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Conservation abandonment is a policy blind spot

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 10, pages 14–17 (2026)Cite this article

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Amidst the collective push to establish nature conservation initiatives, little attention has been paid to ensuring that they persist over time. The abandonment of conservation commitments is a blind spot that threatens progress towards global environmental goals.

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Fig. 1: A conceptual framework for abandonment of nature conservation initiatives.
Fig. 2: Examples of abandonment of conservation initiatives.

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Acknowledgements

Research funded by Leverhulme Trust research grant RPG-2021-440 (T.P., M.C. and M.M.) and Research England’s Expanding Excellence in England Fund, UK Research and Innovation (T.P.). This is contribution #23 from the Insights for Catalyzing Conservation at Scale initiative.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Thomas Pienkowski, Matt Clark.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Thomas Pienkowski, Matt Clark, Cecylia M. Watrobska & Morena Mills

  2. Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Thomas Pienkowski

  3. Thriving Oceans Hub, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Matt Clark

  4. Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Michael B. Mascia

  5. Instituto Milenio en Socio-Ecología Costera, Santiago, Chile

    María Ignacia Rivera-Hechem & Stefan Gelcich

  6. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability, Departamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Stefan Gelcich

  7. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Carly N. Cook

  8. Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, India

    Arundhati Jagadish

Authors
  1. Thomas Pienkowski
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  2. Matt Clark
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  3. Michael B. Mascia
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  4. María Ignacia Rivera-Hechem
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  5. Stefan Gelcich
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  6. Carly N. Cook
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  7. Cecylia M. Watrobska
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  8. Arundhati Jagadish
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  9. Morena Mills
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Correspondence to Thomas Pienkowski or Matt Clark.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Pienkowski, T., Clark, M., Mascia, M.B. et al. Conservation abandonment is a policy blind spot. Nat Ecol Evol 10, 14–17 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02910-5

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