Animals that cross borders often encounter conservation systems that stop at them. Migratory species move through jurisdictions with little regard for political boundaries, relying on habitats spread across large distances and governed by different rules. The result is patchy protection, overlapping threats, and declining populations.
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to stop biodiversity losses1. Approximately 60% of tropical forests have already been lost or severely degraded2, making restoration essential to achieve conservation goals. Recovery trajectories of trees have been studied intensively3,4, but a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity recovery is lacking.
Forest loss is a significant global problem. Forest certification schemes and protected areas are two key approaches for improving forest conservation and management outcomes, but their effectiveness in reducing national-level forest loss remains unclear. Here, we analysed an 11-year high-resolution satellite dataset on tree canopy removal from 2013 to 2023 to assess associations between forest loss, certification, protection, and economic factors globally.
Afforestation and reforestation (AR) are effective strategies for large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and climate change mitigation, as they offer the potential to sequester vegetation and soil carbon. However, the expansion of AR raises concerns about the adverse impacts on biodiversity. While local studies have assessed these impacts, global-scale evaluations remain limited. Our study addressed the need for a comprehensive approach to mitigate the risks of AR and enhance its potential as a nature-based solution for both CDR and biodiversity conservation.
Conservation has no shortage of ambitious policy. Marine protected areas now cover roughly 8% of the world’s oceans. Protected lands account for nearly a fifth of the planet’s terrestrial surface. Community forest concessions span millions of hectares across the tropics. On paper, the progress is striking.
The Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals strategy is a spatially balanced, probability-based, actionable global sampling design identifying 10,000 target locations for deep-sea visual observation (≥200 m). This sampling approach integrates four seafloor characteristics: bathymetry, geomorphology, sediment composition, and particulate organic carbon flux, while accounting for documented historical deep-submergence deployments. It aims to correct for historical observational biases across factors such as depth zones, ocean basins, geomorphology, and maritime jurisdictions.
About 70 per cent of the species on Earth are insects. They are fundamental components of most ecosystems: they comprise half of the biomass on the planet, pollinate flowers, decompose dead organic matter and play multiple roles in food webs. They are quite literally everywhere, including in and around our homes, but they have also been declining at alarming rates in many places.
The 21st issue of SWOT Report features maps and a special article on sea turtles and traditions in the Pacific Islands written by experts in the region. Other articles include updated statuses of green turtle populations, Costa Rica’s newest arribada beach, and more.
Biodiversity is declining in many parts of the world. Biological diversity measurement and monitoring are fundamental to the assessment of the causes and consequences of environmental changes, identification of key areas for the protection of biodiversity or ecosystem services, determining the effectiveness of actions, and the creation of decision-support tools critical to maintaining a sustainable planet. Biodiversity measurement is rapidly changing due to advances in citizen science, image recognition, acoustic monitoring, environmental DNA, genomics, remote sensing, and AI.
The assessment aligns with the Pacific Coral Reef Action Plan 2021–2030, supporting key action areas such as capacity building, habitat conservation, and research utilisation. Rather than imposing a uniform regional model, the recommendations emphasise tailored approaches that reflect national and sub regional priorities and governance structures, particularly given responsibilities for reef monitoring and management can vary from community-led to government-driven systems.
