Peer-reviewed publications

Wyborn and Evans1 argue that global priority maps for conservation have questionable utility and may crowd out local and more contextual research. While we agree with the authors’ central argument that effective and equitable conservation must be rooted at local scales, the assertion that “conservation needs to break free from global priority mapping” presents a false dichotomy. We should not think in terms of a binary choice of methods (local or global), but rather recognize that information across scales will have the most relevance and power in the future. Wyborn and Evans challenge the creators of global maps to identify their theory of change. Here, we outline six major areas of contribution relevant for priority setting and other conservation-related decisions.

Dams, reservoirs, and other water management infrastructure provide benefits, but can also have negative impacts. Dam construction and removal affects progress toward the UN sustainable development goals at local to global scales. Yet, globally-consistent information on the location and characteristics of these structures are lacking, with information often highly localised, fragmented, or inaccessible. A freely available, curated, consistent, and regularly updated global database of existing dams and other instream infrastructure is needed along with open access tools to support research, decision-making and management needs. Here we introduce the Global Dam Watch (GDW) initiative (www.globaldamwatch.org) whose objectives are: (a) advancing recent efforts to develop a single, globally consistent dam and instream barrier data product for global-scale analyses (the GDW database); (b) bringing together the increasingly numerous global, regional and local dam and instream barrier datasets in a directory of databases (the GDW directory); (c) building tools for the visualisation of dam and instream barrier data and for analyses in support of policy and decision making (the GDW knowledge-base) and (d) advancing earth observation and geographical information system techniques to map a wider range of instream structures and their properties. Our focus is on all types of anthropogenic instream barriers, though we have started by prioritizing major reservoir dams and run-of-river barriers, for which more information is available. Our goal is to facilitate national-scale, basin-scale and global-scale mapping, analyses and understanding of all instream barriers, their impacts and their role in sustainable development through the provision of publicly accessible information and tools. We invite input and partnerships across sectors to strengthen GDW’s utility and relevance for all, help define database content and knowledge-base tools, and generally expand the reach of GDW as a global hub of impartial academic expertise and policy information regarding dams and other instream barriers.

Limited time and resources remain to constrain the climate crisis. Natural climate solutions represent promising options for protecting, managing and restoring natural lands for additional climate mitigation, but they differ in (1) magnitude and (2) immediacy of mitigation potential, as well as (3) cost-effectiveness and (4) the co-benefits they offer. Counter to an emerging preference for restoration, we use these four criteria to propose a general rule-of-thumb to first protect, manage, and then restore lands, but also show how these criteria explain alternative prioritization and portfolio schemes. This hierarchy offers a decision-making framework for public and private sector actors to optimize the effectiveness of natural climate solutions in an environment where resources are constrained, and time is short.

The sustainable use of fisheries resources is a priority of the African Union in developing the Blue Economy (BE). Growing global demand for seafood has attracted diverse actors to African waters, including Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFNs) fleets. Complex fisheries governance challenges, unsustainable rates of fishing and rising fisheries-related crimes have ensued. To reverse these impacts, some African states are deploying various fisheries governance mechanisms. Drawing on extensive expert experiences, the review of literature, fisheries databases, international and regional agency reports, NGO and government reports and case studies from West and East Africa, we demonstrate two critical findings. First, fisheries governance mechanisms in Africa act largely to constrain small-scale fisheries (SSF) while failing to contain the industrial fisheries sector, resulting in the marginalisation of the SSF. Secondly, despite a higher incidence of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in industrial fisheries than the SSF, fisheries governance mechanisms continue to advance the 'Survival of the Richest' – the industrial sector, to the detriment of the 'Fittest' – the SSF. The SSF supports millions of jobs and is better adapted to meet the continents' nutrition and socio-economic security. For the fisheries sector to contribute to the sustainable development of Africans, states must redirect governance towards regulating the industrial sector, emphasising equitable access for the SSF whilst prioritising ecological sustainability.

As human activities on the world’s oceans intensify, mapping human pressureis essential to develop appropriate conservation strategies and prioritize invest-ments with limited resources. Here, we map six human (nonclimatic) pressureson coral reefs using the latest quantitative data on fishing, water pollution (nitro-gen and sediments), coastal population, industrial development, and tourism.Using a percentile approach to rank different stressors, we identify the top-ranked local pressure and estimate a cumulative pressure index for 54,596 globalcoral reef pixels at 0.05◦(∼5 km) resolution. We find that coral reefs are exposedto multiple intense local pressures: fishing and water pollution (nutrients andsediments) are the most common top-ranked pressures worldwide (in 30.8% and32.3% of reef cells, respectively), although each pressure was ranked as a toppressure in some locations. We also find that local pressures are similar insideand outside a proposed global portfolio of coral reef climate refugia, suggestingthat even potential climate refugia have high levels of local human pressure thatrequire effective management. Our findings and datasets provide the best avail-able information that can ensure local pressures are effectively managed acrossthe world’s coral reefs.

Assessing global progress on human adaptation to climate change is an urgent priority. Although the literature on adaptation to climate change is rapidly expanding, little is known about the actual extent of implementation. We systematically screened >48,000 articles using machine learning methods and a global network of 126 researchers. Our synthesis of the resulting 1,682 articles presents a systematic and comprehensive global stocktake of implemented human adaptation to climate change. Documented adaptations were largely fragmented, local and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes. We identify eight priorities for global adaptation research: assess the effectiveness of adaptation responses, enhance the understanding of limits to adaptation, enable individuals and civil society to adapt, include missing places, scholars and scholarship, understand private sector responses, improve methods for synthesizing different forms of evidence, assess the adaptation at different temperature thresholds, and improve the inclusion of timescale and the dynamics of responses.

Few food waste interventions focus on drivers distinct to particular food groups, such as seafood. Given suggestive evidence that seafood may be wasted at exceptionally high rates, and given its environmental, economic and nutritional value, this research provides insights into seafood-specific consumer food waste interventions. We performed three complementary sub-studies to examine consumer and retailer views regarding seafood waste and frozen seafood as well as perceptions of an intervention providing chef-created recipes to promote cooking frozen seafood without defrosting. The findings indicated an openness to a direct-from-frozen intervention among many consumers and retailers, and suggested seven potential barriers to adoption, along with ways to address them. Underlying the potential for this intervention, and more broadly contributing to addressing consumer seafood waste, the research formed the basis of a new “4 Ps” concept model to characterize the drivers of discarded seafood: proficiency, perceptions/knowledge, perishability, and planning/convenience. These factors shape waste through pathways that include behavioral protocols; taste preferences; waste-prevention efforts; and food safety concerns, precautions, and errors. This research suggested the benefit of testing a larger-scale direct-from-frozen intervention using insights from the concept model and, more broadly, the benefits of exploring approaches to food waste prevention rooted in specific food groups.

With the Brazilian military governments of the 1960s, systematic economic development of the Amazon began. Social and environmental concerns have entered Amazonian discourses and policies only since the 1990s. Since then, reports of threats to forests and indigenous people have alternated with reports of socio-economic progress and environmental achievements. These contradictions often arise from limited thematic, sectoral, temporal, or spatial perspectives, and lead to misinterpretation. Our paper offers a comprehensive picture of discourses, policies, and socio-environmental dynamics for the entire region over the last five decades. We distinguish eight historical policy phases, each of which had little effect on near-linear dynamics of demographic growth and land-use expansion, although some policies showed the potential to change the course of development. To prevent local, national, and international actors from continuing to assert harmful interests in the region, a coherent long-term commitment and change in the collective mindset are needed.

Land-based climate mitigation measures have gained significant attention and importance in public and private sector climate policies. Building on previous studies, we refine and update the mitigation potentials for 20 land-based measures in >200 countries and five regions, comparing “bottom-up” sectoral estimates with integrated assessment models (IAMs). We also assess implementation feasibility at the country level. Cost-effective (available up to $100/tCO2eq) land-based mitigation is 8–13.8 GtCO2eq yr−1between 2020 and 2050, with the bottom end of this range representing the IAM median and the upper end representing the sectoral estimate. The cost-effective sectoral estimate is about 40% of available technical potential and is in line with achieving a 1.5°C pathway in 2050. Compared to technical potentials, cost-effective estimates represent a more realistic and actionable target for policy. The cost-effective potential is approximately 50% from forests and other ecosystems, 35% from agriculture, and 15% from demand-side measures. The potential varies sixfold across the five regions assessed (0.75–4.8 GtCO2eq yr−1) and the top 15 countries account for about 60% of the global potential. Protection of forests and other ecosystems and demand-side measures present particularly high mitigation efficiency, high provision of co-benefits, and relatively lower costs. The feasibility assessment suggests that governance, economic investment, and socio-cultural conditions influence the likelihood that land-based mitigation potentials are realized. A substantial portion of potential (80%) is in developing countries and LDCs, where feasibility barriers are of greatest concern. Assisting countries to overcome barriers may result in significant quantities of near-term, low-cost mitigation while locally achieving important climate adaptation and development benefits. Opportunities among countries vary widely depending on types of land-based measures available, their potential co-benefits and risks, and their feasibility. Enhanced investments and country-specific plans that accommodate this complexity are urgently needed to realize the large global potential from improved land stewardship.

The fragmentation of free-flowing rivers (FFRs) through major infrastructure development remains a pivotal threat to global freshwater biodiversity. More than 3400 large hydropower dams (>1 MW) are either planned or under construction, posing threats to freshwater megafauna (i.e., freshwater animals that can reach 30 kg). Here, we investigate the global patterns of river connectivity within distribution ranges of freshwater megafauna and explore how these patterns could change in the future. We found that the susceptibility of freshwater megafauna to reduced river connectivity in different dimensions depends on their life history. Freshwater megafauna taxa with a short accumulated length or low percentage of FFRs in their distribution ranges are more likely to be threatened. On average, there is higher freshwater megafauna richness in FFRs with proposed dams than in rivers that would remain free-flowing in the future or that are already fragmented. If all the proposed dams were built, 94 (18.9%) out of 497 remaining FFRs >500 km that provide habitat for freshwater megafauna would lose their free-flowing status. Our results highlight the reduced connectivity of rivers currently inhabited by freshwater megafauna and the future intensification of river fragmentation in megafauna-rich basins. Research and conservation efforts, including life-history studies, identification of critical habitats, updates of IUCN Red List assessments, advanced communication of the potential impacts on ecosystem services and livelihoods of affected communities, and strategic siting, design, and operations of proposed dams are urgently needed to safeguard freshwater megafauna and overall freshwater biodiversity.