AI Insight
This study analyzed data from over 20,000 sites across 26 European countries between 2000 and 2021 to assess how 265 common bird species and 144 common butterfly species will respond to conservation policy scenarios through 2050. Despite scenarios that meet current conservation objectives by addressing climate change, land use, and land use intensity, the researchers project continued decline in abundance for both birds and butterflies, with farmland bird species particularly affected. No tested scenario resulted in halting or reversing the average population declines of these common species.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that current European conservation policies may be insufficient to protect common biodiversity, even when conservation targets are met. This challenges the effectiveness of existing policy frameworks and indicates that more transformative approaches may be needed to genuinely reverse biodiversity loss rather than merely slow its decline.
Understand the Science
arXiv:2509.18227v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: In response to increasing threats to biodiversity, conservation objectives have been set to halt biodiversity decline by reducing direct anthropogenic drivers. However, the potential effects of these objectives on common species remain rarely studied. We analyse the effect of a range of drivers related to climate, land use and land use intensity, on 265 common bird and 144 common butterfly species from more than 20,000 sites between 2000 and 2021 across 26 European countries. We use land-use and land-use intensity scenarios produced previously using the IPBES Nature Futures Framework, and climate change scenarios in order to project biodiversity drivers in Europe up to 2050. We translate these driver changes into abundance variations for common bird and butterfly species, and for multi-species indicators used to monitor common biodiversity status in Europe. The projected trends relatively improve, while still declining for birds, notably farmland species, under the scenarios meeting conservation objectives, with few effects on butterflies. No scenario shows a stop or a reversal in the average decline in abundance of bird and butterfly species. Our results therefore question the common biodiversity future under current conservation policies and highlight the need for other anticipatory frameworks, not implicitly based on a growing need for natural resources.