Joint social‐ecological outcomes of private land conservation: An evidence synthesis with a well‐being perspective

Abstract Private land conservation (PLC) can contribute to sustainability by improving biodiversity and human well‐being but can also result in negative outcomes for people and nature if poorly designed. Informing PLC design to achieve objectives for joint biodiversity and well‐being is challenging because most evaluations assess ecological and social outcomes separately, and the outcomes vary across diverse social‐cultural contexts. Consequently, incorporation of multiple socio‐economic, cultural and ecological outcomes and their conditions explicitly into PLC program design and evaluations is often not attempted. To address this issue, we systematically reviewed 2483 documents and synthesised global evidence on joint biodiversity and well‐being outcomes from 56 unique PLC initiatives. Adopting a mixed‐methods approach, we tested the co‐occurrence of desirable versus undesirable outcomes for both biodiversity and well‐being, and the influence of social‐ecological and economic context on joint outcomes. A thematic text analysis interrogated the reasons for undesirable joint biodiversity and well‐being outcomes. Most PLC initiatives report desirable outcomes across all well‐being and biodiversity indicators, with stewardship and sustainable use initiatives more likely to have joint desirable outcomes than other PLC types (e.g. commercial) and land management (e.g. protection). For most initiatives, biodiversity improves when human well‐being also improves, especially when initiatives positively influence community or individual knowledge, livelihoods and subjective well‐being. Our findings suggest that these dimensions of well‐being support biodiversity by promoting better economic conditions and empowerment and, consequently, general well‐being. Undesirable outcomes occur primarily at a cost to people's well‐being rather than biodiversity, and often impact safety, social justice, social capital and interpersonal networks. These outcomes occur more frequently in global South locations with high wealth inequality, and restricted community access to resources, affecting people's sense of community connection. Poor stakeholder engagement and PLC design/governance were the main reasons for undesirable well‐being outcomes. Our synthesis suggests that ineffective PLC planning and implementation along with insufficient support for the economic and noneconomic well‐being of PLC landholders and the communities affected by PLC can hinder joint positive social‐ecological outcomes, particularly when underlying socio‐economic issues such as equity and poverty are not addressed. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.