ORCID Profile
0000-0002-1918-3463
Current Organisations
Harvard University
,
Tampa Bay Estuary Program
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-09-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-021-01541-W
Abstract: China has become one of the world's largest lenders in overseas development finance. Development projects, such as roads, railways and power plants, often drive bio ersity loss and infringe on Indigenous lands, yet the risks implicit in China's overseas development finance are poorly understood. Here we examine the extent to which projects financed by China's policy banks between 2008 and 2019 occur within and adjacent to areas where large-scale investment can present considerable risks to bio ersity and Indigenous peoples. Further, we compare these risks with those posed by similar projects financed by the World Bank, previously the world's largest source of development finance. We found that 63% of China-financed projects overlap with critical habitats, protected areas or Indigenous lands, with up to 24% of the world's threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and hibians potentially impacted by the projects. Hotspots of the risks are primarily distributed in northern sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of South America. Overall, China's development projects pose greater risks than those of the World Bank, particularly within the energy sector. These results provide an important global outlook of socio-ecological risks that can guide strategies for greening China's development finance around the world.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 25-04-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.22.489174
Abstract: Rapid coastal development continues to jeopardize the integrity of marine socio-ecological systems. China is now the largest bilateral creditor in the world, committing nearly half a trillion US dollars to overseas development finance since 2008. Meanwhile, there are growing concerns over the impacts of this boom in Chinese development finance on marine systems. Here, we quantify the risks of coastal development projects financed by China to marine bio ersity and coastal Indigenous communities. Ports present the greatest impact risks to marine systems, in terms of both magnitude and area at risk, with power plants, roads, and other facilities presenting relatively high localized risks. Risks are most prominent in Africa and the Caribbean, with coastal Indigenous communities in Western and Central Africa particularly vulnerable to the potential negative impacts of development. All projects present some risk to threatened marine species and potential critical habitats, but few present high risks to nearby marine protected areas. Most projects present additional risks to ecosystems that are already under increasing human pressures, but some are likely to introduce new risks to relatively intact ecosystems. “Bluing” future coastal development projects in China’s overseas development finance portfolio will require more social and environmental safeguards, higher standards for host-country impact assessments, and greater integration of land-sea risk mitigation and management approaches.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-12-2021
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.13856
Abstract: Conserving coral reefs is critical for maintaining marine bio ersity, protecting coastlines, and supporting livelihoods in many coastal communities. Climate change threatens coral reefs globally, but researchers have identified a portfolio of coral reefs (bioclimatic units [BCUs]) that are relatively less exposed to climate impacts and strongly connected to other coral reef systems. These reefs provide a proactive opportunity to secure a long‐term future for coral reefs under climate change. To help guide local management efforts, we quantified marine cumulative human impact (CHI) from climate, marine, and land pressures (2013 and from 2008 to 2013) in BCUs and across countries tasked with BCU management. Additionally, we created a management index based on common management measures and policies for each pressure source (climate, marine, and land) to identify a country's intent and commitment to effectively manage these pressures. Twenty‐two countries (79%) had increases in CHI from 2008 to 2013. Climate change pressures had the highest proportional contribution to CHI across all reefs and in all but one country (Singapore), but 18 BCUs (35%) and nine countries containing BCUs (32%) had relatively high land and marine impacts. There was a significant positive relationship between climate impact and the climate management index across countries ( R 2 = 0.43, p = 0.02), potentially signifying that countries with greater climate impacts are more committed to managing them. However, this trend was driven by climate management intent in Fiji and Bangladesh. Our results can be used to guide future fine‐scale analyses, national policies, and local management decisions, and our management indices reveal areas where management components can be improved. Cost‐effectively managing local pressures (e.g., fishing and nutrients) in BCUs is essential for building a climate‐ready future that benefits coral reefs and people.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-11-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.15962
Abstract: Rapid climate change is impacting bio ersity, ecosystem function, and human well‐being. Though the magnitude and trajectory of climate change are becoming clearer, our understanding of how these changes reshape terrestrial life zones—distinct biogeographic units characterized by biotemperature, precipitation, and aridity representing broad‐scale ecosystem types—is limited. To address this gap, we used high‐resolution historical climatologies and climate projections to determine the global distribution of historical (1901–1920), contemporary (1979–2013), and future (2061–2080) life zones. Comparing the historical and contemporary distributions shows that changes from one life zone to another during the 20th century impacted 27 million km 2 (18.3% of land), with consequences for social and ecological systems. Such changes took place in all biomes, most notably in Boreal Forests, Temperate Coniferous Forests, and Tropical Coniferous Forests. Comparing the contemporary and future life zone distributions shows the pace of life zone changes accelerating rapidly in the 21st century. By 2070, such changes would impact an additional 62 million km 2 (42.6% of land) under “business‐as‐usual” (RCP8.5) emissions scenarios. Accelerated rates of change are observed in hundreds of ecoregions across all biomes except Tropical Coniferous Forests. While only 30 ecoregions (3.5%) had over half of their areas change to a different life zone during the 20th century, by 2070 this number is projected to climb to 111 ecoregions (13.1%) under RCP4.5 and 281 ecoregions (33.2%) under RCP8.5. We identified weak correlations between life zone change and threatened vertebrate richness, levels of vertebrate endemism, cropland extent, and human population densities within ecoregions, illustrating the ubiquitous risks of life zone changes to erse social–ecological systems. The accelerated pace of life zone changes will increasingly challenge adaptive conservation and sustainable development strategies that incorrectly assume current ecological patterns and livelihood provisioning systems will persist.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 23-02-2023
Abstract: Bio ersity offsetting is a globally-influential policy mechanism for reconciling trade-offs between development and bio ersity loss. However, there is little robust evidence of its effectiveness. We evaluated the outcomes of a jurisdictional offsetting policy (Victoria, Australia). Offsets under Victoria’s Native Vegetation Framework (2002-2013) aimed to prevent loss and degradation of remnant vegetation, and generate gains in vegetation extent and quality. We categorised offsets into those with near-complete baseline woody vegetation cover (“avoided loss”, 2702 ha) and with incomplete cover (“regeneration”, 501 ha), and evaluated impacts on woody vegetation extent from 2008-2018. We used two approaches to estimate the counterfactual. First, we used statistical matching on biophysical covariates: a common approach in conservation impact evaluation, but which risks ignoring potentially important psychosocial confounders. Second, we compared changes in offsets with changes in non-offset sites that were later enrolled as offsets, to partially account for self-selection bias (where landholders enrolling land may have characteristics associated with different management). Matching on biophysical covariates, we estimated that regeneration offsets increased woody vegetation extent by 1.9-3.6%/year more than non-offset sites (138-180 ha from 2008-2018), but this effect weakened with the second approach (0.3-1.9%/year more than non-offset sites 19-97 ha from 2008-2018) and disappeared when a single outlier land parcel was removed. Neither approach detected any impact of avoided loss offsets. We cannot conclusively demonstrate whether the policy goal of ‘net gain’ was achieved because of data limitations. However, given our evidence that the majority of increases in woody vegetation extent were not additional (would have happened without the scheme), a net gain outcome seems unlikely. The results highlight the importance of considering self-selection bias in the design and evaluation of regulatory bio ersity offsetting policy. They also highlight the challenges of conducting robust impact evaluations of jurisdictional bio ersity offsetting policies.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-09-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41597-021-01021-7
Abstract: China is now the world’s largest source of bilateral development finance and will likely continue to play a prominent role in sovereign lending through its multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. This paper introduces major methodological enhancements in tracking this finance: the use of an original application programming interface (API) to gathers news in multiple languages double-verification of every record to ensure every finance commitment has been formalized and visual geo-location to trace the precise footprint of every project. The resulting dataset enables economic, environmental, and social analyses with high-precision spatial accuracy, as well as spatiotemporal monitoring by project stakeholders and enhanced planning by project managers. It covers the years 2008–2019 to enable analysis before and after the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative. It includes 862 finance commitments, 669 of which have geographic location, to 94 countries across the world.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 03-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.02.28.433244
Abstract: On January 27, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad , committing the United States to various goals within his c aign’s major climate policy, the Biden Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice . Included in this executive order is a commitment to “conserving at least 30 percent of [the United States’] lands and oceans by 2030.” This ambitious conservation target signals a promising direction for bio ersity in the United States. However, while the executive order outlines several goals for climate mitigation, the ‘30×30’ target remains vague in its objectives, actions, and implementation strategies for protecting bio ersity. Bio ersity urgently needs effective conservation action, but it remains unclear where and what this 30% target will be applied to. Achieving different climate and bio ersity objectives will require different strategies and, in combination with the associated costs of implementation, will lead to different priority areas for conservation actions. Here, we illustrate what the 30% target could look like across four objectives reflective of the ambitious goals outlined in the executive order. We compile several variations of terrestrial protected area networks guided by these different objectives and examine the trade-offs in costs, ecosystem representation, and climate mitigation potential between each. We find little congruence in priority areas across objectives, emphasizing just how crucial it will be for the Biden administration to develop clear objectives and establish appropriate performance metrics from the outset to maximize both conservation and climate outcomes in support of the 30×30 target. We discuss important considerations that must guide the administration’s conservation strategies in order to ensure meaningful conservation outcomes can be achieved over the next decade.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2021
DOI: 10.1002/FEE.2375
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-06-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2023
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 23-11-2018
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 08-11-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 29-01-2021
Abstract: China could implement debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps to protect the environment and reduce global debt
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-09-2021
DOI: 10.1111/CSP2.540
Abstract: The role of a conservation scientist has never been more challenging. Amidst the rapid degradation occurring across Earth's natural ecosystems and the loss of bio ersity and ecosystem services, conservation scientists must learn new and effective ways to build trust and engage with the wider community. Here, we discuss the potential utility of a particular communication technique, Nonviolent Communication (also known as Compassionate Communication or Collaborative Communication), in conservation science. Nonviolent Communication is a structured form of communication, developed in the 1960s by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, that seeks to foster interpersonal understanding and connection through communication of judgment‐free observations, recognition of people's feelings, needs and values, and requests for specific actions to meet those needs. It has delivered positive outcomes in erse fields such as prisoner reform, health science, and social work, and holds great promise for conservation applications. While there is no single communication strategy that resonates with all people, we argue that Nonviolent Communication could be used by conservation scientists and practitioners when communicating with colleagues, politicians, and the general public about important and sometimes contentious environmental issues.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-2014
Abstract: Eastern gray squirrels produce alarm calls—vocalizations used in the presence of danger that influence the behavior of some receivers. This influence is possible because the alarm calls’ rate, duration, and structure contain information about the threat and the caller. Gray squirrels’ mix of different structural call types (kuks and quaas) could contain information on potential internal influences within the squirrel. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are ideal tools to investigate whether hidden states explain the frequencies of kuks versus quaas throughout an alarm call sequence. In this study, we compare the ability of an iid (independent and identically distributed) model and two- to six-state HMMs to represent observed sequences of kukking, quaaing, and periods of silence. Audio recordings of 44 gray squirrels were collected and the first 30 s of each alarm call sequence was coded based on spectrograms. A number of HMMs were fitted, and the overall fit of the observed sequences to each model was assessed using Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), and Monte Carlo methods. The five-state HMM fit the observed call frequencies better than the other models, suggesting that the squirrels’ alarm calling sequences are influenced by a more complex temporal sequencing of acoustic units.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-12-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2023
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 03-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.02.28.433275
Abstract: The 1972 World Heritage Convention (WHC), along with the 1994 Global Strategy, aim to preserve the outstanding universal value of internationally important cultural and natural sites within a “representative, balanced and credible” network of highly-protected areas. Increasing human pressures and shortfalls in representation have been documented across the World Heritage network, particularly in terrestrial and cultural sites, threatening the integrity and primary goals of the WHC. However, the conservation status of current and tentative (i.e., proposed) marine natural World Heritage areas remains relatively unknown. We assessed the extent of recent (2013) and historical (2008-2013) cumulative human impacts and several metrics of representation (country, continent, ecoregion, wilderness, and threatened species) within existing and tentative marine natural World Heritage areas. We found moderate yet increasing cumulative human impacts across most existing sites, and high or very high impacts across the majority of tentative sites. Climate change impacts comprised nearly 75% of impact scores, on average, and differences in land and marine impacts across sites could help prioritise management decisions. Over 75% of marine ecoregions and 85% of threatened species considered in this study have no representation within the existing marine natural World Heritage network. We outline ex les of how prioritizing representation across tentative sites for future World Heritage listing could greatly increase these measures. We urge the WHC to adopt quantitative, systematic and transparent evaluations of how current and tentative sites contribute to the overarching goals of maintaining a representative World Heritage network and preserving their outstanding universal values for future generations.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-09-2023
Publisher: University of Queensland Library
Date: 2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1016/J.JENVMAN.2019.109777
Abstract: Psychosocial factors determine in idual and collective behaviours, and there is growing evidence of their influence on land management behaviours. Native vegetation management encompasses biophysical, economic, political, and cultural dimensions that are immensely complex, and a more thorough understanding of the personal and cultural dimensions of deforestation activity is required. We emphasise this interdisciplinary imperative using Queensland, Australia, as an exemplar case study, where the controversial Vegetation Management Act1999 has been met with significant scrutiny over its effects on private landholders and its ability to curb deforestation behaviours. We surveyed landholders across Queensland in order to identify different landholder typologies based upon (1) their recent tree clearing behaviours and (2) their psychosocial characteristics, mapped their distribution in the landscape, and determined the unique demographic and psychosocial factors associated with typology membership. We identified a heterogeneous mosaic of landholders in the clearing landscape, composed of four clearing typologies and five psychosocial typologies. Social norms, identity, trust, and security played crucial roles in distinguishing different types of landholders. The two most contrasting clearing typologies-active and inactive clearers-were primarily located in hot- and cold-spots of deforestation, respectively in contrast, most psychosocial typologies could be found throughout the landscape, highlighting the potential benefit of complementing generalised state-wide psychosocial targets with localised behavioural targets. We discuss how conservation policy instruments can be regionally tailored, and relevant strategies for effective communication and engagement can be developed to create behaviour change by understanding the characteristics and distribution of these types of landholders. If modified top-down efforts (e.g. strategic messages, community-based communication) can be supplemented with more bottom-up approaches (e.g. collective learning, building network support), sustainable land management in deforestation hotspots around the world may be achievable.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ECS2.3919
Abstract: Marine species and ecosystems are widely affected by anthropogenic stressors, ranging from pollution and fishing to climate change. Comprehensive assessments of how species and ecosystems are impacted by anthropogenic stressors are critical for guiding conservation and management investments. Previous global risk or vulnerability assessments have focused on marine habitats, or on limited taxa or specific regions. However, information about the susceptibility of marine species across a range of taxa to different stressors everywhere is required to predict how marine bio ersity will respond to human pressures. We present a novel framework that uses life‐history traits to assess species' vulnerability to a stressor, which we compare across more than 44,000 species from 12 taxonomic groups (classes). Using expert elicitation and literature review, we assessed every combination of each of 42 traits and 22 anthropogenic stressors to calculate each species' or representative species group's sensitivity and adaptive capacity to stressors, and then used these assessments to derive their overall relative vulnerability. The stressors with the greatest potential impact were related to biomass removal (e.g., fisheries), pollution, and climate change. The taxa with the highest vulnerabilities across the range of stressors were mollusks, corals, and echinoderms, while elasmobranchs had the highest vulnerability to fishing‐related stressors. Traits likely to confer vulnerability to climate change stressors were related to the presence of calcium carbonate structures, and whether a species exists across the interface of marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric realms. Traits likely to confer vulnerability to pollution stressors were related to planktonic state, organism size, and respiration. Such a replicable, broadly applicable method is useful for informing ocean conservation and management decisions at a range of scales, and the framework is amenable to further testing and improvement. Our framework for assessing the vulnerability of marine species is the first critical step toward generating cumulative human impact maps based on comprehensive assessments of species, rather than habitats.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-01-2021
Location: Australia
No related grants have been discovered for Blake Simmons.