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Human-elephant conflicts (HECs) have surged worldwide due to widespread forest habitat destruction and human encroachment. In India, where only a small portion of elephant habitats are protected, these conflicts are particularly severe. West Bengal, with its substantial elephant population, faces significant challenges in addressing HECs, especially in its southern regions where conflict incidences are increasing in recent times. This study aims to elucidate the perceptions of local inhabitants residing in and around conflict-prone zones of elephant habitats in southern West Bengal. A structured questionnaire was employed to gather insights from 204 individuals across four administrative districts in the western part of south West Bengal. Results revealed that socio-economic and demographic factors greatly influence attitudes towards conservation. Despite diverse mitigation practices in response to challenges like crop damage and property loss, dissatisfaction with compensation schemes persists. These findings underscore the complexity of human-elephant interactions in the region and emphasize the need for holistic approaches that consider both conservation and livelihood needs.

Shoreline armoring is a pervasive driver of habitat loss and ecosystem decline along coastlines. Nature‐based strategies for coastal protection, such as “living shorelines,” offer potential alternatives to armoring and are rapidly gaining traction among conservation scientists and practitioners. However, along residential coasts where armoring has often occurred at high rates, transitioning away from armoring has been generally slow. We studied the attitudes, beliefs, and decisions of waterfront homeowners with a goal of identifying effective incentives for living shorelines as a conservation tool for reversing coastal habitat loss. We show that while only 18% of homeowners with armored shorelines would willingly transition to living shorelines during a key window of opportunity, a modest economic incentive could increase the likelihood among 43% of all respondents and up to 61% of recent homeowners. Our study demonstrates potential pathways for navigating social, economic, and environmental influences on landowner decisions for coastal habitat conservation.

In this era of socially-oriented biodiversity conservation and resource management, practitioners and scholars all too often invoke unclear and imprecise claims of empowerment to describe changing relations between people and resources. Empowerment is an important indicator of conservation success and social transformation. Yet, when scholars and practitioners fail to adequately conceptualize empowerment, they run the risk of undermining the importance of local involvement and capacity building to achieve biodiversity conservation. Here we explore the many ways empowerment has been conceptualized in conservation. We root our commentary in the history of the use of empowerment in conservation from these diverse perspectives. We then present examples of different meanings, measurements and outcomes ascribed to empowerment. We conclude with suggestions for harnessing empowerment for the benefit of conservationists and communities alike. Because empowerment has the potential to improve resource management outcomes and local livelihoods, we recommend building an adaptive empowerment assessment framework to assist with its deployment where it is most needed. Although empowerment goals in conservation can guide practitioners and scholars to engage with communities in transparent, meaningful and lasting ways, conservation needs a critical approach that builds from an appreciation of the nuances underlying the purpose and power of empowerment for conservation.

‘More security, more conservation’ is the mantra utilised by the Indian forest service to ensure the protection of flora and fauna. Aligned with international agreements aiming at securing wildlife and preserving forests, the Union and the State governments of India have adopted a series of green measures to ensure both the securitisation and participation of local communities in conservation efforts. This research article illustrates how participatory forms of conservation are employed to complement the securitisation of conservation, serving as a means to indirectly control people’s lives and create new environmental subjects. It does so through a case study of Kaziranga National Park, a biodiversity conservation hotspot in the northeastern state of Assam, renowned for the successful conservation of the Greater One-horned Rhino Rhinoceros unicornis. This ‘success’ emerges amidst critiques of its violent and militarised anti-poaching conservation measures and the efforts deployed to protect the rhino ‘at any cost’. The research article analyses the participatory protection mechanisms supported by state and non-state agencies to ensure the conservation of Kaziranga, primarily carried out through the revitalisation of two bodies: the eco-development committee and the voluntary defence organisation. The results demonstrate how soft forms of violence complement hard forms, thereby supporting a broader process of structural violence and national building in Assam. It shows how participatory mechanisms are used as ‘counterinsurgency practices.

Local support for protected areas (PAs) is necessary for their long‐term success and is important for participatory conservation and sustainable management of PAs. However, the support for PAs depends on several factors such as perceived benefits and costs from PAs, and demographic factors. We carried out 845 household surveys in two PAs of Nepal in the Himalayas and in a lowland area (Terai). Overall, local people were supportive of PAs and had high conservation awareness. Decision‐tree analyses revealed that perceptions of benefits strongly influenced the support for PAs. Among socio‐demographic variables, spatial location, ethnicity, and education status influenced the support for PAs. We recommend focusing on mitigating or reducing costs that arise from the management of PAs while also providing benefits to local people. This should be prioritized for distant communities that provided the least support for PAs. Local people had high conservation awareness. Our study found that perceptions of benefits influenced the support for protected areas. Similarly, respondents living close to the protected area office were more supportive.

The concept of participatory conservation of museum artefacts involves the investigation of ways by which visitors and the wider public can be encouraged to take an active role in museum life. At the same time, it aims to explore the possibility of adapting the museums activities to actual realities in an interactive way. This paper presents a series of forms of participation in the conservation of museum artefacts process as an important part of integrated scientific conservation management. For this purpose, we selected several relevant cases from the field in order to identify the participative role of visitors in the conservation of museum artefacts.

The periphery of Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is experiencing intense and increasing hunting pressure, driven by both local subsistence needs and growing urban demand for bushmeat. This situation poses a serious challenge to sustainable natural resource management and underscores the need to realign protected-area policies with the realities faced by surrounding communities. In the absence of comprehensive ecological monitoring, this study used hunters’ perceptions to assess the current availability of mammalian wildlife around the park. From October to December 2023, surveys were conducted using a snowball sampling method with 60 hunters from nine villages bordering the park. Results show that hunting is a male-dominated activity, mainly practiced by individuals aged 30–40 years, with firearms as the primary tools. It occurs both in the park’s buffer zones and, alarmingly, within its core protected area. This practice has contributed to the local disappearance of key species such as African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), and African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus), and to the marked decline of several Cephalophus species. These patterns of overexploitation reveal critical weaknesses in current conservation strategies and point to the urgent need for integrated, community-based resource management approaches. Strengthening law enforcement, improving ranger support, and enhancing participatory governance mechanisms are essential. Equally important is the promotion of sustainable alternative livelihoods—including livestock farming, aquaculture, and agroforestry—to reduce hunting dependence and build long-term resilience for both biodiversity and local communities.

Stakeholders are increasingly involved in species conservation. We sought to understand what features of a participatory conservation program are associated with its ecological and social outcomes. We conducted a case study of the management of invasive vertebrates in Australia. Invasive vertebrates are a substantial threat to Australia's native species, and stakeholder participation in their management is often necessary for their control. First, we identified potential influences on the ecological and social outcomes of species conservation programs from the literature. We used this information to devise an interview questionnaire, which we administered to managers of 34 participatory invasive-vertebrate programs. Effects of invasive species were related to program initiator (agency or citizen), reasons for use of a participatory approach, and stakeholder composition. Program initiator was also related to the participation methods used, level of governance (i.e., governed by an agency or citizens), changes in stakeholder interactions, and changes in abundance of invasive species. Ecological and social outcomes were related to changes in abundance of invasive species and stakeholder satisfaction. We identified relations between changes in the number of participants, stakeholder satisfaction, and occurrence of conflict. Potential ways to achieve ecological and social goals include provision of governmental support (e.g., funding) to stakeholders and minimization of gaps in representation of stakeholder groups or individuals to, for example, increase conflict mitigation. Our findings provide guidance for increasing the probability of achieving ecological and social objectives in management of invasive vertebrates and may be applicable to other participatory conservation programs. Los grupos de interés participan cada vez más en la conservación de especies. Tratamos de entender las características de un programa de conservación participativa que están asociadas con sus resultados ecológicos y sociales. Realizamos un estudio de caso del manejo de vertebrados invasores en Australia. Los vertebrados invasores son una amenaza sustancial para las especies nativas de Australia, y la participación de grupos de interés en el manejo es necesaria para su control. Primero, identificamos literatura sobre las influencias potenciales de los resultados ecológicos y sociales de los programas de conservación de especies. Utilizamos esta información para diseñar un cuestionario, que fue aplicado a manejadores de 34 programas participativos de vertebrados invasores. Los efectos de las especies invasoras se relacionaron con el iniciador del programa (agencia o ciudadano), razones para el uso de un método participativo y composición de los grupos de interés. El iniciador del programa también se relacionó con los métodos de participación utilizados, el nivel de gobernanza (i.e., gobernado por una agencia o ciudadanos), cambios en las interacciones de los grupos de interés y cambios en la abundancia de especies invasoras. Los resultados ecológicos y sociales se relacionaron con cambios en la abundancia de especies invasoras y satisfacción de los grupos de interés. Identificamos relaciones entre cambios en el número de participantes, la satisfacción de los grupos de interés y la ocurrencia de conflictos. Las formas potenciales para alcanzar metas ecológicas y sociales incluyen el soporte gubernamental (e.g., financiamiento) para los grupos de interés y la minimización de vacíos en la representación de grupos o individuos interesados para, por ejemplo, incrementar la mitigación de conflictos. Nuestros resultados proporcionan directrices para incrementar la probabilidad de alcanzar objetivos ecológicos y sociales en el manejo de especies invasoras y pueden ser aplicadas a otros programas de conservación participativos.

Edible insects (EIs) have become a subject of great interest globally in terms of their exploitation, consumption, and conservation as an environmentally sustainable source of food for the rapidly growing human population. Despite this, their sustainable exploitation and conservation may not be achieved as a result of several potential threats faced by insects. This review collated information on the available contemporary and traditional conservation and management practices from different parts of the globe for emulation to improve entomophagy sustainability. The review shows dominance by contemporary practices in developed regions and traditional practices in developing regions with prominent entomophagy. The key contemporary practices are land protection and land management, survey and monitoring, legislative actions, creation of protected areas, and biosecurity measures. On the other hand, traditional practices are mainly environmentally friendly harvesting, protection of habitats, local restrictions on harvesting, monitoring, and semi-natural farming. The review also shows inadequacy in comprehensive ecological surveys and monitoring of insects worldwide, thus limiting data collection and decision-making for sustainable EI exploitation and conservation. It identifies biological invasions and pesticide contamination as some of the major potential hazards associated with the sustainability of entomophagy, calling for their research and keen monitoring. Traditional knowledge practices relevant for sustainable exploitation, monitoring, and conservation of EIs exist among rural communities globally, especially in Asia, Africa, and South America. It is of relevance to combine this knowledge and scientific research to further improve the understanding, monitoring, and conservation of EIs as human food and animal feed resources.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the current conservation state of colonial-era ecclesiastical buildings in Yorubaland (South-Western Nigeria) and the mechanics of their upkeep. The article also discusses the parameters of formulating a balanced protection-use model for the management of these buildings.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining participatory observations and documentation, semi-structured interviews and the review of church compendiums. Forty-four church buildings were identified and surveyed, and sixty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted.FindingsA gradual change in how communities value colonial-era churches in contrast to other structures with ecclesiastical legacies has been identified. The challenges and threats to their protection are investigated, revealing a variety of contextual constraints in the current management structure, which prioritizes the expansion of useful space over the conservation of the original fabric, often resulting in extreme modifications. However, there are also opportunities in the current system that could be mobilized to resource a self-sustaining conservation management practice, based on a mutually developed protection-use balance.Originality/valueHeritage policy has not directly addressed the management of ecclesiastical buildings erected during the modern colonial era. This paper is the first in-depth investigation of colonial-era religious structures in the Nigerian context, and one of the few, if not the first, in a former African colonial nation.