LETTER Informed opportunism for conservation planning in the Solomon Islands Edward T. Game 1 , Geoffrey Lipsett-Moore 1 , Richard Hamilton 1 , Nate Peterson 1 , Jimmy Kereseka 2 , William Atu 3 , Matthew Watts 4 , & Hugh Possingham 4 1 The Nature Conservancy, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101, Australia 2 Environmental Office, Lauru Land Conference of Tribal Communities, Taro, Solomon Islands 3 The Nature Conservancy, Honiara, Solomon Islands 4 The Ecology Centre and Centre for Applied Environmental Decision Analysis, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia Keywords Community-based conservation; coral reefs; dynamic conservation planning; Marxan; MPA; protected areas; systematic conservation planning. Correspondence Edward T. Game, The Nature Conservancy, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101, Australia. Tel: +61-7-3214-6921; fax: +61-7-3214-6999. E-mail: egame@tnc.org Received 19 February 2010 Accepted 28 July 2010 Editor Amanda Lombard doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00140.x Abstract Human factors more than ecology dictate conservation opportunity and the subsequent success of implementation. This is particularly true in places such as the Solomon Islands where most terrestrial and coastal marine areas remain in community ownership. However, factors such as community support are not reliably predictable, nor easy to map, and therefore challenging to incor- porate into systematic conservation plans. Here, we describe how the Lauru Land Conference of Tribal Communities and The Nature Conservancy have worked with the communities of Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands, to de- velop a conservation planning process that reconciles community-driven con- servation opportunities, with a systematic and representation-based approach to prioritization. We suggest how sophisticated prioritization software can be used collaboratively in a community setting, to dynamically assess and guide conservation opportunities as they arise; a process of informed opportunism. Introduction Human factors more than ecology dictate conservation opportunity and the subsequent success of implementa- tion (Knight & Cowling 2007). Although defensible con- servation decisions depend on understanding the ecology of the focal area, there is widespread recognition in the conservation community that the recommendations of systematic conservation assessments based on ecological information alone will be, at best, challenging to imple- ment (Knight et al. 2008; Smith et al. 2009). Much has been written in recent years about the need for systematic conservation planning to take better account of the many factors beyond ecology that determine the success or fail- ure of conservation actions (e.g., Cowling & Wilhelm- Rechmann 2007; Knight & Cowling 2007; McBride et al. 2007; Knight & Cowling 2008; Knight et al. 2008; Pressey & Bottrill 2008; Smith et al. 2009). One response to this problem is for conservation as- sessments to map and incorporate a range of social, eco- nomic, and political factors that are likely to define con- servation cost and/or opportunity in a region (Knight & Cowling 2007). While there is little doubt that account- ing for human opportunities and constraints as part of the planning process will improve the feasibility for im- plementation of proposed conservation sites, it also intro- duces its own set of challenges. Factors, such as commu- nity support, are difficult to quantify and map (but see, Knight et al. 2010) and can fluctuate both with the prof- itability of different land- and sea-use activities (Wunder 2007) and as the composition of communities change. The necessary data can also be time consuming to collect. 38 Conservation Letters 4 (2011) 38–46 Copyright and Photocopying: c  2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.