Localism "Reimagined": Building a Robust Localist Paradigm for Overcoming Emerging Conservation Challenges.

Governance gaps at both the federal and state level increasingly necessitate local action and remain a key driver of community-based solutions. A localist paradigm-encompassing models such as community-based management, citizen science, and cooperative research-offers a promising approach for bridging governance gaps by engaging citizens, co-producing knowledge, fostering trust, and developing innovative solutions to address complex conservation challenges. Yet, despite notable successes, significant barriers constrain widespread implementation of localist approaches.

A multiscale approach to balance trade-offs among dam infrastructure, river restoration, and cost.

Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction and ecological restoration are potentially offset by the loss of hydroelectricity production, water supply, and other important services.

Improving management of small natural features on private lands by negotiating the science-policy boundary for Maine vernal pools.

Vernal pools are far more important for providing ecosystem services than one would predict based on their small size. However, prevailing resource-management strategies are not effectively conserving pools and other small natural features on private lands. Solutions are complicated by tensions between private property and societal rights, uncertainties over resource location and function, diverse stakeholders, and fragmented regulatory authority.

The Maine Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program: engaging municipal officials and private landowners in community-based citizen science.

The Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program (VPMAP) was initiated in 2007 to create a vernal pool database as a planning tool to foster local compliance with new state vernal pool regulations. In the northeastern United States, vernal pools are seasonal wetlands that provide critical breeding habitat for a number of amphibians and invertebrates and provide important resting and foraging habitat for some rare and endangered state-listed species. Using participant observation, interviews, and focus groups, we examined the engagement of municipal officials and private landowners in VPMAP.