Biodiversity conservation is critical for sustainable development, poverty reduction, and climate stability. It supports ecosystems that provide food, water, and resources, especially in developing nations, and drives industries like agriculture, fisheries, ecotourism, and pharmaceuticals. Protecting biodiversity strengthens ecosystem resilience, mitigates climate change, and promotes global sustainability.
Despite growing awareness, biodiversity is in crisis, with nearly one million species at risk and a 68% decline in global biodiversity since 1970. Limited access to up-to-date data, particularly in developing regions, has hindered conservation efforts. Traditional metrics focus mainly on vertebrates and overlook broader aspects of biodiversity, while emerging threats outpace slow data updates.
To address this, the World Bank has developed extensive open-access datasets, covering nearly 600,000 species across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. This effort has expanded habitat data by fivefold for plants and tenfold for invertebrates and other phyla, complementing the traditional focus on vertebrates.
In Brazil, protected areas currently cover 30.6% of the country, but 1,412 species have little to no coverage, suggesting some countries may need to exceed commitments under the Global 30x30 Initiative.
The World Bank’s Gridded Global Biodiversity Database, covering nearly 600,000 species, reveals 272,189 endemic species and 85,310 species at risk. Conservation in disputed territories, conflict-affected regions, and transboundary ecosystems faces major challenges.
The Human Coexistence Indicators (HCI) measure human influence on terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. High human terrestrial influence dominates regions like China, India, and France, with low influence in areas like Algeria and central Australia.
A study of the effect of transferring management from governments to African Parks (AP) finds that private management significantly improves wildlife outcomes.
A recent paper examines a series of proposed Marine Protected Area (MPA) network expansions of various sizes and forecasts the impact that increased protection could have on global patterns of fishing effort.
Database of occurrence regions for approximately 600,000 species—arthropods, mollusks, plants, fungi, and vertebrates—covering terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments, derived from millions of GBIF georeferenced ...
Gridded Level Database of Composite Marine Human Coexistence Index and Individual Indicators Database of location-specific indicators and a composite index (geometric mean of these indicators) measuring human influence on marine ecosystems. Metrics include coastal population density, fishing intensity, shipping density, and plastics pollution, derived from open-access global spatial data.
National Level Dataset of Species Endemism, Small Occurrence and Species at Risk Database of total species counts (indicators of species richness), endemic species, small-occurrence region species, and those with estimated extinction risk over 80%, covering arthropods, mollusks, plants, fungi, and vertebrates across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments by country or territory.
Species Richness and Count of Species at Risk in Transboundary River Basins Database of total species counts (indicators of species richness), endemic species, small-occurrence region species, and those with estimated extinction risk over 80%, covering arthropods, mollusks, plants, fungi, and vertebrates across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments in river basins spanning more than one country.
Species Richness and Count of Species at Risk in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations Database of total species counts (indicators of species richness), endemic species, small-occurrence region species, and those with estimated extinction risk over 80%, spanning arthropods, mollusks, plants, fungi, and vertebrates across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments in “Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations.”
Expanding Perspectives on Biodiversity: Open Access Indicators and their Applications Technical Report, Susmita Dasgupta, Brian Blankespoor, and David Wheeler, forthcoming
The World Bank's Global Biodiversity Data & Analytics initiative leverages machine learning to generate species occurrence maps from freely accessible, georeferenced data provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The advanced algorithms developed through this initiative have produced maps covering nearly 600,000 terrestrial and aquatic species, spanning vertebrates, arthropods, mollusks, vascular plants, fungi, and other organisms. This project has produced the world’s largest open-source species map database, broadening the scope of biodiversity conservation. Beyond the traditionally well-represented vertebrates—amphibians, birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals—the database now includes a fivefold increase in habitat data for plants and tenfold for invertebrates and other phyla.
This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of the work to map occurrence regions for nearly 600,000 species of flora and fauna. It covers identification of occurrence regions of critical species; estimation of extinction risks for all species; human coexistence indicators; maps of species in geopolitically sensitive areas; and prototypes of biodiversity profiles for a region and a countries. It also includes illustrations of the use of the data.Download the presentation >
The article examines how the expansion of marine protected areas (MPA) impact biodiversity and the global distribution of fishing. The authors find that the expansion of MPAs leads to a decrease in fishing both inside ...
This article studies the impacts of the transfer of parks management authority from governments to African Parks (AP)—the largest private manager of protected areas in Africa.
The world is experiencing a severe loss of biodiversity. Using data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, this paper creates threat and protection indicators for more than 600,000 species, including animals, ...
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)'s expanding global species database is a valuable resource for conservation. The estimation algorithms are designed for rapid updates, supporting the ongoing growth of open-source GBIF reports and enabling broader applications in biodiversity conservation.
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