Neil D. Burgess

UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre

The conservation of natural and cultural resources shared between countries is a significant challenge that can be addressed through the establishment of transboundary conservation areas (TBCAs). TBCAs enable countries to harmonize cross-border governance and management, increase protected area (PA) coverage, and strengthen relationships between ne...

A billion rural people live near tropical forests. Urban populations need them for water, energy and timber. Global society benefits from climate regulation and knowledge embodied in tropical biodiversity. Ecosystem service valuations can incentivise conservation, but determining costs and benefits across multiple stakeholders and interacting servi...

The COVID-19 outbreak has contributed to a tremendous global decline in international trade flows. The rapid spread of the disease and the control measures implemented by governments to contain the virus have led to serious consequences for the global economy. The pandemic has affected the international movement of people, goods, and services. Curr...

Since 1997 Tanzania has undertaken a process to identify and declare a network of Nature Forest Reserves (NFRs) with high biodiversity values, mainly from within its existing portfolio of national Forest Reserves, but with some new extensions. In recent years this expansion has accelerated, with ten NFRs declared since 2015. The current network of...

Biodiversity is not evenly distributed across the globe and some areas have greater potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation than others. Whilst there are multiple ways to determine priority areas for conservation, for a global institution like the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the funding mechanism for the Convention on Biological...

Evaluation plays a crucial role in determining the outcomes and impact of international development projects. By applying strict evaluation criteria, it becomes clear whether the project was effective and what specific change it contributed to. Existing studies emphasized the importance of project evaluation, however there are limited systematic re...

Community monitoring can track environmental phenomena, resource use, and natural resource management processes of concern to community members. It can also contribute to planning and decision-making and empower community members in resource management. While community monitoring that addresses the environmental crisis is growing, it also gathers d...

We present a novel index that represents, in one combined metric, the integrity of terrestrial ecosystems globally at 1km2 resolution: the Ecosystem Integrity Index (EII). The index provides a simple, yet scientifically robust, way of measuring, monitoring and reporting on ecosystem integrity at any geographical scale. It is formed of three compone...

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 219 million people are reported to have been infected while more than four million deaths have been recorded across the globe. However, the degree of the spread varies from one country to another. Government actions and preventive measures are regarded as vital to mitigate the spread of this disea...

Sustainable use of wildlife is a core aspiration of biodiversity conservation but is the subject of intense debate in the scientific literature, including the extent to which use is impacting species and whether management can mitigate any impact. Although positive and negative outcomes of sustainable use are known for specific taxa or local commun...

Gaps in existing global conservation area datasets hamper efforts to measure progress towards international coverage and biodiversity representation targets. Here we present a framework to produce more accurate global conservation area metrics, based on selecting a representative set of nations for future collection of the best available data on pr...

Assemblages of large mammal species play a disproportionate role in the structure and composition of natural habitats. Loss of these assemblages destabilizes natural systems, while their recovery can restore ecological integrity. Here we take an ecoregion-based approach to identify landscapes that retain their historically present large mammal asse...

The crisis generated by the emergence and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has thrown into the global spotlight the dangers associated with novel diseases, as well as the key role of animals, especially wild animals, as potential sources of pathogens to humans. There is a widespread demand for a new relationship with wild and domestic animals, including...

To meet the ambitious objectives of biodiversity and climate conventions, the international community requires clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially and how multiple targets can be pursued concurrently. To support goal setting and the implementation of international strategies and action plans, spatial guidance is needed...

The Anthropocene is characterized by unparalleled human impact on other species, potentially ushering in the sixth mass extinction. Yet mitigation efforts remain hampered by limited information on the spatial patterns and intensity of the threats driving global biodiversity loss. Here we use expert-derived information from the International Union f...

Unsustainable exploitation of wild species represents a serious threat to biodiversity and to the livelihoods of local communities and Indigenous peoples. However, managed, sustainable use has the potential to forestall extinctions, aid recovery, and meet human needs. We analyzed species‐level data for 30,923 species from 13 taxonomic groups on the...

Tropical forests store 40-50% of terrestrial vegetation carbon. Spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests. Because of climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane compared to lowland forests. Here we ass...

Tropical forests store 40–50 per cent of terrestrial vegetation carbon1. However, spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests2. Owing to climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation3, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane forests compared with...

Despite substantial conservation efforts, the loss of ecosystems continues globally, along with related declines in species and nature’s contributions to people. An effective ecosystem goal, supported by clear milestones, targets and indicators, is urgently needed for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and beyond to support biodiversity co...

The lack of urgent action to reverse biodiversity loss is partly due to the complex nature of biodiversity as a feature of our planet. Subsequently, policymakers receive an often-confusing variety of narratives on why biodiversity matters, which makes it difficult to link biodiversity loss and risks to the attainment of sustainable development. Mak...

As of 10 July 2021, there have been over 186 million cases of COVID-19 and more than four million died as a result of this disease. The COVID-19 outbreak has also contributed to tremendous global decline in trade flows. The rapid spread of COVID-19 and the measures implemented by governments to contain the pandemic have had serious consequences for...

Development corridors are extensive, often transnational and linear, geographical areas targeted for investment to help achieve sustainable development. They often comprise the creation of hard infrastructure (i.e., physical structures) and soft infrastructure (i.e., policies, plans, and programmes) involving a variety of actors. They are globally...

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will probably include a goal to stabilize and restore the status of species. Its delivery would be facilitated by making the actions required to halt and reverse species loss spatially explicit. Here, we develop a species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric...

Available at: https://livereport.protectedplanet.net/ Protected Planet Reports are biennial landmark publications that assess the state of protected and conserved areas around the world. The 2020 edition provides the final report on the status of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11, and looks to the future as the world prepares to adopt a new post-2020 g...

Locally based monitoring is typically undertaken in areas in which communities have a close attachment to their natural resource base. We present a summary of work to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of locally based monitoring and we outline tests of this approach in research and practice over the past 20 years. Our tests show tha...

Indigenous Peoples’ lands cover over one‐quarter of Earth's surface, a significant proportion of which is still free from industrial‐level human impacts. As a result, Indigenous Peoples and their lands are crucial for the long‐term persistence of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, information on species composition on these lands glo...

Land conversion is causing habitat loss and fragmentation worldwide, particularly in Africa, where the proliferation of agricultural development corridors may threaten vital areas for ecological connectivity and wildlife survival. To conserve connectivity, careful landscape planning is necessary, which strongly relies on remotely sensed land cover...

Work on the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework is now well advanced and will outline a vision, goals, and targets for the next decade of biodiversity conservation and beyond. For the effectiveness of Protected areas and Other Effective area‐based Conservation Measures, an indicator has been proposed for “areas meeting their documented ecologic...

Societal Impact Statement Large areas of tropical forest are degraded. While global tree cover is being mapped with increasing accuracy from space, much less is known about the quality of that tree cover. Here we present a field protocol for rapid assessments of forest condition. Using extensive field data from Tanzania, we show that a focus on rem...

There is an emerging body of literature focusing on the COVID-19 livelihoods and environmental impacts, as well as the effects of the pandemics on evidence generation. However, little attention has been paid to how COVID-19 has—and is likely to continue to—affect monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems, specifically in the context of lar...

Background Mangrove forests have gained recognition for their potential role in climate change mitigation due to carbon sequestration in live trees, and carbon storage in the sediments trapped by mangrove tree roots and pneumatophores. Africa hosts about 19% of the world’s mangroves, yet relatively few studies have examined the carbon stocks of Afr...

Biodiversity urgently needs a new comprehensive measurement, comparable to Gross Domestic Product in economics, to gain national policy traction and drive action, say scientists. In this report led by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in partnership with the Luc Hoffmann Institute, a team of scientists,...

Unsustainable exploitation of wild species represents a serious threat to biodiversity and to the livelihoods of local communities and indigenous peoples. However, managed, sustainable use has the potential to forestall extinctions, aid recovery, and meet human needs. Here, we infer current prevalence of unsustainable and sustainable biological res...

The sustainable use of wildlife is a core aspiration of multi-lateral conservation policy but is the subject to intense debate in the scientific literature. We use a global data set of over 11,000 population time-series to derive indices of ‘used’ and ‘unused’ species and assess global and regional changes in wildlife populations – principally for...

Only 10 years remain to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally, so there is a growing need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of action by targeting multiple SDGs. The SDGs were conceived as an ‘indivisible whole’, but interactions between SDGs need to be better understood. Several previous assessments have begun to exp...

Global biodiversity policy is at a crossroads. Recent global assessments of living nature (1, 2) and climate (3) show worsening trends and a rapidly narrowing window for action. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recently announced that none of the 20 Aichi targets for biodiversity it set in 2010 has been reached and only six have bee...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Increased efforts are required to prevent further losses to terrestrial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides1,2. Ambitious targets have been proposed, such as reversing the declining trends in biodiversity³; however, just feeding the growing human population will make this a challenge⁴. Here we use an ensemble of land-use and bi...

Model-based decision making relies on the construction of an accurate representation of the underlying state-space, and localization of one’s current state within it. One way to localize is to recognize the state with which incoming sensory observations have been previously associated. Another is to update a previous state estimate given a known tr...

The IPBES Global Assessment proposed five key interventions to tackle the drivers of nature deterioration. One of these proposals was to take pre-emptive and precautionary actions in regulatory and management institutions and businesses. Performance standards are tools that can be used to help achieve these interventions. The most influential stand...

During 2021, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to meet in Kun-ming, China, to agree on a new global biodiversity framework aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss, encouraging the sustainable use of biodiversity, and ensuring the equitable sharing of its benefits. As the post-2020 global biodiversity fram...

The crisis generated by the emergence and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has thrown into the global spotlight the dangers associated with novel diseases, as well as the key role of animals, especially wild animals, as potential sources of pathogens to humans. There is a widespread demand for a new relationship with wild and domestic animals, including...

The international legal trade in wildlife can provide economic and other benefits, but when unsustainable can be a driver of population declines. This impact is magnified by the additional burden of illegal trade, yet how it covaries with legal trade remains little explored. We combined law‐enforcement time‐series of seizures of wildlife goods impo...

Further progress in reducing biodiversity loss relies on the improved quantification of the connections between drivers of habitat loss and subsequent biodiversity impacts. To this end, biodiversity impact metrics should be able to report linked trends in specific human activities and changes in biodiversity state, accounting for both the ecology o...

Background: Mangrove forests have gained recognition for their potential role in climate change mitigation due to the carbon sequestration of the productive ecosystems and storage in the sediments that are trapped by the mangrove tree roots and pneumatophores. Africa hosts about 19% of the world’s mangroves, yet there are relatively few studies tha...

Background: Mangrove forests have gained recognition for their potential role in climate change mitigation due to the carbon sequestration of the productive ecosystems and storage in the sediments that are trapped by the mangrove tree roots and pneumatophores. Africa hosts about 19% of the world’s mangroves, yet there are relatively few studies tha...

Background: Mangrove forests have gained recognition for their potential role in climate change mitigation due to carbon sequestration in live trees, and carbon storage in the sediments trapped by mangrove tree roots and pneumatophores. Africa hosts about 19% of the world’s mangroves, yet relatively few studies have examined the carbon stocks of Af...

paragraph To meet the ambitious objectives of biodiversity and climate conventions, countries and the international community require clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially, and multiple targets be pursued concurrently ¹ . To support governments and political conventions, spatial guidance is needed to identify which areas...

Towards the end of 2020, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to meet in Kunming, China, to agree a new global biodiversity framework aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss, encouraging the sustainable use of biodiversity, and ensuring the equitable sharing of its benefits. As the new post‐2020 global biodi...

Work has begun in earnest to formulate a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework which will outline the vision and targets for the next decade of biodiversity conservation and beyond. However, the performance of the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity suggests that even a meaningful target can fail to deliver if not accompanied by fit-for-pur...

Large-scale area-based conservation measures affect millions of people globally. Understanding their social impacts is necessary to improve effectiveness and minimize negative consequences. However, quantifying the impacts of conservation measures that affect large geographic areas and diverse peoples is expensive and methodologically challenging,...

Despite global policy commitments to preserve Earth's marine biodiversity, many species are in a state of decline. Using data on 22,885 marine species, we identify 8.5 million km² of priority areas that complement existing areas of conservation and biodiversity importance. New conservation priorities are found in over half (56%) of all coastal nati...

Integrated high-resolution maps of carbon stocks and biodiversity that identify areas of potential co-benefits for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation can help facilitate the implementation of global climate and biodiversity commitments at local levels. However, the multi-dimensional nature of biodiversity presents a major chall...

Background Ustekinumab is effective at inducing and maintaining remission of Crohn’s disease (CD) in clinical trials. However real-world practice may vary regarding use of concomitant immunomodulator (IM), dosing schedule and patient selection. We present the largest UK real-world, multi-centre study of effectiveness. Methods The cohort comprised...

Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs) are critical strongholds for the environmental services that they provide, not least for their role in climate protection. On the basis of information about the distributions of IFLs and Indigenous Peoples’ lands, we examined the importance of these areas for conserving the world's remaining intact forests. We determ...

Indigenous Peoples’ lands cover over one-quarter of the Earth’s surface, a significant proportion of which is still free from industrial-level human impacts. As a result, Indigenous Peoples’ lands are crucial for the long-term persistence of Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, information on species composition within Indigenous Peopl...