Leveraging Social Science to Evaluate Conservation’s Impact on People and Communities
Protecting nature starts with science.
At the beginning of the decade, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) set a bold 2030 agenda to conserve the world’s lands and waters and tackle climate change—and to meaningfully improve the lives of millions of people.
As the world’s largest conservation organization, TNC is very comfortable with using science to measure ecological outcomes. But evaluating how our work impacts people’s quality of life takes a different toolkit.
To discover those tools, TNC Arizona Lead Scientist Marcos Robles and his team connected with a group of social scientists at the University of Arizona (UA) who specialize in measuring the societal impacts of environmental research programs.
“They were excited to work deeply with us to understand how we were tracking outcomes of our people-centric programs,” Robles said, “and to give us tools to improve data collection and train us on evaluation methods.”
UA Associate Research Professor Alison Meadow added: “We were able to show them that evaluating programs designed to achieve conservation outcomes while working with people is conceptually very similar—it just takes specialized tools and skills to ensure the work is done ethically.”
This deep knowledge-sharing partnership between the institutions ultimately broadened TNC’s understanding about how to measure outcomes for people and communities—and allowed that work to be counted toward TNC’s 2030 goals.
Where to start?
Together, the teams workshopped real projects—including Arizona’s Urban Heat Leadership Academy (UHLA), Colorado’s forest and fire efforts, and the Colorado River Program’s tribal partnerships—to build practical, people-focused evaluation tools.
“I didn’t realize the breadth of TNC’s work involving programs focused on people and communities,” said Meadow, who is an associate research professor in UA’s Office of Societal Impact.
Meadow was one of the lead partners on the collaboration. She was joined by UA colleagues from the Community, Evaluation, Research and Development program, as well as the Climate Assessment for the Southwest.
Launched by TNC in 2021, the UHLA is a great example of a conservation strategy that has people-centric outcomes at the forefront. This free, bilingual program builds the capacity of residents to advocate for a greener, healthier, cooler Phoenix—the hottest city in the country. Rising urban heat affects everyone, but neighborhoods with a healthy tree canopy can feel significantly cooler than those with sparse shade cover just a few miles away.
New Research
A new study published by The Nature Conservancy shows that extreme heat in the hottest times of the year severely limits activities for one-third of the world’s population.
“Through surveys and other methods, we know that UHLA participants value the experience,” said Amy Scoville-Weaver, who leads TNC Arizona’s Healthy Cities Program, which includes the UHLA, “But we were not capturing the right information to help us understand if the program is achieving our desired conservation outcomes.”
Robles and Weaver queried TNC colleagues around the world working on similar projects and discovered that others were facing similar limitations.
“We identified a gap in knowledge and expertise when it comes to evaluating people-centric programs with depth and rigor,” Robles said.
Finding Answers Through Partnership
To better assess how UHLA advances TNC’s people’s metrics, the TNC and UA partnership:
- Trained TNC staff in core social science principles to ensure they understood how to measure and assess UHLA’s true impact.
- Enhanced our data collection to ensure they were capturing the right information from graduates before and after they began the program.
- Tested assumptions on the true reach of the program by creating and distributing an enhanced survey to understand what actions graduates take after they complete the program.
This survey revealed that each UHLA participant shares information they learned with an average of 50 people, which indicates a greater contribution toward TNC’s 2030 goals than initial estimates.
“Working with the University of Arizona research team and other partners helped us refine what and how we capture and measure to learn if UHLA graduates are more informed and more likely to take up local projects, reach decision-makers and influence change,” Scoville-Weaver said.
Economic Impact of Trees
A TNC-commissioned economic assessment found that the benefits of increasing urban tree canopy in metro Phoenix outweigh costs 4-to-1 and can improve air quality.
Scaling Learnings Across TNC
Ultimately, UA and TNC created a guidebook to share what they learned with TNC colleagues around the world. The guidebook aims to help practitioners define evaluation objectives, choose appropriate data collection methods and analyze results.
To support that endeavor, Robles and team have presented the guidebook and related learnings during internal science convenings.
“We spend our time with the birds and the trees,” Robles said. “Learning about topics that are not intuitive – like ethics and confidentiality, how to responsibly ask questions about working with Indigenous Peoples, understanding consent and sharing what we learned with colleagues has been rewarding.”
Robles reports the internal response has been positive.
“A colleague who has familiarity with this topic reached out to comment that our guidebook was better and easier to read than the definitive work on this type of social science,” Robles said. “It was praise that felt gratifying and reinforced the importance of remaining curious and open to gaining new skills.”
"TNC's willingness to learn made this partnership powerful," Meadow reflected. "TNC is genuinely committed to building programs that meet community goals and helping their colleagues everywhere do the same.”
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