Supporting quotes for STAR
Supporting quotes for publication of “A metric for spatially explicit contributions to science-based species targets” in Nature Ecology & Evolution
Quotes in alphabetical order by institution
"Given that up to 1 million species are threatened by extinction and that close to 700 vertebrate species have been driven to extinction due to human activities during the past 500 years, it is absolutely critical to explore measures that will halt the accelerating species loss and metrics to track progress. STAR will be a very important and significant step towards this goal."
Vice President and Vice Provost, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory,
Arizona State University, USA
“The STAR metric provides a powerful new tool that will be valuable to governments, the private sector and others for assessing potential contributions of different actions in different locations to global conservation of species.”
Director of Science Policy & Information, BirdLife International, UK
“STAR provides a quantitative approach to guide conservation actions to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss, and a framework for concerted actions among countries and among different stakeholders to most efficiently alleviate the threats to species and reduce their extinction risk. STAR-based solutions will make an important supplement to protected areas for species conservation.”
Associate Professor, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
"The need to address the challenge of global biodiversity loss, and the impact of this loss on people – on our societies and economies – has never been more pressing. The introduction of the STAR metric is therefore very timely, offering multiple stakeholders – from governments to businesses to civil society – an accessible, robust, and standardized option to evaluate the potential contributions of conservation, restoration and sustainable development actions towards meeting the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework goals. STAR is underpinned by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a global good championed by Conservation International for over 25 years.”
Executive Vice President of Field Programs, Conservation International, USA
"The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework seeks to identify specific actions that will improve the overall state of biodiversity. STAR provides a way to measure how reducing threats in a particular place can decrease overall extinction risk, linking proposed actions to achieving the Convention's vision of living in harmony with nature.”
Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada
“The global goal of achieving a nature-positive world requires halting and reversing nature loss by 2030, measured from a baseline of 2020. A fundamental advancement in our ability to assess progress towards preventing species extinction is represented by the STAR Metric proposed by renowned scientists. The GEF encourages governments, the private sector and CSOs to adopt the metric, along with other relevant nature-related measurements.”
CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility (GEF), USA
“The STAR metric represents a major advance in our capacity to understand and, crucially, to address the multiple threats imperilling life on Earth. It provides governments, companies, NGOs and academics with a novel understanding of where these threats happen, a crucial piece of the puzzle when designing and implementing strategies to mitigate and reverse them.”
Executive Director of the International Institute for Sustainability, Brazil
“For years, a major impediment to engaging companies, governments and others in biodiversity conservation has been the inability to measure the impact of their efforts. By quantifying their contributions, the new STAR metric can bring all these actors together around the common objective of preserving the diversity of life on Earth. We need concerted global action to safeguard the world’s biodiversity, and with it our own safety and wellbeing.”
UCN Director General, Switzerland
“Halting the extinction of species requires a deep understanding of what is threatening the world's biodiversity. It also requires an efficient method for assessing what works where in our efforts to reduce these threats, restore ecosystems, and save species. The STAR metric provides a scalable metric relevant across all species and places to help guide individuals and institutions toward effective conservation investments.”
Chief Environmental Officer, Microsoft, USA
“We welcome the launch of this new STAR metric. It will enhance our decision making progress and portfolio construction approach by adding strong, scientifically-backed positive impact metrics on biodiversity. It will also potentially catalyse new environmental revenues for species conservation outcomes. Mirova is looking forward to piloting this new tool with its innovative Nature+ Accelerator Fund that will be launched later this year.”
Vincent Gradt
Managing Director, Mirova Natural Capital, UK
“With STAR, we finally have a robust and spatially explicit indicator to track actions aimed at reducing threats to species. We look forward to visualizing STAR on biodiversity dashboards we develop and maintain for governments and the private sector around the world.”
Dr Sean T. O’Brien
President and CEO of NatureServe, USA
“We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis and resources are limited, but our study shows that extinction risk is concentrated in relatively small areas with greater numbers of highly threatened species. The STAR methodology allows us to consistently measure where and how conservation and restoration could have the biggest impact. At the same time, our analysis shows that threats to species are omnipresent, and that action to stem the loss of life on Earth must happen in all countries without exception.”
Dr Louise Mair
Newcastle University, lead author of the study, UK
“The world's biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate because of human activities and there is increasing recognition that now is the time to act. As we enter the UN Decade of Restoration and the world's governments negotiate a new global framework for biodiversity conservation, we all have our role to play, and universities have the potential to develop new ways to tackle this and other global challenges. This significant collaborative effort that Newcastle University has led offers a new way to understand what the benefits to species will be from reducing threats to them in any particular part of the world, whether it is a country, a national park or the places where a company operates.”
Professor Julie Sanders
Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Newcastle University, UK
“As we enter a decisive decade for the world’s biodiversity, we need robust tools to identify priority areas for conservation and restoration. This study presents a powerful new tool to incentivise companies, cities and NGOs to make measurable contributions to global conservation targets, and demonstrates the need to support key tropical countries in bending the curve of biodiversity loss. Future research should aim to integrate plants and fungi in this work, given their critical importance as the cornerstones of ecosystems.”
Professor Alexandre Antonelli
Director of Science, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK
“In the face of a deepening biodiversity crisis it is easy to freeze and feel overwhelmed by the task in hand to protect imperilled species globally, but the STAR metric pinpoints exactly how and where we must act urgently, if we are to succeed in bringing nature back. This means concerted action by many different players in society and not just a few.”
Professor Richard Gregory
Head of Monitoring at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK
"To halt biodiversity loss, we need to know where to take action, what action to take, and who should take the action. The STAR metric quantifies the impacts of tackling threats to species in particular places, and provides a framework that allows actors from all parts of society to measure their potential contribution to species conservation. The metric will help further direct biodiversity conservation efforts in South Africa, a megadiverse country where multiple conservation stakeholders from the private sector, government and non-governmental organisations work collaboratively to halt biodiversity loss."
Dr Theressa Frantz
Chief Director: Biodiversity Research, Assessment & Monitoring,
South African National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa
“A major goal of the portfolio of tools mobilized by IUCN -- such as the STAR Metric, as well as The Red List of Threatened Species and the Red List of Ecosystems -- is to empower nations to base their biodiversity conservation and sustainable use priorities on scientific evidence. Ultimately, these tools guide conservation action especially at the national level, where most investments and interventions aimed at reversing declining biodiversity trends take place.”
Professor Jon Paul Rodriguez
Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Venezuela
“There is a pressing need for reliable and comparable biodiversity metrics to support nature protection and restoration. To be used effectively these metrics must be practical and simple enough to apply by a diverse range of stakeholders, including businesses, public bodies, land managers and civil society. The STAR metric uses the best available public data on species distributions and threats in a framework that can be applied consistently worldwide. STAR will enable organisations to map, quantify and compare potential risks and impacts and where targeted actions could have the greatest benefits. It provides a common language to demonstrate how conservation interventions contribute to achieving the goals of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.”
Dr Helen Temple
Chief Executive, The Biodiversity Consultancy, UK
"Urgently reducing biodiversity loss is critical to protecting our shared planet—and achieving this goal relies on a diverse range of conservation strategies. Mair and colleagues have developed a metric that can help motivate action and focus our energy by tracking what’s working, what’s not, and what we can do better."
Jennifer Morris
Chief Executive Officer, The Nature Conservancy, USA
“We are entering a last-chance decade for tackling the global nature crisis, with around a million species at risk of extinction. The STAR metric will help governments and businesses to make decisions that reduce species extinction risks, progress towards the goals of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and so build a better future for people and planet.”
Jonathan Hughes
Chief Executive Officer of WCMC at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), UK
“The STAR metric provides us with a tremendously increased insight into the state of biodiversity in this world. It further allows for the integration of other economic metrics in the future, which is absolutely unprecedented and allows for a stronger interconnection with other disciplines.”
Dr Arne Geschke
Senior Researcher and Lecturer, University of Sydney, Australia
“The development of the STAR metric presents the fruitful outcome of an interdisciplinary international research effort to advance the understanding of the state of biodiversity around the world. The STAR metric will further serve as a baseline for future assessments of the implications of international trade on biodiversity. As such, we now have a comprehensive assessment framework that will accelerate global, much needed research effort to preserve biodiversity of generations to come.”
Professor Manfred Lenzen
Professor of Sustainability Research, University of Sydney, Australia
“Across the world, forests—and the species that rely on them—are under increasing threat. With STAR, we now have a quantifiable metric to demonstrate the value of protecting, conserving and restoring our forests for people and nature, causes World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has championed for decades.”
Kerry Cesareo
Senior Vice President, Forests, World Wildlife Fund, USA
“As countries prepare to make important and ambitious commitments to biodiversity as part of a bold new plan for nature, STAR provides the unthinkable: the means for actors at all levels, from government to industry, to quantify how any action they take, in any particular place, can contribute towards combatting threats to species and restoring habitat. It also offers immense potential for how we target interventions at particular places and on particular threats, most especially pervasive drivers of habitat loss like agriculture and logging”.
Dr Andrew Terry
Director of Conservation, Zoological Society of London, UK
Sign up for an IUCN newsletter