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China has become one of the world's largest lenders in overseas development finance. Development projects, such as roads, railways and power plants, often drive biodiversity loss and infringe on Indigenous lands, yet the risks implicit in China's overseas development finance are poorly understood. Here we examine the extent to which projects financed by China's policy banks between 2008 and 2019 occur within and adjacent to areas where large-scale investment can present considerable risks to biodiversity and Indigenous peoples. Further, we compare these risks with those posed by similar projects financed by the World Bank, previously the world's largest source of development finance. We found that 63% of China-financed projects overlap with critical habitats, protected areas or Indigenous lands, with up to 24% of the world's threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians potentially impacted by the projects. Hotspots of the risks are primarily distributed in northern sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of South America. Overall, China's development projects pose greater risks than those of the World Bank, particularly within the energy sector. These results provide an important global outlook of socio-ecological risks that can guide strategies for greening China's development finance around the world.

Understanding how private landholders make deforestation decisions is of paramount importance for conservation. Behavioural frameworks from the social sciences have a lot to offer researchers and practitioners, yet these insights remain underutilised in describing what drives landholders’ deforestation intentions under important political, social, and management contexts. Using survey data of private landholders in Queensland, Australia, we compare the ability of two popular behavioural models to predict future deforestation intentions, and propose a more integrated behavioural model of deforestation intentions. We found that the integrated model outperformed other models, revealing the importance of threat perceptions, attitudes, and social norms for predicting landholders’ deforestation intentions. Social capital, policy uncertainty, and years of experience are important contextual moderators of these psychological factors. We conclude with recommendations for promoting behaviour change in this deforestation hotspot and highlight how others can adopt similar approaches to illuminate more proximate drivers of environmental behaviours in other contexts. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01491-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Global action on climate change could generate upward of $340 billion in legal claims from oil and gas in vestors

Rapid coastal development continues to jeopardize the integrity of marine socio-ecological systems. China is now the largest bilateral creditor in the world, committing nearly half a trillion US dollars to overseas development finance since 2008. Meanwhile, there are growing concerns over the impacts of this boom in Chinese development finance on marine systems. Here, we quantify the risks of coastal development projects financed by China to marine biodiversity and coastal Indigenous communities. Ports present the greatest impact risks to marine systems, in terms of both magnitude and area at risk, with power plants, roads, and other facilities presenting relatively high localized risks. Risks are most prominent in Africa and the Caribbean, with coastal Indigenous communities in Western and Central Africa particularly vulnerable to the potential negative impacts of development. All projects present some risk to threatened marine species and potential critical habitats, but few present high risks to nearby marine protected areas. Most projects present additional risks to ecosystems that are already under increasing human pressures, but some are likely to introduce new risks to relatively intact ecosystems. “Bluing” future coastal development projects in China’s overseas development finance portfolio will require more social and environmental safeguards, higher standards for host-country impact assessments, and greater integration of land-sea risk mitigation and management approaches.

Conserving coral reefs is critical for maintaining marine biodiversity, protecting coastlines, and supporting livelihoods in many coastal communities. Climate change threatens coral reefs globally, but researchers have identified a portfolio of coral reefs (bioclimatic units [BCUs]) that are relatively less exposed to climate impacts and strongly connected to other coral reef systems. These reefs provide a proactive opportunity to secure a long-term future for coral reefs under climate change. To help guide local management efforts, we quantified marine cumulative human impact (CHI) from climate, marine, and land pressures (2013 and from 2008 to 2013) in BCUs and across countries tasked with BCU management. Additionally, we created a management index based on common management measures and policies for each pressure source (climate, marine, and land) to identify a country's intent and commitment to effectively manage these pressures. Twenty-two countries (79%) had increases in CHI from 2008 to 2013. Climate change pressures had the highest proportional contribution to CHI across all reefs and in all but one country (Singapore), but 18 BCUs (35%) and nine countries containing BCUs (32%) had relatively high land and marine impacts. There was a significant positive relationship between climate impact and the climate management index across countries (RIdentificación de Oportunidades de Gestión para Combatir las Amenazas Climáticas, Marinas y Terrestres en los Arrecifes de Coral Menos Expuestos al Clima Resumen La conservación de los arrecifes de coral es de suma importancia para mantener la biodiversidad marina y para sostener el medio de vida en muchas comunidades costeras. El cambio climático es una amenaza mundial para los arrecifes de coral; aun así, los investigadores han identificado un portafolio de arrecifes de coral (unidades bioclimáticas[UBCs]) que se encuentran relativamente menos expuestos a los impactos climáticos y están conectados a otros sistemas arrecifales. Estos arrecifes proporcionan una oportunidad proactiva de asegurar un futuro a largo plazo para los arrecifes de coral frente al cambio climático. Para ayudar a guiar los esfuerzos locales de manejo, cuantificamos el impacto humano acumulativo (IHA) sobre los ambientes marinos a partir de las presiones climáticas, marinas y terrestres (del 2008 al 2013) en las UBCs y en los países encargados del manejo de estas. Además, creamos un índice de manejo con base en las medidas y políticas comunes de gestión para cada fuente de presión (clima, ambiente marino, suelo) para identificar la intención y el compromiso de cada país para manejar de manera efectiva estas presiones. Veintidós países (79%) tuvieron incrementos en el IHA entre 2008 y 2013. Las presiones por el cambio climático tuvieron la contribución proporcional más alta al IHA en todos los arrecifes y en todos los países excepto uno (Singapur), pero 18 UBCs (35%) y nueve países que cuentan con UBCs (32%) tuvieron impactos terrestres y marinos relativamente altos. Hubo una relación positiva significativa entre el impacto climático y el índice de manejo climático entre los países (R

Rapid climate change is impacting biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human well-being. Though the magnitude and trajectory of climate change are becoming clearer, our understanding of how these changes reshape terrestrial life zones-distinct biogeographic units characterized by biotemperature, precipitation, and aridity representing broad-scale ecosystem types-is limited. To address this gap, we used high-resolution historical climatologies and climate projections to determine the global distribution of historical (1901-1920), contemporary (1979-2013), and future (2061-2080) life zones. Comparing the historical and contemporary distributions shows that changes from one life zone to another during the 20 century impacted 27 million km (18.3% of land), with consequences for social and ecological systems. Such changes took place in all biomes, most notably in Boreal Forests, Temperate Coniferous Forests, and Tropical Coniferous Forests. Comparing the contemporary and future life zone distributions shows the pace of life zone changes accelerating rapidly in the 21 century. By 2070, such changes impact an additional 62 million km (42.6% of land) under 'business-as-usual' (RCP8.5) emissions scenarios. Accelerated rates of change are observed in hundreds of ecoregions across all biomes except Tropical Coniferous Forests. While only 30 ecoregions (3.5%) had over half of their areas change to a different life zone during the 20 century, by 2070 this number is projected to climb to 111 ecoregions (13.1%) under RCP4.5 and 281 ecoregions (33.2%) under RCP8.5. We identified weak correlations between life zone change and threatened vertebrate richness, levels of vertebrate endemism, cropland extent, and human population densities within ecoregions, illustrating the ubiquitous risks of life zone changes to diverse social-ecological systems. The accelerated pace of life zone changes will increasingly challenge adaptive conservation and sustainable development strategies that incorrectly assume current ecological patterns and livelihood provisioning systems will persist.

The 1972 World Heritage Convention (WHC) and 1994 Global Strategy aim to preserve the outstanding universal value of internationally important cultural and natural sites within a "representative, balanced and credible" network of highly-protected areas. Increasing human pressures and shortfalls in representation have been documented across the World Heritage network, particularly in terrestrial and cultural sites, threatening the integrity and primary goals of the WHC. However, the conservation status of current and tentative (i.e., proposed) marine natural World Heritage areas (mnWHA) remains relatively unknown. We assessed the extent of recent (2013) and historical (2008-2013) cumulative human impacts and several metrics of representation (country, continent, ecoregion, wilderness, and 'at-risk' species) within existing and tentative mnWHAs. We found moderate yet increasing cumulative human impacts across most existing sites, and high or very high impacts across the majority of tentative sites. Climate change impacts comprised nearly 75% of impact scores, on average, and differences between land- and marine-based impacts across sites could help prioritise management decisions. Over 75% of marine ecoregions and 80% of 'at-risk' species considered in this study have no representation within the existing sites. We outline how prioritizing representation across tentative sites for future World Heritage listing could greatly increase these metrics. We urge the WHC to adopt quantitative, systematic and transparent evaluations of how current and tentative sites contribute to the overarching goals of maintaining a representative World Heritage network and preserving outstanding universal value for future generations.

On January 27, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, committing the United States to various goals within his campaign’s major climate policy, the Biden Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice. Included in this executive order is a commitment to “conserving at least 30 percent of [the United States’] lands and oceans by 2030.” This ambitious conservation target signals a promising direction for biodiversity in the United States. However, while the executive order outlines several goals for climate mitigation, the ‘30×30’ target remains vague in its objectives, actions, and implementation strategies for protecting biodiversity. Biodiversity urgently needs effective conservation action, but it remains unclear where and what this 30% target will be applied to. Achieving different climate and biodiversity objectives will require different strategies and, in combination with the associated costs of implementation, will lead to different priority areas for conservation actions. Here, we illustrate what the 30% target could look like across four objectives reflective of the ambitious goals outlined in the executive order. We compile several variations of terrestrial protected area networks guided by these different objectives and examine the trade-offs in costs, ecosystem representation, and climate mitigation potential between each. We find little congruence in priority areas across objectives, emphasizing just how crucial it will be for the Biden administration to develop clear objectives and establish appropriate performance metrics from the outset to maximize both conservation and climate outcomes in support of the 30×30 target. We discuss important considerations that must guide the administration’s conservation strategies in order to ensure meaningful conservation outcomes can be achieved over the next decade.

China has become one of the world's largest lenders in overseas development finance. Development projects, such as roads, railways and power plants, often drive biodiversity loss and infringe on Indigenous lands, yet the risks implicit in China's overseas development finance are poorly understood. Here we examine the extent to which projects financed by China's policy banks between 2008 and 2019 occur within and adjacent to areas where large-scale investment can present considerable risks to biodiversity and Indigenous peoples. Further, we compare these risks with those posed by similar projects financed by the World Bank, previously the world's largest source of development finance. We found that 63% of China-financed projects overlap with critical habitats, protected areas or Indigenous lands, with up to 24% of the world's threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians potentially impacted by the projects. Hotspots of the risks are primarily distributed in northern sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of South America. Overall, China's development projects pose greater risks than those of the World Bank, particularly within the energy sector. These results provide an important global outlook of socio-ecological risks that can guide strategies for greening China's development finance around the world.

Voluntary private land conservation (PLC) is becoming an increasingly important complement to state protected areas around the world. PLC programs can serve as valuable strategies to increase biodiversity on agricultural lands, but their effectiveness depends on high participation rates. Amidst growing concerns regarding scalability and effectiveness of conservation strategies like national parks, researchers and practitioners are looking for new strategies to increase adoption of PLC. This study investigates the demographic, social, and psychological factors associated with participation in three classes of voluntary PLC programs—grant payments, land management agreements, and covenants—and how this relates to landholders’ attitudes toward tree clearing. We compare participation rates between these programs in Queensland and identify the most frequently cited reasons why land managers have or have not participated. Land managers who are more involved in agricultural organizations and whose tree clearing decisions are more influenced by the aesthetic value of trees are more likely to have participated in one or more of these programs. Participation was highly biased toward once-off grant payments, and participation in covenants was lowest of all programs. Although 58% of land managers have never participated, nearly half expressed interest in one or more programs. A lack of program knowledge and perceived losses of autonomy were the most frequently cited barriers to participation. We conclude with recommendations for increasing participation rates and raise important questions that need to be answered in order to promote a PLC culture that effectively curbs ongoing habitat degradation.

Policy-driven shifts from net deforestation to forest expansion are being stimulated by increasing social preferences for forest ecosystem services. However, policy uncertainty can disrupt or reverse the positive effects of forest transitions. For instance, if the loss of remnant (primary) forest continues, the ecological benefits of net forest gains may be small. We investigated how peak periods of uncertainty in forest conservation policy affected forest transition outcomes in Queensland, Australia, as well as a globally-relevant biodiversity hotspot in the state, the Brigalow Belt South (BBS) bioregion. Political, socioeconomic, and biophysical factors associated with net forest cover change and remnant forest loss from 1991 to 2014 were identified through spatial longitudinal analysis. This informed a Bayesian structural causal impact assessment of command-and-control regulation and policy uncertainty on remnant and non-remnant forest cover. The results indicate that forest cover was negatively influenced by increasing temperatures, food prices, and policy uncertainty, and positively influenced by strengthening regulation. Regulation during 2007–2014 avoided 68,620 ± 19,214 km2 of deforestation (with 18,969 ± 10,340 km2 of this in remnant forests) throughout Queensland, but was ineffective on remnant forests in the BBS. For state-wide remnant forests, perverse effects from policy uncertainty (e.g. pre-emptive deforestation) were strong enough to negate regulatory impacts. This study reveals a cautionary tale for conservation policy: despite strict environmental regulations, forest transition can be delayed (or reversed) when political inconsistency or instability provoke unintended reactions from landholders Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Most of Australia's native forest vegetation is located on private land, and conservation success often depends on landholders' participation in bush management programs. To understand landholders' preferences for these programs'attributes, we surveyed 251 landholders within historical deforestation hot spots across Queensland, Australia. Landholders were asked to make pairwise comparisons of 10 nonfinancial incentives and one financial compensation scheme. Based on a latent class analysis, we identify three distinct landholder classes. We discuss the implication of our results for the future design of native vegetation management and conservation policy instruments.

Psychosocial factors determine individual and collective behaviours, and there is growing evidence of their influence on land management behaviours. Native vegetation management encompasses biophysical, economic, political, and cultural dimensions that are immensely complex, and a more thorough understanding of the personal and cultural dimensions of deforestation activity is required. We emphasise this interdisciplinary imperative using Queensland, Australia, as an exemplar case study, where the controversial Vegetation Management Act1999 has been met with significant scrutiny over its effects on private landholders and its ability to curb deforestation behaviours. We surveyed landholders across Queensland in order to identify different landholder typologies based upon (1) their recent tree clearing behaviours and (2) their psychosocial characteristics, mapped their distribution in the landscape, and determined the unique demographic and psychosocial factors associated with typology membership. We identified a heterogeneous mosaic of landholders in the clearing landscape, composed of four clearing typologies and five psychosocial typologies. Social norms, identity, trust, and security played crucial roles in distinguishing different types of landholders. The two most contrasting clearing typologies-active and inactive clearers-were primarily located in hot- and cold-spots of deforestation, respectively; in contrast, most psychosocial typologies could be found throughout the landscape, highlighting the potential benefit of complementing generalised state-wide psychosocial targets with localised behavioural targets. We discuss how conservation policy instruments can be regionally tailored, and relevant strategies for effective communication and engagement can be developed to create behaviour change by understanding the characteristics and distribution of these types of landholders. If modified top-down efforts (e.g. strategic messages, community-based communication) can be supplemented with more bottom-up approaches (e.g. collective learning, building network support), sustainable land management in deforestation hotspots around the world may be achievable.

Recent rates of deforestation on private lands in Australia rival deforestation hotspots around the world, despite conservation policies in place to avert deforestation. This study uses causal impact estimation techniques to determine if a controversial conservation policy-the Vegetation Management Act (VMA)-has successfully reduced deforestation of remnant trees in the Brigalow Belt South, a 21.6 Mha biodiversity hotspot in Queensland. Weuse covariate matching to determine the regulatory effect of the policy on deforestation rates over time, compared to two counterfactual scenarios representing upper and lower estimates of policy impact. The VMA significantly reduced the rate of remnant deforestation in the highest impact scenario, saving 17, 729 +/- 1733 ha during 2000-2016. In the lowest scenario, 'panic clearing' before and after enactment of the VMA minimized the amount of remnant forests saved and may have marginally increased deforestation relative to the counterfactual (-404 +/- 617 ha). At peak effectiveness, the VMA successfully counteracted the amount of remnant deforestation during 2010-2012, but this only represents 4.78% of the 371, 252 ha of remnant forests cleared in the bioregion since enactment in 1999. Thus, while deforestation rates in the region have substantially reduced since the policy was enacted, our results of positive yet limited direct regulatory impact suggests the policy's effectiveness is strongly confounded by other deforestation drivers, like changing socio-economic or climate conditions, as well as new social signals provoked by the policy. The mechanisms through which the policy influences deforestation behavior must be further investigated to ensure real, desirable change is achieved. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Environmental policies and regulations have been instrumental in influencing deforestation rates around the world. Understanding how these policies change stakeholder behaviours is critical for determining policy impact. In Queensland, Australia, changes in native vegetation management policy seem to have influenced land clearing behaviour of landholders. Periods of peak clearing rates have been associated with periods preceding the introduction of stricter legislation. However, the characteristics of clearing patterns during the last two decades are poorly understood. This study investigates the underlying spatiotemporal patterns in land clearing using a range of biophysical, climatic, and property characteristics of clearing events. Principal component and hierarchical cluster analyses were applied to identify dissimilarities between years along the political timeline. Overall, aggregate landholders' clearing characteristics remain generally consistent over time, though noticeable deviations are observed at smaller regional and temporal scales. While clearing patterns in some regions have shifted to reflect the policy's goals, others have experienced minimal or contradictory changes following regulation. Potential 'panic' or 'pre-emptive' effects are evident in the analysis, such as spikes in clearing for pasture expansions, but differ across regions. Because different regions are driven by different pressures, such as land availability and regulatory opportunity, it is imperative that the varying spatial and temporal behavioural responses of landholders are monitored to understand the influence of policy and its evolution. Future policy amendments would benefit from monitoring these regional responses from landholder s to better assess the effectiveness of policy and the potential perversities of policy uncertainty. Refereed/Peer-reviewed