Philippa Kaur

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RESEARCH BRIEFINGS
29 November 2023

Exposure to the complex mix of pesticides used in agriculture in Europe significantly reduces bumblebees’ health. This suggests that current risk-assessment processes, in which pesticides are assessed separately, are not fit for purpose. Continuous monitoring is needed to quantify the real-world effects of pesticides on pollinator health. More

Wildfires are a natural part of forest life that help to shape diverse habitats. But the extreme ‘megafires’ that ravaged California in 2020 (pictured) and 2021 were more severe and about ten times more widespread than the yearly average in the region since records began, as Ayars et al. report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (J. Ayars et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2312909120; 2023).
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests. More

The Aral Sea, on the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, almost completely dried up between 2000 (left) and 2018 (right).Credit: NASA

Last week, Samarkand in Uzbekistan hosted an important intergovernmental conference on how to halt the creeping spread of degraded land. The country was aptly chosen: only about 800 kilometres from the meeting, the Aral Sea spans the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, it has almost completely dried up because of excessive extraction of water for irrigation during the twentieth century. Its exposed, highly polluted lake bed is a large source of blinding sandstorms and emits more than 100 million tonnes of dust and toxic chemicals every year.Between 2015 and 2019, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land a year, according to an analysis for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which organized the meeting. Human activities — including deforestation and agricultural practices — and climate change are among the main causes.As part of tracking progress towards the 15th UN Sustainable Development Goal, ‘life on land’, 115 countries reported ahead of the meeting on three measures for restoring degraded land and soil (see go.nature.com/3sqzxm2): the area used for agriculture or covered by forests, grassland or wetlands; productivity, the ability of land to support and sustain life; and above- and below-ground stocks of carbon. Reaching the target of ‘land degradation neutrality’ by 2030 means reversing a negative trend. The global share of land that is degraded increased from 14.7% in 2015 to 18.9% in 2019 (see ‘Land loss’), the last year for which comprehensive data were available. In Mexico, more than 71.9% of land was classed as degraded in 2019, up from 56.7% in 2015. During the same period, India’s fraction of degraded land more than doubled to 9.5%. And many countries in Africa reported considerable increases — in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Eritrea and Somalia, the area of degraded land was between two and eight times larger in 2019 than in 2015.

Yet there are some important signs of hope amid a mostly bleak outlook. The analysis enables countries to understand land degradation at a more-granular level than before. And the UNCCD’s science teams did not perform the study: they helped to train researchers in some of the most-affected countries, so that local scientists and policymakers could do the work themselves, including monitoring progress on a continuous basis, using open sources.This work is crucial for altering course. And some countries are moving in the right direction. In Ecuador, for example, the area of land classed as degraded went from 21.9% to 12.8% between 2015 and 2019. During the same period, the degraded area in Botswana decreased from 36.3% to 17.1%, and in Burkina Faso from 34.6% to 8.2%. In Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, improvements are made mainly by restoring tree cover; in Asia, gains also came from improvements in soil fertility.Land degradation is not a priority on the world’s environmental agenda. Although the UNCCD has the same status as the UN conventions on climate change and biodiversity, unlike them it does not have an autonomous body that provides independent scientific advice. Restoration projects also receive much less international funding — they attracted around US$5 billion between 2015 and 2019 — than do climate projects, which have yearly funds of close to $100 billion, and biodiversity programmes, which attract around $154 billion a year.This funding disparity illustrates just how little priority is given to restoring land and preventing further degradation. Yet the latest analysis shows what can be done even with limited resources. But not all countries are providing data. These nations, especially high-income countries, should start reporting their plans and actions, to raise the profile of land degradation and help reverse the trend. More

Faced with the realities of meeting the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), scientists will need to move beyond rescuing them (see S. Malekpour et al. Nature 621, 250–254; 2023). In my view, modifying those that inherently contradict one another is more likely to secure the protection of the planet’s ecosystems and resources.
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests. More

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Conservation of seabirds that congregate on islands to breed seems straightforward: protect the colony and job done. But seabirds spend most of their lives at sea, where safeguarding them is much more challenging.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03526-0

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Conservation biology More

RESEARCH BRIEFINGS
15 November 2023

In 2019, Cyclone Idai caused devastating flooding in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park when ecological studies of mammals were already under way. Small-bodied species and those in low-lying areas were affected most, suggesting that animals’ sensitivity to extreme weather depends on traits such as body size and habitat use. More

The manatee in this photo is named Daniel. The picture was taken in Mexico’s Guerrero Lagoon in July this year, as I was assessing a small bump on his head. Thankfully, he was fine. Daniel was rescued about 20 years ago, rehabilitated and released, but he continues to be very attached to people — behaving like a pet — which is really problematic for conservationists and ecologists like me.That’s because locals and tourists offer Daniel food and drinks that aren’t part of his typical diet, or that could harm him by transmitting pathogens. And Daniel is a strong, playful animal, so he could injure people — or even put their lives at risk.My colleagues and I are involved in an intensive campaign to help people understand that Daniel is not a pet. Manatees are such wonderful, intelligent and interesting creatures; we can love them without owning them.There are three species of manatee. All of them are threatened, and one subspecies is endangered. Historically, manatees were hunted by many Indigenous civilizations in the Americas. Now, they face habitat loss, and risk being struck by boats or entangled in fishing nets.I’m working on a project in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve — an extensive area in Quintana Roo, the Mexican Caribbean state that also contains Guerrero Lagoon. The aim is to assess how boat collisions are affecting manatee populations. In the past ten years, we’ve had six reports of manatees being killed by boats, so we’re concerned that these incidents will become more common as tourism continues to increase in the area.After 25 years working with these animals, it still gives me chills to see a healthy manatee in the wild. We need to act fast to save our endangered wildlife. No matter what happens in terms of legislation, if people don’t make their own decisions to care for these animals, it’s going to be impossible for us to protect manatees and other threatened species. More