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Many of the challenges conservation professionals face can be framed as scale mismatches. The problem of scale mismatch occurs when the planning for and implementation of conservation actions is at a scale that does not reflect the scale of the conservation problem. The challenges in conservation planning related to scale mismatch include ecosystem or ecological process transcendence of governance boundaries; limited availability of fine-resolution data; lack of operational capacity for implementation; lack of understanding of social-ecological system components; threats to ecological diversity that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales; mismatch between funding and the long-term nature of ecological processes; rate of action implementation that does not reflect the rate of change of the ecological system; lack of appropriate indicators for monitoring activities; and occurrence of ecological change at scales smaller or larger than the scale of implementation or monitoring. Not recognizing and accounting for these challenges when planning for conservation can result in actions that do not address the multiscale nature of conservation problems and that do not achieve conservation objectives. Social networks link organizations and individuals across space and time and determine the scale of conservation actions; thus, an understanding of the social networks associated with conservation planning will help determine the potential for implementing conservation actions at the required scales. Social-network analyses can be used to explore whether these networks constrain or enable key social processes and how multiple scales of action are linked. Results of network analyses can be used to mitigate scale mismatches in assessing, planning, implementing, and monitoring conservation projects. Muchos de los retos que enfrentan los profesionales de la conservación pueden ser catalogados como discordancia de escalas. El problema de discordancia de escalas ocurre cuando la planificación e implementación de acciones de conservación se llevan a cabo en una escala que no refleja la escala del problema de conservación. Los retos de la planificación de la conservación relacionados con la discordancia de escala incluyen el rebase de límites de gobernanza por los procesos ecológicos; la disponibilidad limitada de datos de resolución fina; la carencia de capacidad operativa para la implementación; la falta de entendimiento de los componentes socio-ecológicos del sistema; amenazas a la diversidad ecológica que operan en escalas espaciales y temporales diversas; discordancia entre el financiamiento y la naturaleza a largo plazo de los procesos ecológicos; tasa de implementación de acciones que no refleja la tasa de cambio del sistema ecológico; ausencia de indicadores apropiados de las actividades de monitoreo y ocurrencia de cambio ecológico en escalas menores o mayores que la escala de implementación o monitoreo. El no reconocimiento y consideración de estos retos al planificar la conservación puede resultar en acciones que no abordan la naturaleza multiescala de los problemas de conservación y que no se alcancen los objetivos de conservación. Las redes sociales enlazan organizaciones e individuos en el tiempo y espacio y determinan la escala de las acciones de conservación; por lo tanto, el entendimiento de las redes sociales asociadas con la planificación de la conservación ayudará a determinar el potencial para la implementación de acciones de conservación en las escalas requeridas. El análisis de redes sociales puede ser utilizado para explorar si esas redes constriñen o facilitan procesos sociales claves y como se relacionan las múltiples escalas de acción. Los resultados del análisis de redes pueden ser utilizados para mitigar la discordancia de escalas en la evaluación, planificación, implementación y monitoreo de proyectos de conservación.

Despite substantial growth in the field of conservation planning, the speed and success with which conservation plans are converted into conservation action remains limited. This gap between science and action extends beyond conservation planning into many other applied sciences and has been linked to complexity of current societal problems, compartmentalization of knowledge and management sectors, and limited collaboration between scientists and decision makers. Transdisciplinary approaches have been proposed as a possible way to address these challenges and to bridge the gap between science and action. These approaches move beyond the bridging of disciplines to an approach in which science becomes a social process resolving problems through the participation and mutual learning of stakeholders. We explored the principles of transdisciplinarity, in light of our experiences as conservation-planning researchers working in South Africa, to better understand what is required to make conservation planning transdisciplinary and therefore more effective. Using the transdisciplinary hierarchy of knowledge (empirical, pragmatic, normative, and purposive), we found that conservation planning has succeeded in integrating many empirical disciplines into the pragmatic stakeholder-engaged process of strategy development and implementation. Nevertheless, challenges remain in engagement of the social sciences and in understanding the social context of implementation. Farther up this knowledge hierarchy, at the normative and purposive levels, we found that a lack of integrated land-use planning and policies (normative) and the dominant effect of national values (purposive) that prioritize growth and development limit the effectiveness and relevance of conservation plans. The transdisciplinary hierarchy of knowledge highlighted that we need to move beyond bridging the empirical and pragmatic disciplines into the complex normative world of laws, policies, and planning and become engaged in the purposive processes of decision making, behavior change, and value transfer. Although there are indications of progress in this direction, working at the normative and purposive levels requires time, leadership, resources, skills that are absent in conservation training and practice, and new forms of recognition in systems of scientific reward and funding.

The frequently discussed gap between conservation science and practice is manifest in the gap between spatial conservation prioritization plans and their implementation. We analyzed the researchimplementation gap of one zoning case by comparing results of a spatial prioritization analysis aimed at avoiding ecological impact of peat mining in a regional zoning process with the final zoning plan. We examined the relatively complex planning process to determine the gaps among research, zoning, and decision making. We quantified the ecological costs of the differing trade-offs between ecological and socioeconomic factors included in the different zoning suggestions by comparing the landscape-level loss of ecological features (species occurrences, habitat area, etc.) between the different solutions for spatial allocation of peat mining. We also discussed with the scientists and planners the reasons for differing zoning suggestions. The implemented plan differed from the scientists suggestion in that its focus was individual ecological features rather than all the ecological features for which there were data; planners and decision makers considered effects of peat mining on areas not included in the prioritization analysis; zoning was not truly seen as a resource-allocation process and not emphasized in general minimizing ecological losses while satisfying economic needs (peatmining potential); and decision makers based their prioritization of sites on site-level information showing high ecological value and on single legislative factors instead of finding a cost-effective landscape-level solution. We believe that if the zoning and decision-making processes are very complex, then the usefulness of science-based prioritization tools is likely to be reduced. Nevertheless, we found that high-end tools were useful in clearly exposing trade-offs between conservation and resource utilization. El frecuentemente analizado vacío entre la ciencia de la conservación y su práctica está manifiesto en el vacío entre los planes de priorización de conservación espacial y su implementación. Analizamos el vacío de implementación de la investigación en un caso de zonación al comparar los resultados de un análisis de priorización espacial enfocado en evitar el impacto ecológico de la minería de turba en un proceso de zonación regional con el plan final de zonación. Examinamos el proceso relativamente complejo de planeación para determinar los vacíos entre la investigación, la zonación y la toma de decisiones. Cuantificamos los costos ecológicos de las compensaciones discrepantes entre los factores ecológicos y socioeconómicos incluidos en las diferentes sugerencias de zonación comparando la pérdida a nivel de paisaje de las características ecológicas (ocurrencia de especies, área del hábitat, etc.) entre las diferentes soluciones para la asignación espacial de la minería de turba. También analizamos junto con los científicos y los planificadores las razones de las diferentes sugerencias de zonación. El plan implementado discrepó de la sugerencia de los científicos en que su enfoque eran las características ecológicas individuales en lugar de todas las características ecológicas para las cuales se tenían datos; los planificadores y quienes toman las decisiones consideraron los efectos de la minería de turba en áreas que no se incluyeron en el análisis de priorización; la zonación no fue vista verdaderamente como un proceso de asignación de recursos y enfatizó en general la minimización de las pérdidas ecológicas mientras se satisfacían las necesidades económicas (el potencial de minas de turba); y quienes toman las decisiones basaron su priorización de sitios en información a nivel de sitio que mostraba el alto valor ecológico y en factores legislativos únicos en lugar de encontrar una solución rentable a nivel de paisaje. Creemos que si los procesos de zonación y de toma de decisiones son muy complejos, entonces es probable que la utilidad de las herramientas de priorización con bases científicas sea reducida. Sin embargo, encontramos que las herramientas de calidad superior fueron útiles en revelar claramente las compensaciones entre la conservación y el uso de los recursos. 老生常谈的保护科学与保护实践间的鸿沟，体现在空间保护优先性规划及其实施上。我们以ー个泥煤开 采区划为案例，比较分析了科学研究与保护实践间的鸿沟，旨在避免造成生态影响的空间保护优先性分析结果与 最终实施区划的差距。我们检视了这ー相对复杂的区划过程，以确定科研、区划以及决策间的差距。通过比较 空间布局不同的泥煤开采区划在景观水平上生态特征（物种出现、生境面积等) 的损失差异，我们量化了因対生 态和社会经济因素的权衡取舍不同而产生的不同区划方案的生态代价。我们也与科学家和规划者探讨了不同区 划建议的原由。与科学家建议的方案不同，实际实施方案只关注个别生态特征而不是全部有数据的生态特征;规 划者和决策者考虑了泥煤开采对未包括在空间保护优先性分析中的地区的影响;区划没有被真正看作是ー个资 源分配过程，而是总体上着重于在满足经济需求(泥煤开采的潜力) 的同时使生态代价最小化;另外，决策者选址 的优先性是基于泥煤开采地点上表现出的高生态价值以及单一的立法因素，而不是寻找ー个在景观水平上成本 效益好的区划方案。我们相信，如果区划和决策过程非常复杂，那么就可能降低基于科学的优先性分析工具的效 用。尽管如此，我们发现一些高端工具在清晰权衡资源的保护与利用中还是很有效的。

Systematic conservation planning optimizes trade‐offs between biodiversity conservation and human activities by accounting for socioeconomic costs while aiming to achieve prescribed conservation objectives. However, the most cost‐efficient conservation plan can be very dissimilar to any other plan achieving the set of conservation objectives. This is problematic under conditions of implementation uncertainty (e.g., if all or part of the plan becomes unattainable). We determined through simulations of parallel implementation of conservation plans and habitat loss the conditions under which optimal plans have limited chances of implementation and where implementation attempts would fail to meet objectives. We then devised a new, flexible method for identifying conservation priorities and scheduling conservation actions. This method entails generating a number of alternative plans, calculating the similarity in site composition among all plans, and selecting the plan with the highest density of neighboring plans in similarity space. We compared our method with the classic method that maximizes cost efficiency with synthetic and real data sets. When implementation was uncertain—a common reality—our method provided higher likelihood of achieving conservation targets. We found that χ, a measure of the shortfall in objectives achieved by a conservation plan if the plan could not be implemented entirely, was the main factor determining the relative performance of a flexibility enhanced approach to conservation prioritization. Our findings should help planning authorities prioritize conservation efforts in the face of uncertainty about future condition and availability of sites.

To be relevant to societal interests and needs, conservation science must explicitly lend itself to solving real-world problems. Failure to evaluate under field conditions how a new technology or method performs or the cost of its implementation can prevent its acceptance by end users. Demonstration, defined here as the translation of scientific understanding into metrics of performance and cost of implementation under real-world conditions, is a logical step in the challenging progression from fundamental research to application. Demonstration reduces scientific uncertainty and validates the hypothesis that a management approach is both effective and financially sustainable. Much like adaptive management, demonstration enables researchers and resource managers to avoid trial-and-error approaches and instead conduct unbiased assessment of management interventions. The participation of end users and regulators in the development and execution of demonstration projects ensures that performance measures are credible and increases the probability that successful innovations will be adopted. Four actions might better connect science to the needs of resource managers via demonstration. First, we recommend that demonstration be conducted as a formal process that documents successes and failures. Second, demonstration should be budgeted as an integral component of government agencies' science programs and executed as a partnership between researchers and managers. Third, public and private funders should increase the opportunities and incentives for academics to engage in demonstration. Fourth, social influences on adoption of new technologies and methods should be further explored. When end users can evaluate explicitly whether a new approach is likely to achieve management objectives, save money, and reduce risk under uncertainty, the professional community successfully has bridged a chasm between research and application.

Systematic conservation planning is intended to inform spatially explicit decision making. Doing so requires that it be integrated into complex regulatory and governance processes, and there are limited instances where this has been achieved effectively. South Africa is a global leader in the application of conservation plans, the outputs of which are widely used for spatial planning and decision making in many spheres of government. We aimed to determine how conservation planning in the country progressed from theory to implementation, and to identify practical actions that enabled this transition, by assessing temporal trends in the characteristics of conservation plans (1990–2017, n = 94). Since 2010 conservation planning has entered an operational period characterized by government leadership of plans, administrative rather than ecological planning domains, decreasing size of planning units, increasing emphasis on end-user products, and scheduled revision of plans. Key actions that enabled this progression include transitioning leadership of plans from scientists to practitioners, building capacity within implementing agencies, creating opportunities to integrate plans in legislative processes, establishing a strong community of practice, adopting implementation-focused methods, and balancing standardization with innovation. Learning from this model will allow other countries, particularly those with a similar megadiverse, developing context, to operationalize conservation planning into spatial planning and decision making. La intención de la planeación sistemática de la conservación es informar la toma de decisiones espacialmente explícitas. Para lograr esto se requiere la integración de la planeación sistemática dentro de los complejos procesos regulatorios y de gobernanza. Actualmente existen instancias limitadas en las que lo anterior se ha conseguido de manera efectiva. Sudáfrica es un líder mundial en la aplicación de planes de conservación, cuyos resultados se utilizan ampliamente para la planeación espacial y la toma de decisiones en muchas esferas del gobierno. Buscamos determinar cómo la planeación de la conservación ha progresado en este país desde la teoría hasta la implementación e identificar las acciones prácticas que permitieron esta transición, esto mediante la evaluación de tendencias temporales en las características de los planes de conservación (1990-2017, n = 94). Desde 2010 la planeación de la conservación ha entrado en un periodo operativo caracterizado por el liderazgo gubernamental de los planes, dominios administrativos en lugar de dominios ecológicos, la reducción del tamaño de las unidades de planeación, el incremento del énfasis sobre los productos de usuario final y una revisión programada de los planes. Las acciones clave que permitieron esta progresión incluyen la transición del liderazgo de los planes de los científicos hacia los practicantes, el desarrollo de capacidades dentro de las agencias implementadoras, la creación de oportunidades para integrar los planes dentro de los procesos legislativos, el establecimiento de una comunidad de práctica fuerte, la adopción de métodos enfocados en la implementación y el balance entre la estandarización y la innovación. El aprendizaje que proporciona este modelo permitirá que otros países, particularmente aquellos con un contexto similar en cuanto al desarrollo y a la megadviversidad, conduzcan la planeación de la conservación hacia la planeación y la toma de decisiones espacialmente explícitas.

High costs of land in agricultural regions warrant spatial prioritization approaches to conservation that explicitly consider land prices to produce protected-area networks that accomplish targets efficiently. However, land-use changes in such regions and delays between plan design and implementation may render optimized plans obsolete before implementation occurs. To measure the shelf life of cost-efficient conservation plans, we simulated a land-acquisition and restoration initiative aimed at conserving species at risk in Canada's farmlands. We accounted for observed changes in land-acquisition costs and in agricultural intensity based on censuses of agriculture taken from 1986 to 2011. For each year of data, we mapped costs and areas of conservation priority designated using Marxan. We compared plans to test for changes through time in the arrangement of high-priority sites and in the total cost of each plan. For acquisition costs, we measured the savings from accounting for prices during site selection. Land-acquisition costs and land-use intensity generally rose over time independent of inflation (24-78%), although rates of change were heterogeneous through space and decreased in some areas. Accounting for spatial variation in land price lowered the cost of conservation plans by 1.73-139%, decreased the range of costs by 19-82%, and created unique solutions from which to choose. Despite the rise in plan costs over time, the high conservation priority of particular areas remained consistent. Delaying conservation in these critical areas may compromise what optimized conservation plans can achieve. In the case of Canadian farmland, rapid conservation action is cost-effective, even with moderate levels of uncertainty in how to implement restoration goals. Los altos costos de las tierras en las regiones agrícolas garantizan estrategias de priorización espacial que consideran explícitamente los precios de suelo para producir redes de áreas protegidas que cumplan eficientemente con los objetivos. Sin embargo, los cambios en el uso de suelo en dichas regiones y los retrasos entre el diseño del plan y la implementación pueden volver obsoletos a los planes optimizados antes de que ocurra la implementación. Para medir la vida de anaquel de los planes de conservación rentables, simulamos una iniciativa de adquisición y restauración de suelo con miras a la conservación de especies en riesgo en las tierras de cultivo canadienses. Tomamos en cuenta los cambios observados en los costos de adquisición de suelo y en la intensidad agrícola con base en los censos de agricultura hechos desde 1986 hasta 2011. Para cada año de datos, mapeamos con el uso de Marxan los costos y las áreas de prioridad de conservación designadas. Comparamos los planes para analizar los cambios a través del tiempo en el arreglo de los sitios de alta prioridad y en el costo total de cada plan. Para los costos de adquisición medimos los ahorros a partir de la consideración de los precios durante la selección de sitio. Los costos de adquisición de suelo y la intensidad de uso de suelo en general aumentaron con el tiempo sin importar la inflación (24-78%), aunque las tasas de cambio fueron heterogéneas a lo largo del espacio y disminuyeron en algunas áreas. La consideración de la variación espacial en el precio del suelo redujo el costo de los planes de conservación en un 1.73-139%, disminuyó la gama de costos en un 19-82%, y creó soluciones únicas para elegir. A pesar del alza en los costos de los planes con el tiempo, la alta prioridad de conservación de las áreas particulares permanecieron consistentes. El retraso de la conservación en estas áreas críticas puede comprometer lo que los planes de conservación optimizados pueden lograr. En el caso de las tierras de cultivo canadienses, la acción rápida de conservación es rentable, incluso con niveles moderados de incertidumbre sobre cómo implementar los objetivos de restauración.

One important debate regarding Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in developing countries concerns the manner in which its implementation might affect local and indigenous communities. New ways to implement this mechanism without harming the interests of local communities are emerging. To inform this debate, we conducted a qualitative research synthesis to identify best practices (BPs) from people‐centered approaches to conservation and rural development, developed indicators of BPs, and invited development practitioners and researchers in the field to assess how the identified BPs are being adopted by community‐level REDD+ projects in Latin America. BPs included: local participation in all phases of the project; project supported by a decentralized forest governance framework; project objectives matching community livelihood priorities; project addressing community development needs and expectations; project enhancing stakeholder collaboration and consensus building; project applying an adaptive management approach; and project developing national and local capacities. Most of the BPs were part of the evaluated projects. However, limitations of some of the projects related to decentralized forest governance, matching project objectives with community livelihood priorities, and addressing community development needs. Adaptive management and free and prior informed consent have been largely overlooked. These limitations could be addressed by integrating conservation outcomes and alternative livelihoods into longer‐term community development goals, testing nested forest governance approaches in which national policies support local institutions for forest management, gaining a better understanding of the factors that will make REDD+ more acceptable to local communities, and applying an adaptive management approach that allows for social learning and capacity building of relevant stakeholders. Our study provides a framework of BPs and indicators that could be used by stakeholders to improve REDD+ project design, monitoring, and evaluation, which may help reconcile national initiatives and local interests without reinventing the wheel. Evitar la Reinvención de la Rueda en un Acercamiento a REDD+ Centrado en Personas

Seasoned conservation researchers often struggle to bridge the research-implementation gap and promote the translation of their work into meaningful conservation actions. Graduate students face the same problems and must contend with obstacles such as limited opportunities for relevant interdisciplinary training and a lack of institutional support for application of research results. However, students also have a crucial set of opportunities (e.g., access to academic resources outside their degree programs and opportunities to design research projects promoting collaboration with stakeholders) at their disposal to address these problems. On the basis of results of breakout discussions at a symposium on the human dimensions of the ocean, a review of the literature, and our own experiences, we devised recommendations on how graduate students can create resources within their academic institutions, institutionalize resources, and engage with stakeholders to promote real-world conservation outcomes. Within their academic institutions, graduate students should foster links to practitioners and promote knowledge and skill sharing among students. To institutionalize resources, students should cultivate student leaders and faculty sponsors, systematically document their program activities, and engage in strategic planning to promote the sustainability of their efforts. While conducting research, students should create connections to and engage actively with stakeholders in their relevant study areas and disseminate research results both to stakeholders and the broader public. Our recommendations can serve as a template for graduate students wishing to bridge the research-implementation gap, both during their current studies and in their future careers as conservation researchers and practitioners. Investigadores de la conservación con experiencia a menudo batallan para vencer la brecha de investigación-implementación y promover la traducción de su trabajo a acciones de conservación significativas. Los estudiantes de licenciatura enfrentan el mismo problema y deben luchar con obstáculos como las oportunidades limitadas para entrenamiento interdisciplinario relevante y la falta de apoyo institucional para la aplicación de los resultados de la investigación. Sin embargo los estudiantes también tienen un conjunto crucial de oportunidades (e. g., acceso a recursos académicos fuera de sus planes de estudio y oportunidades para diseñar proyectos que promuevan la colaboración con las partes interesadas) a su disposición para resolver estos problemas. Con base en los resultados de discusiones novedosas en un simposio sobre las dimensiones humanas del océano, en una revisión de la literatura y en nuestras propias experiencias, diseñamos recomendaciones sobre como los estudiantes de licenciatura pueden crear recursos dentro de sus instituciones académicas, institucionalizar los recursos y vincularse con las partes interesadas para promover resultados de conservación reales. Dentro de sus instituciones académicas los estudiantes de licenciatura deben fomentar enlaces con profesionales y promover el conocimiento y la compartición de habilidades entre estudiantes. Para institucionalizar los recursos los estudiantes deben cultivar líderes estudiantiles y docentes patrocinadores, documentar sistemáticamente sus actividades del programa y participar en planeación estratégica para promover la sustentabilidad de sus esfuerzos. Mientras llevan a cabo investigaciones los estudiantes deberían crear vínculos y participar activamente con las partes interesadas en las áreas relevantes de estudio y diseminar los resultados de la investigación tanto a las partes interesadas como al público en general. Nuestras recomendaciones pueden servir como plantilla para estudiantes de licenciatura que deseen vencer la brecha investigación-implementación, tanto durante sus estudios actuales como en sus futuras carreras como profesionales e investigadores de la conservación.