Little is known about the effectiveness of managing private and community conservation lands. In this study, we analyzed the wildlife management units (UMAs, by their Spanish acronym), a Mexican government policy that was designed for the sustainable use of lands and biodiversity on government, community, and privately owned properties. Using a multidimensional evaluation framework, we analyzed the management effectiveness of 84 UMAs in achieving environmental, social, and economic objectives. We reviewed official records and conducted structured interviews with key informants, besides assessing maps of vegetation cover and landscape connectivity. The data was integrated into a general effectiveness index, besides environmental, social, and economic indices. A generalized linear model was fitted to identify variables associated with the effectiveness index of the UMAs. Just over half of the UMAs achieved 50% of all objectives of the policy, and only 25% achieved a higher score. Management effectiveness is highest for the social index, followed by the economic and, to a lesser extent, the environmental index. In the social dimension, the highest management effectiveness is related to UMAs that are community-managed and more than a decade in age. In the economic dimension, it is associated with UMAs that are extractive in resource use, and in the environmental dimension, it is related to the management of large wildlife habitats and landscape connectivity. Although only a small percentage of UMAs represented profitable businesses, the social and environmental benefits they generated were highly valued by the owners, which explained the long-term permanence of the UMAs. This study has broad implications for theory and practice in conservation, providing insights into the design and management of effective community and private conservation areas.
Tropical mountain coffee farms integrate crop production with tree cover, soil functions, water use, and rural livelihoods. In East Java, farmers reported irregular rainfall and interacting pressures affecting coffee production and household decisions. This study examines farmers’ response breadth and interprets these patterns through a social-ecological resilience perspective without treating response counts as direct measures of resilience. We used a comparative case design based on 33 transcript-verified coffee-farmer interviews from Semeru (n=23) and Arjuno (n=10), conducted from 17 April to 3 November 2025. Kawi was represented only by supplementary field records for contextual triangulation. Field notes from 2024–2026 supported contextual interpretation. Four study-specific response-breadth domains were summarized descriptively: ecological diversity, income diversification, collaborative management, and institutional support. Farmers combined shade, intercrops, livestock, residue recycling, processing, storage, labor arrangements, farmer-group links, buyer relations, and program support. Among respondents, 24/33 (72.7%) identified the rainy season as most damaging, 19/33 (57.6%) reported flower or fruit drop, 24/33 (72.7%) reported fertilizer scarcity, 20/33 (60.6%) used coffee waste as organic fertilizer, and 19/33 (57.6%) used livestock manure. Smallholders showed higher mean response-breadth counts than larger farmers across all four domains, with the largest gap in collaborative management. This does not establish resilience differences. These findings indicate that response breadth and resilience are not interchangeable. Higher response counts among smallholders are consistent with constraint-driven coping, but the data do not establish causality; knowledge, household labor, farming experience, production system, and site context remain plausible explanations. Assessing resilience requires evidence on response effectiveness and outcomes over time. For conservation, water access, manageable shade, organic recycling, inclusive farmer organizations, and market access may help sustain tree-based coffee systems under stress. However, these are potential considerations rather than tested interventions, and biodiversity, tree-cover change, and conservation outcomes were not directly measured.
Non-human animals have interacted with humans since the beginning of our evolutionary history. We create stories to understand our environment and recognize the species with which we share resources. Although current human contact with wildlife is less common than in the past, stories that we create around animals could reflect human-wildlife interactions. The main objective of this study is to analyze human perceptions of wild animal species in El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve (ETBR) Mexico, through storytelling workshops. We designed and applied a storytelling workshop in 13 rural communities of ETBR. We collected 74 stories, and we used qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze perceptions about wildlife considering the basic emotions related to animal species and the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) involved in the stories. Our findings showed that humans were the most recurrent characters in these stories, appearing either as a “protector of nature” or a “hunter.” Fear was the most common emotion found in the stories; it was most experienced and caused by humans and experienced by the white-tailed deer. Anthropomorphism was very evident; it revealed that wildlife is represented not only by biological aspects but also by social and moral aspects. This study shows that psychological and cultural aspects have an important effect on human perceptions about wild animal species and could impact attitudes and behaviors towards them. We propose to consider human emotions and perceptions towards wild animals in conservation plans. Furthermore, we suggest storytelling workshops as an effective participatory approach for exploring the complex interactions between humans and wildlife.
Background/Research Aims: The range of the coyote (Canis latrans) has expanded towards southeastern Mexico, including the Calakmul biodiversity hotspot, making a fine-scale understanding of this colonization essential. This study approaches coyote colonization as a socioecological process, integrating patterns of species colonization with local ecological knowledge (LEK). Here, we aimed to assess (1) the spatio-temporal dynamics of coyote colonization in Calakmul, and (2) the characteristics of LEK about coyotes in the region. Methods: We conducted two large-scale surveys. One documented direct experience with coyotes (e.g. sightings, predation), involving 272 participants from 30 communities. The other documented LEK among 461 participants from 17 communities with and without coyotes present. Results: In the first survey, participants reported 365 dated coyote-related experiences, which we grouped into four 10-year periods, from 1984 to 2023. These data suggested a colonization process that accelerated, especially during the last decade. In the second survey, 88% of participants reported knowing about coyotes, independently of the species' colonization status in their community. Notably, 38% of participants acquired their knowledge outside of Calakmul, primarily through migration, highlighting the translocal nature of their knowledge. Our findings suggest that coyote colonization and LEK development progressed in parallel, though not always synchronously, across space and time. Conclusion: This socioecological study contributes to a better understanding of coyote colonization in a forested tropical landscape. LEK allowed us to document the nonlinear pattern of coyote range expansion in the Calakmul region. The study also demonstrated that LEK is not static, but instead reflects ongoing social and ecological changes. Implications for Conservation: Early detection of coyotes is essential for understanding their interactions with ecosystems and human activities, and for managing the species. As a first step, we recommend that the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve collaborate with local communities to develop a community-based monitoring strategy.
Large terrestrial snails are poor overseas dispersers. Yet the Obô giant land snail ( Archachatina bicarinata ) has been considered endemic to both oceanic islands of São Tomé and Príncipe (Central Africa), raising intriguing questions about its origin and inter-island dispersal. Once abundant, populations on both islands declined rapidly in recent decades. To inform conservation, we provide the first genetic assessment of this Endangered species, investigating its phylogenetic affinities within the Achatininae subfamily, and its genetic diversity and structure across both islands. We explored intra-specific diversity using mitochondrial (COI) and nuclear (ITS2) sequences from 65 A. bicarinata individuals sampled across both islands. To infer phylogenetic affinities, we analyzed 27 additional Achatininae species using newly sampled material and available reference sequences. A. bicarinata formed a distinct, well-supported lineage within the sampled dataset. Within the taxa included, it was recovered as the closest to Archachatina marginata . At the intraspecific level, COI revealed strong asymmetry in genetic diversity between islands: the smaller island, Príncipe, contained 91% (20/22) of the detected haplotypes, São Tomé showed a much lower diversity and shared two haplotypes with Príncipe. No variation was detected at ITS2 among the sampled individuals of A. bicarinata . This first genetic assessment of A. bicarinata identifies Príncipe as the likely origin of the species and the main reservoir of its genetic diversity. Our results suggest a more recent history on São Tomé, where the species may have been introduced. Although phylogenetic inferences are constrained by the dataset, the results offer a foundation for understanding the species’ history and guiding future research. In situ and ex situ conservation efforts are urgent on Príncipe Island, where most genetic diversity persists, but populations on São Tomé may serve as a safeguard, namely for having larger extents of available habitat.
