Roadmaps for addressing the biodiversity crisis

Nature Reviews Biodiversity publishes on a broad range of topics, as shown in this issue by articles on animal fertility, predator–prey interactions, intergovernmental panel assessment reports, and biodiversity data sharing. However, the inescapable wider context that runs through all of the journal’s articles is the ongoing biodiversity crisis, which informs a core aspect of the journal’s mission: understanding Earth’s biodiversity, and how it can be conserved and restored.

Urgent action is required to address this crisis, and we aim to publish articles that help to accelerate action. Our Reviews and Perspectives take stock of important existing evidence, help to guide future research and propose new approaches. These articles host practical discussions of challenges and potential solutions that researchers, policymakers and practitioners can take forward and apply.

However, providing practical, actionable information on addressing challenges often requires more detailed and specific guidance than can be provided in the format of Reviews or Perspectives. This issue therefore marks the launch of the Roadmap article type in Nature Reviews Biodiversity. By contrast with Reviews and Perspectives, which discuss developments and emerging approaches in a field, Roadmaps outline the challenges and opportunities within a field or project, and provide specific guidance on the steps required to meet these challenges.

“Roadmaps outline the challenges and opportunities within a field or project, and provide specific guidance on the steps required to meet these challenges”

This issue contains our first two Roadmap articles, which showcase the diversity of topics that can be tackled using this article type. Despite addressing substantially different topics, both Roadmaps have a continental-scale scope and engage with similar themes that we anticipate will be common to this format: national, regional and international policy; governance structures; funding; and infrastructure.

Kissling et al. outline how a transnational biodiversity observation network can be achieved in Europe. The pathway described by the authors distils insights from stakeholders in diverse sectors across the continent, and applies the Essential Biodiversity Variables framework to define target variables, highlight key monitoring technologies, propose sampling designs, and describe data integration approaches. The Roadmap also describes the specific partnerships and governance structures that are necessary to implement a European biodiversity observation system aligned with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), and to meet policy requirements at local to global scales. By drawing together these elements, this article provides a detailed plan for developing, implementing and sustaining an observation network that is capable of delivering monitoring data crucial for decision-making and successful biodiversity outcomes in Europe.

Ebenezer and colleagues explain how genomics research in Africa can be expanded in a way that also advances African and global biodiversity objectives. The authors present the Africa BioGenome Project’s (AfricaBP) theory of change, and specify five thematic areas in which action is required to scale genomics research in line with GBF goals and targets. Challenges, recommendations for action, intermediate outcomes and AfricaBP’s relevant activities are outlined in the context of legal and ethical frameworks, genomics and digital sequence information infrastructure, inclusion and gender, conflicting priorities, and transparency, monitoring and mainstreaming. This Roadmap outlines the actions required by research institutions, policymakers, funding bodies and governments to simultaneously scale genomics research and meet key biodiversity commitments.

Countless challenges must be addressed to halt and reverse the biodiversity crisis, and practical guidance is vital to success. We hope that Roadmap articles will provide a focal point for shaping action and showing the way forward.