Local and regional private land trusts are among the most important and most numerous conservation actors in contemporary America, and conservation easements are perhaps the key land conservation tools used by these trusts. In recent decades, privately held conservation easements and local and regional private land trusts have grown at a rapid and increasing rate, and the total acreage protecte...

Conservation resources have become increasingly limited and, along with social, cultural and political complexities, this shortfall frequently challenges effectiveness in conservation. Because conservation can be costly, efforts are often only initiated after a species has declined below a critical threshold and/or when statutory protection is mandated. However, implementing conservation proact...

Informative conservation science is reliant on accurate, high quality and robust data. Floras and Faunas can often provide the baseline information which feeds into a wide variety of conservation decisions made at a national, regional and global level, particularly for species based conservation. Conservation priority-setting algorithms make increasing use of species distribution ranges and the...

Conservation and land management organizations such as The Nature Conservancy are developing conservation strategies to distribute protection efforts over larger areas and a broader range of ownership and management techniques. These ‘distributed conservation strategies,’ such as working forest conservation easements, are based on the premise that blending resource extraction, such sustainable ...

We reviewed the evidence on the extent and efficacy of conservation of tropical forest biodiversity for each of the classes of conservation action defined by the new International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classification. Protected areas are the most tested conservation approach, and a number of studies show they are generally effective in slowing deforestation. There is some docu...

The convergence of the biodiversity and climate crises, widening wealth inequality, most recently COVID-19 pandemic underscore urgent need to mobilize change secure sustainable futures. Centres tropical are a major focus conservation efforts, delivered in predominantly site-level interventions often incorporating alternative-livelihood provision or poverty-alleviation components. Yet, on interv...

Northeastern Peru is considered a global conservation priority due to high biodiversity and acute threats tonatural habitat. Its non-indigenous migrant populations, known as campesinos, are presented by mainstreamconservation agents as the major threat to this area, as environmentally destructive, apathetic to nature, andonly responsive to economic and material incentives.Bu...

The Sanjiangyuan region is located on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in western China and encompasses the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong rivers. It is also home to 300,000 Tibetan pastoralists. The area is characterized by its significant ecological service, unique culture, and fragile ecosystems, and has undergone a rapid degradation over the past several decades. Traditional Tibeta...

Ecuador has the largest number of species by area worldwide, but also a low representation of species within its protected areas. Here, we applied systematic conservation planning to identify potential areas for conservation in continental Ecuador, with the aim of increasing the representation of terrestrial species diversity in the protected area network. We selected 809 terrestrial species (a...

Landscape scale conservation planning informed by stakeholders is necessary for effective conservation action. We developed a watershed level conservation planning approach by working with two local land trusts that operate in the Upper Oconee subbasin of northeast Georgia. Emphasizing the interdependency of ecological processes and human livelihood to area residents motivates stewardship; henc...