Past forest composition, structures and processes – How paleoecology can contribute to forest conservation

The importance of long-term historical information derived from paleoecological studies has long been recognized as a fundamental aspect of effective conservation. However, there remains some uncertainty regarding the extent to which paleoecology can inform on specific issues of high conservation priority, at the scale for which conservation policy decisions often take place. Here we review to what extent the past occurrence of three fundamental aspects of forest conservation can be assessed using paleoecological data, with a focus on northern Europe. These aspects are (1) tree species composition, (2) old/large trees and coarse woody debris, and (3) natural disturbances. We begin by evaluating the types of relevant historical information available from contemporary forests, then evaluate common paleoecological techniques, namely dendrochronology, pollen, macrofossil, charcoal, and fossil insect and wood analyses. We conclude that whereas contemporary forests can be used to estimate historical, natural occurrences of several of the aspects addressed here (e.g. old/large trees), paleoecological techniques are capable of providing much greater temporal depth, as well as robust quantitative data for tree species composition and fire disturbance, qualitative insights regarding old/large trees and woody debris, but limited indications of past windstorms and insect outbreaks. We also find that studies of fossil wood and paleoentomology are perhaps the most underutilized sources of information. Not only can paleoentomology provide species specific information, but it also enables the reconstruction of former environmental conditions otherwise unavailable. Despite the potential, the majority of conservation-relevant paleoecological studies primarily focus on describing historical forest conditions in broad terms and for large spatial scales, addressing former climate, land-use, and landscape developments, often in the absence of a specific conservation context. In contrast, relatively few studies address the most pressing conservation issues in northern Europe, often requiring data on the presence or quantities of dead wood, large trees or specific tree species, at the scale of the stand or reserve. Furthermore, even fewer examples exist of detailed paleoecological data being used for conservation planning, or the setting of operative restorative baseline conditions at local scales. If ecologist and conservation biologists are going to benefit to the full extent possible from the ever-advancing techniques developed by the paleoecological sciences, further integration of these disciplines is desirable.

Soil conservation in Swiss agriculture - Approaching abstract and symbolic meanings in farmers' life-worlds

This paper explores the significance of ‘life-worlds’ for better understanding why farmers adopt or reject soil conservation measures and for identifying basic dimensions to be covered by social learning processes in Swiss agricultural soil protection. The study showed that farmers interpret soil erosion and soil conservation measures against the background of their entire life-world. By doing so, farmers consider abstract and symbolic meanings of soil conservation. This is, soil conservation measures have to be feasible and practical in the everyday farming routine, however, they also have to correspond with their aesthetic perception, their value system and their personal and professional identities. Consequently, by switching to soil conservation measures such as no-tillage farmers have to adapt not only the routines of their daily farming life, but also their perception of the aesthetics of cultivated land, underlying values and images of themselves. Major differences between farmers who adopt and farmers who reject no-tillage were found to depend on the degree of coherence they could create between the abstract and symbolic meanings of the soil conservation measure. From this perspective, implementation of soil protection measures faces the challenge of facilitating interactions between farmers, experts and scientists at a ‘deeper’ level, with an awareness of all significant dimensions that characterise the life-world. The paper argues that a certain level of shared symbolic meaning is essential to achieving mutual understanding in social learning processes.

Developing European conservation and mitigation tools for pollination services: approaches of the STEP (Status and Trends of European Pollinators) project

Pollinating insects form a key component of European biodiversity, and provide a vital ecosystem service to crops and wild plants. There is growing evidence of declines in both wild and domesticated pollinators, and parallel declines in plants relying upon them. The STEP project (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, 2010-2015, www.step-project.net) is documenting critical elements in the nature and extent of these declines, examining key functional traits associated with pollination deficits, and developing a Red List for some European pollinator groups. Together these activities are laying the groundwork for future pollinator monitoring programmes. STEP is also assessing the relative importance of potential drivers of pollinator declines, including climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, light pollution, and their interactions. We are measuring the ecological and economic impacts of declining pollinator services and floral resources, including effects on wild plant populations, crop production and human nutrition. STEP is reviewing existing and potential mitigation options, and providing novel tests of their effectiveness across Europe. Our work is building upon existing and newly developed datasets and models, complemented by spatially-replicated campaigns of field research to fill gaps in current knowledge. Findings are being integrated into a policy-relevant framework to create evidence-based decision support tools. STEP is establishing communication links to a wide range of stakeholders across Europe and beyond, including policy makers, beekeepers, farmers, academics and the general public. Taken together, the STEP research programme aims to improve our understanding of the nature, causes, consequences and potential mitigation of declines in pollination services at local, national, continental and global scales.

Challenges for Participatory Conservation in Times of Global Change: Lessons from a Comparative Analysis and New Developments

Participatory approaches to conservation have been applied worldwide by governments and non-governmental organisations. However, results from a comparative analysis of the impacts of global change on management issues in 13 protected areas in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe show that in many cases the involvement of local people has remained limited, and economic gains for local livelihoods have been limited or non-existent. Viewed from a ‘new institutionalist’ perspective and focusing on power relations and ideologies, the results of this study carried out within the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South show that in African cases local people do not feel part of the process and, therefore, become disengaged. In Asia, and even more so in Latin America, local indigenous peoples and their leaders support protected areas as a means to gain political rights over areas threatened by immigration. The European (Swiss) case is the only one where political rights and economic incentives present a context in which participation is of direct interest to local people. Meanwhile, recent debates on new global conservation developments in the context of climate change policy indicate a growing tendency to treat conservation as a commodity. We argue that this can have problematical effects on efforts to devolve power to the local level in the context of conservation.

Where the land is greener: Case studies and analysis of soil and water conservation initiatives worldwide

‘where the land is greener’ looks at soil and water conservation from a global perspective. In total, 42 soil and water conservation technologies and 28 approaches are described – each fully illustrated with photographs, graphs and line drawings – as applied in case studies in more than 20 countries around the world. This unique presentation of case studies draws on WOCAT’s extensive database, gathered in over 12 years of field experience. The book is intended as a prototype for national and regional compilations of sustainable land management practices a practical – instrument for making field knowledge available to decision makers. Various land use categories are covered, from crop farming to grazing and forestry. The technologies presented range from terrace-building to agroforestry systems; from rehabilitation of common pastures to conservation agriculture; from Vermiculture to water harvesting. Several of these technologies are already well-established successes – others are innovative, relatively unknown, but full of promise. Descriptions of the various technologies are complemented by studies of the ‘approaches’ that have underpinned their development and dissemination. Some of these approaches were developed specifically for individual projects; others developed and spread spontaneously in fascinating processes that offer a new perspective for development policy. In addition to the case studies, the book includes two analytical sections on the technologies and approaches under study. By identifying common elements of success, these analyses offer hope for productive conservation efforts at the local level with simultaneous global environmental benefits. Policy pointers for decision makers and donors offer a new impetus for further investment – to make the land greener.

Appraising and selecting conservation measures to mitigate desertification and land degradation based on stakeholder participation and global best practices

Most desertification research focuses on degradation assessments without putting sufficient emphasis on prevention and mitigation strategies, although the concept of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) is increasingly being acknowledged. A variety of already applied conservation measures exist at the local level, but they are not adequately recognised, evaluated and shared, either by land users, technicians, researchers, or policy makers. Likewise, collaboration between research and implementation is often insufficient. The aim of this paper is to present a new methodology for a participatory process of appraising and selecting desertification mitigation strategies, and to present first experiences from its application in the EU-funded DESIRE project. The methodology combines a collective learning and decision approach with the use of evaluated global best practices. In three parts, it moves through a concise process, starting with identifying land degradation and locally applied solutions in a stakeholder workshop, leading to assessing local solutions with a standardised evaluation tool, and ending with jointly selecting promising strategies for implementation with the help of a decision support tool. The methodology is currently being applied in 16 study sites. Preliminary analysis from the application of the first part of the methodology shows that the initial stakeholder workshop results in a good basis for stakeholder cooperation, and in promising land conservation practices for further assessment. Study site research teams appreciated the valuable results, as burning issues and promising options emerged from joint reflection. The methodology is suitable to initiate mutual learning among different stakeholder groups and to integrate local and scientific knowledge.

Linking Landscape Protection and Nature Conservation: Switzerland’s Experience with Protected Mire Landscapes

Since 1987, Switzerland’s Federal Inventory of Mire Landscapes of Particular Beauty and National Importance has provided an instrument for the integration of nature conservation and landscape protection. Mires and mire landscape protection are strictly regulated. However, research results show that neither the goals of mire protection nor those of mire landscape protection are being achieved. The reasons for this are manifold and, in particular, have to do with a lack of coordination between the various policy areas that shape mire environments and mire landscapes. There are several key challenges involving different political and administrative levels. At the national level, mechanisms must be devised that enable differentiated regional implementation of national sectoral policies. In the context of cantonal structure planning, regional nature conservation and landscape protection priorities should be established based on existing regional potentials vis-à-vis the natural environment and landscapes (including protected biotopes and landscapes). At the regional level (spanning multiple communes), integrated planning instruments and governance structures should be developed so that implementation of national and cantonal sectoral policies may be harmonized under the umbrella of regional and integrated development plans. These adjustments to Switzerland’s institutional system are necessary to enable far-reaching integration of nature conservation and landscape protection when setting regional policy priorities. This would strengthen the protection of mire landscapes and other integrative instruments such as regional nature parks of national importance.

Between Conservation and Development: Concretizing the First World Natural Heritage Site in the Alps Through Participatory Processes

This article presents an empirical interdisciplinary study of an extensive participatory process that was carried out in 2004 in the recently established World Natural Heritage Site “Jungfrau–Aletsch– Bietschhorn” in the Swiss Alps. The study used qualitative and quantitative empirical methods of social science to address the question of success factors in establishing and concretizing a World Heritage Site. Current international scientific and policy debates agree that the most important success factors in defining pathways for nature conservation and protection are: linking development and conservation, involving multiple stakeholders, and applying participatory approaches. The results of the study indicate that linking development and conservation implies the need to extend the reach of negotiations beyond the area of conservation, and to develop both a regional perspective and a focus on sustainable regional development. In the process, regional and local stakeholders are less concerned with defining sustainability goals than elaborating strategies of sustainability, in particular defining the respective roles of the core sectors of society and economy. However, the study results also show that conflicting visions and perceptions of nature and landscape are important underlying currents in such negotiations. They differ significantly between various stakeholder categories and are an important cause of conflicts occurring at various stages of the participatory process.

Beyond deforestation monitoring in conservation hotspots: Analysing landscape mosaic dynamics in north-eastern Madagascar

Due to its extraordinary biodiversity and rapid deforestation, north-eastern Madagascar is a conservation hotspot of global importance. Reducing shifting cultivation is a high priority for policy-makers and conservationists; however, spatially explicit evidence of shifting cultivation is lacking due to the difficulty of mapping it with common remote sensing methods. To overcome this challenge, we adopted a landscape mosaic approach to assess the changes between natural forests, shifting cultivation and permanent cultivation systems at the regional level from 1995 to 2011. Our study confirmed that shifting cultivation is still being used to produce subsistence rice throughout the region, but there is a trend of intensification away from shifting cultivation towards permanent rice production, especially near protected areas. While large continuous forest exists today only in the core zones of protected areas, the agricultural matrix is still dominated by a dense cover of tree crops and smaller forest fragments. We believe that this evidence makes a crucial contribution to the development of interventions to prevent further conversion of forest to agricultural land while improving local land users' well-being.

WOCAT - World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies - Preliminary results from Eastern and Southern Africa

The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) is a program of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC), organized as a consortium of several international institutions. The overall goal of WOCAT is to contribute to sustainable utilization of soil and water. WOCAT collects and analyzes information on soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies and approaches world-wide, and presents the collected information in computer databases and decision support systems, and in the form of handbooks, reports and maps readily accessible to SWC specialists and policy-makers world-wide. WOCAT has prepared a framework for the evaluation of soil and water conservation and has started data collection. The paper presents preliminary results with promising SWC technologies and approaches used in Eastern and Southern Africa. The first finding is that hardly any promising SWC activities could be found on common grazing lands. Analysis of the cropland shows some of the bio-physical and socioeconomic conditions under which certain SWC technologies and approaches are used, including land use types, climatic zones and land tenure, and looks at issues such as participation and costs. Furthermore, classification criteria for SWC technologies and approaches are discussed.

Making the most of world natural heritage - linking conservation and sustainable regional development?

Today, more than 1000 World Heritage (WH) sites are inscribed on UNESCO’s list, 228 of which are natural and mixed heritage sites. Once focused primarily on conservation, World Natural Heritage (WNH) sites are increasingly seen as promoters of sustainable regional development. Sustainability-oriented regions, it is assumed, are safeguards for conservation and positively influence local conservation goals. Within UNESCO, discussions regarding the integration of sustainable development in official policies have recently gained momentum. In this article, we investigate the extent to which WNH sites trigger sustainability-oriented approaches in surrounding regions, and how such approaches in turn influence the WNH site and its protection. The results of the study are on the one hand based on a global survey with more than 60% of the WNH sites listed in 2011, and on the other hand on a complementary literature research. Furthermore, we analyze the policy framework necessary to support WNH sites in this endeavor. We conclude that a regional approach to WNH management is necessary to ensure that WNH sites support sustainable regional development effectively, but that the core focus of WNH status must remain environmental conservation.