Chelonians have survived for more than 200 million years. The basic body form of the chelonian shell has been an obvious testament to the success of chelonians and their ability to survive millions of years of natural selection pressures. Unfortunately, their previously successful traits and strategies, such as having a shell, strong environmental tolerance, long lifespan, and temperature-dependent sex determination, are turning into disadvantages, particularly in the Anthropocene.

Flying-foxes worldwide have suffered population declines, including the Spectacled Flying-fox of north-east Australia which experienced a population crash of over 75% in <15 years. Persuading people that the Spectacled Flying-fox is important, even vital for the rainforests and tall forests that they love, takes engagement, narrative and story-telling. Bringing together communication specialists, social scientists and wildlife scientists is necessary to create these narratives in ways that people understand and accept, and that persuade them that the Spectacled Flying-fox is worth protecting.

Benefits derived from leisure and recreational, and wildlife cultural ecosystem services (CES) were predominantly safeguarded by nature reserves. In contrast, folk and custom CES and spiritual and religious CES were less reliant on these reserves due to intrinsic community-based protection.

Invertebrate-derived DNA (iDNA) has enabled the identification and quantification of ecological interactions within trophic networks and its use in biodiversity assessment. The dung beetle iDNA currently uses live beetles. However, the effectiveness of the iDNA approach hinges on the successful detection of mammalian DNA from specimens collected via traditional pitfall traps with preservative solution, but this is yet to be investigated. Our study demonstrates that dung beetles obtained from baited pitfall traps with preservative solution retain mammalian DNA and shows the utility of dung beetle iDNA as an additional tool for biodiversity assessment. In addition, this approach enriches the scope from biodiversity monitoring to dung beetle trophic interaction studies.

Here we provide a review of the type of areas that nations need to prioritise when implementing Target 3 that relates to area ‘quality’: areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems. We show that data is available for 12 distinct biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service elements that can be mapped and, if conserved, will (with appropriate management) help meet the broad intention of Target 3. We highlight examples of the planning methods available that can be utilized so these areas can be targeted for protection. We discuss issues related to trade-offs regarding how to prioritise amongst them as well as to operationalise some of the vaguer concepts like ‘representation’ and ‘ecosystem functions and services’ so that they achieve the best outcomes for biodiversity.

Integrated conservation research is gaining importance due to global environmental concerns, creating research opportunities. The challenge is to organize research findings originating from multidisciplinary approaches in a streamlined process that supports biodiversity conservation. This summary outlines a 13-step process that integrates various fields of conservation research, including ecology, behavior, mitigation plans, policy recommendations, and monitoring. The aim is to streamline conservation research for populations and enhance knowledge to support actionable conservation actions.