LAUSR

Nature conservation and social equity issues have been approached in a myriad of ways by conservation, humanitarian, and development practitioners. The rapid and shifting urbanization of the globe makes the interaction of these issues paramount and it is imperative to articulate pathways to harmonizing these relationships readily followed by conservation practitioners. We describe the processes and compare the resulting social equity and conservation objectives of two initiatives purposefully integrating these approaches. A private nonprofit seeking to develop an urban conservation program in the Atlanta metropolitan area purposefully engaged residents from surrounding communities and self-identified local and sector leaders to identify communities where social equity and conservation objectives could be created together. A public agency, built on a century-long history of environmental stewardship for migratory birds and pollinators, integrated 20 years of participatory action research to engage the surrounding communities using methods suggested and developed by the communities themselves. In both cases, community-based research approaches have helped establish cocreated objectives and flexible monitoring and evaluation baselines. Both initiatives found a need to appropriately resource and train staff to remain open to learning and evolving new objectives as additional perspectives emerge and the impact on conservation and equity objectives is assessed.