Background: Global policy initiatives and international conservation organizations have sought to emphasize and strengthen the link between the conservation of natural ecosystems and human development. While many indices have been developed to measure various social outcomes to conservation interventions, the quantity and strength of evidence to support the effects, both positive and negative, of conservation on different dimensions of human wellbeing, remain unclear, dispersed and inconsistent. Methods:We searched 11 academic citation databases, two search engines and 30 organisational websites for relevant articles using search terms tested with a library of 20 relevant articles. Key informants were contacted with requests for articles and possible sources of evidence. Articles were screened for relevance against predefined inclusion criteria at title, abstract and full text levels according to a published protocol. Included articles were coded using a questionnaire. A critical appraisal of eight systematic reviews was conducted to assess the reliability of methods and confidence in study findings. A visual matrix of the occurrence and extent of existing evidence was also produced.Results: A total of 1043 articles were included in the systematic map database. Included articles measured effects across eight nature conservation-related intervention and ten human well-being related outcome categories. Linkages between interventions and outcomes with high occurrence of evidence include resource management interventions, such as fisheries and forestry, and economic and material outcomes. Over 25 % of included articles examined linkages between protected areas and aspects of economic well-being. Fewer than 2 % of articles evaluated human health outcomes. Robust study designs were limited with less than 9 % of articles using quantitative approaches to evaluate causal effects of interventions. Over 700 articles occurred in forest biomes with less than 50 articles in deserts or mangroves, combined. Conclusions:The evidence base is growing on conservation-human well-being linkages, but biases in the extent and robustness of articles on key linkages persist. Priorities for systematic review, include linkages between marine resource management and economic/material well-being outcomes; and protected areas and governance outcomes. Greater and more robust evidence is needed for many established interventions to better understand synergies and trade-offs between interventions, in particular those that are emerging or contested.
Many human populations are dependent on marine ecosystems for a range of benefits, but we understand little about where and to what degree people rely on these ecosystem services. We created a new conceptual model to map the degree of human dependence on marine ecosystems based on the magnitude of the benefit, susceptibility of people to a loss of that benefit, and the availability of alternatives. We focused on mapping nutritional, economic, and coastal protection dependence, but our model is repeatable, scalable, applicable to other ecosystems, and designed to incorporate additional services and data. Here we show that dependence was highest for Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations and several West African countries. More than 775 million people live in areas with relatively high dependence scores. By identifying where and how people are dependent on marine ecosystems, our framework can be used to design more effective large‐scale management and policy interventions.
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