Evidence-based conservation

Evidence-based conservation is the application of evidence in conservation biology and environmental management actions and policy making. It is defined as systematically assessing scientific information from published, peer-reviewed publications and texts, practitioners' experiences, independent expert assessment, and local and indigenous knowledge on a specific conservation topic. This includes assessing the current effectiveness of different management interventions, threats and emerging problems and economic factors.

Evidence-based conservation was organized based on the observations that decision making in conservation was based on intuition and or practitioner experience often disregarding other forms of evidence of successes and failures (e.g. scientific information). This has led to costly and poor outcomes. Evidence-based conservation provides access to information that will support decision making through an evidence-based framework of "what works" in conservation.

The evidence-based approach to conservation is based on evidence-based practice which started in medicine and later spread to nursing, education, psychology and other fields. It is part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.

A systematic review consists of a non-subjective assessment of available data and evidence related to management. Synthesizing results from different studies over different time periods, locations or sample sizes can reduce the bias present in individual studies. Systematic reviews differ from traditional reviews by being easily understood, peer-reviewed and repeatable. Detailed protocols remain available for conducting a thorough, unbiased systematic review.

In a Cochrane systematic review, there is little evidence that environmental conservation, and enhancement activities can have any effect on adults' well-being and health. However, there is a high level of perceived benefits based on the feedback of the participants.

Part of implementing an evidence-based conservation analysis requires generating a synopsis. This refers to the brief description of a single study or a systematic review. Synopses form the building blocks of summaries when collated across specific themes.

A summary is broader than a synopsis and refers to the standardized description of results extracted from several studies or systematic reviews on a particular topic. Summaries are regularly updated as more information becomes available and are ideally generated through a rigorous review process.

Evidence-based conservation is inspired by evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based conservation was first noted in the literature in 2000. Over the last decade, the methodology for generating systematic reviews (e.g. protocols, systematic maps) have been improved and standardized. In addition, several collaborative networks have been formed and two journals have been launched. The Collaboration for Environmental Evidence has a journal titled Environmental Evidence dedicated to the publication of systematic reviews, review protocols and systematic maps on impacts of human activity and the effectiveness of management interventions. It currently has centres located in Australia, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, France and the UK. The Conservation Evidence group has a journal titled Conservation Evidence that was launched in 2004 to document the effectiveness of conservation interventions. Conservation Evidence is a web-based database repository that systematizes and provides access to conservation efforts, programs, and research on the biodiversity and the environment based on high quality, reviewed publications.