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Over the last decades scientists have discovered that seagrass meadows, tidal marshes, and mangroves – “blue carbon” ecosystems – are among the most intensive carbon sinks in the biosphere. By sequestering and storing significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean, blue carbon ecosystems help mitigate climate change. But conversion and degradation of these ecosystems can also release billions of tons of CO2  and other greenhouse gases into the ocean and atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

This special issue of PARKS is devoted to the impact and implications of COVID-19 on the world’s protected and conserved areas. It features 11 peer reviewed papers and 14 essays that have brought together the knowledge and findings of numerous experts from all parts of the world, supported by several wide-ranging surveys. The resulting global synthesis of experience answers some key questions: why did the pandemic occur? what has it meant for protected and conserved areas, and the people that depend on them? what were the underlying reasons for the disaster we now face?

Sustainable tourism involves increasingly attracting visitors while preserving the natural capital of a destination for future generations. To foster tourism while protecting sensitive environ‐ ments, coastal managers, tourism operators, and other decision‐makers benefit from information about where tourists go and which aspects of the natural and built environment draw them to particular locations. Yet this information is often lacking at management‐relevant scales and in remote places. We tested and applied methods using social media as data on tourism in The Bahamas.

Monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs) is critical for marine ecosystem management, yet current protocols rely on SCUBA-based visual surveys that are costly and time consuming, limiting their scope and effectiveness. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a promising alternative for marine ecosystem monitoring, but more direct comparisons to visual surveys are needed to understand the strengths and limitations of each approach.

Most of the marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world, estimated to number about 5000, have been established both on an ad hoc basis and through systematic planning processes. The

Many conservation managers, policy makers, businesses and local communities cannot access the biodiversity data they need for informed decision-making on natural resource management. A handful of databases are used to monitor indicators against global biodiversity goals but there is no openly available consolidated list of global data sets to help managers, especially those in high-biodiversity countries. We therefore conducted an inventory of global databases of potential use in monitoring biodiversity states, pressures and conservation responses at multiple levels.

Work on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework is now well advanced andwill outline a vision, goals, and targets for the next decade of biodiversity conser-vation and beyond. For the effectiveness of Protected areas and Other Effectivearea-based Conservation Measures, an indicator has been proposed for “areasmeeting their documented ecological objectives.” However, the Convention onBiological Diversity (CBD) has not identified or agreed on what data shouldinform this indicator.

Effective networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) are explicitly recognized and called for in international biodiversity conservation strategies such as the Aichi Targets. While various indicators have been proposed to assess effectiveness of individual MPAs, no comprehensive set of indicators exists for MPA networks, particularly for Aichi Target 11. The qualitative elements of this target recognize the value of social, economic, governance, and ecological factors in achieving effective biodiversity conservation.

IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3 builds on three cycles of Conservation Outlook Assessments undertaken since 2014. It presents the main results for 2020, but also some longer-term trends based on a comparison of three data sets now available.

Humanity will soon define a new era for nature—one that seeks to transform decades of underwhelming responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and diversify. However, persistent shortfalls in ecological representation and management effectiveness diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming biodiversity loss.