Integration of social spatial data to assess conservation opportunities and priorities

Highlights

• Defines conservation opportunity as convergence of ecological, social, economic criteria

• Implemented spatial survey to identify social acceptability (preferences) for koala conservation

• Public preferences mapped close to home, in higher suitable habitat, and more on public lands.

• Social acceptability criterion had greatest influence on conservation options.

• Method can be used to prioritize investment in private land conservation.

Abstract

Effective wildlife conservation requires consideration of ecological and social factors, including social acceptability of conservation actions. Using the threatened koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) as a case study, we demonstrate a novel, socio-ecological approach for identifying conservation opportunity that spatially connects landscapes with community preferences to prioritize koala recovery strategies at a regional scale. We conceptualize conservation opportunity as the spatial integration of three sustainability criteria—ecological potential, social acceptability, and economic feasibility. The social acceptability criterion was assessed using a crowdsourced spatial survey that identified spatial preferences for koalas and land uses that impact koala conservation. As a novel approach, we addressed important research questions regarding the design, collection, and analysis of crowdsourced mapping data for identifying socially acceptable conservation opportunities. Public preferences for koalas were mapped closer to home, in higher suitable koala habitats than expected, were more pronounced in conservation and natural areas on public lands, and were mapped less frequently in modified agricultural landscapes. When the multiple criteria (ecological, social, and economic) were included in the conservation assessment, we found the social acceptability criterion exerted the greatest influence on spatial conservation priorities. The systematic assessment of social criteria for conservation using spatial surveys provides information that can be integrated with ecological information to prioritize conservation opportunities. Potential enhancements include expanding survey recruitment efforts and using alternative social data collection methods to achieve greater geographic and socio-demographic representation, and augmenting the economic feasibility assessment with private property values and transaction data from voluntary conservation agreements with private landowners.

Introduction

Conservation opportunity is a multidimensional concept (Moon et al., 2014) that emerged in recognition of the need to include both social and ecological factors in conservation prioritization and action (Knight and Cowling, 2007; Knight et al., 2010). Conservation opportunity refers to a situation where conditions are favorable for attaining conservation goals resulting from stochastic events or from a systematic process commonly called systematic conservation planning (Margules and Pressey, 2000; Kukkala and Moilanen, 2013) or “informed opportunism” (Noss et al., 2002). The primary determinants of conservation opportunity include conservation value and vulnerability (Pressey, 1997) and the economic and social dimensions of the feasibility for conservation action (Mills et al., 2013). Conservation opportunities are manifest in a range of planning and policy contexts, such as the creation of parks or reserves, identification of private land for conservation (Knight et al., 2010; Raymond and Brown, 2011; Kamal et al., 2015), retention of biodiversity in existing agricultural landscapes (Norris, 2008), using payments for ecosystem services (Wunder, 2005), human resettlement processes (Harihar et al., 2014), and engaging scientists in conservation action (Schwartz, 2006; Arlettaz et al., 2010).

Although it is widely acknowledged that considering both ecological and social factors is essential to effective nature conservation, there has been contention about the relative importance of ecological versus social factors in the prioritization of conservation efforts (see Knight and Cowling, 2007; Pressey and Bottrill, 2008; Knight and Cowling, 2008). Spatial planning for conservation has traditionally relied on ecological data such as species richness, diversity, or rarity, in combination with area representativeness, complementarity, and adequacy (Pressey, 1994; Margules et al., 1988; Pressey et al., 1993; Bonn and Gaston, 2005; Margules and Pressey, 2000; Myers et al., 2000; Moilanen et al., 2009). However, conservation planning assessments based on ecological information alone will be challenging to implement because they fail to consider social factors (Knight et al., 2008). Recent research has sought to explicitly include social data in spatial prioritization modelling to identify conservation opportunity. For example, social values data have been integrated into spatial optimization models such as Zonation (Moilenan et al., 2005) to identify how values influence priority areas for biodiversity conservation (Whitehead et al., 2014; Karimi et al., 2017). Social data have also been used to identify conservation strategies based on the spatial relationship between social and ecological values (Bryan et al., 2011) and to identify opportunities and constraints in landscape connectivity for conservation (Lechner et al., 2015).

Including social data in spatial prioritization is premised on the importance of social acceptability in evaluating conservation options. Social acceptability is a concept in the social sciences that describes the extent to which a group of people prefer a given situation (Brunson, 1996). Perceptions by local people can provide important insights into the social acceptability of environmental management (Bennett, 2016) and identify conservation policies that are acceptable locally (Engen et al., 2018). Assessing the social acceptability of conservation alternatives can be done using a range of social research methods including survey research (e.g., Kideghesho et al., 2007; Ford et al., 2009), interviews (Loker et al., 1999; Voyer et al., 2015), choice experiments (Horne, 2008), and Q methodology (Gall and Rodwell, 2016). Social acceptability can also be assessed through advisory groups and institutions intended to represent local community interests (Game et al., 2011). But assessing social acceptability is complex because public judgments about acceptability derive from a poorly understood set of factors, including issue context, trust, aesthetics, and personal history (Stankey and Shindler, 2006).

Participatory mapping methods, commonly called public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS), participatory GIS (PGIS), and volunteered geographic information (VGI), have increasingly been used to assess conservation opportunity based on the spatial relationships among ecological values, social values, and public preferences for land/marine management (Lechner et al., 2015). Participatory mapping methods have significant advantages over traditional social assessment methods because: (1) social data collected are spatially-explicit and can identify specific geographic locations where conservation alternatives are supported or opposed, (2) population sampling is typically larger, broader, and potentially more representative than traditional conservation stakeholder processes, (3) spatial data can be readily integrated with spatial ecological data to assess conservation trade-offs, and (4) the mapping process can contribute to increased social capacity.

In this study, we present and evaluate a novel, socio-ecological approach where we connected landscapes with local communities to prioritize investment in koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) recovery and monitoring strategies at a regional scale. We argue that spatial conservation opportunity is closely related to social acceptability and can be operationalized through participatory mapping methods. We demonstrate how spatial preferences for wildlife and land use, collected through a crowdsourced internet mapping application, can be integrated with place characteristics to identify locations of conservation priority for wildlife. Our case study example involves conservation of the iconic, but vulnerable koala in the far north coast region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

In human-modified landscapes, native species, such as the koala, compete for space with humans resulting in trade-offs between conservation and development. The koala is an excellent species to evaluate conservation opportunity through participatory mapping because the koala enjoys favorable public attitudes (Woods, 2000; Shumway et al., 2015) and occurs primarily on private land (Lunney et al., 2000). The koala has experienced significant population declines in Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory where the species is now listed as “vulnerable” under the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999). In the geographic location of this case study, the far north coast of NSW, koala populations are experiencing significant pressures from loss of habitat, human-induced mortality (e.g., from cars and dogs), and the spread of infectious diseases (Rhodes et al., 2011; Goldingay and Dobner, 2014; McAlpine et al., 2015; Lunney et al., 2016). In the absence of additional conservation action, koala populations are expected to decline (McAlpine et al., 2015). Recovery options are constrained by a variety of factors including the unwillingness of dog owners to restrain their dogs at night, roadkill, and the unavailability of areas for restoration (Ng et al., 2014). The National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy (2009–2014) advocated increased consideration of koala habitat in development planning; greater conservation of high-quality habitat through legislation, covenants or agreements; more active land management to protect koalas; and increased community capacity and partnerships that foster conservation (Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, 2009).

There are specific proposals to establish large conservation reserves, rather than small reserves, in NSW to protect koala habitat at a landscape level (see Love and Sweeney, 2015; Walker, 2018). One proposal calls for the creation of a large national park in and around Bellingen and Coffs Harbour on the mid north coast of NSW. While this proposal may well make a first-rate national park, it will not assist the conservation of the koala populations on the far north coast (i.e., our study region) because the koala populations of the mid north coast are not connected to the far north coast. The principle of dedicating a large national park in the far north coast as the solution to conserving koalas does not address the problem in this region because koalas are dispersed through a broad matrix of urban development and agricultural land, which is criss-crossed by numerous freeways and arterial roads. What is needed in this region, and potentially in every region, is a range of local and regional koala recovery and conservation actions involving collaborative efforts between local government, NGOs, and landholders, both in conserving koala habitat and managing the follow-on effects of habitat loss, particularly roadkill, dog attacks, and disease. The need for a series of local conservation actions lies at the core of our study, namely to seek socially acceptable conservation actions consistent with an ecologically robust framework.

Spatial conservation opportunity can be identified by examining the ecological, social, and economic conditions that contribute to its realization. From an ecological perspective, spatial locations that support the biophysical conditions for a species to thrive provide the best opportunities for conservation. From a social perspective, areas that enjoy broad public support for conservation activities (e.g., protective regulations) provide the best conservation opportunities. And from an economic perspective, areas that offer cost-effective solutions provide the best opportunities for conservation. Each perspective is valid and will likely generate a different set of spatial priorities for conservation. Ideally, the best conservation opportunities are identified by the convergence of these three criteria (Fig. 1). Spatial locations that meet these criteria provide a rational basis for ranking and prioritizing local and regional conservation opportunities.

In this study we examined the social acceptability criterion in-depth because scientists and practitioners increasingly recognize that social factors are often the primary determinants of conservation success or failure, leading to a call for the social sciences to become central to conservation science and practice (Mascia et al., 2003; Bennett et al., 2017). However, social acceptability has been rarely assessed spatially for conservation planning. Participatory mapping using spatially-explicit surveys can generate social data to identify locations that are socially acceptable for wildlife conservation. The types of place attributes that have been mapped in past research include landscape values, ecosystem values, land use preferences, activities, and experiences (Brown and Kyttä, 2014). Spatial preferences about different types of land or marine uses (e.g., residential or tourism development) are typically phrased in terms of support or opposition to a prospective land use in the marked location (e.g., Brown et al., 2018a) or an increase (decrease) in the intensity of land use activity (Hausner et al., 2015). Spatial preferences can also measure a desired future condition such as the presence of more koalas in a given geographic location. Underlying these spatial preferences for more koalas is the idea of wildlife acceptance capacity, a social psychological construct describing perceptions of a species' impact that is grounded in experience, beliefs and attitudes, aesthetic appeal, type of benefits and costs, perceptions about population trends, and attitudes toward management of the species (Decker and Purdy, 1988; Riley and Decker, 2000). Although acceptance can be framed in relation to negative perceptions involving nuisance factors (e.g., suburban deer browsing in gardens), acceptance can be also driven by positive, affective perceptions of the species. Spatial preferences for koalas are an operational measure of the multiple and complex psychological factors that underlie public judgements about the desirable number and geographic location for koalas in the planning area.

To identify local and regional conservation opportunities, we examined the three spatial criteria—social, ecological, and economic—separately and then in combination to identify and rank the best opportunities. The spatial variables used to assess social acceptability consist of preferences for: (1) more koalas; (2) different types of land use affecting koala conservation—residential, commercial, or tourism development and new parks/reserves; and (3) regulations of dogs that pose a threat to koalas and road rules that reduce mortality from cars. The spatial variables used to assess economic feasibility consist of: (1) current land use; and (2) land tenure/ownership (private land, public lands consisting of NSW state or Crown lands, Local Government land, and parks/reserves). Crown lands in Australia are public lands held in the right of a State with most managed by the State rather than Commonwealth government. The ecological criterion was koala habitat suitability from a published koala habitat model.

The spatial unit of analysis for examining conservation opportunities is important given that spatial preferences and features of place have different spatial resolutions. The spatial unit of analysis should be meaningful to evaluate the overarching objective, in this case, evaluating and prioritizing areas for koala conservation. A spatial grid approach provides for the integration of disparate data, consequently the size of the grid cell is important. We selected a 1 km grid cell size for analysis given the relatively coarse resolution of mapping preferences that are only accurate within 100 s of meters, the resolution of the koala habitat model (250 m), and the average home range of koalas in the study area—8 to 37 ha depending on method (Goldingay and Dobner, 2014).

As observed by Stratford et al. (2000), there remains a gap in acknowledging the social factors that influence decisions about koala conservation. Previous research using spatially-explicit social data examined the potential influence of social values on general biodiversity conservation allocations (Whitehead et al., 2014; Karimi et al., 2017; Lechner et al., 2015), not species-specific conservation opportunities. In this study, the public was asked to map their locational preferences for more koalas, preferences for land use that affect koala habitat, and preferences for regulations with the potential to reduce koala mortality. These variables are posited to represent the social acceptability of conservation options within the region. The identification of public preferences for more koalas is a key variable that is linked to the ecological reality confronting the koala where more koalas (or specifically, more places where they occur) are needed to achieve their persistence in the region. The study design, collection, and analysis of the crowdsourced data raise important questions about the process and the quality of the data, and its utility for determining regional priorities for investment in koala conservation. We sought answers to the following research questions:

• How are spatial preferences for more koalas distributed in the study region and are these preferences related to participant characteristics (e.g., home location and socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and self-reported knowledge of koalas)?

• What are the spatial relationships between preferences for more koalas and habitat suitability, current land use, and land tenure?

• How do ecological, social, and economic spatial criteria, separately and in combination, influence the identification and ranking of conservation priorities in the region?

Following analyses to answer these questions, we demonstrate how primary spatial survey data can be integrated with ecological and land use/tenure data from secondary sources to identify conservation opportunities and priorities. Although the case study is specific to the koala, the conservation assessment method can be adapted to other species and geographic contexts.