Home

Mangrove forests, located along tropical and subtropical coastlines, are increasingly recognized for their role in buffering climate disasters, storing carbon, supporting wildlife and livelihoods. Yet even as interest in mangrove conservation and restoration has surged in recent years, many projects fail — seedlings die, sites degrade further or communities disengage.

The world has four years left to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3, which calls for the conservation of at least 30% of planet Earth by 2030 (the 30×30 target). This global effort requires countries to acknowledge and support a wide range of governance systems that deliver sustained biodiversity outcomes within and beyond protected areas.

Ocean sustainability demands interdisciplinary knowledge. While interdisciplinary collaborations involving the natural sciences are common, few have also included the ocean humanities despite the entanglement of human culture and history with the ocean. We
a team of both ocean scientists and humanities researchers outline a framework for integrating these disciplines. We show how

Ocean warming is increasing the frequency, extent, and severity of tropical-coral bleaching and mortality. During 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused the Third Global Coral Bleaching Event. We analyze data from 15,066 reef surveys globally during 2014–2017. Across all surveyed reefs, 80% and 35% experienced moderate or greater (affecting >10% of corals) bleaching and mortality, respectively.

For decades, a dominant argument for protecting forests has focused on carbon. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, store it in wood and soils, and slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases. A new scientific review suggests this emphasis overlooks other ways forests shape climate and human well-being. Forests, it argues, are not only a mitigation tool for the future climate. They also help people adapt to climate change today, shaping temperature, water and human well-being in ways that are felt locally.

Meeting the ambitious targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) will require expanding ecosystem restoration across governance domains for marine and coastal ecosystems. Marine spatial planning (MSP), which balances the development of multiple human uses in the ocean with the preservation of ecosystem health, might be the most effective vehicle for achieving this aim. However, to date, MSP and restoration efforts have proceeded on separate tracks, and biodiversity loss continues.

Since 2023, the Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) has been collaborating with the Koror State Government (KSG) to conduct research and monitoring aimed at providing essential baseline data to guide the Koror Southern Lagoon Coastal Fisheries Management Plan, a new fisheries management initiative for Koror State. The management plan identified several fish spawning aggregation sites for protection, including the longnose emperor (melangmud, Lethrinus olivaceus) at Mutiaur.

The interlinked crises of climate change and biodiversity loss are slipping down political agendas just as geopolitical instability and fiscal pressures rise. Overseas development aid is falling in real terms, and many megadiverse countries are juggling debt stress that pushes conservation to the margins.