Explore the vast range of titles available.

Better land stewardship is needed to achieve the Paris Agreement's temperature goal, particularly in the tropics, where greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of ecosystems are largest, and where the potential for additional land carbon storage is greatest. As countries enhance their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, confusion persists about the potential contribution of better land stewardship to meeting the Agreement's goal to hold global warming below 2°C. We assess cost-effective tropical country-level potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)—protection, improved management and restoration of ecosystems—to deliver climate mitigation linked with sustainable development goals (SDGs). We identify groups of countries with distinctive NCS portfolios, and we explore factors (governance, financial capacity) influencing the feasibility of unlocking national NCS potential. Cost-effective tropical NCS offers globally significant climate mitigation in the coming decades (6.56 Pg CO2e yr−1 at less than 100 US$ per Mg CO2e). In half of the tropical countries, cost-effective NCS could mitigate over half of national emissions. In more than a quarter of tropical countries, cost-effective NCS potential is greater than national emissions. We identify countries where, with international financing and political will, NCS can cost-effectively deliver the majority of enhanced NDCs while transforming national economies and contributing to SDGs. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.

During negotiations and early implementation of the historic 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the ex-guerrilla group known as FARC, the country experienced a period of stability and economic prosperity. However, this progress came at an environmental price and is also proving to be short lived. Rural lands and forested areas left idle by decades of conflict, inadvertently \"protected\" by FARC's presence . quickly became subject to unorganized land transformations. Moreover, in 2018, after having campaigned to modify the 2016 accord, Ivan Duque won the Colombian presidential election, and the advancements laid forth began to unravel.

Sea Maas (University of Vienna; Vienna, Austria) and her colleagues reviewed 13 conservation, evolution, and ecology-oriented journals with high impact factors and examined the 1,051 authors who published within them the most over a 74-year period. Maas'steam found that only 11% of these authors were women, and only 25% were from the Global South, despite this region holding more than 80% of the global population. \"We need perspectives that represent underrepresented countries and groups - not a Western or otherwise biased picture\", Mass explains. \"Our study also confirms [earlier findings regarding] colonial structures in ecology and demonstrates the need...to promote more diverse and, most importantly, representative perspectives.\" The inequities driving this low diversity are complex. Maas and coauthors, including Richard Primack (Boston University; Boston, MA), identify the main factors affecting authors' success in publishing as availability of funding, a region's political and economic framework, researchers' ability to attend conferences, and gender biases within the scientific community. These components vary among countries, many of which have distinct academic and research systems, the structure of which ultimately influences the number of ecologists within a nation.

Human-wildlife conflicts have been exacerbated by climate-change impacts, which are increasingly altering the availability and quality of important resources such as habitat and food. As a result, many species are now seeking refuge in areas more suitable to their physiological and resource needs. Sarah Heemskerk, a researcher at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada), studies human-polar bear conflict dynamics in Churchill. She and her colleagues have observed a correlation between the number of \"conflict bears\" on land and the length of the annual \"ice-free\" period at sea. Climate change has prolonged the ice-free period, thereby \"influencing the bears' ability to retain natural behaviors,\" Heemskerk explains.

Sarah Heinrich, a researcher of wildlife trafficking and threatened species at the University of Adelaide, recently started to investigate the complex trade in porcupine bezoars, which has changed over time from primarily brick-and-mortar markets to e-commerce. By her reckoning, \"the increasing shift to online markets for wildlife trade is a relatively recent development\", which, as a result, \"opens up new and bigger markets for the sellers\". To get a better sense of this commerce and its conservation implications, Heinrich and her colleagues monitored listings of porcupine bezoars offered for sale on selected online platforms, including Alibaba and the popular social media app Instagram, in three Southeast Asian countries. Over a 3-month period, the team detected 121 online listings for at least 680 bezoars; the average price per gram was nearly US$152.

ESA and the greater ecological community give grateful thanks to Dr. Sue Silver for 18 years of dedicated service as the founding Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (Photo 1). With Sue at its helm, Frontiers showcased exceptional content and many unique attributes: from the “In a Nutshell” feature for selected articles; to the Beyond the Frontier podcast; to a variety of multi‐issue series, including Fresh Perspectives, Natural History Notes, Trails and Tribulations, Ethical Issues in Ecology, EcoPics, and Exploring Ecological Careers—all much loved by readers. [...]the impact of Frontiers goes beyond traditional scholarly metrics: research published in the journal has influenced policy decisions at local and national levels, communicated groundbreaking advances in scientific understanding, and introduced readers to new ideas and ways of thinking.