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:
Why Biodiversity Protection Relies on People-Nature Bonds
Nurturing people-nature relationships in evolving social-ecological landscapes can slow biodiversity loss and build resilient communities
Biodiversity loss is often framed as a failure of conservation. In reality, it is a failure of relationships.
Ocean travellers: Safeguarding Critical Habitats for Migratory Sharks and Rays
Sharks and rays are among the most threatened vertebrates on the planet, facing intense pressure from overfishing, habitat loss and degradation, and inadequate protection across critical sites for life-history processes and their migratory ranges.
Businesses and Biodiversity: New opportunities with Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs)
The loss of biodiversity is accelerating globally, and there is growing recognition that both halting and reversing this loss requires action from all of society, in addition to governments, civil society organisations, Indigenous peoples, local communities and the private sector.
Devastation of island biodiversity: a land snail perspective
Many islands are remote and the level of interest in land snails as a component of the global biodiversity conservation agenda is low. The conservation status of many island land snail faunas thus remains at best out of date. However, land snails have an asset that other groups do not—their shells, which can remain post mortem in the shell bank of the soil for many tens or several hundreds of years after the death of the animal.
The new World Ocean Review: Explaining life in the ocean
Life on Earth is linked inseparably with the ocean. It covers around 71 per cent of the surface and is the largest habitat on our planet. Much of its species diversity is still unknown – and yet it is vital for human well-being. The greater the health and diversity of marine life, the greater the benefits for people and nature. But which species live in the ocean, and which environmental factors influence their distribution or habitat size? What are the reasons for the decline in marine species abundance – and how can it be preserved successfully?
Collaborative Science Is Key to Conserving Highly Mobile Marine Species
Research from Pew marine fellows is a critical resource for helping to protect large ocean species and can offer invaluable input as a network of high seas marine protected areas (MPAs) nears reality.
In September 2025, the United Nations General Assembly passed the high seas treaty, which sets rules to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in international waters that are not governed by a single nation. The agreement also establishes a legal framework to create the MPAs beginning this month.
Bending back the curve of shark and ray biodiversity loss
Sharks and rays are sentinels of the state of the ocean. Since the mid-twentieth century, overall abundance has declined by nearly 65% and over one-third (37.5%) of species are threatened, causing widespread changes in community structure. This crisis stems from unregulated fisheries expansion coupled with inadequate catch-and-trade monitoring that fail to account for the complexity of shark and ray products, their use and global trade flows.
Litter accumulation in tropical mangroves threatens biodiversity and local communities
Mangroves, typical of tropical and subtropical latitudes, have become veritable natural traps for land- and sea-based waste. The roots of these trees, known as mangroves, have a great capacity to trap litter—from both land and sea—which gradually breaks down until it is buried in the muddy bottom.
