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The impacts of climate change imply substantive changes to current conservation policy frameworks. Debating and formulating the details of these changes was central to the agenda of the Fourth World Conservation Congress (WCC) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In this paper, we document the promotion of, and resistance to, various proposals related to revising conservation policy given climate impacts as they unfolded at this key policy-setting event. Our analysis finds that, during one-on-one interviews, many experts acknowledged the need for new policy means (including increased interventions) and revised policy objectives given anticipations of habitat and species loss. However, this same pattern and the implied willingness to consider more controversial strategies were less evident at public speaking events at the WCC. Rather, active avoidance of contentious topics was observed in public settings. This resulted in the reinforcement (not revision) of conventional policy means and objectives at this meeting. We suggest that this observation can at least partly be explained by the fact that the difficult trade-offs (species for species or land base for land base) implied by nascent proposals severely violate prevailing value-based conservation commitments and so understandable resistance to change is observed.

Despite a common understanding of the harmful impacts of Western conservation models that separate people from nature, widespread progress toward incorporating socioeconomic, political, cultural, and spiritual considerations in conservation practice is lacking. For some, the concept of nature-based solutions (NbS) is seen as an interdisciplinary and holistic pathway to better integrate human well-being in conservation. We examined how conservation practitioners in the United States view NbS and how social considerations are or are not incorporated in conservation adaptation projects. We interviewed 28 individuals working on 15 different such projects associated with the Wildlife Conservation Society's Climate Adaptation Fund. We completed 2 rounds of iterative coding in NVivo 12.6.1 to identify in the full text of all interview responses an a priori set of themes related to our research questions and emergent themes. Many respondents saw this moment as a tipping point for the field (one in which the perceived values of social considerations are increasing in conservation practice) (76%) and that social justice concerns and the need to overcome racist and colonial roots of Western conservation have risen to the forefront. Respondents also tentatively agreed that NbS in conservation could support social and ecological outcomes for conservation, but that it was far from guaranteed. Despite individual intention and awareness among practitioners to incorporate social considerations in conservation practice, structural barriers, including limited funding and inflexible grant structures, continue to constrain systemic change. Ultimately, systemic changes that address power and justice in policy and practice are required to leverage this moment to more fully address social considerations in conservation., (© 2023 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

Climate change threatens the social, ecological, and economic benefits enjoyed by forest-dependent communities worldwide. Climate-adaptive forest management strategies such as genomics-based assisted migration (AM) may help protect many of these threatened benefits. However, such novel technological interventions in complex social-ecological systems will generate new risks, benefits, and uncertainties that interact with diverse forest values and preexisting risks. Using data from 16 focus groups in British Columbia, Canada, we show that different stakeholders (forestry professionals, environmental nongovernmental organizations, local government officials, and members of local business communities) emphasize different kinds of risks and uncertainties in judging the appropriateness of AM. We show the difficulty of climate-adaptive decisions in complex social-ecological systems in which both climate change and adaptation will have widespread and cascading impacts on diverse nonclimate values. Overarching judgments about AM as an adaptation strategy, which may appear simple when elicited in surveys or questionnaires, require that participants make complex trade-offs among multiple domains of uncertain and unknown risks. Overall, the highest-priority forest management objective for most stakeholders is the health and integrity of the forest ecosystem from which all other important forest values derive. The factor perceived as riskiest is our lack of knowledge of how forest ecosystems work, which hinders stakeholders in their assessment of AM's acceptability. These results are further evidence of the inherent risk in privileging natural science above other forms of knowledge at the science-policy interface. When decisions are framed as technical, the normative and ethical considerations that define our fundamental goals are made invisible., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Novel management interventions intended to mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity are increasingly being considered by scientists and practitioners. However, resistance to more transformative interventions remains common across both specialist and lay communities and is generally assumed to be strongly entrenched. We used a decision-pathways survey of the public in Canada and the United States (n = 1490) to test two propositions relating to climate-motivated interventions for conservation: most public groups are uncomfortable with interventionist options for conserving biodiversity and given the strong values basis for preferences regarding biodiversity and natural systems more broadly, people are unlikely to change their minds. Our pathways design tested and retested levels of comfort with interventions for forest ecosystems at three different points in the survey. Comfort was reexamined given different nudges (including new information from trusted experts) and in reference to a particular species (bristlecone pine [Pinus longaeva]). In contrast with expectations of public unease, baseline levels of public comfort with climate interventions in forests was moderately high (46% comfortable) and increased further when respondents were given new information and the opportunity to change their choice after consideration of a particular species. People who were initially comfortable with interventions tended to remain so (79%), whereas 42% of those who were initially uncomfortable and 40% of those who were uncertain shifted to comfortable by the end of the survey. In short and across questions, comfort levels with interventions were high, and where discomfort or uncertainty existed, such positions did not appear to be strongly held. We argue that a new decision logic, one based on anthropogenic responsibility, is beginning to replace a default reluctance to intervene with nature., (© 2021 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Conservation practices during the first decade of the millennium predominantly focused on resisting changes and maintaining historical or current conditions, but ever-increasing impacts from climate change have highlighted the need for transformative action. However, little empirical evidence exists on what kinds of conservation actions aimed specifically at climate change adaptation are being implemented in practice, let alone how transformative these actions are. In response, we propose and trial a novel typology-the R-R-T scale, which improves on existing concepts of Resistance, Resilience, and Transformation-that enables the practical application of contested terms and the empirical assessment of whether and to what extent a shift toward transformative action is occurring. When applying the R-R-T scale to a case study of 104 adaptation projects funded since 2011, we find a trend towards transformation that varies across ecosystems. Our results reveal that perceptions about the acceptance of novel interventions in principle are beginning to be expressed in practice.

Effective governance of public forests depends, in part, on public support for changes in forest management, particularly those responding to changes in socio-ecological conditions driven by climate change. Trust in managing authorities and knowledge about forest management have proven influential in shaping public support for policy across different forest managemen contexts. However, little is known about the relationship between public trust and knowledge as it relates to policy support for emerging management strategies for climate adaptation in forests. We use the example of genomics-based assisted migration (within and outside of natural range) in British Columbia's (BC) forests to examine the relative roles of and interactions between trust in different forestry actors and knowledge of forestry in shaping public support for this new and potentially controversial management alternative. Our results, based on an online survey (n = 1953 BC residents), reveal low public trust in governments and the forest industry combined with low levels of public knowledge about forest management. We find that individuals who are more trusting of decision-makers and other important forestry actors hold higher levels of support for assisted migration. Higher levels of forestry knowledge are linked with support for assisted migration within native range, whereas no knowledge effect is observed for assisted migration outside of native range. We discuss the implications of these observations and provide recommendations to more fully engage with the challenges of low levels of trust and knowledge in this context., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The use of feed additives to improve feed conversion while increasing growth is the goal of any broiler nutrition program. Therefore, it is important to evaluate potential feed additives not only for increased performance, but also for any negative attributes. A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of feeding phosphatidic acid (PA) to broiler chickens. Two experiments were conducted using exercise in conjunction with PA (Experiment 1(E1)) and administering PA at different inclusion rates in the diet (Experiment 2 (E2)); LowPA (5 mg/bird/day), MidPA (10 mg/bird/day), HighPA (15 mg/bird/day), and control (CON). All birds were weighed bi-weekly during the experiments to obtain average pen weights and feed conversion ratios (FCRs). At the end of the experiments, eight birds per pen were processed to evaluate carcass traits and breast yield. In E1, exercise did not affect growth, feed conversion or processing traits ( p > 0.05). However, PA supplementation did increase growth, carcass and breast weight, and carcass and breast yields ( p < 0.05). In E2, differences ( p < 0.05) in live bird weights between the control birds (1.65 kg) and all PA treatments (pooled mean: 1.73 kg) began at 28 days; however, only the LowPA carried that effect ( p = 0.05) through to the conclusion of the trial (3.55 vs. 3.81 kg). Overall, LowPA (1.64) and MidPA (1.69) had lower ( p < 0.05) FCRs than the CON treatment (1.74). Increased growth observed in live bird weights in the LowPA translated to increased ( p < 0.05) overall carcass weights (2.78 vs. 2.99 kg) and specifically breast filet weights (0.69 vs. 0.76 kg). Yields did not differ ( p > 0.05), but with the increased weight feeding LowPA resulted in more total breast meat. Phosphatidic acid did not affect ( p > 0.05) woody breast or white striping. In conclusion, dietary PA improved FCR, increased live bird weights, and increased breast fillet weight without increased incidence of white striping. These results indicate that feeding PA may increase production efficiency in broilers.

The role of forest management in mitigating climate change is a central concern for the Canadian province of British Columbia. The successful implementation of forest management activities to achieve climate change mitigation in British Columbia will be strongly influenced by public support or opposition. While we now have increasingly clear ideas of the management opportunities associated with forest mitigation and some insight into public support for climate change mitigation in the context of sustainable forest management, very little is known with respect to the levels and basis of public support for potential forest management strategies to mitigate climate change. This paper, by describing the results of a web-based survey, documents levels of public support for the implementation of eight forest carbon mitigation strategies in British Columbia's forest sector, and examines and quantifies the influence of the factors that shape this support. Overall, respondents ascribed a high level of importance to forest carbon mitigation and supported all of the eight proposed strategies, indicating that the British Columbia public is inclined to consider alternative practices in managing forests and wood products to mitigate climate change. That said, we found differences in levels of support for the mitigation strategies. In general, we found greater levels of support for a rehabilitation strategy (e.g. reforestation of unproductive forest land), and to a lesser extent for conservation strategies (e.g. old growth conservation, reduced harvest) over enhanced forest management strategies (e.g. improved harvesting and silvicultural techniques). We also highlighted multiple variables within the British Columbia population that appear to play a role in predicting levels of support for conservation and/or enhanced forest management strategies, including environmental values, risk perception, trust in groups of actors, prioritized objectives of forest management and socio-demographic factors.

In recent years, the provision of economic incentives through carbon financing and carbon offsetting has been central to efforts at forest carbon mitigation. However, notwithstanding their potentially important roles in climate policy, forest carbon offsets face numerous barriers which have limited widespread implementation worldwide. This paper uses the case study of the Canadian province of British Columbia to explore the barriers associated with achieving widespread implementation of forest carbon offsets in the next several decades. Drawing on interviews with experts from government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and First Nations, six main barriers are identified and discussed: (1) deficiencies of carbon markets, (2) limited economic benefits, (3) uncertain climate effectiveness, (4) negative public opinion, (5) limited and uncertain property rights, and (6) governance issues. While respondents from different sectors agreed on various points, divergence was also observed, notably on the trade-off between generating environmentally sound offsets and promoting cost-effective ways to achieve mitigation. We discuss these differences in the context of the goals and objectives of different actors, and offer insights for understanding the uptake (or not) of carbon offset policies., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)