Title: The need for bold nature retention targets to drive effective biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene

Speaker:  Prof. James Watson  University of Queensland, Australia

Time: 16:30-18:00(Beijing time) 

Date: April 25，2023 (Tuesday) 

Online Venue: ZOOM ID 312 430 8960   PWD 666666 

Offline Venue: The Conference Hall in Xishuangbanna Headquarters      

                         The 101 Meting Room in Kunming Division (video conference) 

Discussion summary 

Humanity is exerting unprecedented pressure on the natural environment, driving a biodiversity extinction and climate crisis and placing strain on natural resources. Understanding the spatial distribution and growing dominance of different human pressures is vital for ambitious global goals such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. I will discuss recent advances in human pressure mapping, bringing together a number of global studies that assess how expanding human pressures are affecting progress towards global conservation progress. I will use this to frame the conservation challenge facing nations, and make the case for an urgent shift away from simplistic area-based targets (such as 30 by 30) to retention targets that aim to ensure those areas that are most important for biodiversity conservation (ranging from sites that stop extinction to those that still retain intact species assemblages and ecological function) are conserved. We can identify these places and also assess their likely risk of loss, which should be used to prioritise site-based conservation action. We still have time to ‘bend the curve’ back for biodiversity but this can only happen with an evidence-based strategy based on what species and ecosystems need in the face of expanding human pressures and the changing climate.

For more information, please visit

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/27709329/homepage/integrative-conservation-webinar-series