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The potential impacts of payments for environmental services (PES) and protected areas (PAs) on environmental outcomes and local livelihoods in developing countries are contentious and have been widely debated. The available evidence is sparse, with few rigorous evaluations of the environmental and social impacts of PAs and particularly of PES. We measured the impacts on forests and human well‐being of three different PES programs instituted within two PAs in northern Cambodia, using a panel of intervention villages and matched controls. Both PES and PAs delivered additional environmental outcomes relative to the counterfactual: reducing deforestation rates significantly relative to controls. PAs increased security of access to land and forest resources for local households, benefiting forest resource users but restricting households’ ability to expand and diversify their agriculture. The impacts of PES on household well‐being were related to the magnitude of the payments provided. The two higher paying market‐linked PES programs had significant positive impacts, whereas a lower paying program that targeted biodiversity protection had no detectable effect on livelihoods, despite its positive environmental outcomes. Households that signed up for the higher paying PES programs, however, typically needed more capital assets; hence, they were less poor and more food secure than other villagers. Therefore, whereas the impacts of PAs on household well‐being were limited overall and varied between livelihood strategies, the PES programs had significant positive impacts on livelihoods for those that could afford to participate. Our results are consistent with theories that PES, when designed appropriately, can be a powerful new tool for delivering conservation goals whilst benefiting local people.

Biodiversity declines threaten the sustainability of global economies and societies. Acknowledging this, businesses are beginning to make commitments to account for and mitigate their influence on biodiversity and report this in sustainability reports. We assessed the top 100 of the 2016 Fortune 500 Global companies’ (the Fortune 100) sustainability reports to gauge the current state of corporate biodiversity accountability. Almost half (49) of the Fortune 100 mentioned biodiversity in reports, and 31 made clear biodiversity commitments, of which only 5 were specific, measureable, and time bound. A variety of biodiversity-related activities were disclosed (e.g., managing impacts, restoring biodiversity, and investing in biodiversity), but only 9 companies provided quantitative indicators to verify the magnitude of their activities (e.g., area of habitat restored). No companies reported quantitative biodiversity outcomes, making it difficult to determine whether business actions were of sufficient magnitude to address impacts and were achieving positive outcomes for nature. Conservation science can advance approaches to corporate biodiversity accountability by helping businesses make science-based biodiversity commitments, develop meaningful indicators, and select more targeted activities to address business impacts. With the biodiversity policy super year of 2020 rapidly approaching, now is the time for conservation scientists to engage with and support businesses in playing a critical role in setting the new agenda for a sustainable future for the planet with biodiversity at its heart. Las declinaciones de la biodiversidad amenazan a la sustentabilidad de las sociedades y economías globales. Los negocios han reconocido esto y han comenzado a comprometerse a mitigar y a responsabilizarse por su influencia sobre la biodiversidad y a reportar esto en informes sobre sustentabilidad. Evaluamoslos informes sobre sustentabilidadde las 100 mejores compañías del reporte Fortune 500 Global del 2016 (el Fortune 100) para estimar el estado actual de la responsabilidad corporativa hacia la biodiversidad. Casi la mitad (49) del Fortune 100 mencionó a la biodiversidad en sus informes, y 31 dejaron claro sus compromisos con la biodiversidad, de los cuales sólo cinco fueron específicos, medibles y limitados por tiempo. Se divulgó una variedad de actividades relacionadas con la biodiversidad (p. ej.: manejo de impactos, restauración de la biodiversidade inversión en la biodiversidad). Pero sólo nueve compañías proporcionaron indicadores cuantitativos para verificar la magnitud de sus actividades (p. ej.: área del hábitat restaurado). Ninguna compañía reportó resultados cuantitativos con respecto a la biodiversidad, lo que complica la determinación de si las acciones de las empresas fueron de una magnitud suficiente para tratar los impactos y si se están logrando resultados positivos para la naturaleza. La ciencia de la conservación puede potenciar los métodos para la responsabilidad corporativa hacia la biodiversidad ayudando a las empresas a realizar compromisos con la biodiversidad basados en la ciencia, desarrollar indicadores significativos y seleccionar actividades más enfocadas para tratar los impactos de las empresas. Con la rápida aproximación del súper año para la biodiversidad, el 2020, ahora es el momento para que los científicos de la conservación apoyen y se comprometan con las empresas para tener un papel significativo en el establecimiento de una nueva agenda con la biodiversidad como núcleo para el futuro sustentable del planeta. 生物多样性丧失威胁着全球经济和社会的可持续性。基于此企业开始承诺说明并减缓它们对生物多祥 性的影响，并在可持续性发展报告中对此进行报告。我们分析 2016 年财富世界 500 强中前 100 名的企业(即 财富百強) 的可持续性报告，以评估企业生物多样性责任制度的现状。财富百强企业中近一半 (49) 的企业在报 告中提及了生物多祥性，31 个企业作出了明确的生物多祥性保护承诺，但其中只有5 个企业的承诺具体、可测 量且有时限。根告中公开了各种与生物多祥性有关的活动影响管理、恢复生物多祥性、对生物多样性投 资X 但只有9 个企业提供了量化指标来i正实这些活动的规模(M!恢复栖息地的面积) o 没有ー个企业报告了定 量的生物多祥性保护成效，因此很难判断这些商业行为是否足以应对对生物多祥性的影响，并正在取得积极的自 然保护成效。保护科学可以通过帮助企业作出科学的生物多祥性承诺、制定有意义的指标、选择更有针对性的 活动来应对商业对生物多祥性的影响，从而推进企业生物多祥性保护责任的发展。随着生物多祥性政策年 2020 年的迫近，保护科学家是时候参与和支持企业以生物多样性为核心的地球可持续性未来新议程的制定，并发挥其 关键作用。

Assessing anthropogenic effects on biological diversity, identifying drivers of human behavior, and motivating behavioral change are at the core of effective conservation. Yet knowledge of people's behaviors is often limited because the true extent of natural resource exploitation is difficult to ascertain, particularly if it is illegal. To obtain estimates of rule‐breaking behavior, a technique has been developed with which to ask sensitive questions. We used this technique, unmatched‐count technique (UCT), to provide estimates of bushmeat poaching, to determine motivation and seasonal and spatial distribution of poaching, and to characterize poaching households in the Serengeti. We also assessed the potential for survey biases on the basis of respondent perceptions of understanding, anonymity, and discomfort. Eighteen percent of households admitted to being involved in hunting. Illegal bushmeat hunting was more likely in households with seasonal or full‐time employment, lower household size, and longer household residence in the village. The majority of respondents found the UCT questions easy to understand and were comfortable answering them. Our results suggest poaching remains widespread in the Serengeti and current alternative sources of income may not be sufficiently attractive to compete with the opportunities provided by hunting. We demonstrate that the UCT is well suited to investigating noncompliance in conservation because it reduces evasive responses, resulting in more accurate estimates, and is technically simple to apply. We suggest that the UCT could be more widely used, with the trade‐off being the increased complexity of data analyses and requirement for large sample sizes. Una Aproximación Novedosa para Evaluar la Prevalencia y Factores de la Cacería Ilegal en el Serengueti

The consensus is that both ecological and social factors are essential dimensions of conservation research and practice. However, much of the literature on multiple disciplinary collaboration focuses on the difficulties of undertaking it. This review of the challenges of conducting multiple disciplinary collaboration offers a framework for thinking about the diversity and complexity of this endeavor. We focused on conceptual challenges, of which 5 main categories emerged: methodological challenges, value judgments, theories of knowledge, disciplinary prejudices, and interdisciplinary communication. The major problems identified in these areas have proved remarkably persistent in the literature surveyed (c.1960–2012). Reasons for these failures to learn from past experience include the pressure to produce positive outcomes and gloss over disagreements, the ephemeral nature of many such projects and resulting lack of institutional memory, and the apparent complexity and incoherence of the endeavor. We suggest that multiple disciplinary collaboration requires conceptual integration among carefully selected multiple disciplinary team members united in investigating a shared problem or question. We outline a 9‐point sequence of steps for setting up a successful multiple disciplinary project. This encompasses points on recruitment, involving stakeholders, developing research questions, negotiating power dynamics and hidden values and conceptual differences, explaining and choosing appropriate methods, developing a shared language, facilitating on‐going communications, and discussing data integration and project outcomes. Although numerous solutions to the challenges of multiple disciplinary research have been proposed, lessons learned are often lost when projects end or experienced individuals move on. We urge multiple disciplinary teams to capture the challenges recognized, and solutions proposed, by their researchers while projects are in process. A database of well‐documented case studies would showcase theories and methods from a variety of disciplines and their interactions, enable better comparative study and evaluation, and provide a useful resource for developing future projects and training multiple disciplinary researchers. Cazando la Quimera de la Multidisciplina en la Ciencia de la Conservación

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures.

There is an urgent need to improve the evaluation of conservation interventions. This requires specifying an objective and a frame of reference from which to measure performance. Reference frames can be baselines (i.e., known biodiversity at a fixed point in history) or counterfactuals (i.e., a scenario that would have occurred without the intervention). Biodiversity offsets are interventions with the objective of no net loss of biodiversity (NNL). We used biodiversity offsets to analyze the effects of the choice of reference frame on whether interventions met stated objectives. We developed 2 models to investigate the implications of setting different frames of reference in regions subject to various biodiversity trends and anthropogenic impacts. First, a general analytic model evaluated offsets against a range of baseline and counterfactual specifications. Second, a simulation model then replicated these results with a complex real world case study: native grassland offsets in Melbourne, Australia. Both models showed that achieving NNL depended upon the interaction between reference frame and background biodiversity trends. With a baseline, offsets were less likely to achieve NNL where biodiversity was decreasing than where biodiversity was stable or increasing. With a no‐development counterfactual, however, NNL was achievable only where biodiversity was declining. Otherwise, preventing development was better for biodiversity. Uncertainty about compliance was a stronger determinant of success than uncertainty in underlying biodiversity trends. When only development and offset locations were considered, offsets sometimes resulted in NNL, but not across an entire region. Choice of reference frame determined feasibility and effort required to attain objectives when designing and evaluating biodiversity offset schemes. We argue the choice is thus of fundamental importance for conservation policy. Our results shed light on situations in which biodiversity offsets may be an inappropriate policy instrument Importancia de la Especificación de Línea de Base en la Evaluación de Intervenciones de Conservación y la Obtención de Ninguna Pérdida Neta de la Biodiversidad

Alternative livelihood project (ALP) is a widely used term for interventions that aim to reduce the prevalence of activities deemed to be environmentally damaging by substituting them with lower impact livelihood activities that provide at least equivalent benefits. ALPs are widely implemented in conservation, but in 2012, an International Union for Conservation of Nature resolution called for a critical review of such projects based on concern that their effectiveness was unproven. We focused on the conceptual design of ALPs by considering their underlying assumptions. We placed ALPs within a broad category of livelihood-focused interventions to better understand their role in conservation and their intended impacts. We dissected 3 flawed assumptions about ALPs based on the notions of substitution, the homogenous community, and impact scalability. Interventions based on flawed assumptions about people's needs, aspirations, and the factors that influence livelihood choice are unlikely to achieve conservation objectives. We therefore recommend use of a sustainable livelihoods approach to understand the role and function of environmentally damaging behaviors within livelihood strategies; differentiate between households in a community that have the greatest environmental impact and those most vulnerable to resource access restrictions to improve intervention targeting; and learn more about the social-ecological system within which household livelihood strategies are embedded. Rather than using livelihood-focused interventions as a direct behavior-change tool, it may be more appropriate to focus on either enhancing the existing livelihood strategies of those most vulnerable to conservation-imposed resource access restrictions or on use of livelihood-focused interventions that establish a clear link to conservation as a means of building good community relations. However, we recommend that the term ALP be replaced by the broader term livelihood-focused intervention. This avoids the implicit assumption that alternatives can fully substitute for natural resource-based livelihood activities. El término proyecto de subsistencia alternativa es utilizado ampliamente para las intervenciones que buscan reducir la prevalencia de las actividades señaladas como dañinas para el ambiente al sustituirlas con actividades de subsistencia de menor impacto que proporcionan por lo menos beneficios equivalente. Estos proyectos se implementan comúnmente en la conservación, pero en 2012, una resolución de la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza pidió una revisión crítica de dichos proyectos con base en la preocupación por la falta de pruebas de su efectividad. Nos enfocamos en el diseño conceptual de proyectos alternativos de subsistencia al considerar sus conjeturas subyacentes. Colocamos los proyectos alternativos de subsistencia dentro de una categoría amplia de intervenciones enfocadas en la subsistencia para entender de mejor manera su papel en la conservación y sus impactos intencionales. Analizamos minuciosamente tres suposiciones erróneas sobre los proyectos de subsistencia alternativa con base en las ideas de sustitución, comunidad bomogénea y escalabilidad del impacto. Las intervenciones basadas en las suposiciones erróneas de las necesidades de las personas, aspiraciones y los factores que influyen en la elección de la subsistencia tienen poca probabilidad de alcanzar objetivos de conservación. Por lo tanto, recomendamos el uso de una estrategia de subsistencias sustentables para entender el papel y la función de los comportamientos dañinos para el ambiente dentro de las estrategias de subsistencia; diferenciar entre los hogares de una comunidad que tienen el mayor impacto ambiental y aquellos más vulnerables a las restricciones de acceso a los recursos para mejorar la selección de intervenciones; y aprender más sobre el sistema socio-ecológico en el cual están embebidas las estrategias de subsistencia de los hogares. En lugar de usar las intervenciones enfocadas en la subsistencia como una herramienta directa de cambio de comportamiento, puede ser más apropiado enfocarse en mejorar las estrategias existentes de aquellos más vulnerables a las restricciones de acceso a los recursos impuestas por la conservación o en el uso de las intervenciones enfocadas en la subsistencia que establecen un vínculo claro con la conservación como medio de construcción de buenas relaciones comunitarias. Sin embargo, recomendamos que el término proyecto de subsistencia alternativa sea remplazado por el término más general de intervención enfocada en la subsistencia. Esto evita la suposición implícita de que las alternativas pueden sustituir por completo a las actividades de subsistencia basadas en los recursos naturales.

Free or subsidised mosquito net (MN) distribution has been an increasingly important tool in efforts to combat malaria in recent decades throughout the developing world, making great strides towards eradicating this hugely detrimental disease. However, there has been increasing concern in the natural resource management and healthcare communities over alternative use of MNs, particularly in artisanal fisheries where it has been suggested they pose a threat to sustainability of fish stocks. So far, little evidence has been presented as to the global prevalence and characteristics of MN fishing, limiting global management initiatives and incentives for action across disciplines. We conducted a rapid global assessment of mosquito net fishing (MNF) observations from expert witnesses living and/or working in malarial zones using an internet survey. MNF was found to be a broadly pan-tropical activity, particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. MNF is conducted using a variety of deployment methods and scales including seine nets, scoop/dip nets, set nets and traps. MNF was witnessed in a broad range of marine and freshwater habitats and was seen to exploit a wide range of taxa, with capture of juvenile fish reported in more than half of responses. Perceived drivers of MNF were closely related to poverty, revealing potentially complex and arguably detrimental livelihood and food security implications which we discuss in light of current literature and management paradigms. The key policies likely to influence future impacts of MNF are in health, regarding net distribution, and natural resource management regarding restrictions on use. We outline critical directions for research and highlight the need for a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to development of both localised and broad-scale policy.

Conservation interventions require evaluation to understand what factors predict success or failure. To date, there has been little systematic investigation of the effect of social and cultural context on conservation success, although a large body of literature argues it is important. We investigated whether local cultural context, particularly local institutions and the efforts of interventions to engage with this culture significantly influence conservation outcomes. We also tested the effects of community participation, conservation education, benefit provision, and market integration. We systematically reviewed the literature on community-based conservation and identified 68 interventions suitable for inclusion. We used a protocol to extract and code information and evaluated a range of measures of outcome success (attitudinal, behavioral, ecological, and economic). We also examined the association of each predictor with each outcome measure and the structure of predictor covariance. Local institutional context influenced intervention outcomes, and interventions that engaged with local institutions were more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, there was limited support for the role of community participation, conservation education, benefit provision, and market integration on intervention success. We recommend that conservation interventions seek to understand the societies they work with and tailor their activities accordingly. Systematic reviews are a valuable approach for assessing conservation evidence, although sensitive to the continuing lack of high-quality reporting on conservation interventions.