Conservation on the Horizon: 17th Annual Scan Reveals New Biodiversity Challenges for 2026

The latest annual Horizon Scan of biological conservation issues for 2026, conducted by a panel of 26 scientists, practitioners, and policymakers, has identified 15 emerging issues that could significantly impact global biodiversity in the next decade.

What is a Horizon Scan?

Horizon scanning is a systematic approach used since 2009 to anticipate and identify emerging and novel trends that are likely to affect biological conservation. The goal is to highlight issues that are currently not well-known or understood within the conservation community, allowing for proactive planning and increased awareness of both potential risks and opportunities.

For the 2026 scan, a modified Delphi technique was used, involving scoring an initial list of 96 issues, discussing the highest-ranked topics, and ultimately selecting the 15 issues with the highest median ranks based on novelty, likelihood, and importance.

Key Findings of the 2026 Scan

The top 15 issues identified for 2026 fall into several critical themes, from cutting-edge technology to novel global change impacts:

1. Technological Advances and Trade-Offs

Technology is presented as both a revolutionary tool and a potential risk:

• Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML): Deploying AI models on ultra-low-power microcontrollers in remote environments could revolutionize species-specific monitoring and surveillance without relying on an internet connection.

• Ultra-fast, Low-power Optical AI Chips: New photonic technologies could dramatically reduce the massive energy and water use associated with current AI, potentially improving real-time ecological monitoring.

• Digital Twins: Computer simulations of real-world systems, like NVIDIA's Earth-2 platform for climate modeling, offer improved prediction and decision-making but carry substantial power consumption and cooling requirements, alongside the risk of neglecting field observations.

2. Emerging Threats to Ecosystems

The scan highlights novel and escalating threats from human activity and engineered biology:

• Fiber Optic Drone Cables: The rapid development and deployment of fiber optic drones, especially in conflict zones, are leaving behind high-tensile plastic cables that accumulate on the ground, posing a long-term threat of entanglement to wildlife and the release of microplastics.

• Microbial Collapse Driven by Deep Sea Mining: Commercial exploration contracts are advancing for deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules. This activity threatens distinct microbial communities crucial for global biogeochemical cycles, with impacts that could persist for decades.

• Mirror Biomolecules and the Risks of Mirror Life: Biologists are creating chirally inverted biomolecules that do not exist in nature, with potential therapeutic applications. However, the theoretical construction of "mirror cells" presents poorly bounded, high-consequence biosecurity hazards if they were to enter natural ecosystems.

3. Global Land-Use and Financial Shifts

New dynamics in human health and finance will drive land-use decisions:

• Land Use Implications of Appetite-Suppressing Pharmaceuticals: The widespread adoption of GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight loss could reduce global caloric demand, particularly for land-intensive products like beef and highly processed foods. This sustained reduction could slow pasture expansion and create opportunities for land restoration.

• Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF): A proposed, Brazil-led, South-led conservation finance initiative that would establish a US$125 billion fund to provide annual, performance-based payments to tropical countries that maintain low deforestation rates. Its success will be a major factor in forest conservation this decade.

• Rapid Acceleration of Commercial Soil Inoculation (AMF): The global market for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculants is approaching US$1 billion annually, driven by the desire for sustainable agriculture. However, analysis suggests over 80% of current commercial products are failing to achieve their crop benefit objectives, raising poorly understood risks to soil and plant diversity.

4. Climate-Driven Environmental Changes

Direct impacts of climate change are manifesting in fundamental global systems:

• Global Drying of Soils: New analyses show a significant, previously undetected decline in global soil moisture content since 2000, driven by declines in precipitation and a drier atmosphere. This has major effects on terrestrial and freshwater systems and contributes to sea level rise.

• Global Seaweed Declines: Marine macroalgae, which collectively cover more area than all other coastal wetlands and coral reefs combined, are understudied and facing threats from ocean warming, unsustainable herbivory, and accidental introduction of novel pathogens from growing aquaculture.

• Changes in Light Penetration in the World's Oceans: Satellite data suggests the depth of surface light penetration has decreased across 21% of the world's oceans since 2003, a phenomenon likely caused by changes in ocean circulation, sea surface temperature, and nutrient runoff. This "darkening" could cascade through food webs by affecting primary productivity.

• Unanticipated Change in the State of the Southern Ocean: The long-term trend of declining surface salinity in the polar Southern Ocean has unexpectedly reversed since 2015, with waters becoming saltier. This change weakens stratification and may be contributing to the irreversible retreat of Antarctic sea-ice.

What This Means for Conservation

The 2026 horizon scan issues are evolving against a backdrop of accelerated geopolitical instability and global cuts in funding for science, biodiversity research, and conservation.

• Balancing Risks and Opportunities: The integration of new technologies like TinyML and optical AI chips offers cost-effective ecological monitoring solutions, which is essential as traditional on-the-ground data collection funding decreases. However, their benefits must be weighed against the new environmental impacts of wider AI adoption and the risk of displacing local knowledge.

• Need for Robust Monitoring: The issues highlight critical aspects of global change, soil drying, seaweed decline, and ocean light changes, that require extensive, high-resolution data collection. The effectiveness of new financial mechanisms like the TFFF and the responsible oversight of activities like deep-sea mining are entirely dependent on this data.

• The Importance of Anticipation: By proactively identifying these novel risks and opportunities, the conservation community can develop appropriate safeguards and direct investment towards research and mitigation before these issues become widespread, irreversible crises.