To Bend the Curve of Terrestrial Biodiversity, Place Agency Centre Stage

Garcia, C.; Savilaakso, S.; Sassen, M.; Stoudmann, N.; Verburg, R.W.; Quétier, F.; Araújo, M.B.; Bastin, J.; Boutinot, L.; Dessard, H.; Dray, A.; Fernbach, P.; Francisco, S.; Ghazoul, J.; Feintrenie, L.; Naimi, B.; Oszwald, J.; Pietsch, S.A.; Robinson, B.E.; Sist, P.; Sloman, S.A.; Sunderland, T.; Vermeulen, C.; Wilmé, L.; Wilson, S.J.; Waeber, P.O. 2020. To Bend the Curve of Terrestrial Biodiversity, Place Agency Centre Stage. Preprints, 2020100609. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202010.0609.v1

Leclère et al.1 have outlined the possibility of a biodiversity transition for the 21st century, a line of thinking equivalent to the Forest Transition theory and what it says about forest cover globally2. The authors use a suite of global models to explore the impacts on global biodiversity of interventions on land-use, consumption and production patterns. They outline six strategies that have the potential to stop the downfall of global terrestrial biodiversity by 2050 and redress it to a pre-1970 level by 2100. Although robust, sophisticated and well-illustrated, the conclusions of this paper cannot alone be used to frame a post-2020 biodiversity strategy.