Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Conserving biodiversity takes a plan: How planners implement ecological information for biodiversity conservation

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Ambio Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Conserving biodiversity is critical to the sustainability of human settlements, and stands to benefit from collaboration between ecologists focused on understanding natural systems and planners balancing social, environmental, and economic priorities. Drawing from the socially-situated definition of ‘sustainability’, we sought to understand the relationship between ecologists and planners by probing how planners in the southeastern US prioritize and engage with biodiversity conservation and ecological information, and how context influences these decisions. We find that context matters, e.g., higher jurisdictional population density was positively associated with prioritizing tree cover and diversity. We find, also, that while biodiversity conservation and ecological information are valuable to planners, planners rely heavily on their colleagues to inform conservation-related activities and prioritize conservation topics that differ from ecological research foci. Improved communication by ecologists and context-specific transdisciplinary sustainability research, especially that which incorporates the primary role of elected officials in biodiversity conservation, may help to integrate ecological science and planning practice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams, W.M., and C. Sandbrook. 2013. Conservation, evidence and policy. Oryx 47: 329–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahern, J. 2013. Urban landscape sustainability and resilience: The promise and challenges of integrating ecology with urban planning and design. Landscape Ecology 28: 1203–1212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Azerrad, J.M., and C.H. Nilon. 2006. An evaluation of agency conservation guidelines to better address planning efforts by local government. Landscape and Urban Planning 77: 255–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baillie, J.E.M., J. Griffiths, S.T. Turvey, J. Loh, and B. Collen. 2010. Evolution lost: Status and trends of the world’s vertebrates. London: Zoological Society of London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beatley, T. 2000. Preserving biodiversity: Challenges for planners. Journal of the American Planning Association 66: 5–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyer, R., N. Peterson, P. Arora, and K. Caldwell. 2016. Five approaches to social sustainability and an integrated way forward. Sustainability 8: 878.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broberg, L. 2003. Conserving ecosystems locally: A role for ecologists in land use planning. BioScience 53: 670–673.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brody, S.D. 2003. Implementing the principles of ecosystem management through local land use planning. Population and Environment 24: 511–540.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brummitt, N.A., S.P. Bachman, J. Griffiths-Lee, M. Lutz, J.F. Moat, A. Farjon, J.S. Donaldson, C. Hilton-Taylor, et al. 2015. Green plants in the red: A baseline global assessment for the IUCN Sampled Red List Index for plants. PLoS ONE 10: 8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burby, R.J. 2003. Making plans that matter: Citizen involvement and government action. Journal of the American Planning Association 69: 33–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, S. 1996. Green cities, growing cities, just cities? Urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development. Journal of the American Planning Association 62: 296–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, L.K., E.S. Svendsen, and L.A. Roman. 2016. Knowledge co-production at the research-practice interface: Embedded case studies from urban forestry. Environmental Management 57: 1262–1280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charmaz, K. 2006. Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: SAGE Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collen, B., M. Böhm, R. Kemp, and J.E.M. Baillie. 2012. Spineless: Status and trends of the world’s invertebrates. London: Zoological Society of London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, C.N., M.B. Mascia, M.W. Schwartz, H.P. Possingham, and R.A. Fuller. 2013. Achieving conservation science that bridges the knowledge-action boundary. Conservation Biology 27: 669–678.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daly, H.E. 1996. Beyond growth: The economics of sustainable environment. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dormann, C.F., J. Elith, S. Bacher, C. Buchmann, G. Carl, G. Carré, J.R. García-Marquéz, B. Gruber, et al. 2013. Collinearity: A review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance. Ecography 36: 27–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duerksen, C.J., D.L. Elliott, N.T. Hobbs, E. Johnson, and J.R. Miller. 1997. Habitat protection planning: Where the wild things are. American Planning Association, Report 470/471, Washington, D.C., USA.

  • Enquist, C.A.F., S.T. Jackson, G.M. Garfin, F.W. Davis, L.R. Gerber, J.A. Littell, J.L. Tank, A.J. Terando, et al. 2017. Foundations of translational ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 15: 541–550.

    Google Scholar 

  • ESRI. 2015. ArcGIS desktop: Release 104. Redlands: Environmental Systems Research Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frick, K.T., D. Weinzimmer, and P. Waddell. 2015. The politics of sustainable development opposition: State legislative efforts to stop the United Nation’s Agenda 21 in the United States. Urban Studies 52: 209–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gagné, S.A., F. Eigenbrod, D.G. Bert, G.M. Cunnington, L.T. Olson, A.C. Smith, and L. Fahrig. 2015. A simple landscape design framework for biodiversity conservation. Landscape and Urban Planning 136: 13–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graversgaard, M., B.H. Jacobsen, C. Kjeldsen, and T. Dalgaard. 2017. Stakeholder engagement and knowledge co-creation in water planning: Can public participation increase cost effectiveness? Water 9: 191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallmann, C.A., M. Sorg, E. Jongejans, H. Siepel, N. Hofland, H. Schwan, W. Stenmans, A. Müller, et al. 2017. More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLoS ONE 12: 10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, C.V. 2011. Smart Growth policy choice: A resource dependency and local governance explanation. Policy Studies Journal 39: 679–707.

    Google Scholar 

  • Head, B.W., and W.N. Xiang. 2016. Why is an APT approach to wicked problems important? Landscape and Urban Planning 154: 4–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill, E., J.H. Dorfman, and E. Kramer. 2010. Evaluating the impact of government land use policies on tree canopy coverage. Land Use Policy 27: 407–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homer, C.G., J.A. Dewitz, L. Yang, S. Jin, P. Danielson, G. Xian, J. Coulston, N. Herold, et al. 2015. Completion of the 2011 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States: Representing a decade of land cover change information. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 81: 345–354.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurley, P.T., and P.A. Walker. 2004. Whose vision? Conspiracy theory and land-use planning in Nevada County, California. Environment and Planning A 36: 1529–1547.

    Google Scholar 

  • IUCN. 2019. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 29 July, 2019, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/.

  • Jackson, T. 2009. Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet. New York: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joppa, L.N., B. O’Connor, P. Visconti, C. Smith, J. Geldmann, M. Hoffmann, J.E.M. Watson, S.H.M. Butchart, et al. 2016. Filling in biodiversity threat gaps. Science 352: 416–418.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kidd, C. 1992. The evolution of sustainability. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 5: 1–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonard, P.B., R.W. Sutherland, R.F. Baldwin, D.A. Fedak, R.G. Carnes, and A.P. Montgomery. 2017. Landscape connectivity losses due to sea level rise and land use change. Animal Conservation 20: 80–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinuzzi, S., J.C. Withey, A.M. Pidgeon, A.J. Plantinga, A.J. McKerrow, S.G. Williams, D.P. Helmers, and V.C. Radeloff. 2015. Future land-use scenarios and the loss of wildlife habitats in the southeastern United States. Ecological Applications 25: 160–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mauser, W., G. Klepper, M. Rice, B.S. Schmalzbauer, H. Hackmann, R. Leemans, and H. Moore. 2013. Transdisciplinary global change research: The co-creation of knowledge for sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 5: 420–431.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonough, W., and M. Braungart. 2002. Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. New York: North Point Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNie, E.C. 2007. Reconciling the supply of scientific information with user demands: An analysis of the problem and review of the literature. Environmental Science & Policy 10: 17–38.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Meadow, A.M., D.B. Ferguson, Z. Guido, A. Horangic, G. Owen, and T. Wall. 2015. Moving toward the deliberate coproduction of climate science knowledge. Weather Climate and Society 7: 179–191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, J.R., M. Groom, G.R. Hess, T. Steelman, D.L. Stokes, J. Thompson, T. Bowman, L. Fricke, et al. 2009. Biodiversity conservation in local planning. Conservation Biology 23: 53–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nassauer, J.I., and P. Opdam. 2008. Design in science: Extending the landscape ecology paradigm. Landscape Ecology 23: 633–644.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nel, J.L., D.J. Roux, A. Driver, L. Hill, A.C. Maherry, K. Snaddon, C.R. Petersen, L.B. Smith- Adao, et al. 2016. Knowledge co-production and boundary work to promote implementation of conservation plans. Conservation Biology 30: 176–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. 2017. Land-use planning systems in the OECD: Country fact sheets. Paris: OECD Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orr, D.W. 2011. Two meanings of sustainability (1988). In Hope is an imperative, ed. D.W. Orr, 93–111. Washington: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pimm, S.L., C.N. Jenkins, R. Abell, T.M. Brooks, J.L. Gittleman, L.N. Joppa, P.H. Raven, C.M. Roberts, et al. 2014. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science 344: 1246752.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Portney, K.E. 2013. Taking sustainable cities seriously: Economic development, the environment, and quality of life in American cities. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pullin, A.S., T.M. Knight, D.A. Stone, and K. Charman. 2004. Do conservation managers use scientific evidence to support their decision-making? Biological Conservation 119: 245–252.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qualtrics. 2017. Qualtrics software, version 2017. Provo: Qualtrics.

    Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team. 2017. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rees, W.E. 1995. Achieving sustainability: Reform or transformation? Journal of Planning Literature 9: 343–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, J. 2004. Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development. Ecological Economics 48: 369–384.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, K.V., J.A. Kennedy, R. Dettmers, R.P. Ford, D. Reynolds, J.D. Alexander, C.J. Beardmore, P.J. Blancher, et al. 2016. Partners in Flight landbird conservation plan: 2016 revision for Canada and continental United States. Partners in Flight Science Committee.

  • Saha, D., and R.G. Paterson. 2008. Local government efforts to promote the “Three Es” of sustainable development: Survey in medium to large cities in the United States. Journal of Planning Education and Research 28: 21–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandström, U.G., P. Angelstam, and A. Khakee. 2006. Urban comprehensive planning: Identifying barriers for the maintenance of functional habitat networks. Landscape and Urban Planning 75: 43–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, K.Z.S. 2013. Panther politics: Neoliberalizing nature in Southwest Florida. Environment and Planning A 45: 2323–2343.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steelman, T.A., and G.R. Hess. 2009. Effective protection of open space: Does planning matter? Environmental Management 44: 93–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steiner, F. 2016. Opportunities for urban ecology in community and regional planning. Journal of Urban Ecology 2: juv004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, D.L., M.F. Hanson, D.D. Oaks, J.E. Straub, and A.V. Ponio. 2010. Local land-use planning to conserve biodiversity: Planners’ perspectives on what works. Conservation Biology 24: 450–460.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokols, D. 2006. Toward a science of transdisciplinary action research. American Journal of Community Psychology 38: 79–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tan, K.W. 2006. A greenway network for Singapore. Landscape and Urban Planning 76: 45–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • US Census Bureau. 2016. 2012–2016 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Retrieved 1 April, 2018, from https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/american-factfinder/.

  • US Geological Survey, Gap Analysis Program (GAP). 2016. Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US), version 1.4 Combined Feature Class. Retrieved 1 April, 2018, from https://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/download/.

  • Walsh, J.C., L.V. Dicks, and W.J. Sutherland. 2015. The effect of scientific evidence on conservation practitioners’ management decisions. Conservation Biology 29: 88–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webler, T., S. Tuler, I. Shockey, P. Stern, and R. Beattie. 2003. Participation by local governmental officials in watershed management planning. Society & Natural Resources 16: 105–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wickson, F., A.L. Carew, and A.W. Russell. 2006. Transdisciplinary research: Characteristics, quandaries, and quality. Futures 38: 1046–1059.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Commission on the Environment and Development. 1987. Our common future. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • WWF. 2016. Living Planet Report 2016. Risk and resilience in a new era. Gland: WWF International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yli-Pelkonen, V., and J. Niemelä. 2006. Use of ecological information in urban planning: Experiences from the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. Urban Ecosystems 9: 211–226.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by a University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte Research Scholars award to KBS. We profusely thank the planners who took time out of their busy schedules to answer our survey questions. We also thank the reviewers of our manuscript whose comments have significantly improved our work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sara A. Gagné.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (PDF 635 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gagné, S.A., Bryan-Scaggs, K., Boyer, R.H.W. et al. Conserving biodiversity takes a plan: How planners implement ecological information for biodiversity conservation. Ambio 49, 1490–1505 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01281-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01281-z

Keywords

Navigation