Alex Caruana

Alex Caruana

DPhil Student, Conservation Science

Presenting at the International Congress for Conservation Biology (2025) in Brisbane (Meanjin), Australia

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Three weeks ago, I had the extraordinary opportunity to present our research on the fundamental causal assumptions of the Neyman-Rubin Causal Model (also known as the Potential Outcomes framework) at the International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB2025) in Brisbane (Meanjin), Australia. My talk was part of the Society of Conservation Biology’s Impact Evaluation Working Group’s symposium, “Future Directions for Counterfactual Evaluations of Conservation Interventions” and the experience was nothing short of transformative.

Alex Caruana's talk at ICCB2025
As my first conservation-focused conference, ICCB2025 was amazing—scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and funders, all driven by a shared mission to safeguard biodiversity, gathered in one place. In our symposium alone, hundreds attended to explore the future of impact evaluation in conservation. Beyond formal presentations, both our forum (on current challenges in counterfactual evaluations) and our working group meetings were immensely successful.

One thing has become clear since the conference ended: impact evaluation in conservation science is no longer niche. It’s rapidly gaining traction worldwide, and I hope this momentum continues at future conservation conferences.\

Lessons lost: Lack of requirements for post-project evaluation and reporting is hindering evidence-based conservation

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In our recent paper in Conservation Science and Practice we looked at how how much evidence the EUs LIFE Programme and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) are contributing towards the conservation evidence-base. Overall found that while the EU’s LIFE performed well, ERDF had significant shortcomings, with barely any publicly available documentation, let alone impact evaluations. It’s unclear why these ERDF projects aren’t being publicly documented. Our blog earlier this year in Ecological Solutions and Evidence highlighted how projects, such as those funded by ERDF, can provide valuable insight to the conservation evidence-base. In our paper we highlight the barriers these conservation projects face, namely; (i) the challenge in carrying out robust impact evaluations; (ii) lack of expertise; and (iii) the unwillingness to admit ‘failure’. There is also additional risk involved when making certain information publicly available.

How do we move forward? The main scope of our paper was to highlight the critical role conservation funders have in not only utilizing evidence-based conservation actions but also in generating such evidence. Conservation funders can offer longer-term funding and support research-practise partnerships between academic researchers and conservation practitioners in the field. Additionally, funders can promote transformative change by creating safe environments that facilitate learning from failure, such as Wildlife Conservation Society’s ‘Failure Factors’ and Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s ‘Embracing Failure in Conservation’ program.

I’ll conclude by stating that all of us authors in this paper support the EU’s endeavour in funding conservation projects across Europe through the Life Programme, ERDF and any other funding mechanism available. Ultimately our goal is to improve the synergy between funders, researchers and practitioners in the field. To maximize the impact of conservation projects, we must use evidence-based conservation actions, however to do so we equally need case studies of said actions to be documented and accessible.

Mechanical excavation cannot eradicate invasive crayfish

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In our recent paper in Ecological Solutions and Evidence we looked at an ecological restoration project in Malta that I had been involved with in 2019-2020. Invasive American Red Swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) had been first identified within the Fiddien Valley System in Malta in 2016 (Deidun et al., 2018; Vella et al., 2017) and due to very limited natural predators, their population grey rapidly, causing significant damage to the delicate freshwater ecosystem present. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Maltese Government did take initiative and had attempted to eradicate the invasive crayfish from this valley system through mechanical excavation, however, this effort was unsuccessful.

You can read our article in full in Ecological Solutions and Evidence, and access the full dataset collected on Github. A layman report with additional photos is available on Applied Ecological Resources.

Our research has also been discussed in The Applied Ecologist, the Conservation Evidence Blog and in the Global Water Forum.