View article

Threatened species are by definition species that are in need of assistance. In the absence of suitable conservation interventions, they are likely to disappear soon. There is limited understanding of how and where conservation interventions are applied globally, or how well they work^,. Here, using information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and other global databases, we find that for species at risk from three of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss—habitat loss, overexploitation for international trade and invasive species—many appear to lack the appropriate types of conservation interventions. Indeed, although there has been substantial recent expansion of the protected area network, we still find that 91% of threatened species have insufficient representation of their habitats within protected areas. Conservation interventions are not implemented uniformly across different taxa …