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Biodiversity is being lost globally, at devastating rates. The 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will finalise a global biodiversity conservation framework for 2020-2050. The negotiations must result in ambitious yet workable targets that protect and restore nature, while equitably and sustainably sharing nature’s contributions to people. This Collection of research and opinion articles from Nature Ecology & Evolution and Nature Sustainability speak to the goal-setting process and the scientific underpinnings of effective biodiversity conservation.
The delayed UN Biodiversity COP15 follows closely on the heels of the Climate COP27. We look at what comparisons can valuably be made between the two summits.
The climate and biodiversity crises are two sides of the same coin demanding urgent, ambitious action. Countries must commit to halve their carbon emissions and effectively protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030.
The delay in final negotiations on the global post-2020 biodiversity framework is providing time for additional scientific evidence, and for strengthening ideas around natural capital.
This Perspective discusses how the latest advances in remote sensing can be used to answer basic ecological and evolutionary questions, as well as contribute to important biodiversity monitoring.
Sustaining ecosystems is essential for biodiversity conservation and human well-being. This Perspective synthesizes the scientific basis for an effective goal for ecosystem conservation, and associated indicators of progress, that can be applied from global to local scales.
Biodiversity underpins the health and strength of ecosystems, but the complexity of those systems can be overwhelming for policymakers. This Perspective proposes a new framework for measuring biodiversity with an eye towards greater conservation.
Divergent conceptions of living nature between conservationists and other groups of people can hinder progress to protect biodiversity. This Perspective reflects on the use of the concept of biodiversity, willingness to expand its ambit, and engagement with the various drivers of change.
Learning from the failure to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the authors recommend effective global and national targets and other measures to ensure the post-2020 targets are more successful.
Sustainability is a function of environmental, economic and social integration. This Review synthesizes knowledge on the many ways biodiversity can support sustainable development.
Review of how a multilateral negotiation platform on biodiversity is championing diversity in both participants (by gender and ethnic groups) and forms of knowledge, such as traditional or indigenous.
This Perspective uses a social–ecological systems framework to make recommendations for global targets that capture the interdependencies of biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable development to inform the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 process and the future of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Land use is one of the most contested issues facing global conservation, but degraded lands should be the focus of governments and trusts to take and conserve uncontested areas for nature.
Bringing together multiple models and databases on nature’s contributions to people, the authors map these contributions globally and determine the critical areas where their magnitude is the highest and where they provide the highest potential human benefit.
Data from three citizen science programmes on the occurrence, abundance, community structure and demography of birds across the UK show that protected areas are associated with improved state for most species and provide the most benefit to specialist, rare and declining species.
Not all forest cover is of equal quality. Here, the authors ask whether forest cover or forest structural complexity influences extinction risk in tropical rainforest vertebrates, finding that forest structural conditions are more important than cover alone in terms of buffering species against extinction and population declines.
Achievement of global spatial targets for protected areas is not being matched by quality of management. This study quantifies current shortfalls in numbers of rangers and other personnel for those areas and assesses future requirements as more areas are set aside.
Machine learning is used to predict extinction risk for 1,381 palm species, allowing identification of priority regions for palm conservation and cases where substitution with non-threatened species could provide products for human use.
Protected areas (PAs) are not completely halting biodiversity loss, according to growing evidence. This study shows the limited effectiveness of a large network of PAs despite favourable socio-economic context and high conservation efforts, suggesting that PA functional design matters beyond increasing resources.
A panel of scientists, policymakers and practitioners have used an iterative voting process to collate a list of 15 priority emerging issues likely to affect marine and coastal biodiversity over the next 5–10 years.
Deforestation caused by oil palm plantations is threatening biomass carbon sequestration across the tropics. Although large-scale plantations dominate this expansion, smallholder operations responding to high export prices are preferentially eating into mature, carbon-rich forests that promise high yields.
The 2016 peace agreement in Colombia led to agricultural expansion to the detriment of biodiversity. Using Colombia as a case study, this work shows how to maximize the biodiversity benefits from limited conservation funding while landowners maintain economic returns equivalent to those from agriculture.
Exploring more than 17,000 privately protected areas in 15 countries across 5 continents, the authors identify the contribution of this kind of protected area to global conservation efforts and identify the roles they can play to achieving new biodiversity conservation targets.
Artificial intelligence methods can help biodiversity conservation planning in a rapidly evolving world. A framework based on reinforcement learning quantifies the trade-off between the costs and benefits of area and biodiversity protection and achieves better solutions with empirical data than alternative methods.
Ecosystems worldwide are increasingly threatened. Using an approach applicable to coral reefs globally, including data-poor regions, this study finds coral reef ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean at risk of collapse.
Tropical forests are threatened worldwide. This study finds Indigenous Lands reduce deforestation and degradation throughout the tropics at rates comparable to protected areas and at higher rates in Africa.
A long-term analysis of payments to reduce grazing on a threatened ecosystem in Ecuador shows that, despite intermittence of the programme and the resulting uncertainty, grazing behaviour among households diminished consistently
Global spatial data for terrestrial vertebrate and vascular plant diversity, above- and below-ground biomass carbon, and potential clean freshwater volume are combined in a joint optimization study to identify potential synergies for conservation management.
A combination of simulations and empirical data shows that random fluctuations in species population time-series data affect calculations of the Living Planet Index, in some cases exaggerating population declines.
A global assessment of the status of tropical cloud forests shows that they have declined overall by ~2.4% since 2001, with much of this occurring despite formal protection and with up to 8% loss in some regions.
Most of the world’s farms are small. This study finds that smaller farms have higher yields and biodiversity than larger ones but little difference in greenhouse gas emissions and profits.
Red List information is used to generate global maps of the likelihood of impacts on terrestrial vertebrates exerted by agriculture, hunting and trapping, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change.
A finding of smaller numbers of fish and invertebrates close within the border of a marine protected area compared to further inside may have profound effects on current estimates of population sizes in small- to medium-sized MPAs.
China’s coasts have become more populous and urbanized. This study finds a rebound in the area of coastal wetlands, reflecting recent conservation and restoration, with large losses between 1984 and 2011 followed by increases in saltmarsh area and stabilization of tidal flats.
The species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats offer towards reducing species’ extinction risk in specific places.
A comprehensive analysis of indigenous and local knowledge on plant uses in New Guinea shows important documentation gaps that limit biodiversity assessments. Also, many services are rare, so less likely to be documented.
A restoration prioritization approach applied to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot considers 362 scenarios for synergies and trade-offs between ecological and economic costs, benefits and scales.
A curated global dataset of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) reveals that theoretical principles are only partially applied in practice, particularly conditionality, which makes payments underperform.
Using the Biodiversity Finance Initiative methodology, the authors assess the extent and effectiveness of biodiversity investment across different economies. Larger economies invest more in absolute terms and proportional to GDP but invest less once GDP is controlled for, and all biodiversity variables correlated positively with investment.
A discourse analysis across time shows how reformist and transformative proponents have been competing over the purpose of biodiversity offsetting, which requires stronger institutional commitments to advance.
A framework is presented for achieving global no net loss of biodiversity that accounts for inequity among countries in both pressures and ability to act.
In response to continuing habitat and biodiversity loss, leading conservationists have proposed setting aside half the earth for nature. This study evaluates the trade-offs with food production and finds losses in croplands, pasture and calories that vary with the conservation strategy.
Agricultural expansion removes habitat vital for biodiversity. This modelling study finds that 4.6–11.2% of global ice-free land can be devoted to crops and 7.9–15.7% to pasture to support commonly suggested levels of local biodiversity—less than suggested in previous studies.
An evidence map of global biodiversity loss research over the past decade suggests foci do not match predicted severity and impact, and that research and policy need to be realigned.
A global analysis of deforestation rates in more than 18,000 terrestrial protected areas shows that, once protected area effectiveness is taken into account, only 6.5%—rather than 15.7%—of the world’s forests are protected, well below the Aichi Target of 17%.
Agricultural expansion to grow food, fibre and biofuel will further threaten biodiversity. This study finds that almost 90% of terrestrial vertebrate species will lose habitat to such expansion, but proactive food policies could reduce these threats.
An analysis reveals only 17 out of 65 financiers require biodiversity impact mitigation measures, and overall the initiative falls short of international best practices
Combining biophysical and economic models, the authors show that the impacts of land use on bird biodiversity and carbon sequestration have increased over the years 2000–2011, with cattle farming being a major driver of biodiversity loss.
While regional and planetary biodiversity is suffering from numerous crises, conservation movements have struggled with how to respond. At this inflection point for conservation, over 9,000 conservationists are surveyed to analyse their views and how these are predicted by their characteristics.
Recently, ecologists have begun discussing an idea for setting aside half of the Earth for conservation purposes. This study provides some of the first analysis of the impacts of doing so on society, based on assumptions about ecoregions and human footprint.
Modelling nonlinear habitat dynamics shows that delayed compensation of human impacts (‘no net loss’) will lead to biodiversity declines by the middle of the century. Instead, the authors recommend fixed targets (such as ‘zero loss’) as part of the post-2020 biodiversity framework.
An international arrangement of transferable fishing rights and biomass-based allocation can incentivize establishing Marine Protected Areas while promoting the economy.
Nature Positive is an aspirational term that is increasingly being used by businesses, governments and NGOs, but there is a danger that its meaning is being diluted away from measurable overall net gain in biodiversity towards merely any action that benefits nature, argues E.J. Milner-Gulland.
Josefa Cariño Tauli is an Ibaloi-Kankanaey Igorot Indigenous person from the Cordillera Region in the Northern Philippines. She is currently the policy co-coordinator for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, the international coordination platform for youth participation in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Achieving net-zero targets and climate stabilization will require better accounting for the immense amount of carbon naturally stored belowground. We propose ‘carbon parks’ as a conservation tool and financial instrument to protect and value carbon-rich ecosystems.
Approaches to financing biodiversity conservation tend to focus on funding gaps, but fail to address underlying political and economic drivers. We propose two strategies — tax reform and debt justice — to supercharge public financing for biodiversity and deflate harmful financial flows, while chipping away at the causes of state austerity.
Advances in spatial biodiversity science and nationally available data have enabled the development of indicators that report on biodiversity outcomes, account for uneven global biodiversity between countries, and provide direct planning support. We urge their inclusion in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Global spatial information on biodiversity, carbon storage and land-use abound. Yet maps are conspicuously absent from national climate and biodiversity strategies, hampering integrated approaches to meeting economic, social and environmental objectives, including those under the forthcoming Global Biodiversity Framework.
Global priority maps have been transformative for conservation, but now have questionable utility and may crowd out other forms of research. Conservation must re-engage with contextually rich knowledge that builds global understanding from the ground up.
Awaiting the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held in China late in 2021, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary to the CBD, talks to Nature Sustainability about the challenges of stepping up efforts to address biodiversity decline.
The development of the post-2020 strategic plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity provides a vital window of opportunity to set out an ambitious plan of action to restore global biodiversity. The components of such a plan, including its goal, targets and some metrics, already exist and provide a roadmap to 2050.
Conserving biodiversity for its own sake and conserving it to safeguard ecosystem services are distinct goals that cannot both be achieved through a single target analogous to climate’s 1.5 °C, argues Andy Purvis.
Biodiversity research is replete with scientific studies depicting future trajectories of decline that have failed to mobilize transformative change. Imagination and creativity can foster new ways to address longstanding problems to create better futures for people and the planet.
Much research and policy effort is being expended on ways to conserve living nature while enabling the economic and social development needed to increase equity and end poverty. We propose this will only be possible if policy shifts away from conservation targets that focus on avoiding losses towards processes that consider net outcomes for biodiversity.
Nationwide citizen science data show the importance of farmland outside protected areas for China’s avifauna. We urge the government of China to develop a national strategy for policy and research to protect biodiversity and traditional knowledge of sustainable agriculture to meet the post-2020 goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Regulations designed to prevent global inequalities in the use of genetic resources apply to both commercial and non-commercial research. Conflating the two may have unintended consequences for collaboration between the Global North and biodiverse countries in the Global South, which may promote global injustice rather than mitigate it.
Ambitious targets for the retention — not just formal protection — of nature are urgently needed to conserve biodiversity and to maintain crucial ecosystem services for humanity.