Peer-reviewed publications

Between 2008 and 2018, the CARE-World Wildlife Fund Alliance implemented an integrated conservation and development project in the Primeiras e Segundas region of Mozambique to address intersecting challenges of poverty, food insecurity and biodiversity loss. The project aimed to catalyze the development of robust community-led governance of coastal resources and generate insights concerning the interplay between conservation and development interventions. After ten years, three of the four communities in this study appear to have been relatively successful in promoting compliance with conservation rules by ensuring the continuity of local enforcement and establishing linkages with district government officials. In contrast, a lack of nested governance and high levels of food insecurity played an important role in the collapse of rule enforcement in the fourth community and continues to generate challenges across all four communities. Overall, the results suggest that external partners should continue offering technical and financial support for community-led governance until fair and effective systems for rule enforcement and nested governance structures have been firmly established. Furthermore, aligning investments in local governance with development interventions can strengthen community support for conservation by addressing underlying drivers of non-compliance and environmental degradation.

Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) are crucial yet complex mechanisms for forest conservation, particularly in highly biodiverse regions. This study investigates the rapid expansion of carbon forestry projects (CFPs) across 26 million hectares in Colombia, with 92% overlapping indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant, and local communities (IPALC) territories. Using spatial and qualitative analyses, a novel IPALC participation ladder framework and Colombia’s first publicly available CFP geodatabase, we assess IPALC engagement dynamics, including market share, distribution, conflicts, and participation barriers. Findings show VCMs, despite significant conservation finance, often yield moderate IPALC participation, exacerbate governance deficits, and inequitable benefit sharing, compromising integrity, social legitimacy, and the potential for durable, community-driven conservation outcomes. Effective VCM climate action demands robust, community-driven governance, and inclusive policy reform. Lessons from Colombia offer critical insights for global VCM evolution toward more just, sustainable outcomes.

1. Individual repeatable variation in behaviour, that is ‘personality’, is hypothesised to mediate how animals respond to environmental stress. However, temporal variability in local conditions and spatial constraints across the annual cycle may affect individual responses to environmental change and the subsequent impact on fitness. Here we tested how the relationships among personality, stress exposures and fitness may vary between the breeding and wintering periods in the black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), a long-lived migratory seabird inhabiting the rapidly changing Arctic.
2. We conducted a long-term (2013–2021) study to explore how personality, represented by boldness, was related to feather corticosterone (fCORT), an indicator of stress exposure during feather growth. To examine temporal variation in this relationship, we focused on feathers grown during the breeding, post-breeding and pre-breeding stages, three periods when seabirds experience varying spatial constraints. We studied the covariation in fCORT, boldness and two fitness measures (chick survival and adult return rates) while correcting for two major proxies of resource availability: the subpolar gyre and Atlantic water influx (AWI).
3. We observed a season-dependent effect of boldness: ‘bolder’ individuals had lower fCORT concentrations than ‘shyer’ conspecifics during breeding and post-breeding but higher levels prior to breeding. Higher fCORT during breeding occurred during years of low AWI and correlated with lower chick survival, while higher fCORT prior to breeding correlated with lower likelihood of return to the colony. Personality did not mediate inter-annual relationships between fCORT and environmental measures or fCORT and fitness.
4. Our results highlight that while the negative effects of environmentally induced stress on fitness appeared to be ubiquitous across personality types, how and when bold and shy individuals experience stress is highly context dependent, reflecting different spatial and temporal constraints during the breeding and wintering stages.

Remotely sensed Earth science information (ESI) has become increasingly central to addressing global challenges, yet its societal value, i.e., the difference ESI makes in real-world decisions and outcomes, is rarely quantified. In this study, we systematically map peer-reviewed literature that explicitly assesses the societal value of ESI across instrumental, intrinsic, and relational value types, and the diversity of approaches used to assess those values. Drawing from 13,823 publications across Scopus, Web of Science, and a curated library of ESI valuation studies, we identify 171 studies that applied ESI in a decision context and used a valuation method to compare outcomes with and without ESI. The majority of these studies employed decision analysis methods (e.g., Value of Information, Cost–Benefit Analysis), focusing primarily on quantitative instrumental values (e.g., profit, crop yield, lives saved), particularly in agricultural contexts. A smaller set of studies applied preference elicitation methods (e.g., stated preference, surveys, interviews, focus groups) to capture qualitative benefits and relational values including quality of life improvements, empowerment, and procedural justice. Many excluded studies demonstrated scientific value of ESI but did not explicitly translate that into societal value, revealing the need for a more systematic approach to ESI valuation. By promoting a more inclusive, interdisciplinary, and flexible portfolio of valuation methods, we aim to expand our understanding of the societal benefits of ESI to help guide investment in future missions, enhance public support, and ensure that science and policy goals are well aligned.

The ocean is essential for humanity1,2,3. Yet, inequity in ocean-based activities is widespread and accelerating4,5,6,7,8. Addressing this requires governance approaches that can systematically measure equity and track progress9. Here we present the Ocean Equity Index (OEI)—a framework for assessing and improving equity in ocean initiatives, projects and policies. We apply the index, which scores twelve criteria, to case studies at local, national and global scales. We show that the OEI can generate structured data to support evidence-based decision-making across ocean sectors and scales. As a theoretically robust and widely applicable tool, the OEI can guide the design of more equitable ocean initiatives, projects or policies, ensuring better outcomes for coastal people and marine ecosystems.

The rapidly expanding ocean economy is a significant driver of global growth but often produces substantial negative impacts on coastal communities, including environmental degradation, displacement, and human rights violations. These harms are exacerbated by the longstanding marginalization and exclusion of these communities from marine and coastal governance. In response, ocean defenders are organizing to resist these injustices, but can experience both non-lethal and lethal attacks for doing so. This study examines the role of allied organizations – including grassroots networks, funders, legal non-profits, NGOs and INGOs, researchers, and journalists – in supporting and safeguarding defenders. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with both ocean defenders and representatives of allied organizations, our findings reveal that allies contribute by strengthening local capacities and skills, advocating and facilitating participation in decision-making, increasing visibility of defenders, conducting research and documentation, creating and supporting solidarity networks, providing financial support, enhancing security and safety protocols, and offering legal support. Yet current efforts remain largely short-term, isolated, and insufficient to meet defenders’ diverse and urgent needs. Allied organizations also face several challenges ranging from funding constraints to personal security risks. Addressing these challenges requires more flexibility in financing, stronger protection measures, and deeper collaboration between defenders and their allies. Above all, any strategy to support ocean defenders must center their voices and needs, ensuring they are at the forefront of current and future discussions and decisions related to the development of the ocean economy.

The ability of environmental DNA (eDNA) to provide rapid assessments of mammal taxa composition at the watershed scale can make it an efficient survey method on large-scale landscapes, complementing camera traps. Due to the rugged and inaccessible terrain of many areas in Bhutan, camera trapping is associated with logistical challenges, increasing the cost of sampling considerably. In this study, conducted in the Upper Punatsangchhu catchment basin of Bhutan, we investigated the ability of eDNA water samples to capture the diversity of terrestrial mammals in comparison with camera trapping, using six watersheds within the basin as a baseline sampling frame. Combined, the two methods detected a total of 72 mammalian species: eDNA metabarcoding identified 60 species, while camera trapping detected 33 species, with an overlap of 21 species between the two methods. In addition, eDNA metabarcoding detected 90% of the IUCN Red List species detected by the camera traps. Small mammals were frequently detected using eDNA metabarcoding, while camera trapping more often detected large mammals. The mean detection probabilities recorded from eDNA were higher for all species grouped by orders and size categories compared with camera trapping. Biodiversity models based on eDNA metabarcoding and camera trapping both retrieved dominant effects of temperature and isolation in structuring the mammal assemblage. We conclude that eDNA sampling based on watersheds accurately represents the spatial distribution of species across each watershed in our study area in Bhutan to provide a rapid assessment of mammals from river water.

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Corporations routinely use environmentally-extended input-output models to estimate and report greenhouse gas emissions upstream in their supply chains. However, the most widely used models assume that supply chains and emissions intensities of industries match those of a single region—usually the U.S. or the U.K. Here, we use a high-resolution multiregional input-output model to demonstrate the scale and pattern of emissions that may be missed by single-region models. We find that the upstream emissions of the companies reporting to CDP are together greater by 2.0 gigatons of CO2-equivalent emissions (~10%) when estimated by a multiregional model instead of a U.S.-based single-region model, with the largest differences in manufacturing sectors of moderate emissions intensity. Widespread adoption of multiregional models could thus improve the accuracy of corporate emissions inventories and help prioritize primary data collection and emissions reduction efforts, often by shifting focus to energy- and emissions-intensive sectors of industrializing nations.

Social equity is increasingly recognised as a fundamental principle in marine conservation. Global conservation policies now contain commitments to equitable management and governance, yet practical guidance on how to understand and assess equity in marine conservation remains limited. In this methodological paper, we introduce our process for developing three conceptually grounded, practical and adaptable approaches for assessing equity in marine conservation: (1) a rapid equity assessment, (2) a stakeholders and rightsholders equity assessment, and (3) a co-produced and customised equity assessment. All three approaches emphasise the assessment process as part of an ongoing learning journey that requires continuous reflection and adaptive actions to improve social equity. The discussion identifies practical lessons and key considerations for choosing, preparing and carrying out equity assessments and for moving from assessment to action to improve social equity in marine conservation.