Evidence-based conservation often fails to balance biological and socioeconomic measures of success. Selection of indicators is often biased by expert opinion, misaligned with conservation goals, and lacks scientific rigor. In this study, we develop and test a new approach for selecting conservation indicators, designed for monitoring any conservation project worldwide. This Holistic Indicator Selection Protocol (HISP), uses a semi-systematic approach based around the widely-adopted Conservation Standards, balancing biological, socioeconomic and governance considerations to identify context-specific indicators of success. For a case study landscape with globally typical conservation challenges, we employ four indices prioritising: 1–conservation threats; 2–project conceptual model parameters; 3–expert opinion; and 4–equitable stakeholder opinion. We used statistical approaches to evaluate the applicability of each index for representing the four priorities, and for minimizing biases and complexity. The indicators effectively represented biological and socioeconomic considerations, direct and indirect threats, key ecological targets, and the success of governing strategies. Over half of the indicators ranked in the top 50% across all indices, thus underscoring a priority set of indicators. The threat-based index prioritised socioeconomic challenges, whereas the model-based index balanced socioeconomic and biological indicators, suggesting more broad applicability. The two opinion-based indices introduced some biases, but their similarity to the more systematic indices showed their value for resource-limited settings. The study has revealed a relatively unbiased approach for selecting, balancing and prioritising conservation indicators, aligning strategic planning with local knowledge, and thus advancing evidence-based conservation and bridging the science-implementation gap.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)