China’s ecological redlines offer fast track to 30 x 30 global conservation goal

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University

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A Chinese model for 30 × 30: ecological redlines as other effective area-based conservation measures

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Credit: Shaokun Li, Xiaoqian Chen

A new commentary in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes proposes a practical pathway for countries to meet the global goal of protecting 30 percent of land and sea by 2030, known as the 30 × 30 target, by rethinking how existing ecological policies are counted and governed. Focusing on China, the authors argue that the country’s Ecological Protection Redline policy offers a ready model for turning ambitious maps into real conservation outcomes while balancing development needs.

Turning redlines into real protection

China’s Ecological Protection Redline system has legally identified about 32 percent of the nation’s land as crucial ecological space, creating a nationwide network that safeguards most major ecosystems and many key wildlife species. This framework has already slowed ecological degradation, supported the recovery of endangered species and strengthened the foundation for long term ecological security.​

The commentary suggests that roughly 12 percent of China’s land, currently within these ecological redlines but outside the formal protected area system, could be rapidly recognized as “other effective area based conservation measures,” or OECMs. OECMs are areas where conservation is achieved in practice, even when it is not the primary management goal, and they are now formally acknowledged under the Convention on Biological Diversity.​

A fast track to 30 × 30

By designating eligible parts of the redline network as OECMs, China could close the remaining gap between its interim goal of protecting 18 percent of land and the full 30 percent effective conservation target, without creating large numbers of new parks from scratch. This approach can reduce political resistance and financial costs, since it works within an existing legal and governance framework rather than imposing entirely new land use categories.​

“Ecological redlines already function as the backbone of China’s conservation system,” says lead author Shaokun Li of Beijing Normal University in Zhuhai. “Recognizing qualifying areas as OECMs would transform this backbone into a fast track for achieving 30 × 30 while supporting local communities.” The authors highlight that many redline areas already include strict development controls, restoration requirements and protection of wildlife corridors and water sources.​

A model for emerging economies

The commentary emphasizes that governance capacity, not just the percentage of land on a map, will determine whether the 30 × 30 pledge truly protects biodiversity. By integrating national policies like China’s redlines with international tools such as OECMs, the authors argue that countries can deliver conservation that is both functionally effective and socially grounded.​

The proposed “redlines to OECMs” pathway is presented as a replicable model for other emerging economies where conservation must coexist with dense populations and strong development pressures. The authors call on the global conservation community to recognize and incentivize such nationally tailored innovations so that 30 × 30 becomes a real safeguard for nature rather than a set of fragmented boundaries on paper.​

 

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Journal reference: Li S, Chen X. 2025. A Chinese model for 30 × 30: ecological redlines as other effective area-based conservation measures. Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes 1: e014  

https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/ebp-0025-0014 

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About the Journal:

Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes is a multidisciplinary platform for communicating advances in fundamental and applied research on the interactions and processes involving the cycling of elements and compounds between the biological, geological, and chemical components of the environment. 

Follow us on Facebook, X, and Bluesky.  

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DOI

10.48130/ebp-0025-0014 

Method of Research

News article

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A Chinese model for 30 × 30: ecological redlines as other effective area-based conservation measures

Article Publication Date

12-Dec-2025

 

Invisible indoor threats: emerging household contaminants and their growing risks to human health

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University

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New contaminants in indoor environments: occurrence, transformation, and health risks

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Credit: Jinze Wang, Xinyi Zhou, Nan Fu, Shan Zhou, Shuo Yang, Jiangping Liu, Wei Du, & Bo Pan

Indoor dust, air and everyday products are exposing people to a growing mix of “new contaminants” inside homes, schools and workplaces, according to a new perspective published in the journal New Contaminants. The authors warn that these emerging chemicals may quietly increase the risk of heart disease, cancer and developmental problems while remaining largely unregulated and poorly monitored indoors.

Hidden pollution indoors

People now spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, yet most pollution research and standards still focus on outdoor air. The paper highlights that indoor spaces have complex mixtures of chemicals from building materials, furnishings, cosmetics, cleaning agents and electronics that can linger and transform over time. Because modern buildings are more airtight to save energy, pollutants released indoors can accumulate and lead to long term exposure.​

“In many buildings indoor pollution can be more severe than what we measure outside and that is especially worrying for children and older adults who rarely leave these environments” says corresponding author Wei Du of Kunming University of Science and Technology. “Our daily routines bring us into constant contact with chemical residues in the air, dust and on surfaces even when we cannot see or smell them.”​

What are “new contaminants”

Unlike traditional indoor pollutants such as formaldehyde or carbon monoxide, new contaminants include persistent organic pollutants, endocrine disrupting chemicals, antibiotics and microplastics that have only recently come under scrutiny. These substances can be released from shampoos, sunscreens, plastics, carpets, paints, toys, electronics and specialized materials used in offices or childcare centers. Once indoors they can enter the body through inhalation, ingestion of dust or skin contact and have been detected in blood, urine, breast milk and even human bone marrow.​

Why they may be more dangerous

The authors emphasize that indoor surfaces and dust act like chemical reactors where contaminants can change into new compounds that may be even more persistent or toxic than the originals. For example, reactions driven by indoor light, ozone and other oxidants can turn flame retardants or fragrance ingredients into derivatives with stronger neurotoxic or endocrine disrupting effects. These processes make it harder to predict health risks using outdoor studies alone and point to the need for indoor specific research.​

Call for standards and protection

The perspective calls for systematic monitoring of new contaminants in different indoor settings including homes, schools, hospitals, offices and recreational facilities to build a comprehensive database for regulators. The authors argue that high resolution measurements, mechanistic studies of chemical transformations and targeted toxicology work are urgently needed to inform next generation indoor air standards. “Protecting human health increasingly means looking inward at the places where we live, learn and work and treating indoor environments as a critical frontier for pollution control” says co corresponding author Bo Pan.​

 

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Journal reference: Wang J, Zhou X, Fu N, Zhou S, Yang S, et al. 2025. New contaminants in indoor environments: occurrence, transformation, and health risks. New Contaminants 1: e017  

https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/newcontam-0025-0018  

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About the Journal:

New Contaminants is an open-access journal focusing on research related to emerging pollutants and their remediation.

Follow us on Facebook, X, and Bluesky. 

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DOI

10.48130/newcontam-0025-0018 

Method of Research

News article

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

New contaminants in indoor environments: occurrence, transformation, and health risks

Article Publication Date

10-Dec-2025

 

Pure bred: New stem cell medium only has canine components

Researchers create a stem cell medium for canine stem cells that doesn’t contain any human components

Osaka Metropolitan University

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E. coli was used to introduce canine proteins into the medium to act as a scaffold for the stem cells.

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Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University

Canine induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells possess the ability to differentiate into any type of cell, making them a useful tool for investigating common canine diseases and disease states, including those of humans.

When culturing iPS cells, a culture substrate is required to serve as a scaffold for the cells, which adhere to it and proliferate. Without the scaffold, the cells die or fail to differentiate.

Currently, recombinant proteins derived primarily from humans are used as culture substrates for canine iPS cells. However, these human-derived elements are an alien substance for dog cells, leading to immune rejection and making clinical use difficult.

A research team led by graduate student Kohei Shishida and Professor Shingo Hatoya at the Graduate School of Veterinary Science, Osaka Metropolitan University, engineered E. coli with canine-derived genes that made them produce vitronectin (VTN), a dog protein. The E. coli bacteria acted like factories, creating enough VTN to be used as a scaffold to support the growth of canine iPS cells without using any human- or mouse-derived materials.

They found that the canine-derived VTN supported stem cell culture as effectively as the human-derived version. The stem cells also maintained their full differentiation potential, just as they do in the standard medium.

“This achievement is highly significant as it has paves the way for the stable cultivation of canine iPS cells without the use of human components,” Shishida said. “This is valuable because it enables a fully canine culture system, reducing cross-species contamination risks.”

For potential clinical use, the researchers also evaluated a mutant form, VTN-N, generated by deleting a portion of the protein’s N-terminal region to establish whether trimming down unnecessary or potentially problematic parts of the protein hindered its effectiveness. VTN-N demonstrated similar performance to human-derived VTN, functioning adequately even with a simpler structure. Future studies will enable optimization of the manufacturing process using VTN-N.

“This research brings the clinical application of regenerative medicine for intractable diseases commonly seen in dogs, such as heart disease, neurological disorders, and blood disorders, closer to reality,” Professor Hatoya added. “Canine-derived VTN can be produced stably and cost-effectively using E. coli, making it a useful foundational technology with broad applicability from research to clinical use.”

The study was published in Regenerative Therapy.

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About OMU

Established in Osaka as one of the largest public universities in Japan, Osaka Metropolitan University is committed to shaping the future of society through the “Convergence of Knowledge” and the promotion of world-class research. For more research news, visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ and follow us on social media: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

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Journal

Regenerative Therapy

DOI

10.1016/j.reth.2025.09.002 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Recombinant production of canine vitronectin for optimizing the culture of canine induced pluripotent stem cells

 

Feeling the heat

Study shows that infrared radiation may be one of the most ancient plant signals to pollinating insects

Harvard University

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Brace yourself for a hot story about plant sex.

Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads—one of the oldest living lineages of seed plants—heat up their reproductive organs to attract beetle pollinators and the insects possess infrared sensors to detect these signals. First the male cycads warm their pollen cones to entice beetles and then the female plants similarly get hot and the insects follow—and thereby spread the genetic material enabling the plants to reproduce.

The new study [LINK WILL ACTIVATE WHEN EMBARGO LIFTS 2PM THURS 12/11 ], published Thursday in a cover story in Science, marks the first time that infrared radiation has been identified as a pollination signal—one far older than the splendorous colors that later become dominant among flowering plants.

“This is basically adding a new dimension of information that plants and animals are using to communicate that we didn't know about before” said lead author Wendy Valencia-Montoya, PhD ’25, a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. “We knew of scent and we knew of color, but we didn't know that infrared could act as a pollination signal.”

In fact, heat may be one of the most ancient modes of communication between animals and plants and even predate the dinosaurs. “Long before petals and perfume,” said Valencia-Montoya, “plants and beetles found each other by feeling the warmth.”

The findings shed new light on the ancient alliance between plants and pollinators and culminates a scientific quest that stretched more than a dozen years since Valencia-Montoya began studying cycads as an undergraduate in Colombia.

It has long been known that many plant species warm their pollination cones or flowers by cranking up their metabolism. “But everyone assumed that the heat was mostly just to help volatilizing scents,” said Valencia-Montoya, who found it puzzling that plants would invest so much energy in heat production.

After coming to Harvard for her PhD, she planned to continue research on cycads in South America but was forced to adjust her plans during the pandemic. Instead, she conducted most of her research at Montgomery Botanical Center in Florida. Her work was supervised by Professor Nicholas Bellono of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Naomi Pierce, Sidney A. and John H. Hessel Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (both coauthors on the new paper).

As the oldest known seed plants pollinated by animals, cycads are sometimes called “living fossils” and have long aroused fascination among biologists, The plants have stout trunks and crowns of featherlike leaves and resemble palms and ferns, but are not closely related to either.

Cycads appeared around 275 million years ago and reached their peak diversity around 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period. They were largely displaced by the rise of flowering plants, which became the dominant group in the last 70 million years.

Today about 300 cycad species remain, most of them listed as endangered.

Cycads so called “dioecious” plants because they have male and female individuals distinguished by their reproductive cones. Male cones produce pollen and female cones bear ovules that, if fertilized, develop into seeds.

In the new study, Valencia-Montoya and her colleagues focused on Zamia furfuracea, a four foot-tall cycad native to Mexico commonly called “cardboard palm.” Like every cycad, it has an exclusive symbiotic relationship with its own pollinating beetle species—Rhopalotria furfuracea, a small, long-snouted brown weevil.

In a “push-pull pollination” relationship, cycads use a combination of signals including heat, odor, and humidity to attract beetles to feed on pollen in the male cones. At a certain point, these signals become so overwhelming that the beetles are driven out of the male plants towards the female ovulate cones. “It's sort of like a guy puts on cologne to go out on a date,” explained Pierce, “a little bit is a nice thing, but too much is repulsive." By migrating between plants, the beetles transmit male pollen and fertilize the seeds in the female plants.

But how did heat factor in this ancient relationship? Valencia-Montoya and her colleagues took thermal images and found that cycads heat production focused on the cones. The parts bearing the reproductive organs, the sporophylls, contained high concentrations of energy-producing mitochondria. Zamia furfuracea could heat its cones 46 degrees Fahrenheit above the ambient air temperature, but other cycads could get even hotter.

The researchers examined 17 cycad species and discovered that all followed a circadian pattern at the end of the day: first male cones heated and then cooled down and about three hours later, females cones began to warm.

Next Valencia-Montoya and her colleagues tracked movements of the beetle pollinators by marking them with ultraviolet fluorescent dyes and watching at night as they moved between plants in an open field. The beetles were attracted to the warmest parts of the cones—first the males, then the females.

“This was one of the early compelling pieces of evidence that this is probably related to pollination,” said Bellono. “Male and female plants were actually heating in a circadian-controlled manner—and we could see it locks with the beetle movement.”

Next the researchers investigated the pollinators: How did beetles sense the heat?

In insects, the main sensory organs are the sensilla, the hairlike structures on the antenna. Using techniques such as electron microscopy, electrophysiology and transcripts of genes expressed in the cells, the researchers discovered that beetle antenna tips have specialized thermosensitive organs packed with heat-sensing neurons. One key molecular sensor was a protein TRPA1, which is also employed by snakes and mosquitoes to sense warm-blooded prey.

These organs were calibrated to the specific heating temperature of the cycad. Researchers examined another beetle species and discovered it too had sensation range fine-tuned to the specific heating temperature of its own cycad host.

The researchers believe that heat-generation evolved near the origins of the cycads some 275 million years ago and might be the oldest known pollination signal.

Until now, “push-pull” pollination was believed to be mainly driven by scent. The new study suggests that this relationship probably also was hot from the start.

At close range, scent becomes less effective and infrared radiation can guide pollinators to their target.

Heat-producing plants tend to be from ancient lineages (cycads account for about half of them). In the grand scheme of plant evolution, the importance heat waned and color rose. Eventually, the drab-colored cycads were outcompeted by the explosive radiation of colorful flowering plants—and their pollinators such as bees and butterflies evolved keener visual senses. (Most beetles have only dichromatic vision and poor color perception while bees have trichromatic vision and butterflies have tetrachromatic vision.)

The fact that the infrared signal had remained unrecognized for so long probably reflects our own sensory bias.

“All the sensory cues that have been recognized very fast are the ones that we can perceive," said Valencia-Montoya. "But the ones that are hidden may be as important.”

 

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adz1728 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Infrared radiation is an ancient pollination signal

Article Publication Date

11-Dec-2025