Andrew Pullin

Criteria for assessing success or failure of forest co-management programmes may vary among different participating actors. Local people are important actors in co-management, thus understanding their perceived criteria is important in evaluating forest co-management programmes. We interviewed 134 ordinary community members and 21 committee members participating in a forest co-management programme in Zomba and Ntchisi, Malawi in order to understand how local actors understand and define criteria for assessing forest co-management programme. Respondents identified five criteria including forest conservation, access to forest resources, participation in decision making, infrastructure development and improved livelihoods. Ordinary community members highlighted access to forest resources and improved livelihoods as important success criteria, whilst committee members identified forest conservation as an important criterion, and the difference was significant in both Zomba (χ 2 = 11.79, p = 0.036) and Ntchisi (χ 2 = 8.97, p = 0.042). Furthermore, perceived criteria were influenced by household socioeconomic characteristics including gender, wealth status and level of education. Thus, evaluation studies should be designed to capture perspectives and experiences across social strata within a community. Comprendre les critères communautaires pour évaluer les programmes de co-gestion: exemples concrets au Malawi L. CHINANGWA, A.S. PULLIN et N. HOCKLEY Les critères d' évaluation du succès ou de l'échec des programmes de co-gestion forestière peuvent varier en fonction des différents acteurs. Les populations locales sont des acteurs importants dans la co-gestion. Comprendre leur perception des critères est important dans l'évaluation de programmes de co-gestion. Nous avons interviewé 134 membres ordinaires de la communauté et 21 membres d'un comité participant dans un programme de co-gestion communautaire dans le Zomba et le Ntchisi, au Malawi, afin de comprendre comment les acteurs locaux appréhendent et définissent les critères d'évaluation des programmes de co-gestion forestière. Les participants ont identifié cinq critères incluant la conservation forestière, l'accès aux ressources forestières, la participation dans le développement de l'infrastructure et dans les prises de décision, ainsi que l'amélioration du niveau de vie. Les membres ordinaires de la communauté considéraient l'accès aux ressources forestières et l'amélioration des revenus comme d'importants critères du succès; alors que ceux du comité mettaient l'accent sur la conservation forestière, la différence étant significative dans le Zomba (χ 2 = 11.79, p = 0.036) et le Ntchisi (χ 2 = 8.97, p = 0.042). De plus, les critères perçus étaient influencés par les caractéristiques socio-économiques des foyers, incluant le sexe, le status économique et le niveau d'éducation. Par conséquent, les études d'évaluation devraient être modelées pour capturer perspectives et expériences au travers de la strate sociale des communautés. Comprensión de los criterios comunitarios para la evaluación de los programas de cogestión forestal: pruebas de Malawi L. CHINANGWA, A.S. PULLIN y N. HOCKLEY Los criterios para evaluar el éxito o el fracaso de los programas de cogestión forestal pueden variar entre los diferentes actores que participan. La gente local son actores importantes en la cogestión, por lo que la comprensión de sus criterios de percepción es importante para la evaluación de programas de cogestión forestal. Se entrevistó a 134 miembros ordinarios de la comunidad y a 21 miembros del comité que participa en un programa de cogestión forestal en Zomba y Ntchisi (Malawi), con el fin de comprender cómo los actores locales entienden y definen los

Reliable synthesis of the various rapidly expanding bodies of evidence is vital for the process of evidence-informed decision-making in environmental policy, practice and research. With the rise of evidence-base medicine and increasing numbers of published systematic reviews, criteria for assessing the quality of reporting have been developed. First QUOROM (Lancet 354:1896–1900, 1999) and then PRISMA (Ann Intern Med 151:264, 2009) were developed as reporting guidelines and standards to ensure medical meta-analyses and systematic reviews are reported to a high level of detail. PRISMA is now widely used by a range of journals as a pre-submission checklist. However, due to its development for systematic reviews in healthcare, PRISMA has limited applicability for reviews in conservation and environmental management. We highlight 12 key problems with the application of PRISMA to this field, including an overemphasis on meta-analysis and no consideration for other synthesis methods. We introduce ROSES (RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses), a pro forma and flow diagram designed specifically for systematic reviews and systematic maps in the field of conservation and environmental management. We describe how ROSES solves the problems with PRISMA. We outline the key benefits of our approach to designing ROSES, in particular the level of detail and inclusion of rich guidance statements. We also introduce the extraction of meta-data that describe key aspects of the conduct of the review. Collated together, this summary record can help to facilitate rapid review and appraisal of the conduct of a systematic review or map, potentially speeding up the peer-review process. We present the results of initial road testing of ROSES with systematic review experts, and propose a plan for future development of ROSES.

A B S T R A C T Given the limited resources available to address conservation problems, decision-makers are increasingly seeking management solutions that provide value for money. Despite an increasing number of studies that generate estimates of the return-on-investment from conservation management interventions, the ways in which costs are reported are highly variable and generally aggregated. This prevents comparison between studies and the application of systematic tools to synthesize conservation evidence and evaluate the factors that modify costs and benefits. A standardised consensus on the type of cost data to collect and report in conservation science would help build a body of evidence to support decision makers. In efforts to improve evidence-informed decision-making, conservation has looked to health care for tools to support the integration of evidence into management decisions. Increasingly, health care uses economic evaluations of treatment options to estimate the return-on-investment from medical interventions. Here, we describe economic evaluations as a tool for evidence-informed decision-making in health care and draw parallels for how these evaluations could be integrated into conservation. We also suggest tools to help systematically report economic costs of conservation interventions, and illustrate this approach with a case study of turtle conservation. We describe the important elements of economic evaluations, and how these data can be used to greatest effect through tools for evidence synthesis, such as systematic reviews or synopses, to enable decision-makers to identify cost-effective interventions. We believe that a routine commitment from researchers to capture the costs of management interventions would help support evidence-informed decision-making by facilitating the economic evaluations that support cost-effective management decisions. However, this will require clear guidelines for how to capture these data and incentives for conducting the necessary economic evaluations. Being able to present results systematically as return-on-investment could be an important step in encouraging greater use of science by those making management decisions.

The practice of conservation occurs within complex socioecological systems fraught with challenges that require transparent, defensible, and often socially engaged project planning and management. Planning and decision support frameworks are designed to help conservation practitioners increase planning rigor, project accountability, stakeholder participation, transparency in decisions, and learning. We describe and contrast five common frameworks within the context of six fundamental questions (why, who, what, where, when, how) at each of three planning stages of adaptive management (project scoping, operational planning, learning). We demonstrate that decision support frameworks provide varied and extensive tools for conservation planning and management. However, using any framework in isolation risks diminishing potential benefits since no one framework covers the full spectrum of potential conservation planning and decision challenges. We describe two case studies that have effectively deployed tools from across conservation frameworks to improve conservation actions and outcomes. Attention to the critical questions for conservation project planning should allow practitioners to operate within any framework and adapt tools to suit their specific management context. We call on conservation researchers and practitioners to regularly use decision support tools as standard practice for framing both practice and research .

ABSTRACT In tropical human-dominated forest landscapes, top-down exclusive approaches to forest and biodiversity conservation frequently create local conflicts due to unequal distribution of power, rights and benefits. In India, the failure of restrictive policies has led governments to think of more inclusive approaches and to involve local people in conservation. While policies became more participatory, that is not proven true for local level practices. Integrated conservation and development projects aim to improve conservation outcomes with inclusive and incentive-based approaches. However, past attempts to implement these projects had mixed success. This study aims to (1) evaluate effectiveness of integrated conservation and development projects around central Indian tiger reserves with respect to changes in attitudes and behaviour of targeted local communities and (2) reveal the functional role of local governance, power relations and negotiation power in the project. The study will combine qualitative and quantitative methods including in-depth interviews with tiger reserves authorities; local NGOs; village self-government and eco-development committee members; and questionnaires administered at the village level with quasi-experimental design. Study results are expected to reveal the reasons for the misfit between policies and practice and to highlight the importance of local level social dynamics, actors and institutions.