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The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) will become the most important multilateral agreement to guide biodiversity conservation actions globally over the coming decades. An ecosystem goal and various targets for maintaining integrity, restoring degraded ecosystems, and achieving representation in conservation areas feature throughout the GBF. Here, we propose an operational framework that combines disparate information on ecosystem type, extent, integrity, levels of protection, and risk of collapse to support the identification of irreplaceable ‘Critical Ecosystem Areas’ (CEAs), to help advance these ecosystem targets. The framework classifies each component ecosystem based on its integrity, importance in ensuring no ecosystem collapse and its relative value to achieving representation if protected. These CEAs are immediate conservation opportunities, given that they achieve multiple ecosystem goals and targets in the GBF. We showcase its application using Myanmar’s forested ecosystems as a case study and argue that it could be immediately used across all terrestrial ecosystems.

Forested Indigenous lands typically maintain high levels of forest integrity. A new study found that this is particularly true for Indigenous lands within tropical protected areas. Better recognising the importance of Indigenous lands is key to new global conservation goals.

Marine species are declining at an unprecedented rate, catalyzing many nations to adopt conservation and management targets within their jurisdictions. However, marine species and the biophysical processes that sustain them are naive to international borders. An understanding of the prevalence of cross-border species distributions is important for informing high-level conservation strategies, such as bilateral or regional agreements. Here, we examined 28,252 distribution maps to determine the number and locations of transboundary marine plants and animals. More than 90% of species have ranges spanning at least two jurisdictions, with 58% covering more than 10 jurisdictions. All jurisdictions have at least one transboundary species, with the highest concentrations of transboundary species in the USA, Australia, Indonesia, and the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. Distributions of mapped biodiversity indicate that overcoming the challenges of multinational governance is critical for a much wider suite of species than migratory megavertebrates and commercially exploited fish stocks-the groups that have received the vast majority of multinational management attention. To effectively protect marine biodiversity, international governance mechanisms (particularly those related to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Migratory Species, and Regional Seas Organizations) must be expanded to promote multinational conservation planning, and complimented by a holistic governance framework for biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.

Despite substantial conservation efforts, the loss of ecosystems continues globally, along with related declines in species and nature's contributions to people. An effective ecosystem goal, supported by clear milestones, targets and indicators, is urgently needed for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and beyond to support biodiversity conservation, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and efforts to abate climate change. Here, we describe the scientific foundations for an ecosystem goal and milestones, founded on a theory of change, and review available indicators to measure progress. An ecosystem goal should include three core components: area, integrity and risk of collapse. Targets-the actions that are necessary for the goals to be met-should address the pathways to ecosystem loss and recovery, including safeguarding remnants of threatened ecosystems, restoring their area and integrity to reduce risk of collapse and retaining intact areas. Multiple indicators are needed to capture the different dimensions of ecosystem area, integrity and risk of collapse across all ecosystem types, and should be selected for their fitness for purpose and relevance to goal components. Science-based goals, supported by well-formulated action targets and fit-for-purpose indicators, will provide the best foundation for reversing biodiversity loss and sustaining human well-being.

Summary Human pressure mapping is important for understanding humanity's role in shaping Earth's patterns and processes. Our ability to map this influence has evolved, thanks to powerful computing, Earth-observing satellites, and new bottom-up census and crowd-sourced data. Here, we provide the latest temporally inter-comparable maps of the terrestrial human footprint and assessment of change in human pressure at global, biome, and ecoregional scales. In 2013, 42% of terrestrial Earth could be considered relatively free of direct anthropogenic disturbance, and 25% could be classed as “wilderness” (the least degraded end of the human footprint spectrum). Between 2000 and 2013, 1.9 million km2—an area the size of Mexico—of land relatively free of human disturbance became highly modified. The majority of this occurred within tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannah, and shrubland ecosystems, but the rainforests of Southeast Asia also underwent rapid modification. Our results show that humanity's footprint is eroding Earth's last intact ecosystems, and greater efforts are urgently needed to retain them.

Despite substantial biodiversity conservation efforts over the past two decades, Earth's biodiversity is rapidly declining. We identify global priorities for the expansion of marine conservation efforts, aiming to conserve at least 10% of the range of all 22,885 mapped marine species. We found that a minimum of 8.5 million km2 (2.5% of the ocean) of new conservation areas are required, and show that, in total, at least 26% of the ocean needs effective conservation to preserve marine biodiversity. For each priority area, we recommend broad conservation responses—ranging from marine protected areas to large-scale policy approaches (e.g., fisheries regulations)—best suited to mitigate threats to biodiversity in that area. With a post-2020 global biodiversity agreement currently under development, our analysis provides insights into the scale of conservation action required across the marine realm and identifies new areas that clearly warrant conservation attention.

Human activities such as urbanization, infrastructure and agriculture are driving global biodiversity declines. In an attempt to balance economic development goals with biodiversity conservation, governments and industry apply a decision‐making framework known as the mitigation hierarchy, with a goal of achieving no net loss or net gain outcomes for biodiversity. Successful application of the mitigation hierarchy requires biodiversity assessments and spatial planning to inform the design of mitigation policies, identify priority areas for biodiversity conservation and impact avoidance, assess the biodiversity impacts of developments, and identify appropriate mitigation measures including offsetting residual impacts. However, guidance on the necessary data and assessment techniques is often lacking, especially in countries where formal mitigation policies do not exist or are in their infancy. Here, we discuss and demonstrate analyses that can help answer some key questions for formulating effective mitigation policies and applying the mitigation hierarchy. We focus on data and analyses that can inform the avoidance and offset steps in particular, and demonstrate these techniques using a case study in Mozambique. While these analyses will not replace field‐based assessments for projects, they offer rapid, low‐cost approaches to support scoping and development of mitigation policy, planning and decision‐making, especially in relatively data‐poor regions.

Management of the land-sea interface is essential for global conservation and sustainability objectives because coastal regions maintain natural processes that support biodiversity and the livelihood of billions of people. However, assessments of coastal regions have focused strictly on either the terrestrial or marine realm. Consequently, understanding of the overall state of Earth's coastal regions is poor. We integrated the terrestrial human footprint and marine cumulative human impact maps in a global assessment of the anthropogenic pressures affecting coastal regions. Of coastal regions globally, 15.5% had low anthropogenic pressure, mostly in Canada, Russia, and Greenland. Conversely, 47.9% of coastal regions were heavily affected by humanity, and in most countries (84.1%)50% of their coastal regions were degraded. Nearly half (43.3%) of protected areas across coastal regions were exposed to high human pressures. To meet global sustainability objectives, all nations must undertake greater actions to preserve and restore the coastal regions within their borders.costa, huella humana, impacto humano cumulativo, litoral, presión humana, restauración, tierras vírgenes Resumen El manejo de la interfaz entre la tierra y el mar es esencial para los objetivos mundiales de conservación y sustentabilidad ya que las regiones costeras mantienen los procesos naturales que sostienen a la biodiversidad y al sustento de miles de millones de personas. Sin embargo, los análisis de las regiones costeras se han enfocado estrictamente en el ámbito marino o en el terrestre, pero no en ambos. Por consiguiente, el conocimiento del estado general de las regiones costeras del planeta es muy pobre. Integramos la huella terrestre humana y mapas marinos del impacto humano cumulativo en un análisis global de las presiones antropogénicas que afectan las áreas costeras. De las áreas costeras de todo el mundo, el 15.5% tuvieron una presión antropogénica reducida, principalmente en Canadá, Rusia y Groenlandia. En cambio, el 47.9% de las regiones costeras estuvieron fuertemente afectas por la humanidad, y en la mayoría de los países (84.1%)50% de sus regiones litorales se encuentran degradadas. Casi la mitad (43.3%) de las áreas protegidas en las regiones costeras tienen un grado de exposición a fuertes presiones humanas. Para cumplir los objetivos mundiales de sustentabilidad, todos los países deben emprender mejores acciones para preservar y restaurar las regiones litorales dentro de sus fronteras.

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.

Funder: The University of Queensland, Many threats to biodiversity can be predicted and are well mapped but others are uncertain in their extent, impact on biodiversity, and ability for conservation efforts to address, making them more difficult to account for in spatial conservation planning efforts, and as a result, they are often ignored. Here, we use a spatial prioritisation analysis to evaluate the consequences of considering only relatively well-mapped threats to biodiversity and compare this with planning scenarios that also account for more uncertain threats (in this case mining and armed conflict) under different management strategies. We evaluate three management strategies to address these more uncertain threats: 1. to ignore them; 2. avoid them; or 3. specifically target actions towards them, first individually and then simultaneously to assess the impact of their inclusion in spatial prioritisations. We apply our approach to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and identify priority areas for conserving biodiversity and carbon sequestration services. We found that a strategy that avoids addressing threats of mining and armed conflict more often misses important opportunities for biodiversity conservation, compared to a strategy that targets action towards areas under threat (assuming a biodiversity benefit is possible). We found that considering mining and armed conflict threats to biodiversity independently rather than simultaneously results in 13 800-14 800 km2 and 15 700-25 100 km2 of potential missed conservation opportunities when undertaking threat-avoiding and threat-targeting management strategies, respectively. Our analysis emphasises the importance of considering all threats that can be mapped in spatial conservation prioritisation.

A growing number of companies have announced zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) to eliminate commodities produced at the expense of forests from their supply chains. Translating these aspirational goals into forest conservation requires forest mapping and monitoring (M&M) systems that are technically adequate and therefore credible, salient so that they address the needs of decision makers, legitimate in that they are fair and unbiased, and scalable over space and time. We identify 12 attributes of M&M that contribute to these goals and assess how two prominent ZDC programs, the Amazon Soy Moratorium and the High Carbon Stock Approach, integrate these attributes into their M&M systems. These programs prioritize different attributes, highlighting fundamental trade-offs in M&M design. Rather than prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution, we provide policymakers and practitioners with guidance on the design of ZDC M&M systems that fit their specific use case and that may contribute to more effective implementation of ZDCs.

Management of the land-sea interface is considered essential for global conservation and sustainability objectives, as coastal regions maintain natural processes that support biodiversity and the livelihood of billions of people. However, assessments of coastal regions have focused on either strictly the terrestrial or marine realm, and as a consequence, we still have a poor understanding of the overall state of Earth’s coastal regions. Here, by integrating the terrestrial human footprint and marine cumulative human impact maps, we provide a global assessment of the anthropogenic pressures affecting coastal areas. Just 15.5% of coastal areas globally can be considered having low anthropogenic pressure, mostly found in Canada, Russia, and Greenland. Conversely, 47.9% of coastal regions are heavily impacted by humanity with most countries (84.1%) having >50% of their coastal regions degraded. Nearly half (43.3%) of protected areas across coastal regions are exposed to high human pressures. In order to meet global sustainability objectives, we identify those nations that must undertake greater actions to preserve and restore coastal regions so as to ensure global sustainable development objectives can be met.

Measuring forest degradation is important for understanding and designing measures to protect biodiversity and the capacity of forests to deliver ecosystem services. Conservation planning, particularly the prioritization of management interventions for forests, is often lacking spatial data on ecological condition, and it is often overlooked within decision-making processes. Existing methods for assessing forest degradation via proxies or binary measures (i.e. intact or not) cannot adequately consider the important variations of ecological condition. Direct methods to measure degradation (e.g. through remote sensing) require extensive training data, calibration and validation, and may be too sensitive to small-scale or short-term changes which may not be related to degradation. We developed a metric termed Forest Condition (FC) which aims to measure the degree of forest degradation, incorporating temporal history of forest change over a large spatial extent. We parameterized this metric based on estimated changes in above ground biomass in the context of forest fragmentation over time to estimate a continuous measure of forest degradation for Congo Basin countries. We estimate that just less than 70% of Congo Basin forests remain fully intact. FC was validated by direct remote sensing measurements from Landsat imagery for DRC. Results showed that FC was significantly positively correlated with forest canopy cover, gap area per hectare, and magnitude of temporal change in Normalized Burn Ratio. We tested the ability of FC to distinguish primary and secondary degradation and deforestation and found significant differences in gap area and spectral anomalies to validate our theoretical model. We used the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems criteria to demonstrate the value of applying forest degradation to assess the risk of ecosystem collapse. Based on this assessment, we found that without including FC in the assessment of biotic disruption, 12 ecosystems could not have a threat status assigned, and a further 9 ecosystems would have a lower threat status. Our overall assessment of ecosystems found approximately half of forest of Congo Basin ecosystem types which cover over 20% of all forest area are threatened including 4 ecosystems (

Despite substantial conservation efforts, the loss of ecosystems continues globally, along with related declines in species and nature's contributions to people. An effective ecosystem goal, supported by clear milestones, targets and indicators, is urgently needed for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and beyond to support biodiversity conservation, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and efforts to abate climate change. Here, we describe the scientific foundations for an ecosystem goal and milestones, founded on a theory of change, and review available indicators to measure progress. An ecosystem goal should include three core components: area, integrity and risk of collapse. Targets-the actions that are necessary for the goals to be met-should address the pathways to ecosystem loss and recovery, including safeguarding remnants of threatened ecosystems, restoring their area and integrity to reduce risk of collapse and retaining intact areas. Multiple indicators are needed to capture the different dimensions of ecosystem area, integrity and risk of collapse across all ecosystem types, and should be selected for their fitness for purpose and relevance to goal components. Science-based goals, supported by well-formulated action targets and fit-for-purpose indicators, will provide the best foundation for reversing biodiversity loss and sustaining human well-being.

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally., Mapping and quantifying degree of forest modification is critical to conserve and manage forests. Here the authors propose a new quantitative metric for landscape integrity and apply it to a global forest map, showing that less than half of the world’s forest cover has high integrity, most of which is outside nationally designed protected areas.

Myanmar is highly biodiverse, with more than 16,000 plant, 314 mammal, 1131 bird, 293 reptile, and 139 amphibian species. Supporting this biodiversity is a variety of natural ecosystems—mostly undescribed—including tropical and subtropical forests, savannas, seasonally inundated wetlands, extensive shoreline and tidal systems, and alpine ecosystems. Although Myanmar contains some of the largest intact natural ecosystems in Southeast Asia, remaining ecosystems are under threat from accelerating land use intensification and over-exploitation. In this period of rapid change, a systematic risk assessment is urgently needed to estimate the extent and magnitude of human impacts and identify ecosystems most at risk to help guide strategic conservation action. Here we provide the first comprehensive conservation assessment of Myanmar’s natural terrestrial ecosystems using the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria. We identified 64 ecosystem types for the assessment, and used models of ecosystem distributions and syntheses of existing data to estimate declines in distribution, range size, and functioning of each ecosystem. We found that more than a third (36.9%) of Myanmar’s area has been converted to anthropogenic ecosystems over the last 2-3 centuries, leaving nearly half of Myanmar’s ecosystems threatened (29 of 64 ecosystems). A quarter of Myanmar’s ecosystems were identified as Data Deficient, reflecting a paucity of studies and an urgency for future research. Our results show that, with nearly two-thirds of Myanmar still covered in natural ecosystems, there is a crucial opportunity to develop a comprehensive protected area network that sufficiently represents Myanmar’s terrestrial ecosystem diversity.

SummaryOur ability to map humanity’s influence across Earth has evolved, thanks to powerful computing, a network of earth observing satellites, and new bottom-up census and crowd-sourced data. Here, we provide the latest temporally inter-comparable maps of the terrestrial Human Footprint, and assessment of change in human pressure at global, biome, and ecoregional scales. In 2013, 42% of terrestrial Earth could be considered relatively free of anthropogenic disturbance, and 25% could be classed as ‘wilderness’ (the least degraded end of the human footprint spectrum). Between 2000 and 2013, 1.9 million km2 - an area the size of Mexico - of land relatively free of human disturbance became highly modified. The majority of this occurred within tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannah, and shrubland ecosystems, but the rainforests of Southeast Asia also underwent rapid modification. Our results show that humanity’s footprint is eroding Earth’s last intact ecosystems, and greater efforts are urgently needed to retain them.

Degradation and loss of natural habitat is the major driver of the current global biodiversity crisis. Most habitat conservation efforts to date have targeted small areas of highly threatened habitat, but emerging debate suggests retaining large intact natural systems may be just as important. We reconcile these perspectives by integrating fine-resolution global data on habitat condition and species assemblage turnover, to identify Earth’s high-value biodiversity habitat. These are areas in better condition than most other locations once supporting a similar assemblage of species, and are found within both intact regions and human dominated landscapes. However, only 18.6 % of this high-value habitat is currently protected globally. Averting permanent biodiversity loss requires clear spatially explicit targets for retaining these unprotected high-value habitats.

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remains poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate the first globally-consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km2 of forest (40.5%) have high landscape level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally-designated protected areas. Of the forest in protected areas, only 56% has high landscape level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally.

Human activities are altering natural areas worldwide. While our ability to map these activities at fine scales is improving, a simplistic binary characterization of habitat and non‐habitat with a focus on change in habitat extent has dominated conservation assessments across different spatial scales. Here, we provide a metric that captures both habitat loss, quality and fragmentation effects which, when combined, we call intactness. We identify nine categories of intactness of the world's terrestrial ecoregions based on changes in intactness across a 16‐year period. We found that highly impacted and degraded categories are predominant (74%) and just 6% of ecoregions are on improving trajectories. It is essential that management of degrading processes be targeted in international agendas in order to ensure that Earth's remaining intact ecosystems are effectively conserved and restored in order to achieve effective conservation outcomes.

Loss of habitats or ecosystems arising from development projects (e.g., infrastructure, resource extraction, urban expansion) are frequently addressed through biodiversity offsetting. As currently implemented, offsetting typically requires an outcome of “no net loss” of biodiversity, but only relative to a baseline trajectory of biodiversity decline. This type of “relative” no net loss entrenches ongoing biodiversity loss, and is misaligned with biodiversity targets that require “absolute” no net loss or “net gain.” Here, we review the limitations of biodiversity offsetting, and in response, propose a new framework for compensating for biodiversity losses from development in a way that is aligned explicitly with jurisdictional biodiversity targets. In the framework, targets for particular biodiversity features are achieved via one of three pathways: Net Gain, No Net Loss, or (rarely) Managed Net Loss. We outline how to set the type (“Maintenance” or “Improvement”) and amount of ecological compensation that is appropriate for proportionately contributing to the achievement of different targets. This framework advances ecological compensation beyond a reactive, ad‐hoc response, to ensuring alignment between actions addressing residual biodiversity losses and achievement of overarching targets for biodiversity conservation.

Threats to biodiversity and the integrity of ecological systems are escalating globally, both within and outside of protected areas. Decision makers have inadequate resources to manage all threats and typically lack information on the likely outcomes and cost‐effectiveness of possible management strategies. Priority Threat Management (PTM) is an emerging approach designed to address this challenge, by defining and appraising cost‐effective strategies for mitigating threats to biodiversity across regions. The scientific and practical impacts of PTM are increasing, with a growing number of case study applications across the globe. Here, we provide guidance and resource material for conducting the PTM process based on our experience delivering six large‐scale projects across Australia and Canada. Our handbook describes the four stages of PTM: scoping and planning; defining and collecting key elements; analysing the cost‐effectiveness of strategies; and communicating and integrating recommendations. We summarise critical tips, strengths, and limitations and scope for possible enhancements of the approach. Priority Threat Management harnesses scientific and expert‐derived information to prioritise management strategies based on their benefit to biodiversity, management costs and feasibility. The approach involves collaboration with key experts and stakeholders in a region to improve knowledge sharing and conservation support. The PTM approach identifies sets of regional level strategies that together provide the greatest benefits for multiple species under a limited budget, which can be used to inform existing processes for decision‐making. The PTM approach applies some generalisations in management strategies and resolution, in order to address complex challenges. Further developments of the approach include testing in a greater range of socioecological systems with adaptations that cater for multiobjective decisions. Synthesis and applications. Priority Threat Management is a decision science approach that brings people together to define and prioritise strategies for managing threats to biodiversity across broad regions. It delivers a prospectus for investment in the biodiversity of a region that is transparent, repeatable, participatory, and based on the best available information. Our handbook provides the necessary guidance and resources for expanding the Priority Threat Management approach to new locations, contexts, and challenges.

Although marine protected areas can simultaneously contribute to biodiversity conservation and fisheries management, the global network is biased toward particular ecosystem types because they have been established primarily in an ad hoc fashion. The optimization of trade-offs between biodiversity benefits and socioeconomic values increases success of protected areas and minimizes enforcement costs in the long run, but it is often neglected in marine spatial planning (MSP). Although the acquisition of spatially explicit socioeconomic data is perceived as a costly or secondary step in MSP, it is critical to account for lost opportunities by people whose activities will be restricted, especially fishers. We developed an easily reproduced habitat-based approach to estimate the spatial distribution of opportunity cost to fishers in data-poor regions. We assumed the most accessible areas have higher economic and conservation values than less accessible areas and their designation as no-take zones represents a loss of fishing opportunities. We estimated potential distribution of fishing resources from bathymetric ranges and benthic habitat distribution and the relative importance of the different resources for each port of total catches, revenues, and stakeholder perception. In our model, we combined different cost layers to produce a comprehensive cost layer so that we could evaluate of trade-offs. Our approach directly supports conservation planning, can be applied generally, and is expected to facilitate stakeholder input and community acceptance of conservation.

International audience; Systematic conservation planning (SCP) to design marine protected areas (MPAs) has traditionally focused on species distributions or benthic habitat features that drive the determination of conservation priorities. Pelagic ecosystem protection is usually incidental because these ecosystems are often datapoor and are difficult to visualize in a planning context. Pelagic ecosystems, however, face increasing and cumulative impacts from threats such as overfishing and climate change, and a precautionary approach is required to protect both known and unknown biodiversity patterns and ecosystem processes. Data-driven pelagic habitat classifications are important when planning for habitat protection in the absence of sufficient in-situ data. In this study, we describe a method for creating a bioregional map of the upper-mixed layer of South Africa's pelagic realm. We selected relevant variables and parameters that best reflect key ecosystem properties at broad, meso, and local scales. We conducted a hierarchal cluster analysis using open-access sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a (chl-a), net primary productivity (NPP), mean sea level anomalies (MSLA), and seabed slope and depth data. The resulting map delineates three bioregions subdivided into seven biozones and sixteen pelagic habitats within South Africa's continental Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This habitat map was incorporated into SCP of a proposed expanded MPA network that includes offshore protected areas and meets National objectives. The proposed network will increase protection of the pelagic realm (>30 m depth) of the EEZ from 0.002% to 6.0%. We contend that bioregional analyses based on publicly available remote-sensing data are useful for identification of offshore habitats, especially when robust biological data are unavailable, as a framework for ecosystem reporting, and for inclusion in a systematic design for a representative offshore MPA network. Further research should focus on modelling and mapping the permanence of pelagic habitats and different spatio-temporal scales of variability, validating habitat boundaries with biological data, and understanding the threats and efficacy of achieving pelagic protection through management mechanisms like MPAs.

The forests of Central Africa contain some of Earth's few remaining intact forests. These forests are increasingly threatened by infrastructure development, agriculture, and unsustainable extraction of natural resources (e.g. minerals, bushmeat, and timber), all of which is leading to deforestation and forest degradation, particularly defaunation, and hence causing declines in biodiversity and a significant increase in carbon emissions. Given the pervasive nature of these threats, the global importance of Central African forests for biodiversity conservation, and the limited resources for conservation and sustainable management, there is a need to identify where the most important areas are to orientate conservation efforts. We developed a novel approach for identifying spatial priorities where conservation efforts can maximize biodiversity benefits within Central Africa's most intact forest areas. We found that the Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest amount of priority areas in the region, containing more than half, followed by Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Cameroon. We compared our approach to one that solely prioritizes forest intactness and one that aims to achieve only biodiversity representation objectives. We found that when priorities are only based on forest intactness (without considering biodiversity representation), there are significantly fewer biodiversity benefits and vice versa. We therefore recommend multi-objective planning that includes biodiversity representation and forest intactness to ensure that both objectives are maximized. These results can inform various types of conservation strategies needed within the region, including land-use planning, jurisdictional REDD + initiatives, and performance related carbon payments, protected area expansion, community forest management, and forest concession plans.

[Excerpt:] Myanmar's Red List of Ecosystems is a tool to understand our threats and plan for conservation and sustainable management. Forests constitute the dominant ecosystems in Myanmar, and we are blessed with high forest cover (42.92%) and diversity, with 36 of our 64 ecosystems identified as forest and mangrove. These forests and biodiversity underpin a range of ecosystem services which are central to Myanmar’s sustainable development, supporting human and resource needs, and contributing to a more stable climate. The loss of forests and our biodiversity leads to degradation and deterioration of ecosystem services and threatens Myanmar’s irreplaceable ecological heritage. We often discuss ecosystem services but this study documents Myanmar’s terrestrial ecosystem typology and spatial distribution for the first time. This is one of the first ecosystem red lists developed within ASEAN and this will inform our implementation for decades to come to inform legislation, land-use planning, protected area expansion, monitoring and reporting, and ecosystem management. To sustain our forests and our biodiversity we need to sustainably manage all of these incredible ecosystems.

Marine biodiversity is under extreme pressure from anthropogenic activity globally, leading to calls to protect at least 10% of the world’s oceans within marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2020. Fulfilling such commitments, however, requires a detailed understanding of the distribution of potentially detrimental human activities, and their predicted impacts. One such approach that is being increasingly used to strengthen our understanding of human impacts is cumulative impact mapping; as it can help identify economic sectors with the greatest potential impact on species and ecosystems in order to prioritise conservation management strategies, providing clear direction for intervention. In this paper, we present the first local cumulative utilisation impact mapping exercise for the Bioko-Corisco-Continental area of Equatorial Guinea’s Exclusive Economic Zone – situated in the Gulf of Guinea one of the most important and least studied marine regions in the Eastern Central Atlantic. This study examines the potential impact of ten direct anthropogenic activities on a suite of key marine megafauna species and reveals that the most suitable habitats for these species, located on the continental shelf, are subject to the highest threat scores. However, in some coastal areas, the persistence of highly suitable habitat subject to lower threat scores suggests that there are still several strategic areas that are less impacted by human activity that may be suitable sites for protected area expansion. Highlighting both the areas with potentially the highest impact, and those with lower impact levels, as well as particularly damaging activities can inform the direction of future conservation initiatives in the region.

Despite global policy commitments to preserve Earth’s marine biodiversity, many species are in a state of decline. Using data on 22,885 marine species, we identify 8.5 million km2 of priority areas that complement existing areas of conservation and biodiversity importance. New conservation priorities are found in over half (56%) of all coastal nations, with key priority regions in the northwest Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. We identify where different conservation actions, ranging from marine protected areas to broader policy approaches, may best overcome anthropogenic threats to these areas. This analysis shows 26-41% of the ocean (depending on targets used for species representation) needs to be effectively conserved through a combination of site-based actions and wider policy responses to achieve global conservation and sustainable development agendas.One Sentence SummaryAt least 26% of the ocean needs a combination of site-based conservation and wider policy responses to achieve global conservation goals.

More complete accounting reveals how intact tropical forest loss plays a larger-than-realized role in exacerbating climate change., Intact tropical forests, free from substantial anthropogenic influence, store and sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon but are currently neglected in international climate policy. We show that between 2000 and 2013, direct clearance of intact tropical forest areas accounted for 3.2% of gross carbon emissions from all deforestation across the pantropics. However, full carbon accounting requires the consideration of forgone carbon sequestration, selective logging, edge effects, and defaunation. When these factors were considered, the net carbon impact resulting from intact tropical forest loss between 2000 and 2013 increased by a factor of 6 (626%), from 0.34 (0.37 to 0.21) to 2.12 (2.85 to 1.00) petagrams of carbon (equivalent to approximately 2 years of global land use change emissions). The climate mitigation value of conserving the 549 million ha of tropical forest that remains intact is therefore significant but will soon dwindle if their rate of loss continues to accelerate.

SUMMARYMarine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems face increasing anthropogenic threats that are exacerbated by the ecological connectivity between realms; integrated land-sea management (ILSM) is a framework that can help address this connectivity. However, gaps in our knowledge regarding ILSM remain. This study reviewed 108 relevant studies to understand how ILSM is being utilized. Summarized are: (1) characteristics of integrated land-sea programs; (2) recommendations made from the literature for program planning, implementation and management; (3) how applied programs have been planned, implemented and managed; and (4) recommendations for undertaking ILSM. It was found that applied programs did not often adhere to the strategies recommended by theoretical papers. Applied programs were less likely than theoretical papers to specifically name the land-sea connection, over 50% did not apply a framework or governance approach, many did not include key stakeholders, and over 80% listed at least one conflict or hurdle that decreased program success. This study highlighted the difficulties of undertaking ILSM given the high number of stakeholders, government agencies and experts involved. Based on the findings, recommendations for future ILSM programs are provided.