Rules governing human behaviour are at the heart of every system of natural resource management. Without compliance, however, rules are meaningless so effective enforcement is essential if conservation is to be successful. There is a large body of theory concerning enforcement and compliance with rules spread over several disciplines, including psychology, economics and sociology. However, there have been few attempts to extend this theory to conservation applications and there is little practical guidance for managers and conservation planners on the optimal design of enforcement programmes. We review approaches to understanding why individuals break rules and how optimal policy choices can reduce rule-breaking, highlighting research which has specifically dealt with natural resources. Because of the difficulty of studying rule-breaking behaviour directly, modelling approaches have been particularly important and have been used to explore behaviour at the individual, group and institutional levels. We illustrate the application of models of enforcement and compliance to conservation using the African elephant Loxodonta africana as a case study. Further work is needed to create practical tools which can be applied to the design of enforcement measures in conservation. Particular challenges include understanding the importance of violations of rationality assumptions and incorporating intertemporal choice in models of decision making. In conclusion, we argue that a new field of robust theory and practice is urgently needed to ensure that issues of enforcement and compliance do not undermine conservation initiatives.

Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate, making the conservation movement of critical importance for life on Earth. However, recent debates over the future of conservation have been polarised, acrimonious and dominated by an unrepresentative demographic group.

Combating the surge of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) devastating wildlife populations is an urgent global priority for conservation. There are increasing policy commitments to take action at the local community level as part of effective responses. However, there is scarce evidence that in practice such interventions are being pursued and there is scant understanding regarding how they can help. Here we set out a conceptual framework to guide efforts to effectively combat IWT through actions at community level. This framework is based on articulating the net costs and benefits involved in supporting conservation versus supporting IWT, and how these incentives are shaped by anti-IWT interventions. Using this framework highlights the limitations of an exclusive focus on "top-down," enforcement-led responses to IWT. These responses can distract from a range of other approaches that shift incentives for local people toward supporting conservation rather than IWT, as well as in some cases actually decrease the net incentives in favor of wildlife conservation.

Understanding the patterns of wild meat consumption from tropical forests is important for designing approaches to address this major threat to biodiversity and mitigate potential pathways for transmission of emerging diseases. Bushmeat consumption has been particularly poorly studied in Madagascar, one of the world's hottest biodiversity hotspots. Studying bushmeat consumption is challenging as many species are protected and researchers must consider the incentives faced by informants. Using interviews with 1154 households in 12 communes in eastern Madagascar, as well as local monitoring data, we investigated the importance of socio-economic variables, taste preference and traditional taboos on consumption of 50 wild and domestic species. The majority of meals contain no animal protein. However, respondents consume a wide range of wild species and 95% of respondents have eaten at least one protected species (and nearly 45% have eaten more than 10). The rural/urban divide and wealth are important predictors of bushmeat consumption, but the magnitude and direction of the effect varies between species. Bushmeat species are not preferred and are considered inferior to fish and domestic animals. Taboos have provided protection to some species, particularly the Endangered Indri, but we present evidence that this taboo is rapidly eroding. By considering a variety of potential influences on consumption in a single study we have improved understanding of who is eating bushmeat and why. Evidence that bushmeat species are not generally preferred meats suggest that projects which increase the availability of domestic meat and fish may have success at reducing demand. We also suggest that enforcement of existing wildlife and firearm laws should be a priority, particularly in areas undergoing rapid social change. The issue of hunting as an important threat to biodiversity in Madagascar is only now being fully recognised. Urgent action is required to ensure that heavily hunted species are adequately protected.

Managing natural resources often depends on influencing people's behaviour, however effectively targeting interventions to discourage environmentally harmful behaviours is challenging because those involved may be unwilling to identify themselves. Non-sensitive indicators of sensitive behaviours are therefore needed. Previous studies have investigated people's attitudes, assuming attitudes reflect behaviour. There has also been interest in using people's estimates of the proportion of their peers involved in sensitive behaviours to identify those involved, since people tend to assume that others behave like themselves. However, there has been little attempt to test the potential of such indicators. We use the randomized response technique (RRT), designed for investigating sensitive behaviours, to estimate the proportion of farmers in north-eastern South Africa killing carnivores, and use a modified logistic regression model to explore relationships between our best estimates of true behaviour (from RRT) and our proposed non-sensitive indicators (including farmers' attitudes, and estimates of peer-behaviour). Farmers' attitudes towards carnivores, question sensitivity and estimates of peers' behaviour, predict the likelihood of farmers killing carnivores. Attitude and estimates of peer-behaviour are useful indicators of involvement in illicit behaviours and may be used to identify groups of people to engage in interventions aimed at changing behaviour.