What evidence exists on the effectiveness of community-based conservation and other governance types for meeting desired wildlife conservation and human well-being outcomes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America? A Systematic Map Protocol

Contemporary conservation must tackle ‘problems’ related to biodiversity loss, climate change, and increasing calls to reconcile conservation with human well-being. Governance is an important determinant for ‘success’ in this endeavour. However, ineffective conservation governance (i.e., the inability to deliver positive biological and social outcomes), and frequent social injustices, necessitate more holistic, and inclusive alternatives to conservation. Community-based conservation – which seeks to recognize and include the participation, knowledge and priorities of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in conservation governance – has been shown to be a viable and useful approach to deliver both biological and human well-being outcomes that conventional ‘people-free’ conservation often cannot. Furthermore, the community-based conservation approach directly aligns with the recent Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which explicitly calls for “the full and effective participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities” in its implementation if it is to achieve its objective to sustainably meet the needs of people and reduce biodiversity loss. Here we present a protocol for a systematic map that will collate, summarize, synthesize, and map the evidence that exists on the effectiveness of conservation governance interventions on selected focal species and multidimensional domains of human well-being in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. To collect published academic and grey literature, four bibliographic databases, one online search engine, five open evidence resources, and 13 organizational websites will be searched using standardized search terms. The bibliographies of any relevant review article identified during screening stages will also be hand-searched for any additional relevant articles to ensure capturing further relevant literature. Articles will be screened for eligibility at title and abstract and at full-text stages with support of machine learning technologies when applicable. This systematic map will describe the quantity and key characteristics of the available evidence and identify evidence clusters and evidence gaps to inform further research and syntheses by identifying more specific questions suitable for a subsequent systematic review.The systematic map will be primarily supported by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Additional support is provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Carleton University. Project Contact: jessjtaylor16@gmail.com For more information on the Canadian Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation visit: www.canadiancebc.co