What Works in Conservation: 2018

William J. Sutherland · Lynn V. Dicks · Nancy Ockendon · Silviu O. Petrovan · Rebecca K. Smith

May 2018 · Open Book Publishers

About this ebook

What Works in Conservation has been created to provide practitioners with answers to these and many other questions about practical conservation. This book provides an assessment of the effectiveness of 1277 conservation interventions based on summarized scientific evidence. The 2018 edition contains new chapters covering practical global conservation of primates, peatlands, shrublands and heathlands, management of captive animals as well as an extended chapter on control of freshwater invasive species. Other chapters cover the global conservation of amphibians, bats, birds and forests, conservation of European farmland biodiversity and some aspects of enhancing natural pest control, enhancing soil fertility and control of freshwater invasive species. It contains key results from the summarized evidence for each conservation intervention and an assessment of the effectiveness of each by international expert panels. The accompanying website www.conservationevidence.com describes each of the studies individually, and provides full references. 

About the author

William Sutherland holds the Miriam Rothschild Chair in Conservation Biology in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. He is president of the British Ecological Society. His previous twelve books include: Managing Habitats for Conservation (1995), Ecological Census Techniques (2006), The Conservation Handbook: Research, Management and Policy Techniques (2000). He is heavily involved in linking science and policy including through the effective use of evidence.

Lynn Dicks is a Research Fellow funded by the Natural Environment Research Council under the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Sustainability Programme (2013-2016). She works on how to use scientific evidence in policy and practice, developing methods to compile and synthesize ecological evidence and make it useful for decision-making. All her work is focused on insect pollinator conservation and ecosystem services in farmland, but the methods are widely applicable. She is a Co-ordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Thematic Assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production, due to be published in 2016. She has a degree from Oxford University in Biological Sciences (1995) and a PhD from Cambridge University (2002) on the ecology of flower-visiting insects. From 2002-2009, she worked as a science writer and science communications adviser.

Nancy Ockendon is the Miriam Rothschild Conservation Coordinator and works in the Conservation Science Group of the Zoology Department of the University of Cambridge. She is managing editor of the journal Conservation Evidence, and helps run the annual horizon scan of global conservation issues, as well as being involved in a range of projects as part of the Conservation Evidence group. Prior to this Nancy worked as a researcher in several conservation NGOs, mainly looking at the causes of changes in bird populations. She holds a degree in Zoology from Cambridge University and a PhD in ecological genetics of house sparrows from the University of Sheffield. 

Silviu Petrovan is a Research Associate in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK. He is part of the Conservation Evidence team at the University of Cambridge, a co-author of the Primate Conservation and Captive Management synopses and currently updating the Bird Conservation book. In 2018 he is co-editor of a special issue on amphibians in the journal Biological Conservation. He is a trustee at Froglife where he worked for 5 years as Conservation Coordinator (2011-2016) and undertook numerous research and practical conservation projects for amphibians, reptiles and wetland habitats, incorporating large-scale citizen science elements, automated monitoring hardware and software for ecological road mitigation and wildlife disease surveillance.

Rebecca K. Smith is a Research Associate in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK. She holds degrees in the ecology and conservation of European hares (PhD, University of Bristol), Applied Ecology and Conservation (MSc, University of East Anglia) and Biology (BSc with Honours,University of Bristol). Dr Smith is part of the Conservation Evidence group at the University of Cambridge, which focuses on summarizing and disseminating scientific evidence about the effects of conservation interventions for habitats and species. She is an author of the Amphibian Conservation and Farmland Conservation synopses and has undertaken systematic reviews on the effectiveness of conservation management for birds. Prior to this work Dr Smith undertook projects developing monitoring and management strategies for high conservation priority mammal species. Her current role with Conservation Evidence includes facilitating the development and expert assessment of further synopses including reptile and forest conservation and invasive species management.