The emergence of place-based conservation

Place has emerged as a signi fi cant topic within conservation research and practice. The transformative changes connected to contemporary conservation are related to recognition of multi-scaled, social-ecological dynamics; emergent, multiscaled governance structures; and rising importance of place-specific meanings and local knowledge. These transformative changes are central to place-based conservation and closely tied to the social sciences. There is no singular approach to placebased conservation; however there are ways to organize the complexity of related ideas. This chapter overviews the purpose of the book as a resource for researchers and practitioners to build the conceptual grounding for place-based conservation, including characterizations of the meaning of place, their relevance to conservation, and an explanation for the organization of the book.