Biodiversity hotspots are rich in endemic species and threatened by anthropogenic influences and, thus, considered priorities for conservation. In this study, conservation achievements in 36 global biodiversity hotspots (25 identified in 1988, 10 added in 2011, and one in 2016) were evaluated in relation to changes in human population density and protected area coverage between 1995 and 2015.

At present, 10.5% of Canada’s land base is under some form of formal protection. Recent developments indicate Canada aims to work towards a target of protecting 17% of its terrestrial and inland water area by 2020. Canada is uniquely positioned globally as one of the few nations that has the capacity to expand the area under its protection. In addition to its formally protected areas, Canada’s remote regions form de facto protected areas that are relatively free from development pressure.

Vietnam, which has a long history of theft of timber from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, recently initialled a timber trade agreement with the European Union. This will see Vietnam implement legislation to address imports of illegally harvested or traded timber, in return for timber exports to the EU being deemed to comply with the requirements of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR).

Identifying protected areas most susceptible to climate change and deforestation represents critical information for determining conservation investments. Development of effective landscape interventions is required to ensure the preservation and protection of these areas essential to ecosystem service provision, provide high biodiversity value, and serve a critical habitat connectivity role.

There is a growing recognition of the contribution that privately-owned land makes to conservation efforts, and governments are increasingly counting privately protected areas (PPAs) towards their international conservation commitments. The public availability of spatial data on countries’ conservation estates is important for broad-scale conservation planning and monitoring and for evaluating progress towards targets.

More than half the villages of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are affected by a peculiar issue of tenurial ambiguity called “orange areas.” This issue impacts nearly 1.2 million hectares and 1.5 million, largely poor, landless and tribal families, that depend on these lands for food, fuel, fodder and other sources of income. This lack of tenurial clarity also impacts forest protection outcomes in the state and constrains the achievement of biodiversity, water and climate targets.

Wildlands are increasingly lost to human development. Conservation scientists repeatedly call for protecting the remaining wildlands and expanding the land area protected in reserves. Despite these calls, conservation reserves can be eliminated through legislation that demotes their conservation status. For example, legislation introduced to the Congress of the United States recently would demote 29 Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) from the protections afforded by their existing status.

An assessment of management effectiveness was carried out for all the protected areas in the Kingdom of Bhutan. During 2014-2016 the Royal Government of Bhutan developed a custom-made tool for assessing management effectiveness: the Bhutan Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool Plus (Bhutan METT +). This was implemented in Bhutan’s 10 protected areas and one botanical park, and the results were verified through field trips and expert reviews.

Declines in global biodiversity due to land conversion and habitat loss are driving a "Sixth Mass Extinction" and many countries currently fall short of meeting even nominal land protection targets to mitigate this crisis. Here, we quantify the potential contribution of Indigenous lands to biodiversity conservation using case studies of Australia, Brazil and Canada. Indigenous lands in each country are slightly more species rich than existing protected areas and, in Brazil and Canada, support more threatened species than existing protected areas or random sites.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Forestry Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) co-hosted the “Mekong Region Customary Tenure Workshop” on 7-9 March 2017 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. This report outlines the main findings of the workshop, illustrated by some statements and case studies as presented by participants.

The article considers the role and importance of the borderline position of the Belarusian-Lithuanian region, which influences the transformation processes of territorial structures. Particular attention is paid to the areas of coordinated activities on the formation and functioning of transboundary protected natural areas, as well as spatial planning activities for the sustainable use of their constituent natural complexes. The resulted results of researches are received within the limits of realization in 2014-2015.

Complex couplings and feedback among climate, fire, and herbivory drive short- and long-term patterns of land cover change (LCC) in savanna ecosystems. However, understanding of spatial and temporal LCC patterns in these environments is limited, particularly for semi-arid regions transitional between arid and more mesic climates.