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This guide is for starting conversations about the strengths of nature in adapting to challenges of climate change. The guide started with a wish by organisations working in conservation, agriculture, and community adaptation to climate change to help communities understand “naturebased solutions”. The guide reminds facilitators and participants that nature-based solutions are just a modern way of describing how life has always been, how the functioning of nature has always supported us.

Marine ecosystems face threats from human-induced stressors like climate change, pollution, and habitat loss. Despite international endeavors, significant gaps remain in understanding ocean dynamics. This article presents six policy recommendations to integrate plankton populations into conservation frameworks. These could be leveraged in the process approved at CBD’s COP16 in Colombia to update criteria for defining ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs) and supporting science-based Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations.

Acknowledging the diversity of forest contexts and the need for tailored approaches, this chapter examines the policy instruments that can operationalize a differentiated forest-climate agenda to achieve conservation and restoration outcomes.

Nature is the foundation of life on Earth, underpinning the ecosystem services that sustain societies and economies. Yet, its degradation continues at an alarming rate, threatening planetary resilience and human well-being.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) offers a clear mission and vision: put in place the urgent action to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 and live in harmony with nature by 2050. The challenge now lies in implementation across governments, businesses, and financial institutions alike.

The most common and numerous island type across the Pacific basin are atolls. Even though these island systems harbor only a few endemic species, atolls are globally important nesting sites for seabirds and sea turtles, roosting sites for migratory shorebirds, and refugia for Oceania's unique lowland flora and fauna. While atolls were extensively surveyed for their island biodiversity in the second half of the twentieth century, many remain unmapped, leaving important knowledge gaps for Pacific biodiversity, biogeography, and conservation.

We review the taxonomy, biology, and the ecological, economic, and human health impacts of the giant African snail, Lissachatina fulica, in the Pacific. Invasion of L. fulica in the Pacific has a complex history. Rapid population expansions of L. fulica on Pacific Islands, and elsewhere, in the 1930s and 1940s prompted researchers to explore its biology with a focus on understanding and minimizing its impacts in agricultural systems. Similarly, recent outbreaks of rat lungworm disease have prompted increased research exploring diseases associated with L. fulica and other snail species.

From 1–21 September 2023, the Government of Vanuatu, in partnership with the Waitt Institute through Blue Prosperity Vanuatu, conducted the most extensive coral reef survey in the nation’s history. Covering 109 sites across all six provinces, this study provides critical baseline data to guide Vanuatu’s marine protection and sustainable ocean management efforts.

From 1-21 September 2023, the Government of Vanuatu, in partnership with Blue Prosperity Vanuatu, local NGOs, and international collaborators, conducted the largest nationwide coral reef study across all six (6) provinces of Vanuatu. This study gathered information about the status of coral reefs, fish species, invertebrate populations, and water quality across Vanuatu’s waters. 

“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it’s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it’s just a totally different thing. It’s drier, it’s more open, it’s more harsh, and there’ll be far fewer species,” says Thomas Crowther, ecology professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).