Enabling conservation theories of change

Abstract

Global theories of change (ToCs), such as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF), provide broad, overarching guidance for achieving conservation goals. However, broad guidance cannot inform how conservation actions will lead to desired outcomes. We provide a framework for translating a globalscale ToC into focussed, ecosystem-specific ToCs that consider feasibility of actions, as determined by national socioeconomic and political context (i.e., enabling conditions). We demonstrate the framework using coastal wetland ecosystems as a case study. We identified six distinct multinational profiles of enabling conditions (‘enabling profiles’) for coastal wetland conservation. For countries belonging to enabling profiles with high internal capacity to enable conservation, we described plausible ToCs that involved strengthening policy and regulation. Alternatively, for enabling profiles with low internal enabling capacity, plausible ToCs typically required formalising community-led conservation. Our ‘enabling profile’ framework could be applied to other ecosystems to help operationalise the post-2020 GBF.