The paper reviews the main findings of rocky shore and subtidal nearshore experimental marine ecology (EME) in cold and temperate marine ecosystems during the past four decades. It analyzes the role of EME in coastal management and conservation. The historical development of strategies for managing single or multispecies fisheries are reviewed. The published results show over-exploitation and d...

As the field of conservation physiology develops and becomes increasingly integrated with ecology and conservation science, the fundamental concept of scale is being recognized as important, particularly for ensuring that physiological knowledge is contextualized in a manner most relevant to policy makers, conservation practitioners and stakeholders. Failure to consider the importance of scale ...

Adaptive management is a form of structured decision making designed to guide management of natural resource systems when their behaviors are uncertain. Where decision making can be replicated across units of a landscape, learning can be accelerated, and biological processes can be understood in a larger spatial context. Broad-based partnerships among land management agencies, exemplified by La...

Because species, populations and ecological processes occur at a range of spatial scales, it is vital to incorporate a multi-scale approach into an assessment of ecological condition and conservation measures (Poiani et al. 2000). This is consistent with the National Forest Management Act which requires the maintenance of viable and well distributed populations throughout all national forest la...

The conservation of biodiversity poses an exceptionally difficult problem in that it needs to be effective in a context of double uncertainty: scientific (i.e., how to conserve biodiversity) and normative (i.e., which biodiversity to conserve and why). Although adaptive management offers a promising approach to overcome scientific uncertainty, normative uncertainty is seldom tackled by conserva...

This article analyzes the role of prescriptive regulation and citizen-suit litigation (regulatory enforcement) in natural resource conservation in the USA. It first briefly explains why the judiciary is so involved in resource management and why litigation is so often used as a conservation tool. It then summarizes the extent to which regulatory enforcement is being threatened and/or undermined...

A conflict between the preservation of the character of existing historic towns and “change” has formed the central argument for conservation. More recently, heritage has superseded conservation, where marketing of heritage as a product according to the demands of the consumer, mainly tourists, has resulted in the commercialisation of heritage over conservation values. Today, the symbiosis of b...

Policy development and management decisions should be based upon the best available evidence. In recent years, approaches to evidence synthesis, originating in the medical realm (such as systematic reviews), have been applied to conservation to promote evidence-based conservation and environmental management. Systematic reviews involve a critical appraisal of evidence, but studies that lack the...

Article history: Received 10 April 2007 Received in revised form 9 September 2007 Accepted 11 September 2007 Understanding the trade-off relationships between ecological, economic and social objectives is important in designing policies to manage or restore ecosystems. Using the northern South China Sea (NSCS) as a case study, we explore the trade-offs between conservation and socio-economic ob...