Evidence-based conservation

Evidence-based conservation is the application of evidence in conservation biology and environmental management actions and policy making. It is defined as systematically assessing scientific information from published, peer-reviewed publications and texts, practitioners' experiences, independent expert assessment, and local and indigenous knowledge on a specific conservation topic. This includes assessing the current effectiveness of different management interventions, threats and emerging problems and economic factors.^[1]

Evidence-based conservation was organized based on the observations that decision making in conservation was based on intuition and or practitioner experience often disregarding other forms of evidence of successes and failures (e.g. scientific information). This has led to costly and poor outcomes.^[2] Evidence-based conservation provides access to information that will support decision making through an evidence-based framework of "what works" in conservation.^[3]

The evidence-based approach to conservation is based on evidence-based practice which started in medicine and later spread to nursing, education, psychology and other fields. It is part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.