The illegal trade in wild harvested plants and animals is a significant threat to populations and species worldwide. There is concern that in many countries sanctions for wildlife trade crimes are insufficient to act as a deterrent, and do not reflect the seriousness of offences. For these reasons it is important to understand professional and public opinions as to which aspects of such crimes make them more or less serious, and so deserving of a greater or lesser sentence. Conjoint analysis, a method used in marketing to understand which characteristics of a product are valued by consumers, was used to investigate which attributes of hypothetical wildlife trade offences (threat status and taxon of species involved, illegal profit, previous convictions and plea) UK-based conservation professionals, magistrates and the general public considered most important when sentencing wildlife criminals in the UK. Eighty-seven per cent of 682 respondents completed enough of the survey to be included in the analysis. Magistrates and the public considered illegal profit to be the single most important attribute, while conservationists considered the threat status of the species involved to be most important (considered second most important by magistrates and the public). Magistrates, when presented with adequate information, considered the threat status and corresponding legal protection afforded to wildlife when considering how serious a wildlife trade crime was, and doing so is in line with public opinion on sentencing such offences. This study highlights the importance of ensuring that judiciaries are presented with information concerning both the potential profit and conservation impact of wildlife trade crimes. Sentencing councils must develop appropriate guidelines to support judiciaries in their sentencing of wildlife crimes.

Increasing the chances that resource users engage in and comply with management regulations is a continual problem for many conservation initiatives globally. This is particularly common when resource users perceive more personal costs than benefits from specific management actions. Analysis of interviews with managers and fishers from 22 landing sites along the coast of Kenya indicated how key stakeholders perceived the scale of benefits and costs from different management strategies. Potential underlying causes of divergent perceptions towards different management tools were evaluated, including marine protected areas, no-take fisheries closures, gear use, minimum size of fish caught and species restrictions. The analysis identified three distinct opinion groups: (1) a group of nine landing sites that scaled their preference for most management restrictions neutral to low, with exceptions for minimum sizes of captured fish and gear restrictions; (2) a group of eight landing sites that scaled their preference for the above and species restrictions and closed season higher, and were more neutral about closures and marine protected areas; and (3) a group containing four landing sites and the managers’ offices that rated their preference for the above and closed areas and marine protected areas as high. Logistic regression was used to examine whether these groups differed in wealth, education, age, perceptions of disparity in benefits, dependence on fishing and distance to government marine protected areas. The most frequent significant factor was the resource users’ perceived disparity between the benefits of the management to themselves and their communities, with the benefits to the government. Consequently, efforts to reduce this real or perceived disparity are likely to increase adoption and compliance rates. Most widespread positively-viewed restrictions, such as gear use and minimum size of fish, should be promoted at the national level while other restrictions may be more appropriately implemented at the community level.

MPAs are being established worldwide at an increasing rate, however empirical evidence for benefits to mobile species of small areas closed to fishing in temperate regions are little known. Using two North Sea prohibited trawling areas (PTAs) established > 80 years ago, social (fishers’ perceptions), management (fishing effort and compliance) and ecological (fish abundance and size) data were combined to assess the PTAs against their primary societal (conflict resolution) and secondary ecological (stock protection) objectives. Fishers perceived that the PTAs resolved conflicts between static and mobile gear sectors, despite evidence of non-compliance. However, few fishers perceived that they personally benefited from the PTAs. Fish abundance and size data from baited traps (BT) and video (BV) provided no evidence of PTA effects, but trawling effort was a significant predictor of BT fish abundance data and improved the model of BV fish abundance data. The absence of PTA effects on fish is attributable to non-compliance, the high mobility of the fish involved and their continued exploitation within the PTAs using static gear. This points to the need for greater understanding of the behaviour of fishers in relation to closures. The study also highlights the challenges of quantifying possible fishery benefits of small temperate closed areas and questions whether widely advocated fishery benefits may have enhanced initial support, but failure to deliver them may erode faith in such closures as a fisheries management tool.

Protected area management in developing countries faces the challenges of building support for conservation among neighbouring residents and monitoring the social and ecological impacts of conservation programming. This study examined a collaborative resource management (CRM) programme at Kibale National Park (Uganda) that permits residents to fish inside the Park. Like other integrated conservation and development programmes, the goals are to help alleviate poverty and encourage support for conservation and conservation-related behaviours. The programme's impact was empirically analysed using an 81 item personal survey, with 94 CRM fishers and 91 comparison group respondents, and additional data from semi-structured interviews and document review. Fishers’ annual income was significantly greater (median = US$ 376.02 yr−1) than that of the comparison group (median = US$ 196.19 yr−1; p < 0.001), and their tribal affiliation influenced earnings. Fishers indicated greater support for conservation (p < 0.01) than the comparison group. Although some CRM fishers deterred illegal activity, some may extract resources illegally. This study demonstrates that CRM is a viable tool for promoting support for conservation and increasing income, although monitoring of programme participants is needed to deter illegal behaviours and sustain the resource base.

Conversion of forest to other land uses is a major contributor to climate change. The coastal forests of Tanzania have increasingly been recognized as being of global biodiversity importance, due to high rates of species endemism. Rates of forest loss are similar to those of other tropical regions, resulting in increasing levels of threat for the biological values within the remaining forest and potentially significant source of CO2 emissions. This study estimated the remaining cover and carbon stock of Tanzania's coastal forests and the CO2 emissions due to forest loss between c. 1990 and c. 2007. Coastal Tanzania contained over 273 700 ha of forest in 2007. Deforestation rates in the area have slowed from 1.0% yr−1, or > 3735 ha yr−1 during the 1990s, to 0.4% yr−1, or > 1233 ha yr−1 during 2000–2007. Despite lower deforestation rates in 2000–2007, the percentage forest lost from within reserved areas has remained steady at 0.2% yr−1 for both time periods. CO2 emissions from deforestation slowed from at least 0.63 Mt CO2 yr−1 in 1990–2000 to at least 0.20 Mt CO2 yr−1 in 2000–2007. Regional forest clearance in Tanzania is highly dynamic; while rates have slowed since 2000, forest habitat conversion has continued and there is no guarantee that future rates will remain low. A rigorous policy on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) should be implemented to avoid future increases in deforestation rates.

With some exceptions, local populations’ opinions are not considered sufficiently important in developing policies related to protected areas (PAs), despite their recognized effect on conservation and management. This paper surveys the views and the activities performed by residents living inside or near the 10 PAs of the densely-populated, industrialized Autonomous Region of Madrid, with a view toward better informing their management. The degree of knowledge, perception of conservation state, activities performed inside them and stated importance were assessed, and the hypothesis that the economic valuation of PAs had decreased between 2006/2007 and 2009 as a result of Spain's economic crisis was tested using the contingency valuation method. Local populations valued PAs highly, despite their limited use of them and their moderate perception of the conservation state of these areas. The objective valuation of PAs (measured by three economic variables) remained high among the local populations at the peak of the economic crisis (assessed by the gross domestic product growth), although declared economic support for PAs had significantly shifted towards a ‘pay per use’ scheme.

This review outlines the policy frameworks for marine conservation zones (MCZs) and marine special areas of conservation (SACs), which are the main components of the emerging UK marine protected area (MPA) network. If current recommendations are implemented, the coverage of MPAs in English seas could rise to 27%. The governance challenges that this will raise are explored through case studies of MPA initiatives in south-west England. Whilst the initial processes by which MCZ recommendations have been developed provided for stakeholder participation (bottom-up), the main steer has been from central government (top-down). The subsequent designation and implementation of MCZs is likely to be more top-down. Marine SAC processes have, by contrast, been top-down from the outset. The fishing industry fears that more MPAs will lead to increasing restrictions, whilst conservationists fear that MPAs will not be sufficiently protected, potentially becoming paper MPAs. Both argue that the burden of proof should be placed on the other party. Such combinations of top-down (central government-led) and bottom-up (community and user-led) approaches and the related conflicts are typical of government-led MPAs in temperate countries that have higher governance capacities. Top-down approaches tend to dominate, but this does not mean that they cannot be combined with bottom-up approaches.

Innovative partnerships for conservation are required to stem the tide of continued ecosystem degradation. Nature-based tourism is one such partnership. Yet the natural attractions that nature-based tourism depends on are under increasing anthropogenic threat. Because of their dependence on international visitors, nature-based tourism enterprises are under additional pressure from socioeconomic and political crises in a globalized world. Recent research shows that lifestyle values, the motives that entice owners and staff of tourism enterprises to live and work in a chosen natural attraction, strengthen the resilience of enterprises to crises. This paper empirically explores the relationship between the lifestyle values of nature-based tourism enterprises, their resilience, and their support of and contribution to conservation of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Semi-structured interviews with the owners and senior managers of 48 reef tourism enterprises showed that those that reported high lifestyle values had higher levels of conservation ethic and participated more extensively in conservation actions. The relationship between resilience and conservation ethic was not statistically significant. Bureaucratic, regulatory and cost constraints, and a lack of knowledge, limit enterprise participation in conservation. Conservation agencies can work to reduce some of these constraints to ensure that conservation benefits from nature-based tourism enterprises are maximized.

Arid Mediterranean regions that shelter unique biodiversity are threatened by increasing anthropogenic pressures, such as urbanization, overgrazing and climate change. In Morocco, one of the main bush species in arid areas, the jujube (Ziziphus lotus), suffers from officially promoted programmes of removal. The Moorish tortoise (Testudo graeca soussensis) is threatened by such habitat loss. Like most animals, the Moorish tortoise must navigate between microhabitats to find essential feeding resources and thermal refuges. This study combined radio-tracking of free-ranging individuals, microhabitat temperature monitoring and transects in a range of habitats. Tortoises were found to depend on the occurrence of large and relatively abundant bushes to escape lethal overheating. Thus, (1) current official encouragements for the destruction of the jujube bushes should be reappraised; (2) habitat restoration relying on replanting jujube bush should be encouraged; and (3) large-scale monitoring of critical bush densities should be used to better organize conservation plans (protection and/or restoration of areas) for the Moorish tortoise.

Despite electrification, over 90% of rural households in certain areas of South Africa continue to depend on fuelwood, and this affects woody vegetation structure, with associated cascading effects on biodiversity within adjacent lands. To promote sustainable use, the interactions between anthropogenic and environmental factors affecting vegetation structure in savannahs need to be understood. Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data collected over 4758 ha were used to examine woody vegetation structure in five communal rangelands around 12 settlements in Bushbuckridge, a municipality in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (South Africa). The importance of underlying abiotic factors was evaluated by measuring size class distributions across catenas and using canonical correspondence analysis. Landscape position was significant in determining structure, indicating the importance of underlying biophysical factors. Differences in structure were settlement-specific, related to mean annual precipitation at one site, and human population density and intensity of use at the other four sites. Size class distributions of woody vegetation revealed human disturbance gradients around settlements. Intensity of use affected the amplitude, not the shape, of the size class distribution, suggesting the same height classes were being harvested across settlements, but amount harvested varied between settlements. Highly used rangelands result in a disappearance of disturbance gradients, leading to homogeneous patches of low woody cover around settlements with limited rehabilitation options. Reductions in disturbance gradients can serve as early warning indicators of woodland degradation, a useful tool in planning for conservation and sustainable development.

National and international policies have encouraged the establishment of a representative network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in South Africa, with the aim of protecting marine biodiversity. The extent to which these marine and estuarine protected areas (EPAs) represent marine fish species and communities was assessed by comparing their species compositions with those of exploited areas, as sampled using four fishing techniques. Seven hundred fish species were sampled, representing one-third of South Africa's marine fishes. MPAs in coastal habitats scored c. 40% on the Bray-Curtis measure of similarity for species representativeness, but this score declined markedly for offshore ‘trawlable’ fishing grounds. The combined effects of sampling error, temporal variation and the effects of fishing on relative abundance suggest that 80% similarity would be the maximum achieveable. Forty-nine per cent of all fish species that were recorded were found in the 14 MPAs sampled. Redundancy in the MPA network was low, with fish species most commonly being represented in only one MPA or absent. There was greater redundancy in the 33 EPAs, with 40% of species being found in two or more EPAs, but many of these estuaries were adjacent to each other and embedded in large MPAs. Deep water fish communities (>80 m deep) and communities located on the west and south-east coasts of South Africa were most poorly represented by MPAs. Routine fishery surveys provide a robust and repeatable opportunity to assess species representativeness in MPAs, and the method used could form the basis of an operational definition of ‘representative’. In contrast to an assessment based on presence-absence data, this analysis of quantitative data presents a more pessimistic assessment of protection.

Since China is a leading market for a number of types of seafood, and much of this seafood is imported from other countries, Chinese consumption of seafood is an issue of vital importance to many of the world's fisheries. Focusing on luxury seafood, in particular bêche-de-mer, shark fin and live reef food fish, this paper firstly examines the links between Chinese consumption and species population trends in source countries. After a discussion of current efforts at conservation and management of these fisheries, the paper shows how the consumption of luxury seafood in contemporary China is intertwined with broader historical trends, including the expansion of Southern Chinese cuisine; cultural beliefs and traditions, in particular surrounding elements of traditional Chinese medicine; and most importantly, notions of social status and conspicuous consumption linked to the development of the Chinese economy and social stratification. The paper points to the role of the historical, cultural and social processes that underlie Chinese luxury seafood consumption, and to the need for greater levels of action among various actors to address this consumption if sustainability is to be achieved.

In order to better understand community-level effects of fishing on temperate reefs at continental scales, changes in densities of common species in five Australian marine protected areas (MPAs) were estimated from prior to establishment to three years after enforcement of fishing prohibitions. A before-after-control-impact survey design was used, with 5–14 replicated sites distributed within both sanctuary and fishing zones associated with each MPA. On the basis of published meta-analyses, exploited species were generally expected to show increased densities. By contrast, only two of the 11 exploited fish species (the red morwong Cheilodactylus fuscus and latrid trumpeter Latridopsis forsteri), and none of seven exploited invertebrate species, showed significant signs of population recovery within sanctuary zones. Four fish species increased in biomass between survey periods. When variation in abundance data was partitioned by PERMANOVA independently for the five MPAs, the ‘zone × year’ interaction component consistently contributed only c. 4% of total variation, compared to site (c. 35%), zone (c. 8%), year (c. 8%) and residual error (c. 45%) components. Given that longer-term Australian studies show clear community-wide responses following MPA protection, the discrepancy between weak observed recovery and a priori expectations is probably due, at least in part, to the three-year period studied being insufficient to generate clear trends, to relatively low fishing pressure on some temperate Australian reefs, and to meta-analyses overestimating the likelihood of significant short-term population responses.

In marine environments, charismatic or economically valued taxa have been used as flagships to garner local support or international funds for the establishment and management of marine protected areas (MPAs). Seahorses (Hippocampus spp.) are frequently used as flagship species to help engender support for the creation of small community-managed no-take MPAs in the central Philippines. It is thus vital to determine whether such MPAs actually have an effect on seahorse abundance, reproductive status and size. A survey of seahorses inside and immediately adjacent to eight MPAs, and in four distant unprotected fishing areas, showed these MPAs had no significant effect on seahorse densities; although densities in and near MPAs were higher than in the distant fished sites, seahorse densities did not change over time. Seahorse size did show a marginal reserve effect, with slightly larger seahorses being found inside MPAs as compared to the distant unprotected fishing areas, but, in general, MPAs had little impact on seahorse size. Although MPAs may eliminate local fishing pressure, they may not reduce other threats such as pollution or destructive fishing outside the reserves. Other recovery tools, such as ecosystem-based management, habitat restoration and limits on destructive fishing outside of MPAs, may be necessary to rebuild seahorse populations. The effects of MPAs depend on species, as well as conditions outside the reserve boundaries. MPA management objectives must thus be clearly and realistically articulated to the communities, especially if support for an MPA was derived at least partly to conserve a particular flagship species.

Effective spatial management of marine species requires informed planning, as well as ongoing assessment. For mobile species such as fish, knowledge of the scale and variation in movement is central to key planning decisions, such as the size and shape of marine reserves and the interpretation of the response of protected populations. For example, populations of species that require large areas of habitat may not show increases in abundance inside small reserves, but calculating optimal reserve size is complicated by individual variations in behaviour. Fish movements can be used to quantitatively inform marine reserve planning and assessment. An individual based numerical simulation model including acoustic telemetry and census data was used to simulate changes in populations of snapper Pagrus auratus in north-eastern New Zealand. Four behavioural categories and offshore migration were used to represent the observed variability in movement. Age-structures of modelled fish populations in fully exploited areas, marine reserves and virgin populations differed substantially. However, the population structure within reserves resembled a fully fished population more closely than an unfished population. Due to the range of movement types shown by snapper, fish were not ‘locked up’ by reserves, and fish with centres of activity based in reserves were predicted to have a relatively high chance of being caught outside these reserves. Furthermore, the model showed that the response of fish populations within marine reserves was dependent on levels of exploitation in fished areas. For snapper in coastal reef areas, reserves c. 40 km2 or more may be required to achieve abundances > 50% of the unfished stock. On balance, while marine reserves with sizes similar to Leigh and Tawharanui (c. 5 km2) can achieve significant levels of protection for snapper, they are too small to fully protect resident reserve snapper populations.