Increasing the amount of private land permanently protected for biodiversity, through agreements like conservation covenants, are an essential part of conservation policies around the world.
But finding sustainable ways to increase the total amount of privately protected land is challenging.
A new study has found marine reserves near heavily polluted areas are largely unable to do their job of protecting marine biodiversity - but are still considered vast improvements compared to having no protection.
Researchers from more than 30 organisations, including CEED, undertook the massive study of almost 1800 tropical coral reefs around the world, examining different conservation strategies.
Read more: Marine reserves under too much pressure to function correctly
Animals interact in complex ways and form interconnected ecosystems. Even small changes to those complex systems could have potentially devastating consequences to the entire environmental system.
Because of this, predicting outcomes of conservation management actions can be challenging – even more so with poor data.
Palm plantations with certification did not excel compared to their non-certified equivalents when it came to protecting orangutan, increasing wealth, or access to healthcare for local villagers, say researchers.
Read more: Sustainable certified palm oil scheme failing to achieve goals
Millions of metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans from land each year.
While research like this has helped raise the profile of plastic as a pollutant, there is still a big gap between plastic ingestion research and marine wildlife conservation.
Read more: Linking plastic ingestion research with marine wildlife conservation
Cities around the world are spending billions on climate change resilience, but biodiversity conservation opportunities are being missed in most of the plans. Click below to find out more.
Crowdfunding is helping to protect endangered species such as the African elephant, the black rhinoceros and the Bornean orangutan.
A University of Queensland-led study has revealed the practice is funding conservation worldwide, including in countries with high global conservation priorities, such as Indonesia and Costa Rica.
Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions PhD researcher Eduardo Gallo-Cajiao said crowdfunding had harnessed the power of the internet to magnify the power of public appeals.
Read more: Crowdfunding supports biodiversity conservation around the world
In the new issue of Journal of Applied Ecology, our researchers share their findings on which outcome-based payment methods used in private land conservation were most successful in benefiting biodiversity. The team, led by Dr Jane McDonald, compared different outcome-based payment methods. They found that biodiversity outcomes were highly dependent on the payment method used, with some outperforming others.
University of Queensland environmental scientists are trading travel for tweets in an effort to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and improve accessibility leading talks in a new conference.
Read more: Trade travel for tweets to prevent pollution and boost equity
Do you have data for that? Maria Jose Martinez Harms shows how social media data can be used to measure inequality in access to protected areas.
Read more: Using social media data to measure access inequality
Join CEED PhD students Carla Archibald and Rachel Friedman as they explore and share the most up-to-date thinking in conservation science and environmental problem-solving.
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