The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of threatened species will be achieved. We assembled a multi-taxa tracking dataset (11 million geopositions from 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species) to provide a global assessment of space use of highly mobile marine megafauna, showing that 63% of the area that they cover is used 80% of the time as important migratory corridors or residence areas. The GBF 30% threshold (Target 3) will be insufficient for marine megafauna’s effective conservation, leaving important areas exposed to major anthropogenic threats. Coupling area protection with mitigation strategies (e.g., fishing regulation, wildlife-traffic separation) will be essential to reach international goals and conserve biodiversity.
Citation:
Sequeira, A.M.M., J.P. Rodríguez, S.A. Marley, H.J. Calich, M. Van Der Mheen, M. Vancompernolle, L.M. Arrowsmith, L.R. Peel, N. Queiroz, M. Vedor, I. Da Costa, G. Mucientes, A. Couto, N.E. Humphries, S. Abalo-Morla, F.J. Abascal, D.L. Abercrombie, K. Abrantes, F.A. Abreu-Grobois, A.S. Afonso, P. Afonso, H. Ahonen, S. Åkesson, J. Alfaro-Shigueto, R.D. Andrews, F. Angelier, M. Antonopoulou, J.A. Arata, G. Araujo, R. Arauz, J.M. Arcos, I. Arregui, H. Arrizabalaga, M. Auger-Méthé, S. Bach, F. Bailleul, R.W. Baird and 340 others. 2025. Global Tracking of Marine Megafauna Space Use Reveals How to Achieve Conservation Targets. Science 388(6751): 1086-1097. doi: 10.1126/science.adl0239
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl0239