The illusion of participatory forest management success in nature conservation

Nzau, Joslyn Muthio; Gosling, Elizabeth; Rieckmann, Marco; Shauri, Halimu; Habel, Jan Christian

doi:10.1007/s10531-020-01954-2

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Under the scenarios we investigated, socioeconomic pressures in the vicinity of PAs increased, which emphasizes that future conservation strategies need to account for the socioeconomic situation and changes in the surroundings of PAs. Community‐managed PAs (Grantham et al., 2020) with a strong focus on long‐term awareness strategies (Nzau et al., 2020), participatory decision‐making processes, and benefit sharing that consider socioeconomic and power structures and interests of local communities (Neumann, 1997) are important to develop strategies that account for conservation and community needs. Indigenous knowledge, which is increasingly being lost, formal education, awareness raising, and equitable access to resources are important contributing factors for the success of these strategies (Nzau et al., 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined impacts of future climate‐driven vegetation changes and socioeconomic pressures on protected areas in Africa

Martens

Scheiter

Midgley

et al. 2022

Conservation Biology

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Africa's protected areas (PAs) are the last stronghold of the continent's unique biodiversity, but they appear increasingly threatened by climate change, substantial human population growth, and land‐use change. Conservation planning is challenged by uncertainty about how strongly and where these drivers will interact over the next few decades. We investigated the combined future impacts of climate‐driven vegetation changes inside African PAs and human population densities and land use in their surroundings for 2 scenarios until the end of the 21st century. We used the following 2 combinations of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCPs): the “middle‐of‐the‐road” scenario SSP2–RCP4.5 and the resource‐intensive “fossil‐fueled development” scenario SSP5–RCP8.5. Climate change impacts on tree cover and biome type (i.e., desert, grassland, savanna, and forest) were simulated with the adaptive dynamic global vegetation model (aDGVM). Under both scenarios, most PAs were adversely affected by at least 1 of the drivers, but the co‐occurrence of drivers was largely region and scenario specific. The aDGVM projections suggest considerable climate‐driven tree cover increases in PAs in today's grasslands and savannas. For PAs in West Africa, the analyses revealed climate‐driven vegetation changes combined with hotspots of high future population and land‐use pressure. Except for many PAs in North Africa, future decreases in population and land‐use pressures were rare. At the continental scale, SSP5–RCP8.5 led to higher climate‐driven changes in tree cover and higher land‐use pressure, whereas SSP2–RCP4.5 was characterized by higher future population pressure. Both SSP–RCP scenarios implied increasing challenges for conserving Africa's biodiversity in PAs. Our findings underline the importance of developing and implementing region‐specific conservation responses. Strong mitigation of future climate change and equitable development scenarios would reduce ecosystem impacts and sustain the effectiveness of conservation in Africa.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined impacts of future climate‐driven vegetation changes and socioeconomic pressures on protected areas in Africa

Martens

Scheiter

Midgley

et al. 2022

Conservation Biology

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“…A major driver leading to current biodiversity loss is the destruction of natural habitats and their transformations into agricultural land, settlements and plantations (Jantz et al 2015;Maxwell et al 2016). Tropical ecosystems are particularly affected by these threats, which are mainly driven by high human demographic pressure, weak governance structures and poor land management (Williams 2013;Nzau et al 2020;Teucher et al 2020). As a consequence, many remaining tropical ecosystems exist today as small and isolated remnants (Haddad et al 2015) which provide comparatively low habitat quality (Sala et al 2000;Wilkie et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bird communities in a degraded forest biodiversity hotspot of East Africa

et al. 2021

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Tropical forests suffer severe habitat destruction. Thus, tropical forests frequently consist today of only a few small remnants that are often embedded within a matrix of agricultural fields and tree plantations. Forest specialist species have experienced severe population declines under these circumstances. We studied bird communities based on census plots set up in a near-natural forest block, as well as degraded forest patches, tree plantations, and agricultural fields, across the Taita Hills in southern Kenya. We classified each bird species according its ecology and behavior. We quantified the land cover and landscape configuration around each census plot. Typical forest species were mainly observed in the near-natural forest block, and to a lower extent in degraded forest patches. Plantations were almost devoid of birds. Bird communities of small forest fragments were more similar to that of agricultural land than the near-natural forest block. Most frugivorous, insectivorous and nectarivorous birds occurred in forest habitats, while granivorous bird species dominated the bird communities of agricultural land. The surrounding landscape had a marginal impact on bird species composition at local sites. Our study showed that the preservation of near-natural cloud forest, including small forest patches, is essential for the conservation of forest-dependent species, and that plantations do not serve as surrogate habitats.

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“… Threat Factor Remedial measures 1 Increasing population Rehabilitation and restoration of degraded ecosystems Priority action for conservation at diversity levels; develop methodology for biodiversity managements (e.g., see Mehta et al 2020 ; Carrasco et al 2020 ) Inventorization of the biodiversity; develop local, national and regional biodiversity databases Training of field botanists and taxonomists Identification of area-specific threat factors to biodiversity Monitoring of alien species Identification, recovery and rehabilitation of RET taxa in their natural and near natural habitats and preparation of their distributional maps. Use of tissue culture and micropropogation techniques Establishment of effective and representative networks of protected areas (PAs) ( Visconti et al 2019 ); and establishment of biological corridors to link the Pas Identify over-exploited species, promotion of cultivation of commercially important plants Emphasis on research and establishment of international cooperation on protection, conservation and management of bioresources Species-oriented conservation sites Accessing and ensuring local people’s participation in all stages of conservation and management of bioresources ( Nzau et al 2020 ); strengthen Access and Benefit sharing, their intellectual property rights and ensure proper execution of Forest Right Acts Establishing botanical gardens, arboreta, gene/seed banks of all wild plants Incorporate biodiversity concern in environmental protection assessment and in other working plans In addition to governments, scientists need to maintain proper communication with public ( Fischhoff and Scheufele 2019 , and references therein) 2 Fragmentation of natural habitats 3 Demand for road connectivity to human settlements located in remote natural settings 4 Urbanization/extension of township 5 Growing focus on Tourism Economy 6 Proliferation of invasive species 7 Free access and unregulated exploitation of bioresorces in many parts of the world, especially in developing and under-developed countries 8 Selective removal of specific groups of plants 9 Forest degradation and unhealthy agricultural practices, such as slash and burn by locals in an area 10 Changing lifestyle and values of local/indigenous peop...…”

Section: Results and Discusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accessing and ensuring local people’s participation in all stages of conservation and management of bioresources ( Nzau et al 2020 ); strengthen Access and Benefit sharing, their intellectual property rights and ensure proper execution of Forest Right Acts…”

Section: Results and Discusionmentioning

confidence: 99%