Before launching a monitoring program, conservationists are often asked how data will be collected, which indicators will be used, and how results will be analyzed. Less often, they are asked a simpler question: what is the monitoring for?
A recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, led by Kate J. Helmstedt, argues that this question should come first. Monitoring, the authors suggest, delivers impact when it is tied to a clear explanation of how the information collected will influence decisions, policy, or outcomes for biodiversity.
This may sound self-evident, yet conservation has long treated data collection as a default activity. Over the past decade, that tendency has been reinforced by rapid advances in technology. Satellites track forest loss in near real time. Camera traps document passing animals. Acoustic sensors record entire ecosystems. Environmental DNA can detect species from traces in water or soil. The result is a steady expansion in what can be measured, often accompanied by an assumption that more information will improve outcomes.
Work on conservation effectiveness has complicated that assumption. Monitoring trends—like forest cover, species abundance, compliance rates, and habitat condition—can describe what is happening without explaining why. Establishing impact requires a counterfactual: an estimate of what would have happened without the intervention. Even where methods improve, the link to outcomes is not guaranteed. Time and funding directed toward data collection can reduce what is available for implementation.
The new paper extends this line of thinking. Conservation has focused on measuring better. The harder question is perhaps why we measure at all.
To address it, the authors outline fifteen distinct reasons for monitoring, ranging from evaluating interventions to informing policy, securing funding, building public support, and documenting change over time. Some of these purposes feed directly into management decisions. Others shape the conditions under which action becomes possible. Treating them as a single category can obscure how different monitoring efforts are meant to function.
Making these distinctions explicit has practical consequences. Without a defined purpose, monitoring programs can drift. Data accumulate without a clear connection to decisions, or long-running efforts continue because they have always existed. In some settings, monitoring systems extend beyond what is needed to guide action, while in others even basic information is missing.
This unevenness reflects a broader feature of conservation practice. Evidence is widely valued, but the pathways from information to action are often indirect. Data may contribute to policy debates, support fundraising, or help establish credibility with governments and communities. In these cases, monitoring operates through the conditions that enable conservation—awareness, trust, and political support. Those roles are important, though they call for different expectations than monitoring designed to guide day-to-day management.
The implication is not that monitoring should be scaled back. In many regions, especially those rich in biodiversity, gaps in basic information remain substantial. Nor does the paper suggest delaying action until evidence is complete. Its emphasis is on clarity. Monitoring should be designed with a specific role in mind and scaled to match that role.
More monitoring is not always better—and conservation is only beginning to confront that.
Similar questions arise in other fields. In medicine, data collection is closely tied to diagnosis and treatment. In economics, measurement is organized around defined policy questions. Conservation has often taken a broader approach, collecting information without always specifying how it will be used. The shift now underway places more weight on linking measurement to decisions.
There are already signs of that shift. The growing emphasis on impact evaluation, targeted interventions, and evidence-informed practice reflects a desire to connect information more directly to outcomes. The framework proposed in the new paper adds another layer by clarifying the role monitoring plays within that process.
For the person on the ground, the takeaway from the paper is simple: if you can’t articulate how a data point will change a specific decision, the monitoring program may not be worth the resources. Before initiating a monitoring program, it helps to articulate how the system being studied is expected to change, why monitoring is needed within that process, and how the resulting data will inform decisions. Where those links are unclear, the case for monitoring becomes harder to sustain.
A similar consideration appears in journalism, where gathering and presenting information is often assumed to carry value on its own. In practice, reporting may have the most influence when it connects to audiences, institutions, or decisions that can act on it. The comparison is not exact, but it points to a shared constraint: information matters through its use.
Conservation has never lacked data. The question now is how to ensure that the data it collects are the ones that matter.
A simplified example from the paper of monitoring reasons and corresponding explanations in the context of a theory of change
- Evaluating causal links: Testing whether actions lead to intended outcomes
- Basic research: Building general system knowledge that underpins future action
- Applied research: Filling decision-relevant knowledge gaps in a specific context
- Passive adaptive management: Informing incremental adjustment of actions based on outcomes
- Active adaptive management: Supporting experimentation to compare alternative actions
- Auditing actions and outcomes: Verifying implementation and delivery of expected results
- Enforcement monitoring: Detecting and deterring rule-breaking that undermines outcomes
- Shift policy: Building evidence to justify or shape policy change
- Increase investment: Demonstrating results to attract or sustain funding
- Training, engaging, educating: Building skills, awareness, and public support
- Improving physical and mental health: Supporting mental, cultural, and physical engagement with nature
- Increasing credibility: Establishing legitimacy and influence in decision-making arenas
- Taking the pulse of nature: Detecting unexpected changes and emerging threats
- Societal curiosity: Responding to public demand for information about nature
- Monitoring that leads to novel action: Generating new ideas through observation and presence in the field
Banner image: A small frog in costa Rica. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler
Citation:
- Helmstedt KJ et al. 2025 How monitoring matters for nature conservation: 15 reasons framed in a theory of change. Proc. R. Soc. B 292: 20252527. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2527
- Nichols JD, Williams BK. 2006 Monitoring for conservation. Trends Ecol. Evol. 21, 668–673. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2006.08.007
- Jones JPG, Shreedhar G. 2024 The causal revolution in biodiversity conservation. Nat. Hum. Behav. 8, 1236–1239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01897-6
- Ferraro PJ, Pattanayak SK. 2006 Money for nothing? A call for empirical evaluation of biodiversity conservation investments. PLoS Biol. 4, e105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040105
- Hughes, A. C., Orr, M. C., Ma, K., Costello, M. J., Waller, J., Provoost, P., Yang, Q., Zhu, C., & Qiao, H. (2021). Sampling biases shape our view of the natural world. Ecography, 44(9), 1259–1269. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05926
- Stem, C., Margoluis, R., Salafsky, N., & Brown, M. (2005). Monitoring and evaluation in conservation: A review of trends and approaches. Conservation Biology, 19(2), 295–309. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00594.x
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