Human-elephant conflict is a major conservation concern in elephant range countries. A variety of management strategies have been developed and are practiced at different scales for preventing and mitigating human-elephant conflict. However, human-elephant conflict remains pervasive as the majority of existing prevention strategies are driven by site-specific factors that only offer short-term solutions, while mitigation strategies frequently transfer conflict risk from one place to another. Here, we review current human-elephant conflict management strategies and describe an interdisciplinary conceptual approach to manage species coexistence over the long-term. Our proposed model identifies shared resource use between humans and elephants at different spatial and temporal scales for development of long-term solutions. The model also highlights the importance of including anthropological and geographical knowledge to find sustainable solutions to managing human-elephant conflict.

a b s t r a c tChanges in water temperatures resulting from climate warming can alter the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. Lake-specific physical characteristics may play a role in mediating individual lake responses to climate. Past mechanistic studies of lake-climate interactions have simulated generic lake classes at large spatial scales or performed detailed analyses of small numbers of real lakes. Understanding the diversity of lake responses to climate change across landscapes requires a hybrid approach that couples site-specific lake characteristics with broad-scale environmental drivers. This study provides a substantial advancement in lake ecosystem modeling by combining open-source tools with freely available continental-scale data to mechanistically model daily temperatures for 2368 Wisconsin lakes over three decades . The model accurately predicted observed surface layer temperatures (RMSE: 1.74 • C) and the presence/absence of stratification (81.1% agreement). Among-lake coherence was strong for surface temperatures and weak for the timing of stratification, suggesting individual lake characteristics mediate some -but not all -ecologically relevant lake responses to climate.Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

Climate change, in particular the increase in air temperature, has been shown to influence lake thermal dynamics, with climatic warming resulting in higher surface temperatures, stronger stratification, and altered mixing regimes. Less studied is the influence on lake thermal dynamics of atmospheric stilling, the decrease in near‐surface wind speed observed in recent decades. Here we use a lake model to assess the influence of atmospheric stilling, on lake thermal dynamics across the Northern Hemisphere. From 1980 to 2016, lake thermal responses to warming have accelerated as a result of atmospheric stilling. Lake surface temperatures and thermal stability have changed at respective rates of 0.33 and 0.38 °C/decade, with atmospheric stilling contributing 15% and 27% of the calculated changes, respectively. Atmospheric stilling also resulted in a lengthening of stratification, contributing 23% of the calculated changes. Our results demonstrate that atmospheric stilling has influenced lake thermal responses to warming.

In November 2016, after 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the primary rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) reached a peace agreement. The agreement incorporated three changes to institutions governing forest land occupation and use: (a) the demobilization of FARC from forested places, (2) the future distribution of legal land titles and new road construction into forests, and (3) the eradication of illicit crops. However, we document unprecedented rates of forest disturbance in the months following the peace agreement in biodiversity hotspots across the country. Are the declaration of peace and the increased rates of forest disturbance related? Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the impact of the Colombian peace agreement on forest disturbance. Focusing on the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt (AATB), we used automated satellite image disturbance detection methods and ethnographic data to quantify and interpret forest cover change from 2010 to 2018 that span wartime, peace negotiation, and post-peace agreement stages. Our findings indicate that during the post-peace agreement period (2017-2018), the area of forest disturbance increased by 50% (about 238 000 ha) across the AATB in comparison with the four-year peace negotiation stage (2013-2016); these changes reflect the end of FARC-led gunpoint conservation in the region. Forest disturbance also spread deeper into the Amazon watershed and increased in area by 187% within the AATB's protected areas. We find that following the peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC, key actors (viz. drug cartels, large landowners, campesinos and dissidents) with expectations of favorable land tenure policies swept into the region; this led to increases in large-scale cattle ranching, coca cultivation dispersal, and speculative illegal land markets each of which contributed to the widespread forest disturbance that we mapped. The rapid increase in forest disturbance occurred despite the interest of the international community in promoting forest conservation initiatives in the AATB and Colombia's existing conservation and land titling frameworks for public lands. Our findings underscore the need for conservation strategies sensitive to rapid institutional and demographic changes in the course of the peace agreement to prevent forests from becoming an unexpected casualty of premature and unstable peace.

This is the accepted version of a paper published in INLAND WATERS. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination.

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The recent adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees formally recognizes not only the importance of supporting the nearly 26 million people who have sought asylum from conflict and persecution but also of easing the pressures on receiving areas and host countries. However, few countries may enforce the Compact out of concern over the economic or environmental repercussions of hosting refugees. We examine whether narratives of refugee-driven landscape change are empirically generalizable to continental Africa, which fosters 34% of all refugees. Estimates of the causal effects of the number of refugees-located in 493 camps distributed across 49 African countries-on vegetation from 2000 to 2016 are provided. Using a quasi-experimental design, we find refugees bear a small increase in vegetation condition while contributing to increased deforestation. Such a combination is mainly explained not by land clearance and massive biomass extraction but by agricultural expansion in refugee-hosting areas. A one percent increase in the number of refugees amplifies the transition from dominant forested areas to cropland by 1.4 percentage points. These findings suggest that changes in vegetation condition may ensue with the elevation of population-based constraints on food security.

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