A growing body of evidence shows that biodiversity governance is misaligned with ecological processes that operate across political boundaries. The recent paper by Phillip Haubrock et al. (2026, Conservation Biology) demonstrates how nationally bounded conservation frameworks and restricted access to ecological data fragment management, distort priorities, and reinforce global inequities in conservation capacity.
The brief highlights why this mismatch is especially problematic for invasive species, which spread across borders while policies, data systems, and funding remain nationally structured. It identifies key gaps — including inconsistent uptake of scientific evidence, uneven research capacity, and barriers to data interoperability — and proposes solutions centred on supranational coordination, open and standardised data, and funding aligned with ecological urgency.
This work was supported by the Guardias Project, a Horizon Europe project advancing cross-border coordination, interoperable data workflows, and early-warning capacity to improve invasive species management across Europe.
Read the policy brief here.
