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African lions ( Panthera leo ) and African savanna ( Loxodonta africana ) and forest ( L. cyclotis ) elephants pose threats to people, crops, and livestock, and are themselves threatened with extinction. Here, we map these human-wildlife conflicts across Africa. Eighty-two percent of sites containing lions and elephants are adjacent to areas with considerable human pressure. Areas at severe risk of conflict (defined as high densities of humans, crops, and cattle) comprise 9% of the perimeter of these species’ ranges and are found in 18 countries hosting, respectively, ~ 74% and 41% of African lion and elephant populations. Although a variety of alternative conflict-mitigation strategies could be deployed, we focus on assessing the potential of high-quality mitigation fences. Our spatial and economic assessments suggest that investments in the construction and maintenance of strategically located mitigation fences would be a cost-effective strategy to support local communities, protect people from dangerous wildlife, and prevent further declines in lion and elephant populations. Growing human population density and farming expansion are fuelling human-wildlife conflict. Here the authors map spatial conflict with lions and elephants across Africa, identify high-risk areas, and estimate the cost-effectiveness of mitigation fences.

The prosperity and well-being of human societies relies on healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. However, the biodiversity crisis is undermining ecosystems services and functions. Vultures are among the most imperiled taxonomic groups on Earth, yet they have a fundamental ecosystem function. These obligate scavengers rapidly consume large amounts of carrion and human waste, a service that may aid in both disease prevention and control of mammalian scavengers, including feral dogs, which in turn threaten humans. We combined information about the distribution of all 15 vulture species found in Europe, Asia, and Africa with their threats and used detailed expert knowledge on threat intensity to prioritize critical areas for conserving vultures in Africa and Eurasia. Threats we identified included poisoning, mortality due to collision with wind energy infrastructures, and other anthropogenic activities related to human land use and influence. Areas important for vulture conservation were concentrated in southern and eastern Africa, South Asia, and the Iberian Peninsula, and over 80% of these areas were unprotected. Some vulture species required larger areas for protection than others. Finally, countries that had the largest share of all identified important priority areas for vulture conservation were those with the largest expenditures related to rabies burden (e.g., India, China, and Myanmar). Vulture populations have declined markedly in most of these countries. Restoring healthy vulture populations through targeted actions in the priority areas we identified may help restore the ecosystem services vultures provide, including sanitation and potentially prevention of diseases, such as rabies, a heavy burden afflicting fragile societies. Our findings may guide stakeholders to prioritize actions where they are needed most in order to achieve international goals for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. La prosperidad y el bienestar de la sociedad humana dependen de ecosistemas sanos y de los servicios ambientales que éstosproporcionan. Sin embargo, la crisisde biodiversidadestá afectandoa los servicios ambientales y sus funciones. Los buitres se encuentran entre los grupos taxonómicos con mayor amenaza sobre el planeta, a pesar de tener una función fundamental en los ecosistemas. Estos carroñeros obligados consumen rápidamente grandes cantidades de carroña y desechos humanos, un servicio que puede ayudar en la prevención de enfermedades y en el control de mamíferos carroñeros, incluyendo a los perros ferales, los cuales pueden ser un peligro para los humanos. Combinamos la información sobre la distribución de las 15 especies de buitres en Europa, Asia y África con las amenazas que presentan y usamos el conocimiento detallado de expertos sobre la intensidad de las amenazas para priorizar las áreas críticas para la conservación de buitres en África y en Eurasia. Las amenazas que identificamos incluyeron el envenenamiento, la mortalidad por colisiones con infraestructura eólica y otras actividades antropogénicas relacionadas con el uso de suelo y la influencia humana. Las áreas importantes para la conservación de buitres estuvieron concentradas en el sur y el este de África, el sur de Asia y la Península Ibérica, y más del 80% de estas áreas no contaban con protección. Algunas especies de buitres requirieron áreas más grandes para su protección que otras especies. Finalmente, los países que tuvieron la mayor porción de todas las áreas prioritarias importantes e identificadas para la conservación de buitres también fueron aquellos con los mayores gastos relacionados con la carga de la rabia (por ejemplo, India, China y Myanmar). Las poblaciones de buitres han declinado marcadamente en la mayoría de estos países. La restauración de poblaciones sanas de buitres por medio de acciones enfocadas en las áreas prioritarias que identificamos puede ayudar a restaurar los servicios ambientales que proporcionan los buitres, incluyendo el saneamiento y la prevención potencial de enfermedades, como la rabia, una carga pesada que aflige a las sociedades frágiles. Nuestros resultados pueden guiar a los interesados hacia la priorización de acciones en donde más se necesitan para poder alcanzar los objetivos internacionales para la conservación de la biodiversidad y el desarrollo sustentable. 人类社会的繁荣昌盛依赖于健康的生态系统及其所提供的服务。然而，生物多祥性危机芷在破坏生态系 统的服务和功能。秃鹰是地球上最濒危的类群之一，而它们却能提供基础的生态系统功能。它们作为专性食腐 动物可以快速消耗大量腐肉及人类废弃物，提供的生态系统服务有助于预防疾病，以及控制哺乳类食腐动物，如 会对人类造成威胁的野狗。我们将欧洲、亚洲和非洲的全部+ 五种秃鹰的分布信息与其面临的威胁相结合，利 用详细的关于威胁强度的专业知识, 确定了非洲及欧亚关键的秃鹰保护优先地区。秃鹰面临的威胁包括中毒、 撞击风能设施导致的死亡，以及与人类土地利用和影响有关的其它人类活动。秃鹰的重点保护区域集中在非洲 南部和东部、南非和利比亚半岛，这些地区超过80%的土地没有得到保护。另外，秃鹰中某些物种相比之下需 要更大区域进行保护。我们还发现,秃鹰的重要优先保护区域占比最大的国家同时也是那呰在狂犬病上的支出 最高的国家(如印度、中国、缅甸)，而其中大多数国家的秃鹰种群数量已经明显下降。通过在我们确定的优先 保护区域采取有针对性的行动来恢复健康的秃鹰种群，可能有助于恢复秃鹰提供的生态系统服务，包括环境卫 生和预防潜在疾病，比如狂犬病这种沉重的社会负担。我们的研究成果可以指导利益相关者在需求最迫切的地 方优先采取行动，以实现生物多祥性保护和可持续发展的国际目标。

Internationally coordinated expansion of the global protected area network to 17% could triple the average protection of species ranges and ecoregions; if projected land-use changes and consequent habitat loss until 2040 occur, currently feasible protection levels will not be achievable, and more than 1,000 threatened species face reductions in the range of over 50%. Conservation without frontiers Protected areas are intended to mitigate pressures on biodiversity caused by anthropogenic factors such as habitat loss. To that end, an internationally agreed target aims to extend the protected area network to cover 17% of the world's land area by 2020. But biodiversity is unevenly distributed between countries and habitats, raising the question of which areas should be protected to maximize the effectiveness. Federico Montesino Pouzols et al . show that internationally coordinated expansion of the protected area network to the 17% target could triple the average protection of species ranges and ecoregions. However, within-country prioritization is considerably less efficient. Moreover, taking into account projected land-use changes and consequent habitat loss until 2040, current levels of protection will not be feasible to maintain, and over 1,000 threatened species face reductions in their range of over 50%. Thus, the authors suggest that for effective biodiversity conservation, land-use policy and protected area decisions must be coordinated at an international level. Protected areas are one of the main tools for halting the continuing global biodiversity crisis 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 caused by habitat loss, fragmentation and other anthropogenic pressures 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . According to the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the protected area network should be expanded to at least 17% of the terrestrial world by 2020 ( http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets ). To maximize conservation outcomes, it is crucial to identify the best expansion areas. Here we show that there is a very high potential to increase protection of ecoregions and vertebrate species by expanding the protected area network, but also identify considerable risk of ineffective outcomes due to land-use change and uncoordinated actions between countries. We use distribution data for 24,757 terrestrial vertebrates assessed under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘red list of threatened species’ 9 , and terrestrial ecoregions 10 (827), modified by land-use models for the present and 2040, and introduce techniques for global and balanced spatial conservation prioritization. First, we show that with a coordinated global protected area network expansion to 17% of terrestrial land, average protection of species ranges and ecoregions could triple. Second, if projected land-use change by 2040 (ref. 11 ) takes place, it becomes infeasible to reach the currently possible protection levels, and over 1,000 threatened species would lose more than 50% of their present effective ranges worldwide. Third, we demonstrate a major efficiency gap between national and global conservation priorities. Strong evidence is shown that further biodiversity loss is unavoidable unless international action is quickly taken to balance land-use and biodiversity conservation. The approach used here can serve as a framework for repeatable and quantitative assessment of efficiency, gaps and expansion of the global protected area network globally, regionally and nationally, considering current and projected land-use pressures.

Social media data have been extensively used in numerous fields of science, but examples of their use in conservation science are still very limited. In this paper, we propose a framework on how social media data could be useful for conservation science and practice. We present the commonly used social media platforms and discuss how their content could be providing new data and information for conservation science. Based on this, we discuss how future work in conservation science and practice would benefit from social media data.

Protected area management and marketing require real-time information on visitors’ behavior and preferences. Thus far, visitor information has been collected mostly with repeated visitor surveys. A wealth of content-rich geographic data is produced by users of different social media platforms. These data could potentially provide continuous information about people’s activities and interactions with the environment at different spatial and temporal scales. In this paper, we compare social media data with traditional survey data in order to map people’s activities and preferences using the most popular national park in Finland, Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, as a case study. We compare systematically collected survey data and the content of geotagged social media data and analyze: (i) where do people go within the park; (ii) what are their activities; (iii) when do people visit the park and if there are temporal patterns in their activities; (iv) who the visitors are; (v) why people visit the national park; and (vi) what complementary information from social media can provide in addition to the results from traditional surveys. The comparison of survey and social media data demonstrated that geotagged social media content provides relevant information about visitors’ use of the national park. As social media platforms are a dynamic source of data, they could complement and enrich traditional forms of visitor monitoring by providing more insight on emerging activities, temporal patterns of shared content, and mobility patterns of visitors. Potentially, geotagged social media data could also provide an overview of the spatio-temporal activity patterns in other areas where systematic visitor monitoring is not taking place.

Charismatic megafauna are arguably considered the primary attractor of ecotourists to sub-Saharan African protected areas. However, the lack of visitation data across the whole continent has thus far prevented the investigation of whether charismatic species are indeed a key attractor of ecotourists to protected areas. Social media data can now be used for this purpose. We mined data from Instagram, and used generalized linear models with site- and country-level deviations to explore which socio-economic, geographical and biological factors explain social media use in sub-Saharan African protected areas. We found that charismatic species richness did not explain social media usage. On the other hand, protected areas that were more accessible, had sparser vegetation, where human population density was higher, and that were located in wealthier countries, had higher social media use. Interestingly, protected areas with lower richness in non-charismatic species had more users. Overall, our results suggest that more factors than simply charismatic species might explain attractiveness of protected areas, and call for more in-depth content analysis of the posts. With African countries projected to develop further in the near-future, more social media data will become available, and could be used to inform protected area management and marketing.

Including threats in spatial conservation prioritization helps identify areas for conservation actions where biodiversity is at imminent risk of extinction. At the global level, an important limitation when identifying spatial priorities for conservation actions is the lack of information on the spatial distribution of threats. Here, we identify spatial conservation priorities under three prominent threats to biodiversity (residential and commercial development, agricultural expansion, and forest loss), which are primary drivers of habitat loss and threaten the persistence of the highest number of species in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and for which spatial data is available. We first explore how global priority areas for the conservation of vertebrate (mammals, birds, and amphibians) species coded in the Red List as vulnerable to each threat differ spatially. We then identify spatial conservation priorities for all species vulnerable to all threats. Finally, we identify the potentially most threatened areas by overlapping the identified priority areas for conservation with maps for each threat. We repeat the same with four other well-known global conservation priority area schemes, namely Key Biodiversity Areas, Biodiversity Hotspots, the global Protected Area Network, and Wilderness Areas. We find that residential and commercial development directly threatens only about 4% of the global top 17% priority areas for species vulnerable under this threat. However, 50% of the high priority areas for species vulnerable to forest loss overlap with areas that have already experienced some forest loss. Agricultural expansion overlapped with ~20% of high priority areas. Biodiversity Hotspots had the greatest proportion of their total area under direct threat from all threats, while expansion of low intensity agriculture was found to pose an imminent threat to Wilderness Areas under future agricultural expansion. Our results identify areas where limited resources should be allocated to mitigate risks to vertebrate species from habitat loss.

National parks are key for conserving biodiversity and supporting people's well‐being. However, anthropogenic pressures challenge the existence of national parks and their conservation effectiveness. Therefore, it is crucial to assess how people perceive national parks in order to enhance socio‐political support for conservation. User‐generated data shared by visitors on social media provide opportunities to understand how people perceive (e.g. preferences, feelings, opinions) national parks during nature‐based recreational experiences. In this study, we applied methods from automated natural language processing to assess visitors' sentiment when describing experiences in Instagram posts geolocated inside four national parks in South Africa. We found that visitors' sentiment was positive, and mostly included emotions such as joy, anticipation, trust and surprise, with only a small occurrence of posts with negative feelings. Appreciation of nature, in association with a diverse set of other aspects, such as activities, geographical features and tourist attractions, was used to describe experiences related to nature, wilderness, travelling, holidays and adventures. The type of nature‐based experience described by visitors was park specific, revealing different profiles of parks providing wildlife or scenery experiences. Findings support and highlight the societal role of national parks in providing visitors with opportunities to develop positive connections with nature. Social media data may be used to understand visitors' perceptions, and how the image of national parks is constructed by users in the virtual social environment. This may help inform management for promoting a high‐quality tourism experience, as well as conservation marketing aimed at fostering socio‐political support for national parks and their long‐term conservation effectiveness. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Online digital data from media platforms have the potential to complement biodiversity monitoring efforts. We propose a strategy for integrating these data into current biodiversity datasets in light of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Innovative conservation approaches are urgently needed to balance biodiversity conservation with human development. Safeguarding elephant populations often involves active management, leading to direct intentional, direct unintentional, and indirect consequences for animals, people, and ecosystems. Drawing from One Health and One Welfare principles, our study introduces a multicriteria framework for developing conservation strategies that enhance well-being across dimensions. This approach establishes priorities, acceptability zones, and One Well-being scores that guide decision making toward optimal outcomes. We applied our One Well-being framework to evaluate 12 elephant management interventions currently or historically used in South Africa. Examining data from 3306 instances of these interventions, including on-the-ground data, we assessed their relative impact on environmental, human, and animal well-being. Our analysis identified 250 consequences of these interventions, categorized as 58 direct intentional, 127 direct unintentional, and 65 indirect. Although most direct intentional consequences were beneficial (93.4%), the direct unintentional and indirect consequences were predominantly harmful (96.9% and 75.4%, respectively). Although most interventions improved environmental well-being, their consequences for animal and human well-being were less positive. This highlights a conflict among the three well-being dimensions, underscoring the importance of incorporating human and animal well-being into elephant management strategies. Recognizing the interconnected nature of these dimensions and aiming for multiple, mutually reinforcing gains is imperative. This iterative process helps address social-ecological vulnerabilities and risks while advocating for ethical conservation practices, fostering multidisciplinary collaboration, and garnering broader support for conservation efforts. Our approach aligns with global goals for sustainable and equitable wildlife management outcomes.