The BR-163 Highway (Fig. 1) was originally built by the Brazilian Army in 1973 and 1974. It has remained passable since, although poor road conditions in the unpaved portion (the 646-km portion in the state of Pará from the border with Mato Grosso to Trairão) impede use of the road as a significant export route. Reconstructing the highway has been a (so-far unimplemented) part of an evolving series of plans for massive expansion of infrastructure: Brasil em Ação (Brazil in Action) for 1996–1999, Avança Brasil (Forward Brazil) for 2000–2003, and the Pluriannual Plan for 2004–2007 (Laurance et al. 2001; Fearnside 2002). Soybean plantations in the northern part of the state of Mato Grosso have been rapidly expanding, partly in anticipation of the BR-163 being reconstructed and paved (Fearnside 2001). The governor of Mato Grosso since 2003 is Brazil's largest soybean entrepreneur and a major force in inducing the federal government to pave the road. With the construction of the BR-163, northern Mato Grosso would be linked to the ports of Miritituba and Santarém (Fig. 1), halving the current distance for transportation, as currently soybeans from northern Mato Grosso are exported through the port of Paranaguá in the state of Paraná. A future plan would take the soybeans by rail from Cuiabá to Santos. Cost savings for soybean export of US$ 11.6 per tonne relative to the rail route through Santos (Alencar et al. 2005) provide an economic argument for the BR-163 project. Soybean production in northern Mato Grosso was 3.61 million tonnes in 2004 (Alencar et al. 2005), worth approximately US$ 813 million. Nevertheless, even with substantial monetary benefits for the BR-163, the various forms of impact from the project must be quantified and compared to the benefits before a decision is made (Fearnside 2005).

Pretty (2006) offered a valuable perspective on the psychological benefits of exercise in green environments. This makes intuitive sense, for who among us does not recognize the personal benefits we receive from being active and surrounded by nature's beauty? The quantitative support that Pretty (2006) offered confirms this anecdotal experience, and provides an extremely valuable contribution to the debate.

Traditional resource management (TRM) systems in tropical forests can provide insights on sustainable resource use, but despite the growing prevalence of degraded tropical forest habitats, few studies have assessed the relationships between TRM and conservation in these environments. In Hawaii, the traditional gathering of native wild plants used for hula (chants and dance) and lei (garlands) is carried out in forests increasingly dominated by alien invasive species. Ethnographic methods and exploratory experimental harvests were employed to examine: gathering of hula plants in the past and present, ecological impacts of contemporary gathering practices of three important native hula species in alien-dominated forests, and relationships between traditional practices and past and modern conservation. Past gathering traditions included practices to increase and conserve hula plant populations. Harvest of Microlepia strigosa fern fronds significantly decreased M. strigosa cover over the short term. Cover of alien species significantly increased after frond-harvest of Sphenomeris chinensis. Regeneration of the fruit-harvested shrub, Melicope anisata, was significantly negatively correlated with the level of understorey invasive species. These results suggest that in Hawai‘i’s alien-dominated forests, gathering of some species may increase spread of alien invasive species or exacerbate regeneration problems caused by invasive species. However, some expert cultural practitioners have adapted traditional practices to ensure hula plant conservation by incorporating weeding of alien invasive species into their protocols. The re-strengthening and adaptation of traditional Hawaiian knowledge and social institutions to the modern context can provide opportunities to improve conservation of Hawai‘i’s culturally-important native plants and their habitats.

During the second half of the twentieth century, southern Brazil underwent rapid industrialization and urbanization. In earlier historical periods in Europe and North America, these trends have contributed to a forest transition in which deforestation gives way to forestation. In a developing country, like Brazil, with a more skewed income distribution and a larger rural underclass, industrialization and urbanization may not give rise to a forest transition. These competing theoretical expectations were tested with data on forest cover change from the Brazilian censuses of 1970 through 1995/1996 for the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. The analyses show forestation replacing deforestation between 1975 and 1980. An increase in the extent of planted forests close to urban areas explains the turnaround in forest cover trends. Because the planted forests contain relatively few native plant species, the expansion of these forests does not ease the biodiversity crisis. The re-emerging second Atlantic forest represents a smaller, less diverse and degraded version of the first Atlantic forest.

Tropical forests of the Amazon Basin are being rapidly converted to agricultural land uses and fallow land, resulting in accelerating rates of forest loss in one of the world's most biodiverse ecoregions. This process has been extensively described and modelled, but as yet there has been no formal test of how the spatial patterns of deforested and fragmented areas change with the spatial scale of forest clearings. It was hypothesised that different land-use practices are driving small and large clearings, with small-scale cultivators often creating small, irregularly shaped clearings and large-scale ranchers and soy farmers creating larger, more regular-shaped clearings. To quantitatively test this hypothesis, Mandelbrot's theory of fractals was applied to deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon to test for scale-invariance in deforestation patterns. The spatial pattern of deforestation differed between small and large clearings, with the former creating more complex landscapes and with a threshold occurring at c. 1200 ha in area. As a consequence, the sizes and shapes of forest clearings, and hence the relative vulnerability of the remaining forest to edge, area and isolation effects, may differ systematically between landscapes with different deforestation drivers. Further tests of this hypothesis are needed to assess its efficacy in other tropical landscapes and geographical locations.

In fire-prone areas, like the Mediterranean, land abandonment and forestation may interact with fire to alter landscape properties and eventually fire hazard and occurrence. However, the spatial interactions among the two processes (land-use/land cover change [LULC] and fire) are poorly known. Here, we analysed the relative effect of LULC change and fire on the landscape structure of an area of Central Spain frequently affected by fire. A series of Landsat MSS images from 1975 to 1990 was analysed to quantify annual changes in LULC, map fire perimeters and evaluate the changes in landscape properties. The temporal dynamics were analysed by annually computing the fraction occupied by each LULC type and landscape structural properties (number, size, shape and arrangement of patches) that might play a role in fire propagation. All of these were calculated separately for the unburned or the burned areas during the study period, as well as for the entire area. At the whole landscape level, or in the unburned area, LULC changes were small, yet the two more flammable LULC types tended to increase, and the landscape tended to become more homogeneous. In the burned area, the area covered by pine woodlands tended to decrease, and that covered by shrublands to increase. Burned areas turned into shrublands only five years after fire. Landscape indices indicative of reduced fragmentation were also found. Both LULC change and fire altered landscape patterns in the whole area to create a less fragmented and more contiguous landscape than in 1975. The changes induced in the whole landscape by fire, in spite of the overall low disturbance rate, were sufficient to closely determine the changes in landscape composition (LULC types) and patterns.

Steppe ecosystems worldwide are affected by agricultural development and generally unprotected. Spanish shrub-steppes contain endangered avifauna, and this paper analyses their state of habitat conservation, the changes that have occurred in the last decade, primary productivity and its relationship with land exploitation and the richness of threatened birds, and avifauna responses to habitat loss. Fifty steppe remnants distributed throughout Spain and inhabited by Dupont's lark Chersophilus duponti, an endangered passerine representative of shrub steppe-like habitat, were studied. The study fragments were generally affected by agriculture exploitation, and steppe cover had significantly decreased in several isolated patches during the period 1991–1999. Steppe habitat recovered slightly in areas with low plant productivity indices, and decreased in extent in the most productive areas, in line with EU (European Union) agricultural policy recommendations to abandon marginal land of low productivity. The low overall primary productivity of Iberian steppes opened the way to industrial activities (mining, waste collection and wind-farming), which in the study areas occurred more frequently in steppe than in other habitat types that are more attractive to the public (woodland) or more productive (farmland). The emerging wind industry little affected the study plots, but the presence of anemometers suggests that the impact is likely to increase in the near future, especially in the largest steppelands. Dupont's lark was sensitive to the fragmentation of its habitat; crowding occurred in isolated and small fragments, possibly as a consequence of habitat constraints and species dispersal dynamics. Fragments inhabited by Dupont's lark also hosted other steppe birds with a high conservation value; the community of endangered birds, mostly adapted to arid conditions, was richest in the less productive sites. Only four shrub-steppe fragments are given some kind of protection throughout Spain, testifying to the limited public awareness about the value of this habitat. Urgent action is required to restore this habitat through abandonment of less productive farmland, and to create a network of protected and connected steppelands, in order to assure the long-term viability of steppe specialists and the preservation of a habitat that is unique in Western Europe. This should be coupled to an effort to increase social consciousness of the ecological value of steppes and arid landscapes in general.

Institutional and non-institutional factors for the success of protected area (PA) governance have repeatedly been identified, but their relative weight has not been evaluated. To investigate the implementation of PA management in Zakynthos (Greece), meeting minutes of the local Park Authority for its first four years of operation were reviewed and statistically analysed. The Park Authority's autonomy and management complexity were indicated and with reference to governance, members of the local Park Authority belonged to the ‘inner-circle’ of decision-making and the Ministry of Environment formed the ‘environment’, since administrative issues had to be approved by the latter. Implementation of actions referring to administrative issues was less likely than implementation of environmental, social and economic arrangements, where the Park Authority had a higher degree of autonomy. The implementation of arrangements for promoting administrative stability and viability was highly dependent on external actions (annual government funding and approval of by-law governance and implementation). The more sophisticated and complex the governance system became, the more likely it was that Park Authority encountered difficulty when trying to make choices and changes. The methodology proved effective in revealing the management behaviour of the Park Authority, as well as indicating institutional and non-institutional issues that most significantly affected the harnessing of resources and the degree of action implementation; this could offer crucial feedback to managers and governmental representatives on the factors responsible for the success or failure of PA management.

Non–timber forest product (NTFP) use is an integral part of the rural economy of Nepal, but little is known about NTFP collection and marketing dynamics. This study investigated the intensity of NTFP collection, the financial benefits gained through the collection of a representative species, and the contextual factors influencing NTFP collection and sale in 12 villages of the Baitadi district of far western Nepal. Thirty-nine per cent of the economically active population collected a total of 24 NTFPs from 23 species, which contributed 0–90% of the total household income. A marketing chain and financial analysis of Valeriana jatamansi (sugandhwal) revealed that various trading and marketing channels existed from the village to district-level NTFP outlets. The price received by the collector depended on the length of the market chain and the political context of the market. Political instability resulting from the Maoist insurgency reduced profits from sugandhwal sale by 23–25%. The number of NTFP-selling outlets accessed by collectors was the most important variable determining the number of NTFPs collected and the overall contribution of NTFPs to the household. Physical accessibility of the village did not impact the contribution of NTFPs to the household livelihood. The strength of NTFP-related institutions (both government and non-governmental organizations) decreased the total NTFP contribution to livelihoods because at the time of the study the villages were in transition to domestication of NTFPs. In the future, the contribution of domesticated NTFPs to households in villages with strong NTFP-related institutions should be much greater than at present. Increasing access to NTFP-selling outlets may be achieved through information dissemination, empowerment of collectors and establishment of linkages between collectors and traders. In general, domestication is an important strategy to ensure a continuous supply of NTFPs. Middlemen traders are seen as important stabilizers of prices as long as fair trading practices are followed. Monitoring of these villages over time will also provide important new quantitative information on the process of transition in rural villages changing from a forest-collection NTFP procurement strategy to a domestication procurement strategy.

Dry tropical forest communities are among the world's most threatened systems and urgent measures are required to protect and restore them in degraded landscapes. For planning conservation strategies, there is a need to determine the few essential measurable properties, such as number of species and basal area, that best describe the dry forest vegetation and its environment, and to document quantitative relationships among them. This paper examines the relationships between forest basal area and diversity components (number of species and evenness) for a disturbed dry tropical forest of northern India. Data were collected from five sites located in the Vindhyan dry tropical forest of India, selected on the basis of satellite images and field observations to represent the entire range of conditions in terms of canopy cover and disturbance regimes. These sites represented different communities in terms of species composition. The forest was poorer in species richness, and lower in stem density and basal area than wet forests of the tropics. Across sites (communities), the diversity components and tree density were positively related with total tree basal area. Considering basal area as a surrogate of biomass and net production, diversity is found to be positively associated with productivity. A positive relationship between basal area, tree density and species diversity may be an important characteristic of the dry forest, where recurring disturbance does not permit concentration of biomass or stems in only a few strong competitors. However, the relationships of basal area with density, alpha diversity and evenness remain statistically significant only when data from all sites, including the extremely disturbed one, are used in the analysis. In some sites there was a greater coefficient of variation (CV) of basal area than in others, attributed to patchy distribution of stems and resultant blanks. Therefore, to enhance the tree diversity of these forests, the variability in tree basal area must be reduced by regulating local disturbances. Conservation activities, particularly fuelwood plantations near human settlements, deferred grazing and canopy enrichment through multi-species plantations of nursery-raised or wild-collected seedlings of desirable species within the forest patches of low basal area, will be needed to attain restoration goals, but reforestation programmes will have to be made attractive to the forest-dwelling communities.

Given the frequent socioeconomic, political and concomitant ecological failures of science-driven marine protected area (MPA) programmes, it is now important to design MPAs by integrating natural and social science research more comprehensively. This study shows how indigenous peoples assisted in the design of MPAs by identifying marine substrates and related resident taxa on aerial photos, information which was then incorporated into a geographical information system (GIS) database, along with dive survey data. Two questions were asked: (1) Is indigenous ecological knowledge accurate enough for mapping the benthos and associated taxa? (2) Is such an approach an appropriate way for assisting in the biological and social design of MPAs in Oceania? Conventional quadrat field dive surveys were used to measure the accuracy of substrate identification by local informants and a visual survey was used to test hypotheses formulated from local knowledge regarding the spatial distribution and relative abundance of non-cryptic species within certain benthic habitats. Equivalence rates between indigenous aerial photo interpretations of dominant benthic substrates and in situ dive surveys were 75–85% for a moderately detailed classification scheme of the benthos, which included nine locally-defined abiotic and biotic benthic classes for the MPA seabed. Similarly, the taxa inventory showed a strong correspondence between the qualitative predictions of local fisherfolk and the quantitative analysis of non-cryptic species distribution, including their relative abundance and geophysical locations. Indigenous people's predictions about the presence or absence of fish in different benthic habitats corresponded 77% and 92% of the time (depending on scoring schema) with in situ visual measurements. These results demonstrate how incorporating local knowledge of benthic heterogeneity, existing biological communities, and particular spatio-temporal events of biological significance into a GIS database can corroborate the production of scientifically reliable base resource maps for designing MPAs in an environmentally and culturally sound fashion. This participatory approach was used to design and then establish MPAs in the Roviana and Vonavona region of the Western Solomon Islands. Under appropriate conditions, interdisciplinary work can complement the design of scientific fishery management and biodiversity conservation prescriptions for coastal Oceania.