Massive carbon stocks in grasslands are ignored by climate finance

Policies biased toward forests threaten open ecosystems vital to carbon storage, biodiversity, and water security

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

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Brazil's Cerrado. Policies biased toward forests threaten open ecosystems vital to carbon storage, biodiversity, and water security

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Credit: Amy Zanne

Open ecosystems — nonforested landscapes such as grasslands, shrublands, and savannas — can store vast amounts of carbon while supporting water supply, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services. Yet the potential of open ecosystems to serve as natural climate solutions remains ignored by policies that privilege forests. So reports a team of researchers in a policy brief published today in Plants, People, Planet. 

“All of the standards and methods for carbon markets are based on forested areas, so there is no way right now to include grasslands, savannas, and other open ecosystems,” said lead author Franciele Peixoto, an environmental analyst for the state of Goias in Brazil. “Open ecosystems are under threat and continue to be neglected by climate policies that focus exclusively on forests and trees.”

Peixoto and the paper’s coauthors — including Amy Zanne, an ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies — hope their policy brief will raise awareness about why these ecosystems are important, and guide the creation of policies and programs that ensure their inclusion in climate finance mechanisms. 

Grasslands matter

The paper’s authors have years of research and outreach experience in Brazil’s Cerrado, the most biodiverse savanna in the world, home to more than a thousand different kinds of animals and more than 10 thousand plant species. 

“There are so many interesting plants there, like ‘Princess-earring grass’ (capim-brinco-de-princesa in Portuguese), which has fruits that dangle like pendants. They are a beautiful golden color when the sunlight hits them,” said Zanne. “The Cerrado is a gorgeous place that provides many important ecosystem services.” 

One of those services, as research from Zanne and other coauthors on the policy brief has demonstrated, is as a carbon storage powerhouse, with soils that can store six times as much carbon per hectare as the vegetation in the Amazon rainforest. “However,”  Zanne added, “whereas trees in the Amazon can grow back in decades to centuries, the carbon in some of the Cerrado soil has been there for as long as 20,000 years and cannot be replaced so quickly.”

In addition, the Cerrado serves as the headwaters for two-thirds of Brazil’s major waterways, including the Amazon River. 

“People tend to think of forests as being important for the water supply, but actually, open ecosystems can be as or even more important,” said colead author Natashi Pilon, a plant ecologist at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. “In open ecosystems, the plants take up less water, so more water infiltrates into the soil and replenishes groundwater. It is this water that supplies the Cerrado and other ecosystems like the Amazon in the region. It is important that society and the government understand how important the Cerrado is for Brazil's water security.”

These underappreciated ecosystem services are not unique to the Cerrado. Other open ecosystems around the world bring similar benefits to people and the environment, while remaining largely neglected and misunderstood. 

Open ecosystems – overlooked and under threat

The new paper grew out of a policy brief that the authors presented at COP30, the 2025 climate conference in Brazil. They drafted the brief because “nobody was talking about open ecosystems and the importance of these areas for carbon storage,” said Peixoto. 

Despite their ability to store as much as 1200 tons of carbon per hectare, ecosystems like the Cerrado are not included in climate finance mechanisms such as REDD+, a United Nations initiative that pays developing nations to protect and sustainably manage their forests to reduce carbon emissions, nor in other carbon credit programs. These tools were developed specifically for forests, the authors point out, so grassy ecosystems do not fit into their measurement and certification frameworks. 

“Without this recognition, projects in open ecosystems cannot issue credits or access resources from climate funds,” the authors write. 

Open ecosystems have been undervalued since colonial times, Pilon explained. “When the Europeans were mapping the land in Brazil, the forests were ‘good’ because they had wood, but in the Cerrado, it was difficult to produce food without Indigenous knowledge or modern technology, fires would happen, and the trees were smaller and twisted — so they considered it a wasteland.”

This historical viewpoint is reflected today in the relative scarcity of scientific data about open ecosystems and the lack of public policies and programs aimed at conserving these areas. Instead, open ecosystems are often targeted by development projects and tree-planting programs that would disrupt or destroy these natural ecosystems and their carbon stocks. 

In Brazil, “the Cerrado is considered the biome that can be sacrificed to protect the Amazon,” said Zanne. “So instead of cutting down more rainforest, agribusinesses are converting massive amounts of Cerrado to grow soybeans to feed to livestock — without realizing that they’re going to lose the Amazon by drying out these biomes.”

More than 46% of the Cerrado’s original land cover has already been cleared to make way for crops and pastures, according to a study published in 2022. 

Steps to protect open ecosystems 

The first step toward protecting open ecosystems, the authors write, is helping people recognize the benefits they provide to society and the environment. For example, they call for greater investments in environmental education and public communication to raise awareness about the Cerrado’s role in ensuring climate security, water availability, and the well-being of people across Brazil. 

At the international level, carbon credit methodologies need to be revised to include parameters for measuring and including belowground carbon storage, particularly in deep soils and root systems, instead of just in tree trunks and branches. 

The authors call on Brazil to create and strengthen federal and state legislation and increase funding around managing, monitoring, licensing, and restoring open ecosystems, and form a strategy that includes open ecosystems in national climate and biodiversity targets and carbon quantification systems.

“It is also essential,” says Pilon, “to protect these areas from tree-planting projects, which may be well-intentioned but threaten the region’s water supply, biodiversity, and carbon stocks.” 

Gaining momentum 

The paper’s authors are working to understand how the Cerrado functions, in order to inform restoration and conservation practices. Through a government program called Campos do Cerrado, Peixoto, Pilon, and colleagues are also raising awareness among policymakers and civilians about why open ecosystems are important and need protection. As a result of their efforts, public interest in the Cerrado is growing. 

The team presented their ideas at COP16 (the global biodiversity summit in Colombia) and COP30 (the global climate summit in Brazil), with promising results. Following the successful inclusion of open ecosystems in the COP16 agenda (through the efforts of the authors and a broad network of collaborators across Brazil), Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment established a working group to develop a national strategy for the conservation and restoration of open ecosystems. The strategy will also consider the incorporation of these ecosystems into climate policies, acknowledging their crucial role in climate mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity conservation.

“Transforming a global system that was not designed to account for open ecosystems will not happen overnight,” said Peixoto. “Today, there is broad recognition of this limitation, but recognition alone is not enough. What matters now is moving from awareness to action, and these initiatives represent an important first step — not only for the Cerrado, but for open ecosystems around the world.”

Authors

Franciele Parreira Peixoto - Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, State of Goiás (SEMAD) 

Gerhard Ernst Overbeck - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Fernando A.O. Silveira - Federal University of Minas Gerais

Newton La Scala Jr. - São Paulo State University

Alexandre Bonesso Sampaio - Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação em Biodiversidade e Restauração Ecológica

Giselda Durigan - Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais

Amy E. Zanne - Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Larissa Verona - Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies; State University of Campinas

Valério D. Pillar - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Ellane Van Wyk - Sustainable Finance Coalition

Rafael S. Oliveira - State University of Campinas

Alessandra Bassani - State University of Campinas

Camila Carvalho de Carvalho - Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá

Natashi Pilon - State University of Campinas

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Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is an independent nonprofit center for environmental research. Since 1983, our scientists have been investigating the complex interactions that govern the natural world and the impacts of climate change on these systems. Our findings lead to more effective resource management, policy actions, and environmental literacy. Staff are global experts in the ecology of: forests, soils, freshwater, disease, and cities. 

Plants, People, Planet is a multi-disciplinary Open Access journal, owned by the New Phytologist Foundation and published by Wiley. The journal publishes outstanding plant-based research in its broadest sense and celebrates everything new, innovative and exciting in plant-focused research that is relevant to society and people's daily lives. The New Phytologist Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of plant science.

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Journal

Plants People Planet

DOI

10.1002/ppp3.70292

Article Title

Policy Brief: Brazil's open ecosystems—Carbon stocks overlooked by climate finance

Article Publication Date

23-Oct-2026

Soils of the Cerrado store up to 1200 tons of carbon per hectare — six times as much as the vegetation in the Amazon rainforest. 

The Cerrado is home to more than 4,000 native plant species, as well as animals such as pumas, tapirs, maned wolves, and giant anteaters.

Credit

Amy Zanne

Synthesis of key strategies to integrate open ecosystems into climate finance frameworks, including international cooperation, national strategies, ecosystem-based adaptation, and innovative financial instruments that value multiple ecosystem services.

Source of Brazil map with open ecosystems layers: MapBiomas Platform (2024). NDCs, nationally determined contributions; UNFCCC, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Credit

Peixoto et al., 2026, Figure 2

 

Overlooked lawn mushrooms extend their known range to Japan

Maximum Academic Press

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(a)–(d) Basidiomata. (e), (f) Basidiospores. (g) Basidia. (h) Cheilocystidia. (i) Pleurocystidia. (j) Irregular elements. (k) Elements of pileipellis. (l) Elements on stipitipellis. Voucher specimens shown here: (a), (e), (g), (k) and (l) (TNS F-84789). (b), (f), (j) (TNS F-110973). (c) (TNS F-110974). Scale bars = 1 cm in (b); 2 cm in (c), (d); 3 cm in (a); 10 µm in (e)–(g), (i)–(l); 20 µm in (h).

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Credit: Panfungi

A research team has identified two mushroom species previously unrecorded in Japan, revealing overlooked fungal diversity in ordinary lawns. Combining microscopic observations with DNA analysis, the researchers confirmed the presence of Agrocybe broadwayi and Xuaniella urbica in warm-temperate grasslands. Both discoveries extend the species’ known distributions eastward and show that familiar parks and recreational spaces still hold surprises for biodiversity research. The findings provide reference material for identifying lawn mushrooms and establish a foundation for investigating how fungi inhabit, and potentially move between, landscapes maintained by people.

Lawns in parks, sports grounds, and other managed spaces frequently produce mushrooms, particularly during Japan's rainy season and autumn. Some attract public attention, while others form fairy rings that concern turfgrass managers. Yet these accessible habitats have received far less systematic attention from mycologists than forests. Existing Japanese reports are largely fragmentary, leaving the composition and geographic distribution of lawn fungi poorly understood. Recent discoveries of previously undescribed fungi in grasslands suggest that this knowledge gap is substantial. More detailed surveys are therefore needed to establish which species occupy these everyday environments.

A study (DOI: 10.48130/panfungi-0026-0005) published in Panfungi on 28 August 2026 by Kaito Oguchi & Kentaro Hosaka, University of Tsukuba, documents two mushroom species in Japan for the first time, revealing overlooked fungal diversity in managed lawns and expanding knowledge of their geographic distributions.

The researchers surveyed warm-temperate lawns during 2024–2025, photographing mushrooms and recording their habitats before examining fresh specimens in the laboratory. They dried the collections, measured spores and other microscopic structures, and tested tissue reactions using standard chemical reagents. DNA extracted from dried material was used to sequence ribosomal markers: the internal transcribed spacer region for both species and the large subunit region for additional analysis of X. urbica. These sequences were compared with reference records, including material linked to the original specimens used to describe each species. Evolutionary trees then tested the proposed identifications. Three Japanese collections of A. broadwayi grouped strongly with its original specimen from Grenada and other reference collections. Their visible and microscopic features also supported the identification. The mushrooms occurred in Ibaraki and Mie prefectures, extending the species’ documented range to its easternmost and northernmost known occurrence. One specimen contained unusual finger-like microscopic elements with elongated appendages, a feature not previously reported for this species. Sequences labeled Agrocybe retigera fell within the same group, reinforcing earlier suggestions that the two names may represent one species, although examination of the original A. retigera specimen remains necessary. Five Japanese collections of X. urbica, gathered in Chiba, Ibaraki, and Kanagawa prefectures, clustered strongly with Chinese specimens, including the original reference specimen. These slender, white-to-yellow mushrooms broadly matched the Chinese description, although their spores were somewhat larger. The records extend the species' confirmed distribution from Guangdong Province to approximately 36° north in Japan. Both species grew mainly in lawns dominated by Zoysia grasses, often in short, dense turf exposed to frequent trampling. Their occurrence suggests an association with disturbed grasslands maintained through human activity. The authors also raise the possibility that turfgrass-related activities have helped disperse A. broadwayi, but the study does not establish when or how it reached Japan.

Together, the findings show that managed lawns deserve closer attention as fungal habitats. They also illustrate why combining DNA evidence with detailed microscopy matters when distinguishing similar mushrooms and interpreting geographic records. Broader surveys could reveal whether these fungi are widespread but overlooked across East Asia. For X. urbica, reports of illness following consumption in China add a practical reason to improve identification and awareness of mushrooms growing in public spaces.

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References

DOI

10.48130/panfungi-0026-0005

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.48130/panfungi-0026-0005

Funding information

This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant No. JP25KJ0676) and the 'Collection Building Fellowship' from the National Museum of Nature and Science to KH, and by the cooperative research program of the Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology, Kanazawa University (Grant No. 24082 to KO, and Grant No. 24041 to KH).

About Panfungi

Fungi comprise one of Earth's most diverse and ecologically vital kingdoms, spanning macroscopic forms such as edible and medicinal mushrooms, as well as pathogenic species, slime molds, and innumerable microscopic organisms. Panfungi (e-ISSN 3142-7847) is an open access, online journal committed to publishing high-quality, rigorously peer-reviewed original research articles, reviews, methodological developments, and perspective articles that advance the comprehensive study of fungal biology and its applications.

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Journal

Panfungi

DOI

10.48130/panfungi-0026-0005

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Newly recorded agarics growing on lawns in Japan

 

New statewide lidar study identifies hotspots for California coastal cliff retreat

California’s coastal cliffs are retreating. The rate of this retreat, researchers say, varies across the coast

University of California - San Diego

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An aerial view of King Range in Humboldt County taken during a 2023 airplane lidar survey conducted by the Air-Sea Interaction Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Image credit: Nick Statom/Air-Sea Interaction Laboratory. 

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Credit: Image credit: Nick Statom/Air-Sea Interaction Laboratory at UC San Diego.

The cliffs that comprise much of California’s coastline are constantly being reshaped by rain, waves, and other geologic forces. The erosion of cliffs threatens critical infrastructure such as highways, railways, homes, park lands, public access points, and more. 

Therefore, it is important to monitor and track change occurring along the coast. Previous cliff erosion rates were a decade old. To address this issue, researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography collected new airborne lidar in 2023 and developed new cutting-edge approaches to map cliff erosion and retreat. Using these approaches, they recently measured how California’s coastal cliffs changed between 2016 and 2023 and found that change was highly uneven. In some cliff retreat hotspots, the area of land loss over the seven-year period exceeded 800 dump-truck loads for every yard of shoreline.

Their findings, published in the journal International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, improve the understanding of California’s coastal geology and provide a framework for systematic statewide cliff monitoring. And with a very strong El Niño expected to threaten the California coastline this winter, understanding the health of California’s cliffs and erosion hot spots can help with coastal management and preparation.     

California’s coastal cliffs are of great interest to both scientists and the public. Roughly 70% of the California coast is made up of coastal cliffs. In addition to threatening coastal infrastructure and public resources, cliff collapse poses a serious threat to beachgoers, so monitoring erosion has become a priority for the State. That’s why Senate President pro Tempore Emeritus Toni Atkins led the effort to secure funding, with support from the California State Legislature,  to advance research aimed at better understanding California’s coastal cliffs.

“The cliffs are not stable. They erode and collapse over time,” said Danghan Xie, an assistant professor and coastal geomorphologist at the University of Maryland and lead author of the study, who did the research while a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps. “We’ve seen many sad news stories about fatal cliff landslides. It’s unpredictable and a significant hazard to the coastal community.”

Addressing these safety and infrastructure issues requires a better understanding of how California’s coastline is changing and how geologic processes affect it. California’s coastal cliffs had previously been surveyed from airplanes using lidar in 2016. Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing technology that uses a laser scanner to create precise, three-dimensional models of the Earth's surface. However, limited statewide cliff information has been available since then. To provide a new statewide snapshot, Scripps scientists collected new airborne lidar along the California coast in 2023.

The rates of cliff top retreat vary alongshore with retreat hotspots mostly located in Central and Northern California, with some areas experiencing retreat rates exceeding 70 feet per year, such as the Lost Coast Headlands in Humboldt County where a landslide occurred involving over 1.4 million cubic yards of rock and soil.

“70 feet per year is a lot, over the seven-year study period that is more than the length of a football field,” said Adam Young, a coastal geomorphologist at Scripps and co-author of the new study and Principal Investigator of the project. Cliff top retreat rates exceeding 10 feet per year were also observed in the King Range, Redwood National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Big Sur, near Martins Beach, Vandenberg Space Force Base, El Capitan State Beach, and Palos Verdes. Statewide, 65% of cliffs showed a measurable change above the study thresholds.

Knowing where and the rate at which cliffs are crumbling is crucial for coastal planning and management. That’s why Young and his colleagues have created a California Coastal Cliff Erosion Viewer website where all of this information is available to the public – one they plan to update as more information becomes available. 

“This monitoring program is collecting lidar twice a year throughout the state of California, and we are using the data to update the rates on an annual and seasonal level,” said Young. “A detailed time series of cliff changes does not exist in many areas, and this makes it hard to build better predictive models. This project creates updated routine systematic data for improved coastal planning.” 

While plans are in place to track changes related to El Niño this winter, funding for the project ends in 2027.

Additional study authors include Luc Lenain, who was co-Principal Investigator, and Hironori Matsumoto of Scripps, and Zuzanna Swirad from the Polish Academy of Sciences.

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Journal

International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation

DOI

10.1016/j.jag.2026.105433

Article Title

Improved understanding of California coastal cliff morphodynamics using airborne lidar and vegetation filtering (2016–2023)

 

'We cannot protect what we cannot identify': New EU project takes Europe’s species knowledge to the UN Biodiversity Conference

Weeks after its launch, TETTRIX will present its plan for an integrated European taxonomic system at CBD COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia

Pensoft Publishers

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The TETTRIX Consortium at the Kick-off Meeting in Brussels, Belgium

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Credit: TETTRIX project

As governments meet in Yerevan, Armenia, for the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP17) to assess progress towards the 2030 global biodiversity targets, a new EU project argues that environmental challenges are becoming knowledge challenges. Around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction worldwide, according to the 2019 global assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Protecting them depends on knowing which species exist, where they live, and how they are changing.

TETTRIX, a four-year Horizon Europe project, coordinated by the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), aims to build a more connected, integrated and future-ready  European taxonomic ecosystem, which will generate a robust, reliable, and readily accessible data-based fabric for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem resilience, linking together science, policy and society. The project brings together 17 partners and two affiliated entities from 12 European countries. Just weeks after its Kick-off meeting in Brussels on 7–9 October 2026, the project will present its plans at COP17. 

On 27 October, CETAF will host the session “Taxonomy in Action: From TETTRIs to TETTRIX for GBF Delivery” at the Science4Biodiversity booth in the conference’s Blue Zone, where negotiations on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework take place. Then, on 29 October from 16:30 to 17:45 (AMT) at the IUCN Pavilion, also positioned in the Blue Zone, a joint open session with other biodiversity initiatives, partnering in TETTRIX, such as Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Senckenberg Nature Research on the topic of “Natural Science Collections: ensuring data quality” will take place.

“Taxonomy is not an isolated scientific discipline but an essential infrastructure for biodiversity understanding, and scientific collections are at its center. We cannot protect what we cannot identify, understand, and monitor,” says Ana Casino, TETTRIX coordinator and CETAF Executive Director.

Taxonomy, the science of discovering, naming, identifying and classifying species, provides the foundation for understanding and monitoring biodiversity, informing policy and guiding conservation action. Every biodiversity record, monitoring scheme, and conservation decision depends on getting species identities right. 

Currently, Europe holds an extraordinary biodiversity knowledge asset: natural history collections, taxonomic experts, research infrastructures, digital repositories and centuries of historical records. Despite this wealth of resources,  biodiversity information remains fragmented and disconnected. Additionally, new databases, platforms and tools keep appearing, but they often use differing terminology and identifiers, and do not communicate with each other as efficiently to be able to accurately inform policy. In short, the taxonomic ecosystem is expanding faster than the biodiversity field can catch on. 

At the same time, technology is further transforming how taxonomy is practised. Next-generation tools like DNA barcoding, genomics, automated imaging, and artificial intelligence now allow species to be detected and identified faster than ever. However, data cannot always tell us the whole story – expertise is what makes the data claims trustworthy. Here lies a hidden bottleneck, though: Europe’s taxonomic workforce is aging, specialist knowledge is being lost, and short-term project funding makes it even harder to attract new generations to the field.

TETTRIX aims to move European taxonomy from individual advances and fragmented resources towards an integrated ecosystem. Building on the  achievements of its predecessor, TETTRIs, the project is built around four main goals:

• Integrate: Connect taxonomic data, tools, services, infrastructures and expertise through one coherent, accessible, open and FAIR hub. 

• Transform: Turn species level information into actionable knowledge for biodiversity, climate and health.

• Upskill: Equip current and future taxonomists with training, digital skills and new career pathways.

• Demonstrate: Test and validate innovative tools, workflows and capacity building initiatives through cascade-funded projects.

TETTRIX will also develop innovative tools and services, including AI-based models, to advance species identification and strengthen the connection between taxonomic knowledge and policy-making. Through initiatives such as the European Taxonomic Hub, the TETTRIX Academy and a €2.4 million cascade-funding programme, the project aims to make taxonomic knowledge more accessible, interoperable and actionable, supporting biodiversity monitoring, nature restoration and evidence-based decision-making.

“Taxonomic knowledge is the connective element between biodiversity evidence and biodiversity action and a modern taxonomic system needs people, skills, infrastructures, tools and sustainable career pathways,” adds Casino.

For future updates, follow TETTRIX on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook, and check out our website.

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TETTRIX: TETTRIs neXt level for the taxonomy of tomorrow (TETTRIX) receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement 101286598). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union and the European Research Executive Agency (REA). The EU and REA cannot be held responsible for them.

 

COP17: Chilean researchers urge accelerated action for biodiversity at a critical moment for its conservation

Researchers from the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB) and the University of Concepción (UdeC), attending COP17 in Armenia, highlight the urgent need to mobilize resources, strengthen international cooperation, and improve scientific tools 

Instituto de Ecologia y Biodiversidad

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Chilean researcher Aníbal Pauchard, at COP17 on biodiversity.

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Credit: IEB Chile

Moving from international commitments to concrete action to halt global biodiversity loss is the urgent call being made by Chilean researchers at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, from October 19 to 30.

Aníbal Pauchard, director of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), and Ricardo Segovia, coordinator of the IEB’s BIODATA team, are participating in discussions on invasive alien species, conservation financing, and scientific and technical tools to implement and assess global commitments. Both researchers emphasize the urgent need to strengthen the international response to the biodiversity crisis, with just four years remaining until 2030, the deadline for achieving the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

“At this convention, we participate as observers and contribute scientific evidence, working alongside different countries to find solutions to the biodiversity crisis. The main challenge of this conference is to move from agreements to effective implementation. In a way, these international agreements are already clear, and so is the diagnosis: the situation has not improved. What is needed now is action, and that requires resources,” explains Aníbal Pauchard, a professor at the University of Concepción.

As the deadline for achieving global targets draws closer, the IEB director stresses that conservation financing is essential to ensure that commitments do not remain on paper, with direct implications for Chile. “We need to determine how to finance conservation and make it truly effective,” he says.

Pauchard warns that there is growing international concern about the pace of progress toward these targets and emphasizes the role of science in decision-making. “There is global concern about how we are progressing toward these targets. We are now just four years away from 2030, and we need to make progress. There is a great deal of work to be done, and our role as scientists is to provide evidence on these issues so that countries can make informed decisions.”

A professor at UdeC and a member of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Pauchard has led research on invasive alien species, which are recognized as one of the major threats to biodiversity.

“One of the issues we are working on is how to build on the 2023 IPBES report to advance Target 6 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework on invasive alien species, and ensure that it translates into concrete action at the country level,” Pauchard explains. In this context, he highlights the launch of a new strategy on invasive alien species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which he helped develop. The initiative aims to give the international response a more practical focus. “The idea is to develop an action-oriented strategy that countries and other key stakeholders can follow to control and manage these species, both in terms of preventing their introduction and managing them once they are established,” he says.

Pauchard welcomes the fact that the momentum generated by the IPBES report and the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework continues to shape international discussions. However, he also underscores the importance of broadening the perspectives that inform decision-making. “At the IEB, we are contributing a perspective closely connected to the Global South, which differs considerably from the approaches that countries in the Global North have developed. This gives us a different perspective, which is very important for enriching the global discussion,” he says.

The urgency of implementing these commitments also highlights the need for reliable information to assess progress and identify gaps. In this area, Ricardo Segovia participated in the Latin American meeting What Are Countries Telling Us in Their Seventh National Reports?, which brought together representatives from Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador to analyze the region’s scientific and technical priorities, needs, and opportunities.

“Scientific and technical validation of these reports, based on objective and measurable indicators, has been extremely important. However, many challenges remain. These include consolidating the data systems that underpin monitoring platforms and validating their results in collaboration with scientific communities,” says Ricardo Segovia.

For the BIODATA coordinator, these gaps cannot be addressed in isolation. Although Chile is working to support these processes with scientific and technical expertise, the challenges require a regional response that can accelerate the implementation of national strategies through international cooperation. “No country can solve all the problems associated with integrating the monitoring framework on its own. Research centers can help by collaborating and sharing knowledge with one another to accelerate implementation on a solid scientific basis,” Segovia says.

Segovia emphasizes that robust monitoring frameworks would allow countries to modernize their approach to environmental challenges and open up new opportunities to link conservation with other areas of development. “Once these monitoring frameworks are in place, we will be able to measure the effectiveness of our actions and have the opportunity to go further. For example, we can move toward sustainable models supported by indicators and scientific evidence,” he says.

Segovia also highlights opportunities for cooperation among countries with different circumstances and technical capacities through the exchange of experiences and the joint development of solutions. “Even larger countries can collaborate with smaller ones by prototyping solutions and innovations for calculating indicators, implementing them in countries where this is more manageable, and then scaling them up to more challenging contexts. Everything depends on the common framework established by the indicator system and on building regional collaborative relationships,” he concludes.