Transformative potential of conservation actions

Date

2023-04-15

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Publisher

Springer Nature

Abstract

Transformative change can help achieve the 2050 vision of biodiversity, but concrete ways to achieve it are only being discovered. To contribute to the understanding of the practical options for concrete action to foster, accelerate and maintain the transformative change, we assessed the leverage potential of existing conservation actions using the Meadows’ Leverage points framework. We took the actions from the Conservation Actions Classification by the Conservation Measures Partnership. The outcome is a scheme that evaluates at which leverage points, from simple parameters to paradigms, the different conservation actions have potential to make an impact, and thus impact systemic change. We found that all conservation actions have potential to leverage systemic transformative change, with varying coverage of the leverage points. All leverage points were addressed by several actions. The scheme could be used both as an interim tool for evaluating transformative potential in different broad datasets, but also help with planning of new conservation policies, interventions and projects. We hope our work could be a first step toward standardization and broader adoption of assessing leverage in conservation research and practice, achieving broader socio-ecological system leverage with conservation tools.

Description

© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Version of Scholarly Record of this Article is published in Biodiversity and Conservation, 2023, available online at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-023-02600-3 . Keywords: biodiversity; conservation interventions; leverage points; policy instruments; sustainability; transformative change.

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Citation

Arponen, A., Salomaa, A. Transformative potential of conservation actions. Biodivers Conserv (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02600-3

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