between humans and wildlife, and suggest comic reframing to facilitate a more productive interpretation of human–wildlife relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental managers are simultaneously responsible for guiding appropriate stakeholder involvement in natural resource conflicts and enhancing the trust that non-governmental stakeholders have in each other and in government. Underlying both of these responsibilities is the desire to produce legitimate policies that will likely be successful, that is, policies that are substantively and procedurally legitimate. It is unlikely that legitimacy can be satisfied by environmental management policies that are uninformed by relevant facts; therefore, expert analyses of impacts and the likely outcomes of policy interventions are essential. Despite the best technical and economic validity, however, agreements that lack social acceptability will fail to achieve broad legitimacy, and will, therefore, be difficult to implement. Rather, environmental managers must integrate diverse stakeholders into the policy dialogue, at the same time they recognize the ongoing challenges posed by differential power. This paper reviews the characteristics of legitimate agreements, examines four social control frames commonly encountered in environmental conflicts, and discusses how these frames developed and then affected conflict dynamics in three major environmental conflicts. It further suggests ways that environmental professionals might use an understanding of social control frames to more effectively identify and implement appropriate strategies for achieving legitimate agreements, thus contributing to conflict tractability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]