Structured decision-making as a framework to incorporate social equity into conservation decisions

Many conservation challenges require negotiating trade-offs between the needs of different actors. Global frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework explicitly call for diverse participation and social equity in conservation decision-making. Achieving this requires integrating equity into both decisions and decision-making processes. Despite shifts toward strengthening social equity, practical guidance for incorporating equity into conservation decision-making processes remains limited. We argue that structured decision-making (SDM), an organized approach designed for complex decisions involving diverse actors, provides a useful framework for considering equity in conservation decision-making. We developed 10 strategies for improving social equity in conservation decision-making to strengthen both social and conservation outcomes. We systematically integrated equity's multiple dimensions throughout every SDM stage, making equity an inherent element in decision-making rather than an afterthought. For example, when clarifying the decision context, practitioners can create thorough stakeholder maps, ask diverse social groups how they want to be engaged, and design processes to facilitate their participation. At later stages, when assessing links between actions and outcomes, structured methods for information aggregation and tools to enable shared understanding support development of a shared vision and a path forward. By transforming general calls for inclusivity into specific, actionable strategies, we provide conservation practitioners, researchers, and decision makers practical guidance bridging the theory-to-practice gap.