Conservation Letters最新文献

The environmental and social sustainability of seafood is jeopardized by rampant illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Regulations implemented by fishing countries and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations are insufficient to combat illegal fishing; complementary efforts from the consumer end of the supply chain are essential. Despite the growing reliance on imported seafood globally, only three market states have implemented legislation to regulate the legality of seafood products from other countries. We provide an overview of existing import regulations to address widespread confusion about the structure and scope of these measures. We propose eight key design criteria for more effective seafood import controls, emphasizing the need for a centralized, fully electronic catch documentation scheme with automated fraud checks and a broad scope of species covered. Broad adoption of import controls across more countries can collectively enhance global efforts to curb illegal seafood trade. Countries developing new seafood import policies, such as Australia, have the opportunity to design a world-leading system that encourages multilateral cooperation to help combat illegal fishing. Through the implementation of import regulations that address key flaws in existing frameworks, consumer countries can foster a more cohesive and effective front against illegally sourced seafood, improving the sustainability of global fisheries.

The western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) is classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with an 80% decrease decline between 1990 and 2014. A major threat to its survival is the illegal trade in live chimpanzees (ITLC), a highly organized criminal activity with national and international scope. Here, we compile the existing information on ITLC in Guinea-Bissau, highlight relevant knowledge gaps, and suggest immediate conservation management actions. ITLC in Guinea-Bissau is likely extensive and is a major factor contributing to the declining of the chimpanzee population. The most urgent measures needed to prevent the ITLC in Guinea-Bissau are to (i) build a centralized database containing information on wildlife kept as pets, (ii) train officials on national and international laws and regulations related to the wildlife trade and to identify protected and threatened species, (iii) define/update penalties for perpetrators holding live chimpanzees, (iv) raising awareness in society on the risks of maintaining wildlife, (v) investigate the ITLC supply trade-chain and the actors’ profile, and (vi) build a sanctuary or rehabilitation center within Guinea-Bissau. Considering the high risk of extinction of the subspecies, addressing the ITLC in Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere in West Africa is urgent.

Global peatlands store more carbon than all the world's forests biomass on just 3% of the planet's land surface. Failure to address mounting threats to peatland ecosystems will jeopardize critical climate targets and exacerbate biodiversity loss. Our analysis reveals that 17% of peatlands are protected globally—substantially less than many other high-value ecosystems. Just 11% percent of boreal and 27% of temperate and tropical peatlands are protected, while Indigenous peoples' lands encompass at least another one-quarter of peatlands globally. Peatlands in protected areas and Indigenous peoples' lands generally face lower human pressure than outside those areas. Yet, almost half of temperate and tropical peatlands in protected areas still experience medium to high human pressure. Country submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework could help catalyze actions and secure funding for peatland conservation, including support for the Indigenous stewardship that is critical to protect many of the world's highest priority peatland areas.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is a critical tool in global conservation, providing essential information on species' conservation status worldwide. However, the current assessment process faces several challenges, including data gaps, standard inconsistencies across taxonomic groups, and a limited assessor pool. Data gaps are common for many taxa, particularly those more difficult to observe or identify with wide, fragmented ranges. We use bats as a model to highlight challenges and propose solutions relevant to many taxonomic groups. Basic presence data and population estimates are often missing, with critical information unpublished or inaccessible for assessments. Assessors are responsible for reviewing all available information, seeking advice from local or taxon-specific experts, and compiling a comprehensive species status assessment. We propose a network of regional operators, researchers, and stakeholders who could regularly contribute updated data on populations, threats, and conservation actions, employing a dynamic real-time repository. This approach would enable assessors to access an up-to-date overview, improving the Red List assessments' efficiency, accuracy, and consistency. Expanding assessors and training early-career professionals would also standardize evaluation criteria and reduce subjectivity. By capitalizing on IUCN's training expertise, these changes aim to enhance the robustness of assessments, supporting more effective, evidence-based conservation.

The cryptic nature of wildlife crimes challenges the detection and implementation of effective prevention and prosecution measures. Allocating often limited resources will benefit from increasing detectability through evidence-informed integration of sentinel GPS-tracked species. We illustrate this by analyzing the spatial use of 25 GPS-tracked griffons and 26 reintroduced bearded vultures with anti-poison canine unit patrols and a wildlife poisoning risk map in NW Spain. Vultures’ spatial use greatly correlated with high-risk areas, highlighting their role in detecting poisoning events and guiding preventive anti-poison patrolling, allowing us to approach a zonation scheme to optimize efforts in this regard. We identified poisoning hotspots where sentinel and anti-poison canine units should be reinforced and high-risk areas with low sentinel monitoring where on-ground efforts should be increased. While emphasizing the potential of GPS-tracked vultures as sentinels, our results offer an example of strategic integration to prioritize interventions and enhance their effectiveness against wildlife crimes.

With the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the international community has committed to retaining ecosystems of high ecological integrity. Monitoring progress toward this target requires the identification of suitable indicators, but these are not universally recognized. In this study, we analyze available global maps of terrestrial ecological integrity and evaluate their representation of different dimensions of integrity (structure, composition, and function). Although 73% of terrestrial surface holds conservation value according to at least one map, less than 1% of land attains high integrity according to all of them. Solely relying on one indicator map risks overlooking the integrity value of at least 41 million km² of land, with some key areas for biodiversity conservation inadequately represented by these indicators of integrity. However, when used in combination, complementary dimensions of integrity help identify an area covering 41.1% of the terrestrial surface, two-thirds requiring urgent conservation action. The synergistic use of existing measures offers considerable potential to guide the implementation of Target 1 of the GBF while supporting more equitable conservation paradigms. Developing robust indicators and understanding the link among different ecological dimensions is essential to protect ecosystems of high ecological integrity in the long term.

Trees on farms not only provide agricultural and environmental benefits but can also contribute to food security. We use panel data covering a 10-year period from the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) to examine the effects of trees on farms on people's dietary quality in rural Malawi. We found that having on-farm trees leads to higher and more diverse fruit and vegetable consumption. Specifically, households who had trees on their farm (or who acquired trees during the 10-year period) exhibited a 3% increase in vegetable consumption compared to households without trees. Moreover, for every additional tree species owned or acquired by a household during the study period, fruit consumption increased by 5%. These results demonstrate that trees on farms may play a role in meeting nutrition, conservation, and climate change mitigation goals, with important implications for sustainable development strategies in low- and middle-income countries.

Maintaining ecological connectivity is crucial for biodiversity, yet effectively managing interconnected areas through actor collaboration is challenging. This study examines collaboration through social–ecological fit in interconnected aquatic “blue” and terrestrial “green” areas, encompassing natural and semi-natural elements, in human-dominated landscapes. Combining species distribution models and connectivity analyses focused on declining amphibians and survey data on actors’ area management and collaboration within interconnected areas, we create a spatially explicit social–ecological network that we analyze using network models. Results highlight diverse ecological dependencies shaping actor interactions. Strong collaboration is observed in interconnected blue-rural-green areas, whereas blue-urban-green areas lack collaboration, with minor rivers and urban-green spaces at the network's core plagued by social–ecological misfit. Strengthening collaboration in these areas is essential to prevent further ecological network degradation. Incorporating a spatially explicit social–ecological perspective covering diverse blue and green areas guides targeted interventions and fosters effective conservation policy and practice.

Globally, hundreds of thousands of rangers patrol protected areas every day. The data they collect have immense potential for monitoring biodiversity and threats to it. Technologies like SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool), which facilitate the management of ranger-collected data, have enhanced this potential. However, based on our experience across diverse use cases and geographies, we have found that ranger-based monitoring is often implemented without a clear plan for how the data will inform management and without critical evaluation of whether the data are reliable enough to meet specific monitoring goals. Here we distill six key lessons and present a decision framework to guide funders, governments, protected area managers, and NGOs toward more effective use of ranger-based monitoring for protected area management and suggest when alternative monitoring approaches may add value. Essential considerations include the welfare and motivation of rangers, biases in patrol coverage and detectability, the capacity to analyze data, and the buy-in of those tasked with using the data to inform management decisions. When implemented well, ranger-based monitoring can help improve conservation outcomes through evaluating management interventions, more efficient deployment of limited law enforcement budgets to optimize the deterrence of illegal activities, and basic ecological monitoring.

Banning wildlife trade is an immediate measure to protect species from overexploitation. Yet, regulations on the harvest and use of natural resources might have unintended side effects beyond the policy goals. Few causal inference studies have investigated the consequences of wildlife trade bans. We use the synthetic difference-in-differences causal inference approach based on an 11-year online trade dataset to explore whether trade bans on three threatened species in Japan—giant water bugs (Kirkaldyia deyrolli), Tokyo salamanders (Hynobius tokyoensis), and golden venus chub (Hemigrammocypris neglectus)—have spillover effects on trades of substitutable nonbanned species. We found spillover effects of wildlife trade bans, leading to an increase in sales of nonbanned species in each taxon. This effect lasted over a year only for water bugs. Our results raise concerns about the unintended consequences of trade bans and underscore the importance of additional efforts concerning consumer research, monitoring and enforcement beyond the policy-targeted species.