Waste management is one of the major environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. This Perspective examines how vegetation dynamics at composting facilities and landfills both reflect and influence anthropogenic environmental change. We define our use of the Anthropocene as a human-dominated epoch that is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene, and we argue that waste-derived ecosystems constitute model systems for detecting its signals through technogenic substrates and synanthropic succession. Although composting reduces pressure on landfills, incomplete processing of biowaste can disseminate propagules of invasive plant species. Landfills, shaped by disturbance and altered edaphic regimes, support synanthropic plant assemblages dominated by neophytes that act as bioindicators of leachate stress and other pressures. At the same time, spontaneous vegetation provides functional benefits, including slope stabilization, organic matter accumulation and habitat provision during early successional stages. We bring together information on risks and functions, link ecological criteria to permitting, monitoring and post-closure management pathways, and outline practical considerations for integrating plant-based indicators with geochemical screening. These steps enable ecologically sensitive strategies to be implemented that mitigate biodiversity risks while leveraging succession to improve the resilience of waste-derived landscapes.

The global use of antimicrobial chemicals drastically increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic owing to heightened awareness of personal and surface hygiene needs. Disinfectants, especially chlorine-based disinfectants (CBDs), were extensively used for surface and equipment decontamination in the domestic, industrial, veterinary and healthcare sectors during the heights of the pandemic. The increased use of disinfectants has resulted in their increased discharge into municipal wastewater systems and surface waters. Our Perspective article considers the One Health challenges associated with the increased discharge of disinfectants into wastewater. One Health is a collaborative approach that ensures the well-being of people, animals and the environment. Wastewater is a common endpoint to the many interactions between people, animals and their environment. The potential One Health challenges and knowledge gaps associated with the constant discharge of low but sublethal concentrations of CBDs into wastewater are discussed. The data gaps point to the risks associated with the unregulated use of CBDs and need for their judicial use.

Conservation science is constrained by conditional visibility, an epistemic trap whereby recognition depends on alignment with Global North priorities. This phenomenon represents the operational intersection of the Matthew and Matilda effects, compounded by the feminization of poverty in the Global South. By marginalizing Indigenous and local knowledge, this structural filter severs global mandates from grounded ecological realities, leading to maladaptive conservation interventions. To bridge this gap, we propose specific interventions targeting the financial, administrative and evaluative pillars of the discipline. By matching structural reform with internal empowerment, we move beyond rhetoric to ensure effective planetary stewardship.

This paper critically engages Büscher and Fletcher’s The Conservation Revolution, an influential manifesto within contemporary critical conservation scholarship. While the book offers a powerful political–economic critique of fortress, neoliberal and neoprotectionist conservation paradigms and advances ‘convivial conservation’ as a transformative alternative, this paper evaluates both its intellectual contributions and limitations. The analysis examines the book’s citational politics, theoretical framing and empirical scope, arguing that its reliance on metropolitan critical theory and limited engagement with place-based case studies constrain its claim to global applicability. Particular attention is given to the book’s terrestrial bias and minimal engagement with marine socioecological systems, which restricts its capacity to address governance challenges in oceanic environments. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, including Indigenous-led conservation in Papua New Guinea and community-based coexistence strategies in Botswana, the paper demonstrates that many practices aligned with convivial conservation already exist as grounded, relational and locally governed approaches. These cases suggest that conservation transformation often emerges through incremental, situated governance rather than universal political rupture. The paper concludes that while The Conservation Revolution re-politicizes conservation debates, future scholarship must integrate systemic critique with epistemic plurality, marine and terrestrial ecologies and empirically grounded understandings of conservation practice.

India, as the world’s most populous country, and with a substantial urban population, requires strategic development to mitigate the risks of urban pluvial flooding in the context of a changing climate. Rapid urbanization increases the presence of impervious surfaces, and climate change effects bring intense, frequent and long-duration rainfall events in India, which magnify urban flooding. Implementing sustainable urban drainage solutions (SUDSs) would mitigate stormwater flood risks, but India has yet to adopt this approach; instead, it relies on traditional drainage infrastructure, despite increasing population indices and an extended yearly rainfall season. Here, we highlight the existing scenario, the challenges and the way forward towards implementing SUDSs in India. To attain SUDSs, city-specific drainage-related challenges need to be identified through problem tree analysis, co-creation with stakeholders of a shared vision for sustainable urban drainage and the design of actionable pathways and experimental approaches for implementing interventions and refining practical indicators. These actions could collectively provide a roadmap for achieving resilient SUDSs.

This study examines the Advancing Conservation through Empathy for Wildlife™ (ACE for Wildlife™) Network, a collaborative professional network that draws on elements of the collective impact model to foster empathy for wildlife and advance conservation goals. Using a mixed-methods case study design, including social network analysis and qualitative interviews, we examine how the Network’s structured design and facilitation supported information-sharing and collaboration among participating zoos and aquariums. The results demonstrate that information-sharing served as a critical foundation for collaboration, with participants forming new partnerships and leveraging shared resources. The study highlights the roles of centralized backbone coordination and bridging individuals in supporting network connectivity, shared learning and collaboration. We provide insights into how intentionally designed professional networks can strengthen practice within the zoo and aquarium field and contribute to understanding how collaboration can be supported in other sectors working towards shared environmental or learning goals.

Collaborative governance among multiple stakeholders is typically essential for conserving complex social-ecological systems. Mexico’s ‘biocultural landscapes’ – a territorial governance initiative – may be seen as pioneering models to promote this. However, actual outcomes depend on the initial conditions, institutional design, leadership and details of the collaborative process. We used a mixed-methods approach combining social network analysis and semi-structured interviews to analyse the structure of the collaboration network within Mexico’s Sierra Occidental Biocultural Landscape (SOBL). Our findings revealed a sparse, low-reciprocity network dominated by a few public managers, indicating potential power imbalances and challenges to building trust. Stakeholder interviews showed misalignments with theoretical collaborative governance including power imbalances, limited inclusiveness and a lack of trust among participants. While the SOBL has achieved collaborative results, such as the community forest fire brigades and the development of land management plans, achieving its full potential as a model for biocultural conservation requires addressing power dynamics and building a more equitable governance structure.

Climate change is a significant challenge for biodiversity conservation in Australia and globally; conservation practitioners, researchers and policymakers need to find new ways to protect species, communities and habitats from the impacts of it. These new approaches – or adaptation interventions – require testing, approvals, permissions, funding and, in many cases, social licence. As such, there is a strong appetite for peer-to-peer sharing of research, new ideas and experiences in adapting biodiversity conservation to climate change, as well as an increasing need to communicate adaptation approaches to decision-makers and communities. We surveyed 80 people working in biodiversity conservation in Australia to elicit the ways in which stories about adaptation are used to support the planning and implementation of adaptation interventions and what information is most useful in these learning examples. We found that individuals working in biodiversity conservation in Australia have diverse roles and areas of focus. Accordingly, there are diverse needs and uses for stories, and there is a large and unmet appetite for accessible, relevant and credible information. Our findings could help guide the development and sharing of learning examples in the rapidly growing field of climate change adaptation for biodiversity conservation that will speed progress towards implementation.

Trophy hunting (TH) is a form of wildlife use in which individuals pay to hunt under regulated conditions and retain selected body parts as trophies. Tanzania permits TH in areas with different land-use designations, covering diverse habitats. However, human activities such as settlement, agriculture and livestock grazing can threaten habitats and wildlife populations, particularly as revenue from TH declines. Using satellite data from between 2013 and 2023, we quantified changes in functional area and land cover across 15 hunting blocks in northern Tanzania. Over this period, functional area in hunting blocks decreased by c. 22.4% in Game Controlled Areas (GCAs) and by c. 18.0% in Open Areas (OAs), attributed to human encroachment. Longido North GCA experienced the most substantial land-cover change, with a 76% increase in dense vegetation. An analysis comparing the 2013–2019 and 2019–2023 data revealed consistent shrinkages in grassland and mixed and dense vegetation within the Longido North GCA, Masai OA and Irkishbor OA hunting blocks. Although individual land-cover losses in the given periods remained below 50% (our threshold for major habitat loss), these cumulative changes reduce habitat suitability, posing risks to biodiversity and the sustainability of TH. This study reveals the extent of human pressures on hunting blocks and calls for integrated regional planning, active management and targeted conservation strategies.

Achieving low-carbon development has become a key goal for countries and regions worldwide. The new industry–finance cooperation (IFC) model emerging in China holds promise as an effective approach to reducing carbon emission intensity (CEI). This paper utilizes data from 260 Chinese cities from between 2011 and 2022 (n = 260, 12 years), employing a difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of IFC on urban CEI. The IFC appears to have helped reduce urban CEI, potentially through promoting green technological innovation, advancing technological finance and talent gathering. Furthermore, the effect of IFC on reducing urban CEI varied depending on resource endowment, regional characteristics and prevailing CEI. Overall, the impact of IFC on CEI has not been significant in resource-dependent cities (highly dependent on the extraction and primary processing of one or two resources, such as coal and oil, for which the industrial structure is extremely narrow); however, for resource-dependent cities undergoing transformation (e.g., declining or regenerating), IFC seems to have had a significant carbon reduction impact. Our findings stand to inform governments, financial institutions and industrial organizations worldwide in their joint efforts to achieve low-carbon emission targets.

Sustainable management of watersheds to secure freshwater resources and maintain ecological stability relies on adopting land-use strategies supporting diverse ecosystem services through natural processes. This necessitates systematic evaluation of prospective land-use practices and their associated costs and benefits. We conducted a comprehensive economic evaluation of pro-watershed land-use options, focusing on a well-recognized agroforestry system with alternative organic cultivation in the Navnera watershed in Rajasthan, India. We adopted the ‘total economic valuation’ framework, using the revealed preference approach for monetary evaluation and modelling indirect benefits primarily through Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST). Our findings indicate that the total economic value of ecosystem services in this watershed has the potential to increase by 4.6% with the adoption of agroforestry and only by 1.3% under organic farming compared to current land-use practices. While agroforestry might reduce farmland revenue and water yield, it compensates for these with other important environmental benefits such as water purification, sediment reduction, nutrient retention and carbon sequestration. This local-scale appraisal of ecosystem services helps policymakers understand the cost–benefit dynamics of watershed land-use changes, which is vital for developing effective management strategies through the involvement of local communities.

Urbanization has become a key pressure on many of the world’s protected areas. This study investigates how local communities perceive landscape values and disvalues in and around Bannerghatta National Park (near Bengaluru, India), which is experiencing high rates of urban development at its peripheries. Using combined free-listing and Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) mapping, we surveyed 489 residents from 12 villages to elicit both landscape values and disvalues. Respondents mapped values such as biodiversity, fertile land and clean air, while disvalues focused on human–wildlife conflicts. Despite persistent conflicts and urbanization pressures, residents valued the National Park for its multiple landscape values. Both values and disvalues were concentrated around village areas. We find that socio-demographic factors – especially caste, land ownership and work in agriculture – significantly influenced perceptions. Specifically, marginalized caste members and landless individuals reported more disvalues, while landowners and farmers noted more values. Our study emphasizes the need to consider both landscape values and disvalues for balanced decision-making in protected areas. It also highlights the potential of free-listing to identify the well-being aspects that matter most for people, which points to the importance of agricultural uses in and around protected areas undergoing urbanization.

The role of climate change as a driver of local extinctions has rarely been tested using primary distribution data, largely due to the scarcity of such data for many species, especially from historical periods. Santolina etrusca (Asteraceae), an Italian endemic shrub listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Red List of Threatened Species, is a notable exception, as both historical and current distributional data are available for it. In this study, we documented the distribution changes of this species, highlighting the local extinction of populations located in the northernmost and southernmost edges of its historical range during the twentieth century. Direct anthropogenic impacts on land use are unlikely to have been the primary causes of local extinctions, although the absence of historical data prevents us from ruling out past anthropogenic drivers. By analysing the ecological conditions at sites hosting extinct versus extant populations, we identified significant climatic factors that are potentially responsible for this range contraction. Our findings provide empirical evidence of an association between climate change and local extinctions in a Mediterranean plant, suggesting that greater temperature seasonality, continentality and annual temperature range are linked to range contraction.

Political instability, socio-economic challenges and ongoing conflict hinder effective conservation and monitoring efforts within Lebanon’s nature reserves (NRs) and thus threaten the country’s biodiversity. The first nationwide NR mammal survey in 2023–2024 employed camera traps and line transect sampling to assess species presence and evaluate the effects of habitat diversity and human disturbance on mammal richness. We confirmed the presence of 16 terrestrial mammal species, and species richness varied considerably across sites, with the greatest diversity found in large, ecologically heterogeneous NRs such as Shouf Cedar and Horsh Ehden. Although not statistically significant, habitat diversity was the strongest positive predictor of species richness (r = 0.45), followed by NR area (r = 0.40), whereas human disturbance tended to be inversely related to species richness. No significant differences were detected between the two survey methods. Despite logistical and security challenges, this study offers a baseline for future monitoring and conservation strategies and suggests that habitat heterogeneity is important for sustaining mammalian diversity.

Accurate identification of potentially toxic element (PTE) sources is crucial for effective risk mitigation; however, the complex solubility of trace elements hinders such identification. Here, levels of PTEs in the dust of 105 leaf samples from 21 sites in urban Guiyang (China) were measured and positive matrix factorization was applied to help identify PTE sources. These results were validated through correlating PTE concentrations with the land-use areas surrounding the sample sites. Ni and As in the leaf dust were linked to the cleanest conditions, followed by Cr. Conversely, Zn, Cu, Cd and Pb were associated with higher pollution levels. Three primary sources of PTEs were identified, with traffic-agriculture emissions being the largest contributor at 40.42%. Natural sources followed closely at 39.41%, while industrial processes accounted for the remaining 20.17%. High-pollution areas were clustered around traffic hubs, where frequent vehicle idling and acceleration increased emissions. As traffic emission was a major source of atmospheric pollution, targeted flow optimization is needed to reduce risks of human exposure.