Funding
Ecosystem services in decision making: time to deliverBackgroundOver the past decade, valuing and protecting ecosystem services has been promoted as a strategy to mainstream conservation globally. While the vision of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is gaining traction, a significant scientific and policy-implementation gap remains. Natural capital is often undervalued or ignored in major decisions by governments, businesses, and the public, a problem highlighted by natural disasters and crises where the loss of protective services becomes starkly apparent. Open access copy available |
Diverse values of nature for sustainabilityBackgroundDespite 25 years of progress in valuing ecosystem services, a global biodiversity crisis persists, underpinned by a "values crisis." Current policies and decisions often prioritize a narrow subset of market-based instrumental values, ignoring the diverse ways people relate to and benefit from nature. This paper, based on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment, synthesizes over 50,000 sources to address this gap. Open access copy available |
Bridging conservation and policy: evaluating national targets to reduce mangrove loss under the Kunming–Montreal biodiversity frameworkBackgroundThis research examines the alignment between the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets and national efforts to halt mangrove loss. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, GBF’s Targets 1 and 3 aim to reduce habitat loss and expand protected areas to conserve 30% of critical ecosystems by 2030. Mangroves, vital for biodiversity, carbon storage, and coastal protection, continue to experience degradation due to both human and natural drivers. Despite partial success in global mangrove protection, national policies often fail to address underlying drivers of degradation or incorporate specific, measurable conservation actions. Open access copy available |
REDD’ing Forest Conservation: The Philippine PredicamentBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuelsBackgroundOpen access copy available |
Against political ecologyBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
The Social Life of Forest Carbon: Property and Politics in the Production of a New CommodityBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
The Prospects for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Vietnam: A Look at Three Payment SchemesBackgroundAvailable with subscription or purchase |
Automating violence? The anti-politics of ‘smart technology’ in biodiversity conservationBackgroundBiodiversity conservation initiatives, such as the UN's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (30x30), increasingly use smart technologies. Despite recognizing Indigenous and local rights for successful conservation, these initiatives often neglect customary rights and uses. Smart technologies, like AI, camera traps, and drones, enable new surveillance methods. State, private, and corporate actors, including big tech and BINGOs, actively adopt these tools to enhance data access and form smart governance networks. Open access copy available |
Governing the Global Commons: Linking Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical ForestsBackgroundClimate change and biodiversity loss rank among the most urgent global environmental challenges, yet international frameworks often address them separately. Scientific evidence increasingly highlights the deep connections between these issues, particularly in tropical forests. Despite this overlap, carbon finance mechanisms—such as the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—traditionally exclude efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation (REDD), instead prioritizing afforestation and reforestation. This article investigates how incentive-based mechanisms can better align carbon sequestration goals with biodiversity conservation, focusing especially on the role of tropical forests. Open access copy available |
