Jeremy S. Simmonds

• Doctor of Philosophy
• 2rog Consulting

Thresholds in the relationship between species richness and natural land cover can inform landscape‐level vegetation protection and restoration targets. However, landscapes differ considerably in composition and other environmental attributes. If the effect of natural land cover on species richness depends on (i.e., interacts with) these attributes...

Habitat destruction is among the greatest threats facing biodiversity, and it affects common and threatened species alike. However, metrics for communicating its impacts typically overlook the nonthreatened component of assemblages. This risks the loss of habitat going unreported for species that comprise the majority of assemblages. We adapted a w...

Loss of habitats or ecosystems arising from development projects (e.g., infrastructure, resource extraction, urban expansion) are frequently addressed through biodiversity offsetting. As currently implemented, offsetting typically requires an outcome of “no net loss” of biodiversity, but only relative to a baseline trajectory of biodiversity declin...

Humanity is on a pathway of unsustainable loss of the natural systems upon which we, and all life, rely. To date, global efforts to achieve internationally-agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services, have been poorly integrated. However, these different goals all rely on preserving natur...

Australia’s biodiversity is declining despite two decades of protection for threatened species under the nation’s key environmental legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Among its main functions, the EPBC Act frames the assessment and approval of new developments. However, little research has bee...

Businesses, governments and other organisations are increasingly making "nature positive" commitments, echoing the rise of "net-zero" carbon pledges. These commitments are essential to achieving the global goal of having more nature in 2030 than in 2020, with ongoing recovery thereafter. They also feature prominently in emerging frameworks such as...

Aim: Increasing interest in holistic measurement of the response of fauna communities to interventions requires suitable community condition metrics. However, the development of such metrics is hindered by the absence of broad-scale typologies at suitable spatial and ecological resolutions. We aimed to derive a preliminary typology of terrestrial b...

Reforms underway in Australia highlight key challenges

Many nations are struggling to reduce deforestation, despite having extensive environmental protection laws in place and commitments to international agreements that address the biodiversity and climate crises. We developed a novel framework to quantify the extent to which contemporary deforestation is being captured under national and subnational...

Businesses and other organisations are increasingly making "nature positive" commitments, similar to the trend of "net-zero" carbon pledges. Such commitments are essential to meet the global goal of ensuring more nature in the world by 2030 than in 2020, with continued recovery beyond that. However, making a commitment to contribute to a nature pos...

As part of the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (K‐M GBF), signatory nations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aim to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 (Target 3). This bold ambition has been widely celebrated and its implementation seen as pivotal for the overall success of K‐M GBF. However, given that many CBD...

Infrastructure development is a major driver of biodiversity loss globally. With upward of US$2.5 trillion in annual investments in infrastructure, the financial sector indirectly drives this biodiversity loss. At the same time, biodiversity safeguards (project‐level biodiversity impact mitigation requirements) of infrastructure financiers can help...

Global efforts to deliver internationally agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services have been poorly integrated. These goals rely in part on preserving natural (e.g., native, largely unmodified) and seminatural (e.g., low intensity or sustainable human use) forests, woodlands, and grass...

Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley JA, Science 309:570–574, 2005, Nature 478:337–342, 2011; IPBES. Global assessment report on biodiversi...

All tropical savannahs are experiencing extensive transformation and degradation, yet conservation strategies do not adequately address threats to savannahs. Here, using a recently published ecosystem intactness metric, we assess the current condition of tropical savannahs across Earth, finding that <3 % remain highly intact. Moreover, their overal...

With the intention of securing industry‐free land and seascapes, protecting wilderness entered international policy as a formal target for the first time in the zero draft of the Post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Given this increased prominence in international policy, it is timely to consider the...

Habitat loss is driving the extirpation of fauna across Earth. Many species are now absent from vast areas where they once occurred in inhabited continents, yet we do not have a good understanding of the extent to which different species have been extirpated, nor the degree to which range contractions and habitat loss has contributed to this local...

Increasingly, government and corporate policies on ecological compensation (e.g., offsetting) are requiring “net gain” outcomes for biodiversity. This presents an opportunity to align development with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework's (GBF) proposed ambition for overall biodiversity reco...

Around the world, woodlands have been cleared for agricultural production and their bird communities are in decline. To reverse these declines and foster bird community resilience, government agencies, non-government organizations, and private landholders have implemented restoration actions, commonly including grazing exclusion and replanting. The...

Northern Australia is the focus of intense development and investment interest. At the Commonwealth level alone, promotion of the northern Australia development agenda is facilitated by a dedicated Ministerial portfolio and departmental office, a road map for investment opportunities and policy reform (‘White Paper on Developing Northern Australia’...

Abstract Controlling problem species for conservation can be fraught, particularly when native species are subject to lethal control. The noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala), has been the target of numerous lethal control efforts. Outcomes of these noisy miner removals have varied substantially, so identifying the circumstances under which they ar...

The crucial roles of biodiversity in agriculture - a necessary understanding if agirculture is to become more sustainable.

The linkages between agriculture and biodiversity - an imperative for understanding sustainable food production

Increasingly, government and corporate policies on ecological compensation (e.g. offsetting) are requiring ‘net gain’ outcomes for biodiversity. This presents an opportunity to align development with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’s (GBF) ambition for overall biodiversity recovery. In t...

Nations of the world failed to fully achieve any of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010 targets, and the future of biodiversity hangs in the balance. Nations must not let unambitious targets in the current draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework prevent them from maximizing their biodiversity-conservation actions over the next...

Environmental policies that require native vegetation conservation can be challenging to implement, especially in productive agricultural landscapes. In Brazil, the Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law mandates ‘Legal Reserves’, protected native vegetation that landowners must retain on their properties. If landowners do not have the required...

Tropical deforestation continues at high rates in many regions, but it is often reported only in terms of area lost or its impacts on high-profile threatened species. Here, we examined the impact of both past and projected future deforestation on habitat extent for the entire assemblage of forest-dependent birds across the country with the greatest...

In 2010, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 to address the loss and degradation of nature. Subsequently, most biodiversity indicators continued to decline. Nevertheless , conservation actions can make a positive difference for biodiversity. The emerging Post-2020 Global Biod...

Market-like mechanisms for biodiversity offsetting have emerged globally as supposedly cost-effective approaches for mitigating the impacts of development. In reality, offset buyers have commonly found that required credits are scarce and/or expensive. One response has been to seek improved market functionality, increasing eligible offset supply by...

Australia’s 2019–2020 mega-fires were exacerbated by drought, anthropogenic climate change and existing land-use management. Here, using a combination of remotely sensed data and species distribution models, we found these fires burnt ~97,000 km2 of vegetation across southern and eastern Australia, which is considered habitat for 832 species of nat...

Tropical forests harbor most of the planets terrestrial biodiversity, and their loss means destruction of habitat for many species. Tropical deforestation continues at high rates in many regions, but it is often reported only in terms of area lost or its impacts on high-profile threatened species. We estimated the impact of both past and projected...

Many nations use ecological compensation policies to address negative impacts of development projects and achieve No Net Loss (NNL) of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, failures are widely reported. We use spatial simulation models to quantify potential net impacts of alternative compensation policies on biodiversity (indicated by native ve...

Urgent action is required to ‘bend the curve’ on biodiversity loss. However, the ‘species goal’ (Goal B) unveiled in the recently released Zero Draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is inadequate for mobilizing conservation actions to achieve the outcomes required to halt and reverse species declines. Here we examine the limita...

As humanity's demand for resources continues to rise and productive arable lands become increasingly scarce, many of Earth's remaining intact regions are at heightened risk of destruction from agricultural development. In situations where agricultural expansion is inevitable, it is important to manage intact landscape transformation so that impacts...

A global goal of no net loss of natural ecosystems or better has recently been proposed, but such a goal would require equitable translation to country-level contributions. Given the wide variation in ecosystem depletion, these could vary from net gain (for countries where restoration is needed), to managed net loss (in rare circumstances where nat...

As humanity's demand for resources continues to rise and productive arable lands become increasingly scarce, many of Earth's remaining intact regions are at heightened risk of destruction from agricultural development. In situations where agricultural expansion is inevitable, it is important to manage intact landscape transformation so that impacts...

Proponents of development projects (e.g., new roads, mines, dams) are frequently required to assess and manage their impacts on threatened biodiversity. Here, we propose that the environmental legislation and standards that mandate such assessments are failing those threatened species and ecological communities listed as vulnerable. Using a case st...

Offsetting—trading losses in one place for commensurate gains in another—is a tool used to mitigate environmental impacts of development. Biodiversity and carbon are the most widely used targets of offsets; however, other ecosystem services are increasingly traded, introducing new risks to the environment and people. Here, we provide guidance on ho...

Australia has one of the worst extinction rates of any nation, yet there has been little assessment of the effect of its flagship environmental legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), to prevent species extinction. By coupling remotely sensed forest and woodland data with the distributions of 1,638...

Eastern Australia’s temperate woodlands have been significantly cleared, with 80% of their former extent already gone, and the classically Australian woodland bird community that is inseparably bound with them disintegrating. This project will identify the most cost-effective actions for restoring the woodland bird community by harnessing and synth...

Aim Most terrestrial ecological communities are defined primarily on their constituent flora. We aimed to develop a repeatable approach to defining a community, both intact and degraded, based on its fauna. We demonstrate how the approach can be used to guide conservation—for example, determining whether a multispecies community of animals is threa...

Ambitious targets for the retention — not just formal protection — of nature are urgently needed to conserve biodiversity and to maintain crucial ecosystem services for humanity.

Purpose of Review We describe current approaches that evaluate how the influence of species traits on the relationship between environmental variables and ecological responses varies among scales (i.e. the scale-dependent role of traits). We quantify which traits and ecological responses have been assessed, and discuss the main challenges associate...

Context Native vegetation extent is often a proxy for habitat area in studies of human-modified landscapes. However, the loss and retention of native vegetation is rarely random among landscapes. Instead, the extent of native vegetation in landscapes may be correlated with abiotic factors, thereby obscuring or distorting relationships between ecolo...

Previous approaches to indirect detection of koala presence have been proposed, however, the present paper identifies issues of bias, pellet detectability and over-analysis of information inherent in those prior techniques. We recommend an approach that reduces bias, can be consistently applied and enables information on presence of koalas Phascola...