“Urgent management actions” are species-specific management actions that are required above and beyond efforts to mitigate threats such as loss of natural habitats, unsustainable harvest, invasive alien species, pollution, and climate change, which are the focus of other targets in the Framework. Bolam et al. (2023) found that 57% of threatened species from comprehensively assessed groups on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2020) required action in addition to that described in targets 1-3 and 5-7. These include actions such as supplementary feeding, vaccinations, ex situ management, reintroduction and a range of recovery actions such as protection of breeding sites and provision of additional breeding habitats such as nest boxes for birds and protection of mature individuals (Bolam et al. 2023 WebTable 1). Achieving Target 4 will require the identification of such actions and their urgent implementation at appropriate spatial scale.
Target 4 repeats text from Goal A on the outcomes to be achieved: halting human-induced extinction of known threatened species and reducing extinction risk because of the removal of 2030 milestones. The early drafts (See Supplementary Material 2 for Target text in Zero and First Drafts and reports of Open-Ended Working Group meetings) did not contain these elements and were focused on actions needed to achieve the species outcomes described in Goal A. Once a decision had been taken by Parties to remove Milestones from the structure of the KMGBF, it was considered that the outcome elements captured in the milestones should be reflected elsewhere in the text. The report of the fourth Open-Ended Working Group (June 2022) listed these elements as for further consideration in Target 4 (see Supplementary Material 2). Most of these elements featured in the final text and their repetition, especially ‘of threatened species’, helps to highlight the focus of this target.
Bolam et al. (2023) clarified that the reduction of extinction risk and halting extinctions for species that need recovery measures cannot be achieved solely through the actions identified in Target 4 and require a range of other interventions such as protected and conserved areas, ecosystem restoration and threat mitigation as outlined in the other targets, especially 1-3 and 5-8. These and other targets are also critical to enable recovery of depleted populations of other threatened and non-threatened species in order to achieve all species outcomes described in Goal A. For this reason, it is important that Target 4 is not seen simply as the “species target”, but rather as a “target for species that require focussed actions”. Put another way: in the absence of these urgent actions, such species would continue to decline and fail to recover, despite implementation of other measures.
“Recovery and conservation of species”. This wording implies not only reducing species’ extinction risk (e.g. to Least Concern on the IUCN Red List), but also restoring their populations to levels at which they contribute to ecosystem function, and then to maintain them at those levels, consistent with the abundance clause in Goal A. There has been increasing attention paid to defining species’ recovery (e.g. Redford et al. 2011, Akçakaya et al. 2018) and to demonstrating the recovery potential for species both in the short- and long-term under scenarios where conservation efforts are sustained and supported (Grace et al. 2021). There have also been efforts to operationalise this for pursuing policy and management goals, such as defining ‘Favourable Conservation Status’ for species’ populations in England (e.g. Mousley 2023) and across the European Union (e.g. EC 2020) that involves the setting of ‘Favourable Reverence Values’ for populations (e.g. Bijlsma et al. 2019). Achieving full recovery of threatened species will require a broader range of actions beyond the urgent management actions called for in Target 4, as outlined in the other targets in the Framework. Whatever the metric, recovery needs to be measured relative to an appropriate, quantifiable baseline.
“to significantly reduce extinction risk”. The target is concerned with implementing actions that contribute to a significant (i.e. large, and measurable) reduction in extinction risk of species and thus ensuring the recovery and conservation of all species, consistent with the extinction risk clause of Goal A. Using the IUCN Red List to document conservation status (e.g. Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable) allows such large and sustained reductions in extinction risk to be measured.
“in situ and ex situ conservation”. The target states that urgent management action includes both in situ and ex situ conservation, i.e. in the wild and, where appropriate, in captive breeding or propagation facilities from which individuals can be reintroduced back into native ranges. Ex situ management can be defined as “conditions under which individuals are spatially restricted with respect to their natural spatial patterns or those of their progeny, are removed from many of their natural ecological processes, and are managed on some level by humans.” (IUCN/SSC 2014). It is important that the full range of management possibilities is considered, as indicated by the breadth of both in situ and ex situ management actions that has contributed to the avoidance of extinction of 28-48 bird and mammal species since 1993 (Bolam et al. 2021), and the importance of ex situ conservation in providing options for species recovery through the eventual return of Extinct in the Wild species back to their native range (Smith et al. 2023).
“sustainable management practices”. Reducing extinction risk for species that are the focus for this target requires sustained intervention that will deliver a long-term improvement in conservation status. This phrase, therefore, refers to management practices that are sustainable, rather than ‘sustainable management’ of wild species, which is the subject of Target 5, while the importance of sustainable use of biodiversity to people is the focus of Target 9. During interventions by Parties during the fourth and fifth meetings of the Open-ended Working Group established to facilitate negotiations of the KMGBF, there were different interpretations of ‘sustainable’. Some Parties assumed it to relate to sustainable use that would benefit species conservation, but the final wording makes clear that it is the sustainability of interventions that is the focus of this clause. This is important because many studies have shown that conservation recoveries take time to achieve (e.g. 16 years on average in the cases examined by Young et al. 2014), and even once recovery is achieved many species will remain conservation dependent (Scott et al. 2010; Grace et al. 2021).
“effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to minimize human-wildlife conflict for coexistence”. Human wildlife conflict is a significant threat to species, as well as to human lives and livelihoods, food security and sustainable development (WWF/UNEP, 2021; IUCN, 2023b). The issue of human-wildlife conflict was included in this target when it first appeared in the Updated Zero Draft (see Supplementary Material 2). There was discussion about whether this element should remain in this target, which initially had a clear focus on recovery actions, or be moved to Target 5 (sustainable use) or Target 9 (benefits to people) reflecting the ecological and social aspects of human-wildlife interactions (CBD, 2021). In the adopted text, it remained in this target and was modified to reflect broader perspectives of human-wildlife interactions and co-existence (see Supplementary Material 2). Minimising human-wildlife conflict will typically require a very different set of actions than the ‘urgent management actions’ required by the first part of Target 4, and broader socio-biological approaches.
Indicators for measuring progress
A Monitoring Framework was also adopted at COP15 and it was agreed that this would be reviewed at COP16 (CBD 2022b) in late 2024. An Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Indicators was established to work on further development and operationalisation (see Annex II of CBD 2022b). The Monitoring Framework includes Headline (a minimum set to measure global progress), Component (optional, and covering elements of Goals and Targets) and Complementary (optional for thematic or in-depth analysis of each Goal and Target) Indicators. Many of the indicators envisaged at the point of adoption require further development, guided by the AHTEG. This group is also developing a set of standard questions to be answered by countries in their CBD National Reports to provide counts of the number of countries carrying out particular activities (referred to as ‘binary indicators’), but none of these currently relate to Target 4. It is clear, therefore, that further development of the monitoring framework is needed to provide an adequate system for measuring progress towards the KMGBF’s Goals and Targets.
The monitoring framework states that the Red List Index (Butchart et al. 2004, 2007) will be used as a Headline Indicator to monitor progress towards both Goal A and Target 4. While the Red List Index is highly relevant for assessing progress towards the ten-fold reduction in extinction risk described in Goal A and the significant reduction in extinction risk specified in Target 4, it measures these outcomes, not the implementation of urgent management actions per se, as called for in Target 4. This is significant given that the intent of the Targets is to define the actions to be implemented by 2030, while the Goals state the outcomes to be achieved by 2050. There is, therefore, a clear gap as there is no indicator for measuring the implementation of action identified in Target 4 that is necessary to achieve the required reduction in extinction risk. Bolam et al. (2023) provides a method for identifying the species that need urgent recovery action, which could form the focus for an appropriate indicator for this key element of Target 4, while the development of the Green Status of Species may allow for development of an indicator of recovery of these species to be tracked in due course (Grace et al. 2021) ) and for determining whether species have indeed returned to healthy and resilient levels, as stated in Goal A. Monitoring progress towards increasing the abundance of native wild species will require indicators like the Living Planet Index (available globally for vertebrates, with plans to expand to other taxa; WWF 2022) or, given the methodological challenges associated with unstructured population indicators (Leung et al. 2020), with metrics based on more systematic monitoring of subsets of species and regions (e.g. the Wild Bird Index; BirdLife International 2022). As highlighted by Geldmann et al. (2023), the absence of such an indicator at headline level appears as a key omission for tracking progress to Goal A.