Making effective decisions for biodiversity conservation requires an understanding of the social system in which conservation actions are designed, planned for, and implemented. Humans are social beings, and as such decisions are not made independently of others. How people are connected to each other and their connections to the environment bring uncertainty to the process of deciding what conservation actions to apply where and when. Our research in this area draws upon theory and tools from the social sciences to understand the interplay between social and ecological variables and how they affect conservation outcomes.

Understanding preferences and behavioural drivers

To encourage participation in conservation and restoration initiatives, it is important to understand what factors strengthen willingness to participate, what objectives are preferred, and what knowledge and information are required to facilitate achievement of these objectives. Our research aims to provide a more thorough understanding of the personal dimensions underpinning individual conservation decisions. Operating under a behavioural lens, our projects utilise comprehensive surveys and spatial mapping to deliver quantitative and qualitative analyses that will ultimately guide new behaviour change strategies for maximum social and environmental co-benefits.

Some of the questions we ask:

• Can we identify different typologies of landholders to determine which audiences should be targeted for conservation initiatives?
• How do socio-economic and psychosocial factors influence behavioural intentions, land management preferences, and support for conservation initiatives?
• What are the main barriers to participation in agri-environmental schemes for Queensland farmers?
• What types of financial and non-financial incentives are most attractive for private land conservation?

Multi-stakeholder and multi-scale decision making for conservation

Large-scale conservation has gained momentum as scientists and practitioners recognise the need to move beyond the identification and management of protected areas to include management of surrounding landscapes. This introduces multiple threats, objectives and values into the decision making process, requiring actions to be coordinated among multiple stakeholders. Actions also need to have a multi-scale focus as often small scale transformation is required to achieve large-scale conservation outcomes. For example, changes of management practices at the property level are required in order to achieve ecological connectivity at the landscape scale.

Some of the questions we ask:

• What are the social processes that lead to effective conservation in a multi-stakeholder, multi-action and multi-scale conservation setting?
• Can we employ social network research to better understand how collaboration between stakeholders affects conservation outcomes?
• Can we assess the propensity of collaboration networks to support multi-scale decision making?
• Can we account for the interactions between the social and ecological systems in conservation decision making?

Read more about this research:

Workshopping the network

How can research on social networks be best applied to natural resource management? This was the focus of a recent CEED workshop in Brisbane that brought together researchers from around Australia and across the world…read more

Read these stories in Decision Point magazine…

Planning for the long term costs of protected areas

We often think of protected areas as pristine places that sustain rare and interesting species. It’s often true that an area is given protected status because it contains some natural value, like rare species, but what is frequently overlooked is the cost of sustaining those natural values over time.

The survival of those rare and interesting species, for example, often depends on ongoing human management. Activities such as prescribed burning, invasive species control, and patrolling for potential threats can be crucial for supporting the conservation benefit of protected areas. Yet, these activities all incur an expense… read more

Key references

Guerrero, A. M., Barnes, M., Bodin, Ö., Chadès, I., Davis, K. J., Iftekhar, M. S., Morgans C. and Wilson, K. A. (In press, published online 15.01.2020). Key considerations and challenges in the application of social-network research for environmental decision making. Conservation Biology. doi:10.1111/cobi.13461

Friedman, R.S., Guerrero, A.M., McAllister, R.R., Rhodes, J.R., Santika, T., Budiharta, S., Indrawan, T., Hutabarat, J.A., Kusworo, A., Yogaswara, H.,  Meijaard, E., St. John, F.A., Struebig, M.J. and Wilson, K.A. 2020. Beyond the community in participatory forest management: A governance network perspective. Land Use Policy, 97, p.104738. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104738

Simmons, B. A., Wilson, K. A., and Dean, A. J. 2020. Landholder typologies illuminate pathways for social change in a deforestation hotspot. Journal of Environmental Management, 254, 109777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109777

Van Velden, J. L., Wilson, K., Lindsey, P. A., McCallum, H., Moyo, B. H. Z. and Biggs, D. 2020. Bushmeat hunting and consumption is a pervasive issue in African savannahs: insights from four protected areas in Malawi. Biodiversity and Conservation. 29:1443-1464. doi:10.1007/s10531-020-01944-4

Dean, A.J., Barnett, A.G., Wilson, K.A. and Turrell, G. 2019. Beyond the ‘extinction of experience’–Novel pathways between nature experience and support for nature conservation. Global Environmental Change, 55:48-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.02.002

Dean, A.J., Fielding, K.S. and Wilson, K.A. 2019. Building community support for coastal management—What types of messages are most effective? Environmental Science & Policy. 92: 161-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.11.026

Newman, B., Wilson, K.A., Melbourne, J., Mathews, D., Wysong, M. and Iacona, G.D. 2019. The contributions of nature to people within the Yawuru Indigenous Protected Area. Conservation Science and Practice, p.e16. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.16

Guerrero, A., Bennett, N., Wilson, K., Carter, N., Gill, D., Mills, M., Ives, C., Selinske, M., Larrosa, C., Bekessy, S., Januchowski-Hartley, F., Travers, H., Wyborn, C. and Nuno, A. 2018. Achieving the promise of integration in social-ecological research: A review and prospectus. Ecology and Society. 23 (3):38. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10232-230338

Friedman, R., Law, E., Bennett, N., Ives, C. Thorn, J., and Wilson, K. 2018.  How just and just how? A systematic review of social equity in conservation research. Environmental Research Letters. 13(5). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabcde

Dean, A. J., Church, E. K., Loder, J., Fielding, K. S., Wilson, K. A. 2018. How do marine and coastal citizen science experiences foster environmental engagement? Journal of Environmental Management 213, 409-416, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.080

Guerrero, A. M. and Wilson, K. A. 2017. Using a social-ecological framework to inform the implementation of conservation plans. Conservation Biology. 31: 290–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12832

Morgans C. L., Guerrero A., Ancrenaz M., Meijaard E. and Wilson K.A. 2017. Not more, but strategic collaboration needed to save Borneo’s Orangutan. Global Ecology and Conservation. 11: 236–246. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2017.07.004

Guerrero, A.M., Bodin Ö., McAllister, R.R.J., and Wilson, K.A. 2015. Achieving social-ecological fit through bottom-up collaborative governance: an empirical investigation. Ecology and Society. 20(4): 41. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08035-200441

Guerrero, A.M., McAllister, R.R.J., and Wilson, K.A. 2015. Achieving Cross-Scale Collaboration for Large Scale Conservation Initiatives. Conservation Letters 8(2): 107-117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12112

Guerrero, A. M., McAllister,R.R.J., Corcoran, J. and Wilson, K. A. 2013. Scale Mismatches, Conservation Planning, and the Value of Social-Network Analyses. Conservation Biology 27:35-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01964.x

Guerrero, A., Knight, A., Grantham, H., Cowling, R. and Wilson, K. 2010. Predicting willingness-to-sell and its utility for assessing conservation opportunity for expanding protected area networks.  Conservation Letters, 3 (5), pp. 332–339.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00116.x