Progress Towards Protected Area Targets
Protected Area targets have been set globally, regionally, and sometimes at a country level. During the last decade, the global protected area targets that all country signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) committed to were the CBD's Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Specifically, Aichi Target 11 which stated that:
30x30 A Guide to Inclusive, Equitable and Effective Implementation of Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
This document is a guide along the path to realizing Target 3 of the KMGBF. It guides us through the text of the Target itself, breaking down all of the elements and, perhaps most importantly, it is loaded with links to more details. The path it offers leads to effective implementation through equitable and human rights-based action. It is a big guide for a big job. The development of this guide is a small example of the kind of cooperation and hard work that we need to succeed in Target 3.
Quantifying longline bycatch mortality for pelagic sharks in western Pacific shark sanctuaries
Marine protected areas are increasingly touted for their role in conserving large marine predators such as sharks, but their efficacy is debated. Seventeen “shark sanctuaries” have been established globally, but longline fishing continues within many such jurisdictions, leading to unknown levels of bycatch mortality levels. Using public data from Global Fishing Watch and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, we quantified longline fishing within eight shark sanctuaries and estimated pelagic shark catch and mortality for seven pelagic shark species.
Diverse values of nature for sustainability
Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being addressing the global biodiversity crisis still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature’s diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever.
An international assessment of the barriers influencing the effectiveness of island ecosystem management
Island ecosystems are disproportionally impacted by biodiversity loss and as such their effective management is critical to global conservation efforts. Practitioners worldwide work to manage island sites and species to conserve them, but various day-to-day barriers compromise these efforts, reducing management effectiveness and preventing local and potentially even national biodiversity targets from being met.
Engaging the tropical majority to make ocean governance and science more equitable and effective
How can ocean governance and science be made more equitable and effective? The majority of the world’s ocean-dependent people live in low to middle-income countries in the tropics (i.e., the ‘tropical majority’). Yet the ocean governance agenda is set largely on the basis of scientific knowledge, funding, and institutions from high-income nations in temperate zones.
Participatory monitoring drives biodiversity knowledge in global protected areas
Protected areas are central in strategies to conserve biodiversity. Effective area-based conservation relies on biodiversity data, but the current biodiversity knowledge base is insufficient and limited by geographic and taxonomic biases. Public participation in biodiversity monitoring such as via community-based monitoring or citizen science increases data collection but also contributes to replicating these biases or introducing new ones.
Management Plan for Upland Areas of Lake Lanoto'o National Park, 2018-2023
The management plan describes the priority strategies for the upland areas of the Lake Lanoto'o National Park that will nest maintain and improve the key conservation values in these areas by reducing the impact of threats including from climate change.
Retaining natural vegetation to safeguard biodiversity and humanity
Global efforts to deliver internationally agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services have been poorly integrated. These goals rely in part on preserving natural (e.g., native, largely unmodified) and semi-natural (e.g., low intensity or sustainable human use) forests, woodlands, and grasslands. To show how to unify these goals, we empirically derived spatially explicit, quantitative, area-based targets for the retention of natural and semi-natural (e.g., native) terrestrial vegetation worldwide.