Background: Global policy initiatives and international conservation organizations have sought to emphasize and strengthen the link between the conservation of natural ecosystems and human development. While many indices have been developed to measure various social outcomes to conservation interventions, the quantity and strength of evidence to support the effects, both positive and negative, of conservation on different dimensions of human wellbeing, remain unclear, dispersed and inconsistent. Methods:We searched 11 academic citation databases, two search engines and 30 organisational websites for relevant articles using search terms tested with a library of 20 relevant articles. Key informants were contacted with requests for articles and possible sources of evidence. Articles were screened for relevance against predefined inclusion criteria at title, abstract and full text levels according to a published protocol. Included articles were coded using a questionnaire. A critical appraisal of eight systematic reviews was conducted to assess the reliability of methods and confidence in study findings. A visual matrix of the occurrence and extent of existing evidence was also produced.Results: A total of 1043 articles were included in the systematic map database. Included articles measured effects across eight nature conservation-related intervention and ten human well-being related outcome categories. Linkages between interventions and outcomes with high occurrence of evidence include resource management interventions, such as fisheries and forestry, and economic and material outcomes. Over 25 % of included articles examined linkages between protected areas and aspects of economic well-being. Fewer than 2 % of articles evaluated human health outcomes. Robust study designs were limited with less than 9 % of articles using quantitative approaches to evaluate causal effects of interventions. Over 700 articles occurred in forest biomes with less than 50 articles in deserts or mangroves, combined. Conclusions:The evidence base is growing on conservation-human well-being linkages, but biases in the extent and robustness of articles on key linkages persist. Priorities for systematic review, include linkages between marine resource management and economic/material well-being outcomes; and protected areas and governance outcomes. Greater and more robust evidence is needed for many established interventions to better understand synergies and trade-offs between interventions, in particular those that are emerging or contested.

Behavioral sciences can advance conservation by systematically identifying behavioral barriers to conservation and how to best overcome them. Behavioral sciences have informed policy in many other realms (e.g., health, savings), but they are a largely untapped resource for conservation. We propose a set of guiding questions for applying behavioral insights to conservation policy. These questions help define the conservation problem as a behavior change problem, understand behavioral mechanisms and identify appropriate approaches for behavior change (awareness, incentives, nudges), and evaluate and adapt approaches based on new behavioral insights. We provide a foundation for the questions by synthesizing a wide range of behavior change models and evidence related to littering, water and energy conservation, and land management. We also discuss the methodology and data needed to answer these questions. We illustrate how these questions have been answered in practice to inform efforts to promote conservation for climate risk reduction. Although more comprehensive research programs to answer these questions are needed, some insights are emerging. Integrating two or more behavior change approaches that target multiple, context-dependent factors may be most successful; however, caution must be taken to avoid approaches that could undermine one another (e.g., economic incentives crowding out intrinsic incentives).

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Insecure land tenure plagues many developing and tropical regions, often where conservation concerns are highest. Conservation organizations have long focused on protected areas as tenure interventions, but are now thinking more comprehensively about whether and how to incorporate other land tenure strategies into their work, and how to more soundly ground such interventions on evidence of both conservation and human benefits. Through a review of the literature on land tenure security as it relates to conservation practice, predominantly in the tropics, we aim to help conservation practitioners consider and incorporate more appropriate land tenure security interventions into conservation strategies. We present a framework that identifies three common ways in which land tenure security can impact human and conservation outcomes, and suggest practical ways to distill tenure and tenure security issues for a given location. We conclude with steps for considering tenure security issues in the context of conservation projects and identify areas for future research.

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