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Portions of group ranches of northern Kenya communally held by pastoralists have been removed from grazing to support wildlife and encourage tourism and the resources that follow. These community-based conservancies (CBCs) were designed to benefit CBC members through regular payments, potential for wages, improved security, etc. We used a coupled-systems simulation approach to quantify potential changes in livestock numbers and pastoral well-being associated with the presence of CBC core and buffer areas, and we did so under the current frequency of droughts and increased frequency associated with climate change. The interannual precipitation coefficient of variation (CV) for our focal CBCs in Samburu County was 22% (706 mm average precipitation). We altered precipitation variability to span from 10% to 60% CV while maintaining the average. Compared to a simulation with observed precipitation and all rangelands available, when herders did not use the CBC core areas and seasonally avoided buffer areas, there was an 11% decline in tropical livestock units supported. More predictable precipitation patterns supported more livestock and improved pastoral well-being. At CVs above 30%, dramatic declines in livestock populations were simulated. When drought was made moderately more frequent (i.e., CV from 22% to 27%) there was a 15% decline in the number of livestock. Members receive a variety of benefits as part of CBC communities, but payments are small for these CBCs, and most households do not receive payments. Our results suggest that, from an economic perspective alone, payments must be raised to make membership of residents in conservancies more tenable. Additional adaptive pathways and perhaps external supports will be needed in the future as the frequency of drought increases and livestock populations decrease.

Community‐based conservation (CBC) is a popular governance approach that asks rural populations to sustainably manage local wildlife resources. CBC programs often rely on the distribution of wildlife benefits to communities to foster tolerance of wildlife, with the idea that those benefits can offset costs arising from human‐wildlife conflict. A survey of residents in four Namibian CBC areas found that different benefit types varied significantly in their relationship with whether respondents felt that wildlife improved their lives. Some higher monetary value benefits evidenced a negative and/or non‐significant relationship with respondents' perceptions, whereas meat‐based benefits were associated with a greater likelihood of residents feeling that they benefited from wildlife. These findings suggest that the impact of different benefit types in CBC programs may depend on a host of cultural/social, psychological, and community‐specific factors. From a practical standpoint, the form of direct monetary benefits may matter, and cultural considerations likely play an important role in determining which and when specific benefits are more effective. In a survey of community‐based conservation participants, meat‐based benefits had a greater association with positive opinions of the impact of wildlife than did some higher‐value cash‐based benefits. These results may be explained by a combination of cultural/social, psychological, and community‐specific factors.

1. The conservation of biodiversity is increasingly justified by claims that human livelihoods are improved through its protection. Nature's ecosystem services do indeed benefit people, but how necessary is a diversity of living things to provide these services? Most studies cited as addressing this question in natural systems do not actually quantify relevant metrics (e.g. species richness) and assess their relationship with services and/or economic benefits. On the other hand, numerous small-scale experimental studies have demonstrated that more diverse systems do indeed tend to function better, but the relevance of these results to much larger, more complex socio-ecological systems is unclear. 2. Here, we investigate how biodiversity affects the gains from two ecosystem services, trophy hunting and ecotourism, in communal conservancies of Namibia, an arid country in southern Africa. We used statistical methods to explicitly control for confounding variables so that the effect of biodiversity per se on financial benefits to local communities was isolated. 3. Our results show that biodiversity exerts a positive effect on the economic benefits generated from these two ecosystem services produced on communal lands in Namibia. The richness of large wildlife species is positively related to income derived from ecotourism and trophy hunting after statistically controlling for potentially confounding variables such as a conservancy's geographic characteristics and human population size. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our results demonstrate that the conservation of biodiversity can indeed generate increased services from real-world ecosystems, in this case for the benefit of impoverished rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. More such studies are needed from various ecological and socioeconomic contexts in order to boost the evidence base for positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services.

Community‐based conservation (CBC) is a wildlife governance approach popular in areas projected to experience a decline in precipitation due to climate change. A survey of residents in four Namibian CBC areas found that the overwhelming majority of respondents felt that (a) a prolonged drought coincided with an increased rate of human‐wildlife conflict (HWC), and (b) costs from HWC outweighed any CBC benefits they received. Perceptions of increased HWC frequency were negatively associated with the likelihood of respondents feeling that wildlife benefits exceeded costs. These findings raise questions about the impact of predicted climate change effects on CBC programs across much of the global south.

Community-based natural resource conservation programs in developing nations face many implementation challenges underpinned by social-psychological mechanisms. One challenge is garnering local support in an economically and socially sustainable fashion despite economic hardship and historical alienation from local resources. Unfortunately, conservationists' limited understanding of the social-psychological mechanisms underlying participatory conservation impedes the search for appropriate solutions. We address this issue by revealing key underlying social-psychological mechanisms of participatory conservation. Different administrative designs create social atmospheres that differentially affect endorsement of conservation goals. Certain forms of endorsement may be less effective motivators and less economically and socially sustainable than others. From a literature review we found that conservation initiatives endorsed primarily for nonautonomous instrumental reasons, such as to avoid economic fines or to secure economic rewards, are less motivating than those endorsed for autonomous reasons, such as for the opportunity for personal expression and growth. We suggest that successful participatory programs promote autonomous endorsement of conservation through an administrative framework of autonomy support--free and open democratic participation in management, substantive recognition and inclusion of local stakeholder identity, and respectful, noncoercive social interaction. This framework of the autonomy-supportive environment (self-determination theory) has important implications for future research into program design and incentive-based conservation and identifies a testable social-psychological theory of conservancy motivation.

Community conservancies are increasingly being established across African pastoral rangelands to help bolster wildlife conservation and livelihoods. Enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability of such conservancies requires better understanding of local community participation and perceptions of their socioeconomic outcomes. Working in Naibunga Community Conservancy in northern Kenya, we evaluated: (1) local community members’ perceptions of conservancy-related socioeconomic outcomes; (2) their involvement in conservancy management and conservation activities; and (3) association between these factors (perceptions and involvement) and various demographic factors. We conducted surveys in 358 households, selected using multi-stage sampling, and additionally interviewed key informants. Large proportions (65–90%) respondents perceived conservancy-related improvements in their overall socioeconomic status, security, household income, livestock numbers, and accessibility to grazing resources, schools, and health facilities. Over 75% of respondents indicated that they were involved in conservancy management and conservation activities. Involvement in these activities was positively associated with perception of socioeconomic improvements. In addition, various demographic factors shaped both perceptions of socioeconomic changes and involvement in conservancy activities. Our findings suggest that community conservancies can improve local pastoralists’ socioeconomic wellbeing. Such conservancies can achieve far greater outcomes with greater focus on maximizing socioeconomic benefits for local pastoralists and enhancing their participation in conservancy activities.

To evaluate and improve the involvement of stakeholders in community-based natural resource management, we developed a stakeholder collaboration index. We compared the stakeholders of five Kenyan conservancies by conducting 10 focus group meetings with conservancy management committees and wildlife game scouts. We used the nominal group technique to identify and rank perceptions of the conservancies’ strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, and any threats. The resulting 455 responses were categorized into ecological, institutional or socio-economic themes of ecosystem management. Collaboration index scores ranged from low (0.33) to high (0.95) collaboration, on a scale of 0–1, with a mean of 0.61. Managers and game scouts had varying perceptions of the conservancies but they agreed about major strengths and threats to conservation. The index highlighted shared perspectives between managers and scouts, which could be used as opportunities for increased stakeholder involvement in collaborative management. The stakeholder collaboration index is a potentially useful tool for improving management of environmental conservation programmes.

Heptner's markhor Capra falconeri heptneri is an Endangered wild goat occurring in disjunct populations in southern Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Surveys to determine the total population in Tajikistan were conducted during February–April 2012. A total of 1,018 animals were observed. In most areas, which include state protected areas and family- and community-based conservancies, markhor populations are stable or increasing. Threats include illegal hunting, habitat degradation, competition with livestock and disease transmission. To motivate conservancies economically to protect markhor populations, trophy hunting should be permitted to accommodate the sustainable use of markhor, with revenues distributed in a transparent and equitably shared manner.

Namibia’s community-based natural resource management program (CBRNM) and communal conservancies have gained international acclaim for rural poverty alleviation and wildlife conservation on the commons. Community-based ecotourism enterprise development has played a central role in the generation of community revenues, employment and additional benefits. The place of community-based ecotourism enterprises in the evolution of Namibia’s conservancies is examined. A participatory rural appraisal (PRA) approach was conducted in Namibia as part of recent doctoral research in 2006 and 2007, featuring participant observation, semi-structured key informant interviews and structured communal villager interviews. Findings demonstrate some tangible successes of community-based ecotourism enterprise development, as well as emerging issues in related benefits distribution and power brokering. The case of the Torra Conservancy is profiled as a leading model for success in partnerships between conservancies, as community-based conservation institutions, and tourism enterprises. The experience of Ehi-rovipuka Conservancy is also detailed, to illuminate challenges and prospects for replicating the Torra model. Power relationships between and among private enterprise, community, and the state are elucidated. Ecotourism enterprise development can contribute successfully to community-based conservation. But, issues of power sharing, governance and competition necessitate the further evolution of commons institutions to capture future, sustainable benefits from community-based conservation premised on wildlife and related ecotourism development.

The operating mechanism of farmland water conservancy in China was analyzed from the perspective of anthropology, and its dual mechanism characteristics and rules were exposed. The dual mechanism took different focus at different periods, thus there were some defaults. To carry out community-based water conservancy with the support of collective economy was an effective way to cope with the severe drought in the context of degraded dual mechanism.