ABSTRACT Rapid climate change is reducing the effectiveness of protected areas (PAs), yet exposure metrics alone do not indicate whether species can reach suitable climates. Targeting focal large terrestrial mammal taxa, we developed a climate‐informed connectivity framework integrating climate velocity, climatic residence time, and energetics‐based functional connectivity to assess the feasibility of climate‐driven redistribution across Europe. Combining habitat resistance with normalized terrain‐related energetic costs revealed spatially heterogeneous climate‐tracking opportunities. Small PAs with short residence times warrant particular attention because they provide limited internal space for tracking baseline climatic conditions and are often embedded in landscapes with low movement potential. Our framework revealed widespread mismatches between climatic stability and connectivity across Europe's PA network, providing a spatial basis for prioritizing restoration and connectivity under climate change.
ABSTRACT The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for conserving 30% of lands and waters by 2030 while respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Yet urgent timelines for recognizing other effective area‐based conservation measures (OECMs) can constrain Indigenous Nations’ authority over whether, when, and on what terms recognition proceeds. We argue that equitable pursuit of Target 3 requires respect for Indigenous temporalities and temporal sovereignty. Drawing on scholarship and on work with Mistawasis Nêhiyawak and Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Canada's Redberry Lake Biosphere Region, we show that elapsed time is not failure or inaction. Elapsed time may reflect Indigenous Nations deliberating through Nation‐authorized institutions, exercising free, prior, and informed consent, and agreeing on stewardship responsibilities. We propose four changes to OECM policy and practice so urgent conservation does not override Indigenous decision‐making and governance authority.
ABSTRACT Conservation initiatives have successfully restored many populations of large vertebrates. Although human–wildlife conflict can occur at any stage of population decline or recovery, successful conservation produces an additional challenge: recovering populations generate increasing numbers of dispersing individuals that move beyond protected areas into human‐dominated landscapes. These movements can intensify livestock depredation, crop damage, threats to human safety, and political opposition to conservation. I argue that dispersal from recovering populations represents a distinct and increasingly important pathway through which conservation success may contribute to conflict. Using examples from large carnivores, I show how demographic recovery, dispersal behavior, and landscape connectivity interact to shape conflict risk. I further argue that dispersal‐driven conflict is often treated as a local problem even though it arises from broader conservation successes, effectively shifting many of the costs of recovery onto neighboring communities. Anticipating dispersal‐driven conflict through monitoring, connectivity planning, community engagement, and proactive management may therefore be necessary to improve both conservation outcomes and long‐term coexistence between people and wildlife. Because these conflicts arise in part from successful recovery efforts, addressing them should be viewed as a core responsibility of conservation management rather than solely as a burden on neighboring communities.
ABSTRACT Trophy hunting is one of the most contested conservation activities. There is mounting pressure in the Global North for policy changes that would dramatically curtail the activity across Africa. We synthesized research from 89 peer‐reviewed papers that assessed the impact of trophy hunting on nature and local people across 13 sub‐Saharan African countries. Almost two‐thirds of hunting outcomes were positive, 26% were negative, and 9% were ambiguous. Conservation outcomes for hunted species abundance were more often positive than negative, while impacts on species demographics and vital rates were more variable. Looking beyond hunted species to their habitats, hunting predominantly increased the extent of land conserved. We now need to understand the ecological integrity of these landscapes. Human well‐being outcomes were predominantly positive for income, employment, and food security, while non‐economic dimensions of well‐being were insufficiently studied. Importantly, outcomes were more often positive where land and wildlife use rights, responsibilities and benefits accrued to local landholders or communities. While we cannot assume causality, these insights are aligned with theory that devolving wildlife use rights and revenue control to local people promotes equitable conservation. Policymakers should consider the variation in hunting outcomes across contexts, rather than defaulting to blanket trophy hunting bans.
ABSTRACT In the Galápagos Islands, giant tortoises ( Chelonoidis spp.) engineer terrestrial ecosystems. Endemic tortoise lineages have been lost from Floreana and Pinta Islands, resulting in ecosystem shifts, with tortoise population restoration currently being considered using hybrids that include ancestry from the now extinct C. niger of Floreana Island. We combined long‐term vegetation monitoring with simulation of vegetation responses to tortoises, and tortoise translocation scenarios to assess whether using C. niger hybrids as ecological replacements on Pinta Island could restore ecosystem function without compromising restoration on Floreana Island. Woody plants have increased by >100% on Pinta Island between 2011 and 2022 in the absence of ecologically effective numbers of tortoises, but re‐establishment of tortoises at a moderate density (0.7 tortoises/ha) could reverse those trends and delay restoration on Floreana Island by ca. one decade while preventing continued ecosystem degradation on Pinta Island. We demonstrate the feasibility of restoring ecological replacements and the importance of rewilding ecosystem engineers before ecosystem shifts become irreversible.
