Duan Biggs | The University of Queensland, Australia (original) (raw)
Papers by Duan Biggs
Humans have altered the majority of Earth’s terrestrial surface, yet some places still remain rel... more Humans have altered the majority of Earth’s terrestrial surface, yet some places still remain relatively undisturbed by modern society. These wilderness areas contain the most intact ecosystems on Earth. In this article, we review the emerging evidence that wilderness areas are exceptionally important relative to more degraded ecosystems for biodiversity conservation (e.g., halving species extinction risk), Earth system functioning (e.g., supporting continental scale hydrological cycles), and for supporting the cultural integrity of many indigenous communities worldwide. We then describe the current state of wilderness conservation and mapping. Despite their immense value, wilderness areas are being rapidly lost, are under protected, and are almost completely overlooked in global environmental policy. Our window of opportunity to safeguard Earth’s last wilderness areas and their unique values is closing fast, but through a combination of smart policy changes and immediate large-scal...
Ecological Solutions and Evidence, 2020
To be effective, the next generation of conservation practitioners and managers need to be critic... more To be effective, the next generation of conservation practitioners and managers need to be critical thinkers with a deep understanding of how to make evidence-based decisions and of the value of evidence synthesis. If, as educators, we do not make these priorities a core part of what we teach, we are failing to prepare our students to make an effective contribution to conservation practice. To help overcome this problem we have created open access online teaching materials in multiple languages that are stored in Applied Ecological Resources. So far, 117 educators from 23 countries have acknowledged the importance of this and are already teaching or about to teach skills in appraising or using evidence in conservation decision-making. This includes 145 undergraduate, postgraduate or professional development courses. We call for wider teaching of the tools and skills that facilitate evidence-based conservation and also suggest that providing online teaching materials in multiple lang...
Conservation Science and Practice
Coral reefs are the major victims of climate change which poses a big challenge for the countries... more Coral reefs are the major victims of climate change which poses a big challenge for the countries which depends on reef-based tourism. However reef-based tourism companies are developing adaptive capacity with the possible future changes in the sector and also trying to contribute to reef conservation.
Effectively managing social ecological systems is essential to improving their resilience to envi... more Effectively managing social ecological systems is essential to improving their resilience to environmental change and anthropogenic pressure. However an explicit understanding of the system being managed is often lacking. This study investigates the use of collaborative workshops to produce social ecological conceptual diagrams of Protected Areas. The production and use of conceptual diagrams by managers is hoped to assist them in reflecting on their decision making process with the aim of improving resilience of the system. Baseline management decision-making processes were evaluated for twenty Australian Protected Areas managers, including how much time is currently allocated to various management actions. Using paired experimental design, half of the managers were then engaged in one day workshops where an explicit social ecological model of their park was developed. Models incorporated both social values (cultural, visitor, and community values) as well as natural values (ecolog...
Escalating global change may have profound impacts on society. There is concern over a potential ... more Escalating global change may have profound impacts on society. There is concern over a potential increase in environmental‐induced and other crises as a result of this escalating change. In today's highly connected world the impacts and extent of crises may spread in novel and unexpected ways. Thus, there is renewed science and policy interest in the ability of society to cope with and positively adapt to crises and change. The resilience concept has gained increased attention as a way to understand the ability of ecosystems and society to cope with crises and change. Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances or shocks and adapt to change without fundamentally switching to an alternative state. Resilience thinking acknowledges that systems of human and nature are interactive social‐ecological systems and are not isolated from each other. Coral reef tourism is an ideal sector in which to explore the resilience of society to crises. Coral reef tourism is centre...
Oryx
Managers of threatened species in remote protected areas play a pivotal role in shaping the outco... more Managers of threatened species in remote protected areas play a pivotal role in shaping the outcomes of management and conservation programmes. The island of Java supports the last remaining population of the Javan rhinoceros Rhinoceros sondaicus, a Critically Endangered megaherbivore with only 72 individuals persisting in the wild, in Ujung Kulon National Park. Substantial resources are being invested to manage the Javan rhinoceros and it is difficult to monitor it in the rainforest to assess whether management actions have been successful. Insights from frontline staff into the outcomes of past conservation actions and the future actions required may be key to enhancing the outcomes of conservation actions for threatened species. To study the perceptions of frontline staff towards the conservation of the Javan rhinoceros, management actions and their outcomes, we surveyed all 36-frontline staff in Ujung Kulon National Park. Although staff perceptions of conservation outcomes were ...
The Lancet Planetary Health
Ecological Solutions and Evidence
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has ... more It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has historically marginalized Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities and continues to do so. We describe how the mutually reinforcing ‘twin spheres’ of conservation science and conservation practice perpetuate this systemic racism. We trace how institutional structures in conservation science (e.g. degree programmes, support and advancement opportunities, course syllabuses) can systematically produce conservation graduates with partial and problematic conceptions of conservation's history and contemporary purposes. Many of these graduates go on to work in conservation practice, reproducing conservation's colonial history by contributing to programmes based on outmoded conservation models that disproportionately harm rural BIPOC communities and further restrict access and inclusion for BIPOC conservationists. We provide practical, actionable proposals for breaking ...
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Despite the international ban on the trade of rhino horn that has been in place since 1977, persi... more Despite the international ban on the trade of rhino horn that has been in place since 1977, persistent demand for horn in Asia has driven a spike in poaching over the past decade. This has embroiled the conservation community in a debate over the efficacy of banning trade relative to other solutions. Proposals for trade to be legalized and supplied through the dehorning of live rhinos or the production of synthetic horn are contentious. The need for empirical research into the potential impacts of legalization on demand was made more urgent in 2018 when China publicized its intentions to reopen its domestic trade and permit the use of rhino horn in medical treatment. In this study, we interviewed 84 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners in the Chinese province of Guangdong. While 58 (69.05%, n = 84) of our interviewees were in favor of trade legalization, only 32 (38.10%, n = 84) thought it likely that trade legalization would cause them to increase their prescription of ...
Conservation Science and Practice
Frontiers in Conservation Science
Illegal bushmeat hunting is a major driver of wildlife population declines in Northern Botswana. ... more Illegal bushmeat hunting is a major driver of wildlife population declines in Northern Botswana. Such declines raise concerns about the principles and integrity of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) and regional economic stability which is heavily reliant on wildlife-based tourism. The KAZA landscape between Northern Botswana's protected areas consists of non-state land utilized communally by small agropastoralist communities. These communities are economically challenged by international beef trade policies, restricted access to grazing in nearby wildlife management areas and high conflict costs from living in close proximity to wildlife; some of the key factors identified as drivers of bushmeat hunting in the region. Here we describe how a model called Herding for Health (H4H) could address these drivers. We discuss strategies using a socio-economic centered Theory of Change (ToC) model to identify the role agropastoral communities can have in addressin...
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Humans have altered the majority of Earth’s terrestrial surface, yet some places still remain rel... more Humans have altered the majority of Earth’s terrestrial surface, yet some places still remain relatively undisturbed by modern society. These wilderness areas contain the most intact ecosystems on Earth. In this article, we review the emerging evidence that wilderness areas are exceptionally important relative to more degraded ecosystems for biodiversity conservation (e.g., halving species extinction risk), Earth system functioning (e.g., supporting continental scale hydrological cycles), and for supporting the cultural integrity of many indigenous communities worldwide. We then describe the current state of wilderness conservation and mapping. Despite their immense value, wilderness areas are being rapidly lost, are under protected, and are almost completely overlooked in global environmental policy. Our window of opportunity to safeguard Earth’s last wilderness areas and their unique values is closing fast, but through a combination of smart policy changes and immediate large-scal...
Ecological Solutions and Evidence, 2020
To be effective, the next generation of conservation practitioners and managers need to be critic... more To be effective, the next generation of conservation practitioners and managers need to be critical thinkers with a deep understanding of how to make evidence-based decisions and of the value of evidence synthesis. If, as educators, we do not make these priorities a core part of what we teach, we are failing to prepare our students to make an effective contribution to conservation practice. To help overcome this problem we have created open access online teaching materials in multiple languages that are stored in Applied Ecological Resources. So far, 117 educators from 23 countries have acknowledged the importance of this and are already teaching or about to teach skills in appraising or using evidence in conservation decision-making. This includes 145 undergraduate, postgraduate or professional development courses. We call for wider teaching of the tools and skills that facilitate evidence-based conservation and also suggest that providing online teaching materials in multiple lang...
Conservation Science and Practice
Coral reefs are the major victims of climate change which poses a big challenge for the countries... more Coral reefs are the major victims of climate change which poses a big challenge for the countries which depends on reef-based tourism. However reef-based tourism companies are developing adaptive capacity with the possible future changes in the sector and also trying to contribute to reef conservation.
Effectively managing social ecological systems is essential to improving their resilience to envi... more Effectively managing social ecological systems is essential to improving their resilience to environmental change and anthropogenic pressure. However an explicit understanding of the system being managed is often lacking. This study investigates the use of collaborative workshops to produce social ecological conceptual diagrams of Protected Areas. The production and use of conceptual diagrams by managers is hoped to assist them in reflecting on their decision making process with the aim of improving resilience of the system. Baseline management decision-making processes were evaluated for twenty Australian Protected Areas managers, including how much time is currently allocated to various management actions. Using paired experimental design, half of the managers were then engaged in one day workshops where an explicit social ecological model of their park was developed. Models incorporated both social values (cultural, visitor, and community values) as well as natural values (ecolog...
Escalating global change may have profound impacts on society. There is concern over a potential ... more Escalating global change may have profound impacts on society. There is concern over a potential increase in environmental‐induced and other crises as a result of this escalating change. In today's highly connected world the impacts and extent of crises may spread in novel and unexpected ways. Thus, there is renewed science and policy interest in the ability of society to cope with and positively adapt to crises and change. The resilience concept has gained increased attention as a way to understand the ability of ecosystems and society to cope with crises and change. Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances or shocks and adapt to change without fundamentally switching to an alternative state. Resilience thinking acknowledges that systems of human and nature are interactive social‐ecological systems and are not isolated from each other. Coral reef tourism is an ideal sector in which to explore the resilience of society to crises. Coral reef tourism is centre...
Oryx
Managers of threatened species in remote protected areas play a pivotal role in shaping the outco... more Managers of threatened species in remote protected areas play a pivotal role in shaping the outcomes of management and conservation programmes. The island of Java supports the last remaining population of the Javan rhinoceros Rhinoceros sondaicus, a Critically Endangered megaherbivore with only 72 individuals persisting in the wild, in Ujung Kulon National Park. Substantial resources are being invested to manage the Javan rhinoceros and it is difficult to monitor it in the rainforest to assess whether management actions have been successful. Insights from frontline staff into the outcomes of past conservation actions and the future actions required may be key to enhancing the outcomes of conservation actions for threatened species. To study the perceptions of frontline staff towards the conservation of the Javan rhinoceros, management actions and their outcomes, we surveyed all 36-frontline staff in Ujung Kulon National Park. Although staff perceptions of conservation outcomes were ...
The Lancet Planetary Health
Ecological Solutions and Evidence
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has ... more It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has historically marginalized Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities and continues to do so. We describe how the mutually reinforcing ‘twin spheres’ of conservation science and conservation practice perpetuate this systemic racism. We trace how institutional structures in conservation science (e.g. degree programmes, support and advancement opportunities, course syllabuses) can systematically produce conservation graduates with partial and problematic conceptions of conservation's history and contemporary purposes. Many of these graduates go on to work in conservation practice, reproducing conservation's colonial history by contributing to programmes based on outmoded conservation models that disproportionately harm rural BIPOC communities and further restrict access and inclusion for BIPOC conservationists. We provide practical, actionable proposals for breaking ...
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Despite the international ban on the trade of rhino horn that has been in place since 1977, persi... more Despite the international ban on the trade of rhino horn that has been in place since 1977, persistent demand for horn in Asia has driven a spike in poaching over the past decade. This has embroiled the conservation community in a debate over the efficacy of banning trade relative to other solutions. Proposals for trade to be legalized and supplied through the dehorning of live rhinos or the production of synthetic horn are contentious. The need for empirical research into the potential impacts of legalization on demand was made more urgent in 2018 when China publicized its intentions to reopen its domestic trade and permit the use of rhino horn in medical treatment. In this study, we interviewed 84 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners in the Chinese province of Guangdong. While 58 (69.05%, n = 84) of our interviewees were in favor of trade legalization, only 32 (38.10%, n = 84) thought it likely that trade legalization would cause them to increase their prescription of ...
Conservation Science and Practice
Frontiers in Conservation Science
Illegal bushmeat hunting is a major driver of wildlife population declines in Northern Botswana. ... more Illegal bushmeat hunting is a major driver of wildlife population declines in Northern Botswana. Such declines raise concerns about the principles and integrity of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) and regional economic stability which is heavily reliant on wildlife-based tourism. The KAZA landscape between Northern Botswana's protected areas consists of non-state land utilized communally by small agropastoralist communities. These communities are economically challenged by international beef trade policies, restricted access to grazing in nearby wildlife management areas and high conflict costs from living in close proximity to wildlife; some of the key factors identified as drivers of bushmeat hunting in the region. Here we describe how a model called Herding for Health (H4H) could address these drivers. We discuss strategies using a socio-economic centered Theory of Change (ToC) model to identify the role agropastoral communities can have in addressin...
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution