Conservation gains should not be at the mercy of political changes

In early March, the new administration of Chile’s Ministry of the Environment halted the implementation of 43 decrees enacted by the previous government, including measures for the protection of terrestrial and marine areas, the conservation of endangered species and adaptations to climate change. These abrupt policy changes risk eroding decades of hard-won progress in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration, in which gains are slow to achieve yet easily reversed.