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 ...

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The debate regarding the benefits of rotational grazing has eluded resolution within the US rangeland profession for more than 60 yr. This forum examines the origin of the debate and the major reasons for its persistence in an attempt to identify common ground for resolution, and to search for meaningful lessons from this central chapter in the history of the US rangeland profession. Rotational grazing was a component of the institutional and scientific response to severe rangeland degradation at the turn of the 20th century, and it has since become the professional norm for grazing management. Managers have found that rotational grazing systems can work for diverse management purposes, but scientific experiments have demonstrated that they do not necessarily work for specific ecological purposes. These interpretations appear contradictory, but we contend that they can be reconciled by evaluation within the context of complex adaptive systems in which human variables such as goal setting, experiential knowledge, and decision making are given equal importance to biophysical variables. The scientific evidence refuting the ecological benefits of rotational grazing is robust, but also narrowly focused, because it derives from experiments that intentionally excluded these human variables. Consequently, the profession has attempted to answer a broad, complex question-whether or not managers should adopt rotational grazing-with necessarily narrow experimental research focused exclusively on ecological processes. The rotational grazing debate persists because the rangeland profession has not yet developed a management and research framework capable of incorporating both the social and biophysical components of complex adaptive systems. We recommend moving beyond the debate over whether or not rotational grazing works by focusing on adaptive management and the integration of experiential and experimental, as well as social and biophysical, knowledge to provide a more comprehensive framework for the management of rangeland systems. This manuscript originated from a symposium organized by D. D. Briske and J. D. Derner entitled, ''Development of comprehensive grazing policy guidelines: a case for adaptive collaboration within the rangeland profession,'' held at the 62nd annual meeting of the Society for Range Management,

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Land abandonment is common in the Mediterranean Basin, a global biodiversity hotspot, but little is known about its impacts on biodiversity. To upscale existing case-study insights to the Pan-Mediterranean level, we conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of land abandonment on plant and animal species richness and abundance in agroforestry, arable land, pastures, and permanent crops of the Mediterranean Basin. In particular, we investigated (1) which taxonomic groups (arthropods, birds, lichen, vascular plants) are more affected by land abandonment; (2) at which spatial and temporal scales the effect of land abandonment on species richness and abundance is pronounced; (3) whether previous land use and current protected area status affect the magnitude of changes in the number and abundance of species; and (4) how prevailing landforms and climate modify the impacts of land abandonment. After identifying 1240 potential studies, 154 cases from 51 studies that offered comparisons of species richness and abundance and had results relevant to our four areas of investigation were selected for meta-analysis. Results are that land abandonment showed slightly increased (effect size  = 0.2109, P<0.0001) plant and animal species richness and abundance overall, though results were heterogeneous, with differences in effect size between taxa, spatial-temporal scales, land uses, landforms, and climate. In conclusion, there is no “one-size-fits-all” conservation approach that applies to the diverse contexts of land abandonment in the Mediterranean Basin. Instead, conservation policies should strive to increase awareness of this heterogeneity and the potential trade-offs after abandonment. The strong role of factors at the farm and landscape scales that was revealed by the analysis indicates that purposeful management at these scales can have a powerful impact on biodiversity.

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ABSTRACT. When attempting to value ecosystem services and support their production, two critical aspects may be neglected. The term "ecosystem services" implies that they are a function of natural processes; yet, human interaction with the environment may be key to the production of many. This can contribute to a misconception that ecosystem service production depends on, or is enhanced by, the coercion or removal of human industry. Second, in programs designed to encourage ecosystem service production and maintenance, too often the inter-relationship of such services with social and ecological processes and drivers at multiple scales is ignored. Thinking of such services as "social-ecological services" can reinforce the importance of human culture, perspectives, and economies to the production of ecosystem services. Using a social-ecological systems perspective, we explore the integral role of human activity and decisions at pasture, ranch, and landscape scales. Just as it does for understanding ecosystems, a hierarchical, multiscaled framework facilitates exploring the complexity of social-ecological systems as producers of ecosystem services, to develop approaches for the conservation of such services. Using California's Mediterranean rangelands as a study area, we suggest that using a multiscaled approach that considers the importance of the differing drivers and processes at each scale and the interactions among scales, and that incorporates social-ecological systems concepts, may help avoid mistakes caused by narrow assumptions about "natural" systems, and a lack of understanding of the need for integrated, multiscaled conservation programs.

California ranchers in urban Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and in rural Tehama County, were surveyed to examine effects of increasing development, land use change, and attrition of the ranching community on their commitment to ranching, and to assess land conservation program acceptability. Questions were about practices, reasons for ranching, and what influences ranching's future. Ranchers share much in common. Most enjoy ranching, "feeling close to the earth," living in a "good place for family life," and the camaraderie in the ranching community. They regularly carry out range improvements. Most believe that society is becoming "hostile to ranching." A dislike for outsider intervention and land use control prevails. Urban ranchers cared significantly less about the fate of their ranch if sold, and feared local land use planning much more. Rural ranchers overwhelmingly wanted their ranch to remain a productive ranch even if sold. No new ranchers appeared in the urban sample for the last 10 years. As urbanization proceeds, we suggest that a point is reached where ranchers recognize the social, ecological, and economic landscape as urban and see it as no longer suitable for ranching. Expecting to sell for development, and/or expecting zoning to change to allow it, becomes the rational view. Land conservation efforts, including relatively acceptable though as yet not widespread conservation easement programs, should begin before that happens.