Progress Towards Protected Area Targets
Protected Area targets have been set globally, regionally, and sometimes at a country level. During the last decade, the global protected area targets that all country signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) committed to were the CBD's Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Specifically, Aichi Target 11 which stated that:
OECMs in Wetlands: Linkages with the Ramsar Convention
Drawing on the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework's Target 3 and the Ramsar Convention, this briefing note examines the synergies between Ramsar Site designations and OECM recognition, and what these mean for freshwater and coastal ecosystems.
From entry into force to early implementation: Environmental Impact Assessments under the BBNJ Agreement
With the entry into force of the BBNJ Agreement, attention has rapidly shifted from negotiation to the practical realities of implementation. This policy brief focuses on what is needed now to operationalize Part IV on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in the immediate term, as Parties prepare for the first Conference of the Parties (COP1).
A practical, adaptive compliance management framework for improving marine protected area effectiveness
Noncompliance regularly undermines the effectiveness of marine protected areas (MPAs) worldwide. The reasons for and drivers of noncompliance depend on the context (e.g., insufficient funding, capacity, neocolonialism, historical conflict), but the prevalent solution offered to curtail noncompliance tends to be more or better enforcement. We posit that this response is well intentioned but incomplete.
The hidden cost of fisheries subsidies
In public finance, some costs are politely kept off the books. The ocean has long been one of them. Governments often speak of “blue growth” and “sustainable use,” yet many policies still treat marine ecosystems as a kind of free input: available, resilient, and cheap to replace. The result is ecological decline. It is also a fiscal problem. States end up assuming risks they would not tolerate on land.
Why saving seagrass meadows could help save the world’s coastlines
Seagrass meadows might not catch the eye like coral reefs, but they play an important and often unsung role in coastal protection, particularly as climate change increasingly eats away at shorelines. Protecting and restoring seagrass meadows, experts say, is a key “nature-based solution” that can also soak up and store carbon.
Mapping global freshwater ecosystems to guide national restoration targets and nature-based solutions
Freshwater ecosystems regulate the water cycle, support biodiversity and enhance resilience, yet they remain largely overlooked in global climate policies, and most national commitments lack clear, spatially defined targets for their protection and restoration. Here our global map—derived from 30-m land-cover classification, hydrological networks and floodplain models—reveals around 51 million km2 of rivers, wetlands, headwaters, riparian buffers and floodplains that are critical for water security and disaster risk reduction.
Towards an Understanding of Marsupial Interchange between Australia and New Guinea
A review of the geology, palaeontology, genetic, and morphology studies indicates that during the mid-Miocene to Pliocene, New Guinea consisted of four island Blocks (Vogelkop, Maokop, Central, and Southeastern). The initial dispersal of marsupials from Australia was into the Vogelkop Block. The ancestors of at least six genera (Dactylonax, Microperorytes, Myoictis Pseudochirops, Spilocuscus, Tous) and three species (Dendrolagus inustus, Dendrolagus ursinus, Dorcopsis muelleri) of endemic New Guinean marsupials are likely to have reached New Guinea via this route.
