Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SystemShift (Shifting to a Land Systems Paradigm in Conservation)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-01-01 do 2023-06-30
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis threatening human wellbeing, and the main driver is how we use land. Decisions about land use are made in social-ecological systems, yet conservation science is currently ill-equipped to consider the complex and dynamic interactions between land-use actors and their environment. This translates into conservation failures and missed opportunities. The overarching goal of SystemShift is to develop interdisciplinary concepts and approaches to establish a new, social-ecological perspective on land use in conservation. This promises major breakthroughs in our understanding of threats to biodiversity and how to design effective conservation strategies. SystemShift is organized in three main steps, each corresponding to specific objectives. STEP 1 will develop novel concepts to identify key combinations of land-use actors, practices, and threats to biodiversity, and organize them into a systems typology for conservation. This step will also design innovative indicators to map how threats vary and interact in space and time. These concepts will be applied and tested for poorly studied tropical dry forests globally. STEP 2 will empirically validate these concepts for two tropical dry forests regions in South America. Comparative social-ecological fieldwork will reveal how threats impact biodiversity, how land-use actors relate to threats, and how conservation actions influence actors. This will enable a major advance in conservation planning methods to consider land-use actors and dynamic threats and to rigorously evaluate when and where conservation is most effective. STEP 3 will integrate the project results to provide new, generalized insights into conservation challenges and opportunities in tropical dry forests globally, and to develop a novel land-systems framework for conservation assessments and planning. Through this, SystemShift will cross-fertilise between land system science and conservation science, laying the foundation for a new research agenda that integrates complex land systems into biodiversity conservation.
SystemShift started in January 2022 and has made major progress in all major components during the first reporting phase. A focus has been put on developing concepts to establish a land-system-based approach in conservation planning (STEP 1). This involved developing a novel, multi-scalar typology of land systems (= social-ecological systems focused on land use) that captures key land-use actors and activities and thus links to both threats to biodiversity and possible conservation interventions. This typology has been developed for tropical dry forests globally and was regionalized for five dry forest regions in South America, Africa, and Asia. Considerable progress has also been made in terms of generating and homogenizing the necessary datasets to map this typology for the focus regions (Argentinean Chaco and Bolivian Chiquitania), including reconstructing land change back to the 1980s and mapping key features related to land use actors (e.g. smallholders living inside forests, feedlots).
A second focus in the first reporting period was on planning the demonstration phase (STEP 2), specifically, the field campaigns to sample biodiversity and to survey land-use actors in land systems (both scheduled for 2024 and 2025). This involved developing a survey design, establishing collaborations for these surveys with partners in Argentina and Bolivia, and acquiring the necessary equipment. A significant step was an extensive field visit of both sites in September 2022, including kick-off meetings with the network of local collaborators.
Finally, the project has made major progress in terms of the synthesis component (STEP 3). This involved mapping and comparing deforestation frontiers across the dry tropics and uncovering that these frontiers occur in areas of disproportionally high conservation value. Similarly, the project contributed to a high-level assessment of the neglected nature of dry forests, uncovering that much deforestation there happens ‘for nothing’ (i.e. no agricultural use after clearing).
In addition, the project has engaged in activities to link Land System Science and Conservation Science (e.g. conference symposia, interdisciplinary workshops, and synthesis work under the umbrella of the Global Land Programme).
A second focus in the first reporting period was on planning the demonstration phase (STEP 2), specifically, the field campaigns to sample biodiversity and to survey land-use actors in land systems (both scheduled for 2024 and 2025). This involved developing a survey design, establishing collaborations for these surveys with partners in Argentina and Bolivia, and acquiring the necessary equipment. A significant step was an extensive field visit of both sites in September 2022, including kick-off meetings with the network of local collaborators.
Finally, the project has made major progress in terms of the synthesis component (STEP 3). This involved mapping and comparing deforestation frontiers across the dry tropics and uncovering that these frontiers occur in areas of disproportionally high conservation value. Similarly, the project contributed to a high-level assessment of the neglected nature of dry forests, uncovering that much deforestation there happens ‘for nothing’ (i.e. no agricultural use after clearing).
In addition, the project has engaged in activities to link Land System Science and Conservation Science (e.g. conference symposia, interdisciplinary workshops, and synthesis work under the umbrella of the Global Land Programme).
SystemShift seeks to progress beyond the state-of-the-art in at least six ways:
• Developing a novel land systems typology to structure complexity and to shift to an actor-centered land-use representation in conservation planning. This will enable for an intermediate level of complexity in conservation assessments and bring together the strengths of top-down and bottom-up approaches in conservation planning.
• Developing the innovative concept of portfolios of threats to biodiversity, including novel indicators to map biodiversity threats. This will move beyond the prevailing gap in spatial threat indicators and link threats to actors.
• Developing the novel concept of threat syndromes to track threats dynamically in space and time in order to address and consider these dynamics in conservation assessments.
• Explaining relationships between land-use actors and threats in order to detect and analyse feedbacks of conservation action on land-use actors, which will provide a basis for better evaluating what characterizes just conservation and increase conservation effectiveness.
• Developing new approaches, based on land systems, to include land-use actors and dynamic threats in conservation planning that will help to better prioritise conservation actions.
• Considerably increase our understanding of land-use change and the conservation challenges and opportunities these changes entail for the world’s tropical dry forests.
• Developing a novel land systems typology to structure complexity and to shift to an actor-centered land-use representation in conservation planning. This will enable for an intermediate level of complexity in conservation assessments and bring together the strengths of top-down and bottom-up approaches in conservation planning.
• Developing the innovative concept of portfolios of threats to biodiversity, including novel indicators to map biodiversity threats. This will move beyond the prevailing gap in spatial threat indicators and link threats to actors.
• Developing the novel concept of threat syndromes to track threats dynamically in space and time in order to address and consider these dynamics in conservation assessments.
• Explaining relationships between land-use actors and threats in order to detect and analyse feedbacks of conservation action on land-use actors, which will provide a basis for better evaluating what characterizes just conservation and increase conservation effectiveness.
• Developing new approaches, based on land systems, to include land-use actors and dynamic threats in conservation planning that will help to better prioritise conservation actions.
• Considerably increase our understanding of land-use change and the conservation challenges and opportunities these changes entail for the world’s tropical dry forests.