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Approaches to financing biodiversity conservation tend to focus on funding gaps, but fail to address underlying political and economic drivers. We propose two strategies — tax reform and debt justice — to supercharge public financing for biodiversity and deflate harmful financial flows, while chipping away at the causes of state austerity.
Advances in spatial biodiversity science and nationally available data have enabled the development of indicators that report on biodiversity outcomes, account for uneven global biodiversity between countries, and provide direct planning support. We urge their inclusion in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Comparative analysis using cross-cultural data has a long tradition in anthropology and applications by ecologically minded researchers have exploded in the past decade. Here we discuss problems and recommend solutions for use of cross-cultural datasets in ecology.
Global spatial information on biodiversity, carbon storage and land-use abound. Yet maps are conspicuously absent from national climate and biodiversity strategies, hampering integrated approaches to meeting economic, social and environmental objectives, including those under the forthcoming Global Biodiversity Framework.
Global priority maps have been transformative for conservation, but now have questionable utility and may crowd out other forms of research. Conservation must re-engage with contextually rich knowledge that builds global understanding from the ground up.
Recent advances in AI-based 3D protein structure prediction could help address health-related questions, but may also have far-reaching implications for evolution. Here we discuss the advantages and limitations of high-quality 3D structural predictions by AlphaFold2 in unravelling the relationship between protein properties and their impact on fitness, and emphasize the need to integrate in silico structural predictions with functional genomic studies.
The future of SARS-CoV-2, including the possibility of elimination and eradication, remains uncertain, but much hinges on characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 immunity. The next few months to a year is a critical period for understanding these characteristics.
Global scientific partnerships should generate and share knowledge equitably, but too often exploit research partners in lower-income countries, while disproportionately benefitting those in higher-income countries. Here, I outline my suggestions for more-equitable partnerships.
Global conceptions of Antarctica are dominated by colonial narratives despite an ostensibly collaborative paradigm. We argue that an Indigenous Māori framework centring relational thinking and connectedness, humans and non-human kin, and drawing on concepts of both reciprocity and responsibility, offers transformational insight into true collective management and conservation of Antarctica.
Concerted conservation efforts have led to a remarkable recovery of multiple green turtle (Chelonia mydas) populations worldwide. The voracious feeding of these returning populations is radically transforming tropical seagrass habitats in ways that prompt a re-think of the reference state and management plans for seagrass meadows.
At 50, the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, 1971) has a mixed legacy. To survive and stay relevant in the Anthropocene, the convention will need to embrace new ecological thinking and conservation approaches.
