Biodiversity leakage is undermining global efforts to halt biodiversity loss. There are concerns that conservation initiatives in regions like Europe and China are causing production shortfalls in sectors such as timber. These are then driving land conversions – such as changing an area of forest to arable land – in more biodiverse, less well regulated parts of the world. Troublingly, even major initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30 x 30 target do not mention the problem.

The authors offer numerous ways to address biodiversity leakage, including:

• Recognizing and reporting potential leakage as rigorously as possible
• Reducing demand for high-leakage goods, such as lowering demand for meat or coupling unsustainable fuel wood harvesting with provision of fuel efficient stoves.
• Restoring degraded areas that produce few commodities but could have greater biodiversity value, such as the restoration of mangroves which had been cleared for aquaculture.

These efforts will involve the coordination and input of many different parties. Fortunately, many of these actors are ready and motivated to tackle global biodiversity loss.