The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) has established ambitious targets for ecosystem restoration, including restoring at least 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030. However, many large-scale restoration initiatives continue to prioritize tree planting over broader ecological restoration, often resulting in biodiversity loss through the use of monocultures and non-native species. Limited monitoring and reporting of biodiversity outcomes have created significant challenges in assessing restoration effectiveness and preventing unintended ecological harm. Existing international frameworks and standards provide guidance for biodiversity-centered restoration, yet gaps remain in the verification of site-level outcomes. The Global Biodiversity Standard addresses this need through an independent certification system that evaluates ecosystem integrity, biodiversity recovery, social benefits and adaptive management using established restoration principles and scientific methodologies. Supported by a coalition of restoration organizations and biodiversity experts, the standard combines rigorous assessment with local ecological knowledge to verify restoration outcomes. The authors call for policymakers, investors, businesses and philanthropists to adopt independent biodiversity certification, strengthen local expertise and shift restoration success metrics from implementation activities to measurable gains in ecosystem integrity, species recovery and biodiversity conservation.
Tag: biodiversity
Prioritizing neglected food species in nutritional studies using expert-knowledge and explainable AI
Food biodiversity is vital for human health and the development of sustainable food systems. However, research on neglected and underutilized species is limited by funding, uneven research capacity, and the challenge of balancing ecological, cultural, and public health considerations, requiring innovative prioritization approaches. Using Brazil as a model, this study inventories 369 neglected food species across algae, aquatic fauna, wild terrestrial vertebrates, insects, mushrooms, and plants. A mixed-methods approach, combining expert knowledge and explainable AI (LightGBM and SHAP value analysis), identified key factors for prioritizing species for food composition and consumption studies. The inventory is dominated by plants (29.5%) and wild vertebrates (24.4%), with significant gaps in nutritional data, particularly for algae, insects, and wild vertebrates. Over 36,000 recipes using neglected species were identified. In both food composition (R2: 0.677) and consumption studies (R2: 0.782), recipe number and species occurrence across different states were the most influential features in predicting prioritization. These findings emphasize the role of cultural uses and local accessibility in shaping nutritional research priorities. We urge increased research on neglected species to bridge data gaps and integrate them into food systems, promoting sustainable diets in Brazil and other tropical regions.
Strong floristic distinctiveness across Neotropical successional forests
Forests that naturally regenerate on abandoned fields play a crucial role in restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services, but their ability to preserve distinct regional tree floras remains a key question. A study analyzing the floristic composition of 1,215 early successional forests (≤20 years old) across 75 human-modified landscapes in the Neotropic realm identified 14 distinct floristic groups, with a high between-group dissimilarity of 0.97. These groups were strongly influenced by location, bioregions, soil pH, temperature seasonality, and water availability, highlighting the large-scale continental variation in species composition. Interestingly, human disturbance indicators did not significantly shape these floristic patterns, suggesting that biogeographic and environmental factors are the primary drivers of species distribution in early secondary forests. The distinctiveness of these forests is partly maintained by regionally restricted species within widespread genera, reinforcing their ecological importance. Given their role in conserving bioregional uniqueness, forest restoration efforts should prioritize the use of local species to ensure the preservation of these distinct floras.
Coupling Diversity Indices with Boosted Regression Trees Predicts Species Abundance and Spatial Community Patterns in Dry Afromontane Forests
Understanding how species diversity interacts with spatial environmental gradients to shape landscape-level community patterns is a central question in contemporary landscape ecology. Although predictive modelling of biodiversity is advancing globally, dry Afromontane forests remain poorly represented in analyses that link spatial heterogeneity with community structure. This study addresses this gap by integrating diversity indices with a spatially explicit Boosted Regression Tree modelling framework to predict species abundance and community patterns across the Desa’a Forest, northern Ethiopia. Data from 301 plots were used to quantify woody species richness, abundance, and community composition, and to identify the environmental controls governing the distribution of dominant species. The forest contained ninety-four woody species and 7,207 individuals, with diversity values and plot-level abundances revealing a highly heterogeneous landscape composed of species-poor and species-rich patches. Cluster analysis delineated seven ecological communities, and dominant species such as Cadia purpurea, Tarchonanthus camphoratus, and Juniperus procera contributed disproportionately to spatial variation in forest structure. Boosted Regression Tree models showed that temperature, elevation, precipitation, and slope were the strongest predictors of Juniperus procera abundance, explaining sixty-three percent of deviance and revealing a narrow elevational and climatic niche. These findings clarify how landscape-scale environmental gradients shape species distributions and community mosaics in dry Afromontane forests. By demonstrating a data-driven approach for predicting spatial community structure, this study provides a modelling framework that can enhance conservation planning and landscape-level management in biodiversity-rich mountain ecosystems worldwide.
Cost-effective global conservation spending is robust to taxonomic group
Priorities for conservation investment at a global scale that are based on a single taxon have been criticized because geographic richness patterns vary taxonomically. However, these concerns focused only on biodiversity patterns and did not consider the importance of socioeconomic factors, which must also be included if conservation funding is to be allocated efficiently. In this article, we create efficient global funding schedules that use information about conservation costs, predicted habitat loss rates, and the endemicity of seven different taxonomic groups. We discover that these funding allocation schedules are less sensitive to variation in taxon assessed than to variation in cost and threat. Two-thirds of funding is allocated to the same regions regardless of the taxon, compared with only one-fifth if threat and cost are not included in allocation decisions. Hence, if socioeconomic factors are considered, we can be more confident about global-scale decisions guided by single taxonomic groups.
One hundred questions of importance to the conservation of global biological diversity
We identified 100 scientific questions that, if answered, would have the greatest impact on conservation practice and policy. Representatives from 21 international organizations, regional sections and working groups of the Society for Conservation Biology, and 12 academics, from all continents except Antarctica, compiled 2291 questions of relevance to conservation of biological diversity worldwide. The questions were gathered from 761 individuals through workshops, email requests, and discussions. Voting by email to short-list questions, followed by a 2-day workshop, was used to derive the final list of 100 questions. Most of the final questions were derived through a process of modification and combination as the workshop progressed. The questions are divided into 12 sections: ecosystem functions and services, climate change, technological change, protected areas, ecosystem management and restoration, terrestrial ecosystems, marine ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems, species management, organizational systems and processes, societal context and change, and impacts of conservation interventions. We anticipate that these questions will help identify new directions for researchers and assist funders in directing funds.
Is wildlife research useful for wildlife conservation in the tropics?: A review for Borneo with global implications
The urgency of the tropical biodiversity crisis continues to be a major justification for wildlife research and its funding. To examine the benefits of this research for on-the-ground conservation, we focused on Borneo, where conservation has a long history and we have direct experience. We compiled, categorized and evaluated 284 publications from a broad variety of sources, 153 from peer-reviewed journals. We found that few studies address threats to species and fewer still provide input for or guidance to effective management. We consider various reasons for these shortcomings. Research is seldom judged on its relevance to pragmatic problem solving. Furthermore, many research programs lack the necessary long-term vision and organizational structure for useful applied research. We consulted conservation leaders about our conclusions and all responses suggest that our concerns are not unique to Borneo but reflect wider problems. We conclude that conservation research across most of the tropics is failing to address conservation needs. We make a number of recommendations based on our findings. Conservation biologists should place a higher priority on addressing practical conservation needs and goals.
The compatibility of properly managed productions forests with wildlife conservation in Borneo
This paper summarizes the detailed analysis of the relationship between ecological and life history characteristics of a selected number of Bornean vertebrates and their sensitivity to timber harvest and associated impacts. The data suggest that few species are negatively affected by the simple removal of commercial timber species. Associated impacts, however, such as increased hunting pressure in opened-up forest areas, increased erosion and soil compaction, slashing of lianas and ground cover vegetation, and fragmentation of once larger forest areas, can significantly reduce survival chances of wildlife populations in logged forests. Many of these negative impacts can be reduced by management interventions that do not necessarily reduce timber output from a forestry concession. Based on these findings, the authors provide recommendations for forestry managemnet that, if properly implemented, would increase the compatibility between logging and wildlife conservation.
Localising R&D in Bukidnon, Philippines: Experiences of The World Agroforestry Centre with landcare
The World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) has been part of the multi-sector effort to promote agroforestry in the Philippines, especially among upland swidden agriculturists and upland farmers. Upland farming communities represent the poorest of the poor in the rural sector and, lacking in voice, they are largely marginalized from the mainstreams of society. These conditions exist in the municipality of Lantapan in the mountainous province of Bukidnon, one of the three ICRAF research sites in the Philippines. The upland ecosystem of Lantapan represents similar upland situations in the Philippines and large parts of Southeast Asia. An old growth forest remains in the uppermost slopes while the rest of the landscape is a “mosaic” of Imperata-dominated grassland occasioned by intensive to extensive upland agriculture by both indigenous communities and migrant farmers. The forest cover of Lantapan is part of the Mt. Kitanglad Range Natural Park known for its rich biodiversity. It forms part of the headwater of the upper Manupali River, which supports a major irrigation system and feeds into a large hydropower facility that services major parts of the Mindanao Island. ICRAF’s presence in Lantapan started with its active involvement in USAID’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM-CRSP) in 1992. ICRAF played major role in R&D effort to better understand the dynamics of the upland systems in the Philippines, represented by Lantapan, as it provided leadership in the participatory development of improved agroforestry systems. ICRAF saw the vast potentials of Lantapan for agrofrestry-based R&D and established its Lantapan Research Site in 1994, its second research site in the country. In 1999, ICRAF scaled up a localised R&D strategy through Landcare. This paper describes the experiences and observations of the authors in their involvement in landcare in Lantapan and other municipalities
Ecosystems and human well-being: multiscale assessments: findings of the Sub-global Assessments Working Group of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
One of the major innovations of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is the incorporation of local and regional assessmentsù33 in allùin a global portrait of the planetÆs health. It is the first global assessment of ecosystems to include not only a diversity of ecosystems, but to draw on a wide range of cultural orientations and intellectual traditions, including those of indigenous peoples. The Sub-global Assessments Working Group integrated information from multiple sources and found that biophysical factors such as land-use change, climate change and variability, pollution, and invasive species have a significant effect on human well-being across cultures. For example, in places where there are no other social safety nets, diminished human well-being tends to increase immediate dependence on ecosystem services, which can damage the capacity of those local ecosystems, which in turn appears to increase the probability of natural disaster or conflict. Representing the baseline and framework for ongoing assessments of ecosystem and human well-being on a variety of scales around the world, Multiscale Assessments provides students, researchers, and policy-makers with the most comprehensive methodology for assessing ecosystems at local, national, and regional scales.