Publications by authors named "W H Sutherland"
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging tool that could be leveraged to identify the effective conservation solutions demanded by the urgent biodiversity crisis. We present the results of our horizon scan of AI applications likely to significantly benefit biological conservation. An international panel of conservation scientists and AI experts identified 21 key ideas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe discuss the outcomes of our 16th horizon scan of issues that are novel or represent a considerable step-change and have the potential to substantially affect conservation of biological diversity in the coming decade. From an initial 96 topics, our international panel of 32 scientists and practitioners prioritised 15 issues. Technological advances are prominent, including metal and non-metal organic frameworks, deriving rare earth elements from macroalgae, synthetic gene drives in plants, and low-emission cement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnvironmental hazards associated with the global food system threaten societal integrity. Yet, there is a major data gap in the global understanding of how the prevalence of hazards is changing over time, how different classes of hazard are distributed, and whether the combined literature represents hazard prevalence equitably across research, policy and legislation, and news. Here, we explore this data gap, leveraging global research, policy, and news databases.
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- Trade is a major threat to wild bird species, often occurring secretly and lacking proper monitoring, which complicates the understanding of which species are under threat.
- The study analyzed seven global data sets to create a trade prevalence score for bird species, identifying those at high risk and validating the data through literature and surveys.
- Results showed a strong agreement among data sets regarding trade prevalence, with 45.1% of all birds and 36.7% of threatened species receiving scores of 1 or more, highlighting the high risk of certain groups like Falconiformes and Psittaciformes in trade.
The Convention on Biological Biodiversity (CBD) exists as a major multilateral environmental agreement to safeguard biodiversity and "live in harmony with nature". To deliver it, strategies and frameworks are set out in regular agreements that are then implemented at the national scale. However, we are not on track to achieve overall goals, and frameworks so far have not been successful.
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