644 Briefly INTERNATIONAL


A standard tool to compare species conservation efforts In 2010 the Convention on Biodiversity pro- posed a list of 20 targets aimed at preserving global biodiversity—from increasing public awareness to preventing species extinctions —but none were achieved by the deadline. To meet the 2021–2030 iteration of the tar- gets, scientists have proposed a tool that as- signs value to extinction prevention efforts in the hopes that governments, communities andprivate interest groups canwork together to protect biodiversity. The tool—called the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration, or STAR, metric—determines how much a given action can help reduce a species’ extinc- tion risk. A team of .80 international re- searchers compiled publicly available data on extinction risk categories for amphibians, birds and mammals, and the threats they face. They then scored countries on the po- tential for mitigation action. The tool is the first of its kind to provide a common mea- surement across species for how contribu- tions from various stakeholders can prevent biodiversity loss. Sources: Nature Ecology & Evolution (2021) doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01432-0 & Anthropocene Magazine (2021) anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/05/a-better- way-to-fight-extinction-put-a-number-on-it


Healthy shark populations are critical to restoring damaged ecosystems A study at one of the world’slargest and most biodiverse seagrass meadows in Shark Bay, Western Australia has indicated that the absence of large predators could exacer- bate the effects of climate change onmarine ecosystems. Following an extreme marine heatwave in 2011 that caused the die-off of a quarter of the bay’s seagrass canopy, scien- tists conducted a field experiment to estab- lish whether apex predators such as sharks played a role in the ecosystem’srecovery. When new, heat-resistant seagrass had grown, divers replicated the impact of graz- ing by animals such as dugongs, whose feed- ing patterns have previously been shown to be less destructive in the presence of sharks. They found that the seagrass canopy was being disturbed too frequently by the divers’ simulated grazing to recover, concluding that top predators play a vital role in seagrass recovery by regulating the numbers and be- haviour of herbivorous species. Source: The Guardian (2021) theguardian. com/environment/2021/mar/22/sharks- critical-restoring-climate-damaged- ecosystems-study


Only 3% of the land on Earth is still ecologically intact Most of the Earth’s terrestrial habitats have lost their ecological integrity, including areas previously categorized as being intact. Ecological integrity encompasses measures of habitat, faunal and functional intactness of ecosystems. A recent study combined data on human impacts and loss of animal species from various global databases to map the ecological integrity of different re- gions. The researchers found that only 2– 3% of terrestrial areas had the same fauna and flora as 500 years ago, in pre-industrial times. Only 11% of ecologically intact sites lie within environmentally protected areas. However, many other of the intact sites, in- cluding parts of the Sahara, Amazon and northernCanada, arewithin territoriesman- aged by Indigenous communities, which have played a role in maintaining ecological integrity. The team determined that by re- introducing 1–5 species to sites that are not completely degraded, ecological integrity could be restored across c. 20%ofthe Earth’s land areas. Sources: Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (2021) doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021. 626635 & New Scientist (2021) newscientist. com/article/2274576-just-3-per-cent-of-the- land-on-earth-is-still-ecologically-intact


Quick fixes to the climate crisis risk harming nature Climate change and nature loss are inter- linked and must be tackled together, finds a key report by 50 leading scientists search- ing for combined solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises. Quick fixes for climate change risk harming nature, say the experts. Potential climate and biodiver- sity fails include misguided tree planting and large-scale bioenergy crops. The report was compiled by scientists fromthe influen- tial Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science- Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Eco- system Services. It found that previous poli- cies have largely tackled biodiversity loss and climate change independently of each other rather than taking a holistic approach. The authorswarned of the dangers of actions that, although well-intentioned, could have disastrous consequences for climate and bio- diversity.One example of such harmful prac- ticesisplantingoftrees forforestry on peatlands, which happened in the 1970sand 1980s in the UK. Peatlands extract carbon di- oxide from the air when in a healthy condi- tion, but 80%ofthe UK’speatlands are damaged, meaning they contribute to carbon emissions. Source: BBC (2021) bbc.co.uk/news/ science-environment-57425311


Climate crisis drives a drastic drop in Arctic wildlife populations... Wildlife is struggling to cope with drastic changes to conditions in the Arctic tundra as a result of climate change, according to the latest State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity report. Released by the Arctic Council in May 2021, the report highlights the diverse, unpredictable and increasingly severe impacts of the changing climate in the region, which is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. A range of southerly species is shifting northward, bringing non-native diseases and altering predator–prey interactions. Shrubs are prolif- erating in areas previously home to mosses and lichens, and pollinators have declined, probably because of a mismatch between the timing of plant flowering and pollinator flight activity. Of the 88 shore bird species examined, over 50% declined in at least one population, and 80%of high-Arctic shore birds are at risk of losing large parts of their breeding grounds within 50 years. Caribou populations are threatened by food scarcity andharassing insects, andbacterial infections previously unable to survive Arctic tempera- tures have proven deadly to musk oxen. Source:The Guardian (2021) theguardian.com/ environment/2021/may/20/climate-crisis- drastic-drop-arctic-wildlife-populations-aoe


.. . and ice melt in Antarctica approaching tipping point If carbon emissions are not cutmore aggres- sively, Antarctic icemelt could speed up dra- matically around the middle of this century, triggering rapid and unstoppable sea-level rise for hundreds of years to come, a new modelling study has found. Nearly 200 nations have submitted emission reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. But al- though the global climate accord calls for limiting warming to 2 °C, the initial pledges would lead to at least 3 °C of warming this century. New research shows the impact this difference could have on the Earth’s largest ice sheet. If global warming is limited to 2 °C, Antarctica will continue to lose ice at a steady pace throughout the 21st century. But if the current trend continues, theremay be an abrupt acceleration inmelting c. 2060, resulting in rapid sea level rise. Since the early 1990s, Antarctica has lost c. 3 trillion t of ice. Therateoflossisaccelerating aswarmocean water melts and destabilizes the floating ice shelves that hold back West Antarctica’s glaciers, causing those glaciers to flow more quickly into the sea. Source: National Geographic (2021) nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and- conservation/2021/05/antarcticas-ice-could- cross-this-scary-threshold-within-40-years


Oryx, 2021, 55(5), 643–648 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000958


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