Offering 8 solutions
The climate crisis and other environmental crises are, in the medium term, the greatest threat to security, economy and prosperity, democracy, civilization and human life.
Innovative and inclusive solutions offer opportunities to support coastal habitats under threat
Coastal habitats are vital, but are being degraded at an alarming rate by climate change and human activities.
Mangrove forests have already declined by 35% and half are at risk of collapse. A global temperature rise of more than 1.5°C will accelerate habitat loss, threatening the food sources and livelihoods of 500 million people who depend on coral reefs.
A 3°C rise could devastate mangroves, coral reef islands and 40% of tidal marshes. Climate stress adds to existing pressures such as pollution, overtourism and land reclamation, making effective conservation a complex but urgent challenge.
Localised responses are key to protecting these fragile ecosystems.
Solution
Restoring and protecting coastal ecosystems requires a multi-functional approach: green infrastructure supported by grey elements can strengthen resilience while supporting wildlife.
Local species should be prioritised in vegetation efforts to ensure ecological benefits. Community engagement and indigenous knowledge are essential for equitable decision-making and sustainable restoration.
A watershed approach is essential to prevent impacts in other areas such as pollution and sedimentation.
Creating space for ecosystem stewardship benefits both coastal habitats and local communities. More science-based solutions and details on suggested efforts in the published manuscript.
Forest protection avoids worsening future droughts and keeps regional, seasonal rain patterns stable
It is estimated that about 40% of global land precipitation comes from plant transpiration.
Deforestation reduces regional and downwind rainfall, leading to a drier climate, reduced agricultural productivity and altered river flows.
Across the tropics, a 1% loss of forest can reduce rainfall by 0.25 mm/month and delay the rainy season by up to 40 days. Droughts have serious consequences: 700,000 deaths in Africa since 1950. In Europe, the average annual cost is €6.2 billion, rising to €8.3 billion in extreme years.
Future risks to infrastructure are expected to increase.
Solution
Curbing deforestation requires sustainable forest management, protected areas, strong penalties for illegal logging and improved governance.
Supply chain interventions should target high-risk areas and support rural development. Indigenous communities play a key role in conservation.
However, afforestation in areas with naturally low tree cover can damage ecosystems, reduce biodiversity, dry up wetlands and alter water flows.
More ground-based data in combination with satellite missions, especially from tropical and semi-arid regions, are needed to better assess the regional feasibility of interventions.
Delayed climate change mitigation likely to increase fire risks in many regions
Weather-related fire risk is increasing not only in already fire-prone areas, but also in cooler, wetter regions such as temperate zones, boreal forests and mountains.
Local ignition sources, vegetation and flammable land cover - such as pine and eucalypt plantations - further increase the risk. Remote areas are particularly vulnerable to severe fires with high carbon loss because of limited surveillance and fire fighting capacity.
However, long-term predictions of fire risk at local scales remain highly uncertain, limiting their use in planning.
Solution
Mitigation is more cost effective than the damage caused by extreme fire seasons.
Relying solely on fire suppression has in some cases led to high fuel loads and increased fire severity. A mix of prescribed burning, mechanical fuel reduction and biodiversity enhancement strategies reduces risk. Firebreaks offer local benefits but can fragment ecosystems and habitats.
Integrating indigenous knowledge and international cooperation improves fire management. Increasing weather-driven risk can to a large but uncertain extent be mitigated by improving surveillance techniques, increasingly from satellites, and adapted ecosystem management.
Nature-based Carbon Dioxide Removals (CDR) implementation risks
Land ecosystems are increasing being seen as an important method to remove carbon from the atmosphere as a way to achieving net zero emission targets.
Among other challenges, climate-induced increases in wildfires and other disturbances threaten the stability of land-based carbon stocks.
This temporary nature of carbon storage on land poses a challenge in quantifying the effect when used to offset fossil fuel emissions.
Solution
To account for the instability of land-based carbon storage, its climate mitigation value can be assessed by measuring time-integrated carbon storage.
This approach, which requires tracking both the amount of carbon stored and the duration over which the carbon remains in storage, is well linked to the time integral (degree-years) of avoided warming.
Considering land-based carbon storage as temporary contributions rather than permanent assets could improve carbon offset protocols and better reflect the climate benefit of temporary storage.
Sustaining Nature’s Contributions to People in human-modified landscapes requires at least 20%–25% (semi-)natural habitat per square kilometer
Human well-being depends on nature even in transformed landscapes.
Conservation often overlooks the half of Earth already modified by humans, such as agricultural and urban lands.
These landscapes can still support Nature’s Contributions to People if habitat quality, quantity, and connectivity are maintained. Below habitat critical thresholds, nature's key benefits rapidly decline.
Solution
Maintaining at least 20–25% semi-natural habitat per km² through agroecological practices, nature-based solutions, and innovations in agriculture, production systems, and urban planning supports biodiversity, food security, and resilience.
Locally adapted approaches aligned with community needs are essential to minimize trade-offs and enhance well-being.
Interconnect and deliver comprehensive policy packages to address the root causes of degradation and revitalized, just human-nature relationships
Global efforts have focused on climate targets, but have left the biodiversity crisis and the need to strengthen human-nature relationships behind.
Biodiversity governance faces major challenges, including the lack of platforms to establish norms, address inequities, and ensure accountability.
These issues are often rooted in extractive practices and colonial legacies, where biodiversity-rich regions are viewed merely as sources of natural resources for global markets, without fair compensation or trade for local communities.
Solution
To improve compliance and accountability in global environmental agreements, we can draw from human rights.
Sustainable trade policies should include certification schemes, fair trade agreements, and incentives. Transnational conservation collaborations show how regional cooperation can protect critical ecosystems and support sustainable livelihoods.
Environmental policies should be designed with equity and a rights-based approach.
These actions can address both climate change and biodiversity loss, leading to a healthier planet for all.
The social-economic value of ecosystems will increase in proportion to rising real market incomes and the changing scarcities of ecosystems.
Values of biodiversity need to be integrated into planning processes as stated in Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework- Target 14.
Governments often convert ecosystem services into monetary values to better reflect these ecosystem services in benefit-cost analyses as determined under current conditions, which implies that nature becomes relatively less valuable over time compared to other goods and services whose value increases with the expected rise of incomes.
Solution
A ready-to-use formula for use in decision-making processes estimates the future economic value of scarce ecosystem services, including the development of incomes.
It shows that accounting for nature's scarcity increases the value attached to nature’s goods and services.
Principles of convivial conservation
There are two dominant agendas in conservation. The first one, ‘new conservation’, critiques the fixation on ‘pristine wilderness’ seen as separate from humans, and instead promotes integration into human development.
However, new conservation is based on market mechanisms to fund conservation, and thus does not address the harmful capitalist model of economic development that underpins biodiversity loss, thereby intensifying social and environmental problems.
The second approach, neo-protectionism, completely separates nature from human development, calling for an expansion of conventional ’fortress’-style protected areas and reinforces the nature-culture dichotomy.
Solution
Convivial conservation aims to produce integrated nature-culture spaces within post-capitalist conservation strategies. This advocates for inclusive decision-making processes, and a redistribution of wealth and resources in a just and equitable manner. Recognizing Indigenous and local knowledge offers insights to other ways of knowing such as Ubuntu, Buen Vivir, and Eco-Swaraj that promote life through mutual care and sharing between humans and non-humans, discouraging individualism and unsustainable extraction. Initiatives include conservation basic income and human-wildlife cohabitation grounded in a strong bottom-up approach.