This session addresses the urgent need to rethink prevailing static spatial planning instruments to make them more responsive, flexible, and forward-looking. We welcome submissions that examine innovative approaches, models, and governance frameworks that can help define area-based conservation strategies that better respond to future climate and socio-economic changes and reflect alternative conceptions of what constitutes desirable conservation outcomes. The goal of this session is to support efforts to make spatial conservation planning more dynamic, equitable, and robust under uncertainty with a view to informing international processes such as the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In this regard, the contributions of this session will be synthesized into a set of actionable recommendations aimed at guiding planners and decision-makers in aligning biodiversity strategies with a future characterized by climate and socio-economic changes.
Conventional spatial planning often treats protected areas as static, self-contained units, failing to address the dynamic ecological and social processes at their borders. This approach is insufficient to halt biodiversity loss, making the integration of protected areas with surrounding human-dominated landscapes a critical challenge. We address this gap with an analytical approach that moves beyond static boundaries by characterizing ecosystem service gradients, offering a more dynamic and responsive tool for conservation.
Analyzing 16 protected areas in the French Alps, we modeled 12 ecosystem services using a combination of established biophysical approaches (e.g., for carbon storage and flood regulation) and innovative connectivity-based models for mobile species (e.g., pollinators and seed dispersers). To reflect diverse social perspectives, these services were aggregated into three value domains (rural, cultural, and urban) representing distinct societal demands. To measure gradients, we developed area-based structural buffers: concentric zones of similar landscape permeability that account for how topography and land use facilitate or impede movement. Using automated polynomial regression, we classified the resulting gradient profiles for each border segment into distinct types.
Our classification revealed five recurring patterns. The most common were linear 'Decreasing Gradients' (49% of segments), typically marking an abrupt transition to intensive agriculture or urban expansion, and 'Increasing Gradients' (25%). Our analysis reveals these patterns are driven by specific landscape configurations, uncovering frequent trade-offs. For instance, landscapes with small-scale agricultural mosaics that support rural values (like pollination) often fragment the continuous habitats required for cultural and urban services, creating a sharp conflict along the same border. However, our framework also pinpoints critical opportunities for synergies, identifying specific locations where landscape structure supports a simultaneous increase in services across all three value domains. This spatially explicit typology provides a powerful diagnostic tool to design targeted, context-specific interventions, such as prioritizing habitat restoration where all services decline or managing agricultural landscapes to mitigate conflicts, supporting a more effective and equitable integration of protected areas into the wider landscape.
How to cite: Gonzalez-García, A., Neyret, M., López-Tejedor, A., Prima, M. C., Si-Moussi, S., Renaud, J., Gueguen, M., and Lavorel, S.: Ecosystem service gradients vary along protected area borders and across value domains, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-241, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-241, 2026.
Conservation and restoration planning increasingly need to account for the potential for reduced feasibility and effectiveness of restoration actions under climate and socio-economic change. However, many large-scale spatial prioritisation and area-based planning approaches are structured around a single point in time or apply decisions in a stepwise manner, which limits their capacity to anticipate changing conditions. This limitation is reinforced by treating restoration only as a land use allocation problem, which masks within-class variation in ecosystem condition. Whilst accounting for this variation is challenging, it is essential for representing realistic ecosystem trajectories and identifying priority areas that remain robust over time across varied future scenarios.
In this work, we propose a multi-objective optimisation framework that incorporates spatially continuous ecosystem condition metrics into restoration prioritisation. The framework allows to explore potential trade-offs among restoration strategies and find solutions that account for ecosystem management goals such as cost efficiency and connectivity. By translating information on ecosystem condition into a range of feasible sets of interventions, the framework can support the adaptive allocation of actions across heterogeneous landscapes. Using a case study area in Switzerland, the analysis will examine how a prioritisation based on condition shapes the spatial distribution of priority areas.
Building on this foundation, ongoing research develops the framework toward a dynamic spatial optimisation model that represents multiple recovery pathways and potential ecosystem states. This extension aims to capture how restoration outcomes and priorities evolve under different assumptions of climate change and land-use dynamics and to explore how uncertainty in future conditions influences spatial decisions. Through the integration of approaches that allow for incremental improvements in components of ecosystem condition, this research seeks to provide a more realistic basis for restoration planning under uncertainty and to demonstrate how the inclusion of temporal ecosystem dynamics can shape conservation outcomes across short to long term time scales.
How to cite: Nicholson Thomas, I., Schwaab, J., and Grêt-Regamey, A.: Identifying restoration priorities: Exploring robust and dynamic strategies for improving ecosystem condition., World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-599, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-599, 2026.
Effective biodiversity conservation requires innovative spatial planning strategies for unprotected areas. A major obstacle to promoting sustainable human–wildlife coexistence is our limited understanding of how animal movement is affected by habitat fragmentation, barriers like roads, fences, settlements and infrastructure, and human disturbance. This information is essential for ensuring good functional connectivity in human-modified landscapes, yet is rarely available to spatial planners, who instead must resort to using coarse proxies or simulated data. Cutting-edge animal-tracking technology is the method of choice for filling this knowledge gap. Miniature wildlife ‘wearables’ can be used to record high-resolution movement trajectories (GPS) and estimate activity budgets (accelerometer) for wild animals, revealing the specific environmental conditions that cause species to either thrive or struggle. Now is the time to strategically deploy this proven methodology at scale, to learn how best to share space with wildlife. A new initiative by the National Geographic Society is building a global network of field teams to track a wide range of terrestrial mammals and birds across gradients of land modification worldwide. Each field team will investigate their chosen study species in a matched pair of high- and low-disturbance sites (e.g., urban/rural; unprotected/protected), yielding contrasts for aggregated downstream analyses across taxonomic groups, regions, and environmental contexts. This unprecedented collaborative effort will significantly advance our understanding of the behaviour and ecological needs of wildlife in human-modified landscapes, enabling innovative, context-appropriate and scalable approaches to spatial planning. Specifically, by integrating dynamic wildlife movement data into their decision-support systems, spatial planners will be able to determine acceptable degrees of habitat fragmentation, maximise functional connectivity, create effective wildlife corridors, bridges and refugia, reduce the barrier-function of road networks and other infrastructure, and minimise disturbance by aligning the mobility needs of humans and wildlife. This work will not only benefit wildlife, but it will also strengthen ecosystem integrity, health and resilience more generally, realising nature’s full potential to contribute to a good quality of life for people.
How to cite: Rutz, C., Walton, B., and Patchett, R.: Using animal-tracking data for dynamic spatial planning: a collaborative global initiative, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-663, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-663, 2026.
Southeast Asia is recognized as one of the world’s most biologically rich yet critically threatened regions, harboring an exceptional concentration of endemic and threatened vertebrate species. In this study, we present a comprehensive assessment of the status and spatial distribution of threatened vertebrates across the region from January to December 2025. Using harmonized datasets derived from IUCN Red List assessments and recent ecological literature, we analyzed 7,797 vertebrate species, which spans 1,251 for amphibians, 2,997 for birds, 1,363 for mammals, and 2,187 for reptiles, of which 13.9% are classified as threatened. Threat levels varied across taxa, with mammals and amphibians exhibiting the highest proportional risks. This pattern reflects an escalating conservation crisis driven predominantly by habitat loss, overexploitation, landscape fragmentation, and other anthropogenic pressures.
Threatened species are unevenly distributed, with major concentrations in high-endemism zones of Sundaland, Indo-Burma, and the Philippines. Habitat loss, forest cover change, and rapid deforestation in Southeast Asia overlap extensively with threatened-species hotspots, intensifying extinction risk. To support evidence-based conservation, we employ spatial overlays combining threatened-species hotspots with regional deforestation patterns, ASEAN Heritage Parks, and existing protected-area networks. Hotspots were identified using species richness and threatened species weighted criteria, revealing landscapes of highest conservation priority. These integrated spatial analyses identify priority landscapes essential for preventing human-induced extinctions and reducing long-term species extinction risks, directly supporting Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) Target 3 and the global “30 by 30”. By tracking habitat pressures, ecosystem degradation, and landscape transformation, our approach also contributes to Target 21 through enhanced data accessibility.
Our findings highlight the urgent need for coordinated regional action to strengthen and expand protected areas, improve ecological connectivity, and intensify efforts to mitigate human-induced pressures. Conservation education and public awareness initiatives and local community engagement combined with participatory monitoring programs are key strategies for protecting biodiversity. By safeguarding Southeast Asia’s threatened vertebrates, we are not only protecting the regional biodiversity but also the ecosystem integrity that underpins human well-being.
How to cite: Maglangit, E. P., Gauch, N. H., Villavelez, E., Elloran, C., Reblora, E. R., Eje, P. C. J., Alano, J., and Diesmos, A.: Status and distribution of threatened vertebrates in Southeast Asia, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-889, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-889, 2026.
Climate change is shifting the geographic distribution of suitable habitat for all species towards the poles or to higher elevation. However, the majority of mountain plant species have not been dispersing fast enough to higher elevations to keep pace with climatic changes. This will lead to the local – or in some cases complete - extinction of rare and threatened plant species, unless we help them to overcome dispersal limitations by directly translocating them to sites that are suitable now and in the near future - a practice called “assisted migration”.
Assisted migration is currently being widely considered, explored and implemented in forestry and agriculture, but remains highly controversial in the field of biodiversity and conservation. Yet assisted migration must be considered as a complement to more traditional habitat protection and ecological infrastructure to help slow or halt extinctions due to climate change. Nonetheless, assisted migration is not yet on the “menu” of strategies for ecological restoration and conservation in almost all countries, including Switzerland. Focusing on threatened mountain plant species, a new four-year project is developing the baselines for applying assisted migration in conservation practice together with researchers, practitioners, authorities and industry.
In this project we aim to (1) reach agreement among stakeholders and federal and cantonal administrations in charge of conservation planning on the boundary conditions under which assisted migration can be considered as a conservation practice; (2) establish essential knowledge and practical experience with ex situ propagation and (3) in situ assisted migration of threatened mountain plant species, by setting up field trials at restoration and ecological infrastructure sites; and (4) facilitate knowledge transfer by creating a science-based, practice-oriented, open-access toolbox.
In our talk we will consider the advantages and risks of assisted migration more generally, and in the context of mountain ecosystems and threatened plants. Moreover, we will present the outcomes of a stakeholder process, involving individuals from various stakeholder groups collaborating in developing boundary conditions and practicability of assisted migration of threatened mountain plants in Switzerland.
How to cite: Wipf, S., Gisler, J., Randin, C., Rumpf, S., Alexander, J., and Stakeholder group, A.: Towards a framework for assisted migration of threatened plant species in the Swiss Alps, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-323, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-323, 2026.
