How can we manage farmlands, forests, and rangelands to respond to the triple challenge of the Anthropocene—biodiversity loss, climate change, and unsustainable land use? When managed by using biodiversity-based techniques such as agroforestry, silvopasture, diversified farming, and ecosystem-based forest management, these socioeconomic systems can help maintain biodiversity and provide habitat connectivity, thereby complementing protected areas and providing greater resilience to climate change. Simultaneously, the use of these management techniques can improve yields and profitability more sustainably, enhancing livelihoods and food security. This approach to “working lands conservation” can create landscapes that work for nature and people. However, many socioeconomic challenges impede the uptake of biodiversity-based land management practices. Although improving voluntary incentives, market instruments, environmental regulations, and governance is essential to support working lands conservation, it is community action, social movements, and broad coalitions among citizens, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies that have the power to transform how we manage land and protect the environment.

Land trusts, partnered with government agencies or acting alone, are working to conserve habitat, open space, and working landscapes on private land. Spending both public and private funds, such institutions frequently acquire less than full title by purchasing or accepting donations of conservation easements. These title and organizational arrangements are evolving so fast that it is difficult to assess their conservation accomplishments and long-term viability. To understand the contribution of these arrangements to the preservation and restoration of biodiversity, conservation biologists need to identify the biological resources likely to be conserved and those likely to be left unprotected through easements held by land trusts. We describe land trusts and conservation easements and why they are currently an attractive approach to land protection. Our review of the literature showed that little information is available on (1) the resulting pattern of protected lands and resources being conserved, (2) the emerging institutions that hold conservation easements and the landowners they work with, and (3) the distribution of costs and benefits of land trusts and easements to communities and the general public. The prescriptive literature on how to establish land trusts and negotiate easements is extensive. However, easily available information on protected resources is too aggregated to determine what is actually being conserved, and more detailed data is widely scattered and hence difficult to synthesize. The social science literature provides some insight into the motives of landowners who participate but offers little about the variety of institutions or which type of institution works best in particular ecological and political settings. Equally undeveloped is our understanding of the inherent tension between the public and private benefits of this widely used incentive-based conservation strategy. Interdisciplinary research is needed to determine the ecological and social consequences of acquiring partial interest in private land for conservation purposes.Patronatos Agrarios y Servicios de Conservación: ¿Quién Está Conservando Qué para Quién?Resumen: Los patronatos agrarios, en sociedad con agencias gubernamentales o actuando por su cuenta, están trabajando para conservar hábitat, espacios abiertos y paisajes de trabajo en terrenos privados. Con fondos públicos o privados, estas instituciones frecuentemente adquieren poco menos que el título completo al adquirir o aceptar donaciones de servicios de conservación. Este título y arreglos organizacionales están evolucionando tan rápido que es difícil evaluar sus logros de conservación y su viabilidad a largo plazo. Para comprender la contribución de estos arreglos a la preservación y restauración de la biodiversidad, los biólogos de la conservación necesitan identificar aquéllos recursos biológicos con probabilidad de ser conservados y aquéllos que probablemente queden desprotegidos por los servicios de conservación que tienen los patronatos agrarios. Describimos ...

No abstract

Outdoor recreation is typically assumed to be compatible with biodiversity conservation and is permitted in most protected areas worldwide. However, increasing numbers of studies are discovering negative effects of recreation on animals. We conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature and analyzed 274 articles on the effects of non-consumptive recreation on animals, across all geographic areas, taxonomic groups, and recreation activities. We quantified trends in publication rates and outlets, identified knowledge gaps, and assessed evidence for effects of recreation. Although publication rates are low and knowledge gaps remain, the evidence was clear with over 93% of reviewed articles documenting at least one effect of recreation on animals, the majority of which (59%) were classified as negative effects. Most articles focused on mammals (42% of articles) or birds (37%), locations in North America (37.7%) or Europe (26.6%), and individual-level responses (49%). Meanwhile, studies of amphibians, reptiles, and fish, locations in South America, Asia, and Africa, and responses at the population and community levels are lacking. Although responses are likely to be species-specific in many cases, some taxonomic groups (e.g., raptors, shorebirds, ungulates, and corals) had greater evidence for an effect of recreation. Counter to public perception, non-motorized activities had more evidence for a negative effect of recreation than motorized activities, with effects observed 1.2 times more frequently. Snow-based activities had more evidence for an effect than other types of recreation, with effects observed 1.3 times more frequently. Protecting biodiversity from potentially harmful effects of recreation is a primary concern for conservation planners and land managers who face increases in park visitation rates; accordingly, there is demand for science-based information to help solve these dilemmas.

To address increasing fragmentation, conservation biologists have focused on protecting core habitat areas and maintaining connectivity among protected areas. Wildlife corridors, strips of relatively intact habitat designed to connect habitat fragments, may enhance connectivity, but little empirical evidence supports the idea that large mammals prefer to use corridors rather than the surrounding developed landscape. In Sonoma County, a premium wine-grape-growing region in California, we examined mammalian predator use of 21 riparian corridors classified as denuded, narrow, or wide according to the width of the remaining natural vegetation adjacent to the creek. We used unbaited, remotely triggered cameras to determine occurrence of predator species. We also monitored predator use of six vineyards, three close to core habitat and three far from core habitat, with unbaited cameras. Mammalian predator detection rates were 11-fold higher in riparian study areas than in vineyards. More native mammalian predator species were found in wide corridors than in narrow or denuded creek corridors. The number and activity level of native predators was higher in vineyards adjacent to core habitat than in vineyards farther away, where the number and activity level of non-native predators was higher. Maintaining wide and well-vegetated riparian corridors may be important in maintaining the connectivity of native predator populations to ensure their long-term survival. Utilización de Corredores Riparios y Viñedos por Mamíferos Depredadores en el Norte de CaliforniaResumen: Para tratar con el incremento en la fragmentación, los biólogos de la conservación han enfocado en la protección deáreas de hábitat núcleo y el mantenimiento de la conectividad entreáreas protegidas. Los corredores, franjas de hábitat relativamente intacto diseñadas para conectar fragmentos de hábitat, pueden incrementar la conectividad, pero existe poca evidencia empírica que sustente la idea de que mamíferos mayores utilizan preferentemente corredores en comparación con el paisaje desarrollado circundante. En el Condado de Sonoma, una región de primera calidad para el cultivo de la vid en California, examinamos el uso por mamíferos depredadores de 21 corredores riparios clasificados como denudados, angostos o amplios, de acuerdo con la amplitud de la vegetación natural remanente adyacente al arroyo. Utilizamos cámaras de disparo remoto, no cebadas, para determinar la ocurrencia de especies de depredadores. También monitoreamos, con cámaras no cebadas, el uso de seis viñedos por depredadores, tres cercanos al hábitat núcleo y tres alejados del hábitat núcleo. Las tasas de detección de mamíferos depredadores fueron 11 veces mayores enáreas riparias que en corredores angostos o denudados. El número y nivel de actividad de depredadores nativos fue mayor en viñedos adyacentes al hábitat núcleo en comparación con los viñedos alejados, donde el número y el nivel de actividad de los mamíferos depredadores fue mayor. El mantenimiento de corredores riparios anchos y con...