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Humanity is on a pathway of unsustainable loss of the natural systems upon which we, and all life, rely. To date, global efforts to deliver internationally-agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services, have been poorly integrated. All these goals rely in part on preserving natural (e.g. native, largely unmodified) and semi-natural (e.g. under some form of low intensity/sustainable human use) forests, woodlands and grasslands. Here, we show how to unify these goals by empirically deriving spatially explicit, quantitative area-based targets for the retention of natural and semi-natural (e.g. native) terrestrial vegetation. We found that at least 67 million km

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Biodiversity on 2023-01-09, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14888386.2022.2150313. Deposited by shareyourpaper.org and openaccessbutton.org. We've taken reasonable steps to ensure this content doesn't violate copyright. However, if you think it does you can request a takedown by emailing help@openaccessbutton.org.

In 2018, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). It contains the definition of an OECM and related scientific and technical advice that has broadened the scope of governance authorities and areas that can be engaged and recognised in global conservation efforts. The voluntary guidance on OECMs and protected areas, also included in the decision, promotes the use of diverse, effective and equitable governance models, the integration of protected areas and OECMs into wider landscapes and seascapes, and mainstreaming of biodiversity conservation across sectors. Taken as a whole, the advice and voluntary guidance provides further clarity about the CBD Parties’ understanding of what constitutes equitable and effective area-based conservation measures within and beyond protected areas and provides standardised criteria with which to measure and report areas’ attributes and performance. This policy perspective suggests that this CBD decision represents further evidence of the evolution from the ‘new paradigm for protected areas’ to a broader ‘conserved areas paradigm’ that embodies good governance, equity and effective conservation outcomes and is inclusive of a diversity of contributions to conservation within and beyond protected areas.

Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies targeting and impacting local communities worldwide. However, research and policy implementation often fail to sufficiently consider and involve them. Therefore, we present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for eight case studies of communications regarding climate change or biodiversity loss between project teams and local communities. We develop eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, reflecting the scope of Verran (2002)'s concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. We demonstrate that applying our indicators enhances communication, although we discover a divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort. Three cases qualify for postcolonial moments , but scrutinising power relations and genuine knowledge co-production remain rare. While we verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science, their sophistication cannot substitute trust-building and epistemic/transdisciplinary awareness. Lastly, we consider that reforming inadequate funding policies helps improving the work in and with local communities.

License information: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This research was partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF (FoReSee, grant no. 01LA1811B, Economics of the Climate Change II programme; COMTESS, grant no. 01LL0911A-G, Sustainable Land Management programme; Carbiocial, grant no. 01LL0902F, Sustainable Land Management programme, ECAS-BALTIC, grant no. 03F0860G, Küno Küstenforschung Nordsee / Ostsee), the European Commission (DESIRE, project number 561638-EPP-1-2015-1-JO-EPP KA2-CBHE-JP, grant agreement number: 2012-3324/001-001), the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation VLIR-UOS (North South South Cooperation Programme ZIUS2015VOA3106), the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (CEBioS programme), the Special Research Fund of Hasselt University (BOF20TT06), the Belgian Science Policy BELSPO (EVAMAB of CEBioS programme), the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and the German Research Foundation DFG (Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2037 'CLICCS - Climate, Climatic Change, and Society', project no 390683824).

Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies worldwide, many of which target or impact local communities. Although research, international development, and policy implementation (and, thus, success in fighting both threats) require thoughtful consideration and communication of the underlying concepts, field work encounters a cascade of tangible barriers. Technoscientific representations of quantifiable causes and effects often remain alien to local perspectives, and failure to involve communities constantly and genuinely creates gaps that may ultimately prevent research and policy success. Therefore, in this article, we present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for a panel of eight case studies (covering four continents) of communications between project teams and local communities within the context of climate change or biodiversity loss. Our analysis develops eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, which we construct from the literature, in addition to Verran (2002) 's concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. Our study contributes to the (analytical) understanding of such communications, while also providing tangible insights for field work and policy recommendations. We demonstrate that applying our indicators can foster a more successful communication, although we find an apparent divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort of the project teams. While three case studies qualify for postcolonial moments, our findings show that especially the scrutiny of power relations and genuine knowledge co-production are still rare. We verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science; however, we also show that their sophistication cannot substitute other crucial factors. Instead, simple deconstruction efforts may suffice, while trust-building, proper time management, and an advanced awareness of the scientists are crucial. Lastly, we consider that reforming rigid and inadequate funding policies will help overcome significant barriers and improve the work in and with local communities.

We report on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), especially those who govern, manage and conserve their lands and waters. We explore the themes of access and use of natural resources, solidarity, decision-making, the role of governments and IPLCs in managing COVID-19, and the uptake of traditional medicine. These themes are explored through a global online survey in English, Spanish and French. We collected and analysed 133 surveys from 40 countries, using SenseMaker®, a software that enables analysis of micronarratives based on how respondents classify their own stories. We explore the themes further through case studies from Benin, Fiji, France, Gabon, Guyana, Guatemala, India and Madagascar, highlighting challenges and opportunities in how IPLCs responded to COVID-19. Our study underscores the importance of self-empowerment and recognition of IPLC rights, which allows them to use traditional medicines, meet subsistence requirements during lockdowns, help community members and neighbours to sustain livelihoods, and to govern, defend and conserve their territories. We propose key actions to support IPLCs navigate future pandemics while protecting their lands and waters.

International audience; Humanity will soon define a new era for nature—one that seeks to transform decades of underwhelming responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and diversify. However, persistent shortfalls in ecological representation and management effectiveness diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming biodiversity loss. Here we show how the expansion of protected areas by national governments since 2010 has had limited success in increasing the coverage across different elements of biodiversity (ecoregions, 12,056 threatened species, ‘Key Biodiversity Areas’ and wilderness areas) and ecosystem services (productive fisheries, and carbon services on land and sea). To be more successful after 2020, area-based conservation must contribute more effectively to meeting global biodiversity goals—ranging from preventing extinctions to retaining the most-intact ecosystems—and must better collaborate with the many Indigenous peoples, community groups and private initiatives that are central to the successful conservation of biodiversity. The long-term success of area-based conservation requires parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to secure adequate financing, plan for climate change and make biodiversity conservation a far stronger part of land, water and sea management policies.

Author(s): MacKinnon, Kathy; Smith, Risa; Dudley, Nigel; Figgis, Penelope; Hockings, Marc; Keenleyside, Karen; Laffoley, Dan; Locke, Harvey; Sandwith, Trevor; Woodley, Stephen; Wong, Mike | Abstract: Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation and have never been more relevant than at the present time when the world is facing both a biodiversity and a climate change crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has been helping to set global standards and best practice guidelines in protected area planning and management for 60 years. Following this guidance, many countries have made significant progress toward their Aichi Target 11 commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The global community will be coming together at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the CBD to set new biodiversity conservation targets for the next decade, as milestones to 2050 and a vision of “a world living in harmony with nature.” This paper lays out the WCPA perspective on priorities for supporting effective protected and conserved areas for the post-2020 era.

Work has begun in earnest to formulate a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework which will outline the vision and targets for the next decade of biodiversity conservation and beyond. However, the performance of the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity suggests that even a meaningful target can fail to deliver if not accompanied by fit-for-purpose indicators. Here we provide a review of how ‘protected area’ effectiveness was addressed in the 2011-2020 plan and based on this, provide recommendations for fit-for-purpose indicators that will measure how such efforts contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Indicators need to be built on quantitative data from site-level biodiversity monitoring of species and ecosystems combined with measurements of the state of nature in near-time, informed by remote-sensed products and other technologies. Additionally, indicators need to capture whether the essential elements of good management are in place including the identification of ecological values, threats, and objectives, equitable governance, and sufficient management resources and capacity. These fit-for-purpose indicators will require multilateral collaboration to galvanize support for, and resources to develop, the necessary infrastructure to collate and store information from countries.

Management of protected areas must adapt to climate impacts, and prepare for ongoing ecological transformation. Future-Proofing Conservation is a dialogue-based, multi-stakeholder learning process that supports conservation managers to consider the implications of climate change for governance and management. It takes participants through a series of conceptual transitions to identify new management options that are robust to a range of possible biophysical futures, and steps that they can take now to prepare for ecological transformation. We outline the Future-Proofing Conservation process, and demonstrate its application in a pilot programme in Colombia. This process can be applied and adapted to a wide range of climate adaptation contexts, to support practitioners in developing positive ways forward for management and decision-making. By acknowledging scientific uncertainty, considering social values, and rethinking the rules that shape conservation governance, participants can identify new strategies towards “future-oriented conservation” over the long term.

Local application of the biosphere reserve concept in Kien Giang, Vietnam was examined to see how it compared with other biosphere reserves both in Vietnam and internationally and from that to assess the level of adoption and what could be limiting processes. This was undertaken mainly through qualitative document analysis, field surveys, and extensive interviews of stakeholders. While the designation the Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve and establishment of the management regulation conformed with the conceptual model and criteria outlined by UNESCO, the practical implementation has been inadequate to achieve the desired outcomes of the biosphere reserve concept. There was limited public awareness and understanding of the biosphere reserve approach because of poorly developed communication channels. Top-down, state-control based on a strong sectoral approach to biosphere reserve planning and management hindered stakeholder and community participation. Weak engagement from the Province as the designated lead agency in biosphere reserve governance limited cross-sectoral collaboration in the delivery of the biosphere reserve mandated functions. External projects were perceived by community stakeholders to have only a temporary impact on biosphere reserve operation because of their small, short-term scale with the project maintaining control over funding and design of individual activities. Without proper investment in public awareness and improvement of Biosphere Reserve governance leadership, the desire for development of strategic public-private partnerships to support implementation remains unfulfilled and the Biosphere Reserve model will, as a consequence, contribute little to the long-term biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development in the region.