A third biodiversity metric in the third pole

Abstract

The readers of this journal need no introduction to the threat posed to biodiversity by anthropogenic factors such as habitat degradation and climate change. The (sometimes considerable) efforts by many national governments to increase biodiversity protection over the last few decades, via the establishment of protected areas for conservation, have nevertheless met with criticism, particularly with regard to the evidence base used for the establishment and expansion of such protected areas (Maxwell et al. 2020). This is particularly acute for regional planning efforts involving multiple governments, where the effects of national borders on biodiversity conservation may have profound consequences in the near future (Li et al. 2025). Ideally, such decisions should be made taking into account evidence from multiple different levels of biological organisation, but this is seldom achieved in reality.