Integrative Conservation : A new journal from the conservation frontline

Welcome to the opening issue of Integrative Conservation, a new global journal for biodiversity conservation, published by the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). XTBG is located in tropical Asia (22°N, 101°E)—more specifically in the region where China, Laos, and Myanmar are stitched together by the waters of the Mekong (Lancang) river, not far from Vietnam and Thailand (Figure 1). This region, in the northern part of the Indoburmese Biodiversity Hotspot, is famous for its rich biological and cultural diversity and epitomizes many of the key conservation issues of the 21st century. Within a 50-km radius of our institute, there are dramatic examples of recent or ongoing rainforest loss and fragmentation, poaching, illegal wildlife trade, intense human–wildlife conflicts, and ecosystems threatened by climate change; but also the ongoing establishment and expansion of protected areas, the recovery of charismatic floristic and megafauna populations, rich local ecological knowledge, top-notch technology applied to the monitoring and conservation of rare species, ambitious ecological restoration initiatives, international cooperation for transboundary conservation, and world-class research. Against many odds, from this “remote corner” of tropical China, XTBG has become one of the leading institutions in conservation science and capacity building in tropical Asia (Qiu, 2009). To further expand the services supplied to biodiversity conservation, XTBG is now launching this journal, Integrative Conservation, that is distinct from conservation journals published in Amsterdam, London, or New York, in that it is a journal from the conservation frontline. Biodiversity conservation is arguably the most critical environmental challenge of our time, especially due to the irreversibility of extinction (Pimm, 2021). Tackling this challenge requires more and better knowledge of biodiversity and its threats at different scales, and innovative approaches specifically designed for the effective conservation of biodiversity and natural resources. Biodiversity conservation is a young and still evolving academic discipline. The global scientific output has grown considerably and continues to do so (Figure 2). Despite this, massive knowledge gaps remain to be addressed (e.g., Nguyen et al., 2021; Scheffers et al., 2012), resulting in a pressing need for more research on biodiversity conservation and—or so we think—additional journals to publish this newly-generated knowledge. Arguably, journals are urgently needed with a broader interdisciplinary take-on to biodiversity conservation. China is one of the so-called megadiverse countries—ranking fourth overall in terms of National Biodiversity Index (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2011). Most importantly, by embedding the goal of “achieving an Ecological Civilization” into China's constitution in 2018, China marked a tipping point not only in China's approach to biodiversity conservation but showing an important commitment toward a sustainable future of humanity (Wei et al., 2021). China has also become a major scientific powerhouse across disciplines (Wagner et al., 2022; Zhu & Liu, 2020), hence, it is no surprise that biodiversity conservation research has experienced a steep growth in China (Figure 2). In 2021, 13.4% of the global scientific output on biodiversity conservation had a first author affiliated to Chinese research institutions, only second to the research produced in the United States (18.3%; Figure 3). Examining where leading conservation research is published, however, it is surprising that none of the 70 journals listed under “biodiversity conservation” in Clarivate's 2022 Journal Citation Reports is published in China, and only 4.3% (i.e., three journals) are published in Asia. In contrast, 84.3% of the list's journals are based in Europe and North America (Figure 3). This lack of leading conservation journals in China and other biodiversity-rich regions reflects historical patterns but it is an anomaly that should be overcome to sustain progress in conservation research and implementation. It is widely accepted that effective biodiversity conservation needs local expertise in the different stages of the conservation process, including multiple research approaches and integration of expertise that is geographically and academically distinctly distributed. In the past decade, there have been multiple calls to enhance geographical diversity among editorial boards (Campos-Arceiz et al., 2018; Mahdjoub et al., 2022), reviewers (Primack et al., 2017), and authors (Maas et al., 2021; Mammides et al., 2016) in biodiversity conservation journals. We acknowledge the commendable progress made in this regard. Biodiversity conservation, however, also needs to diversify where its science is published and we would like to see more conservation journals published in biodiversity-rich countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Madagascar, India, Indonesia, and of course China; countries where effective conservation is most needed. It was in this context that we decided to launch Integrative Conservation. Biodiversity conservation is a wicked problem (DeFries & Nagendra, 2017). Ecosystems are inherently complex, yet complexity increases even further when we introduce the human dimensions involved in managing and conserving them. In his seminal paper on what is conservation biology, Soulé (1985) emphasized the need for interdisciplinary approaches, describing conservation biology as a synthetic, eclectic, and holistic academic discipline. A quarter of a century later, Kareiva and Marvier (2012) further stressed the need for interdisciplinary integration in conservation science. We agree that, for conservation to be useful, we need to integrate different research methods, academic disciplines, and even forms of knowledge for the common goal of preserving biodiversity, ecological function, ecosystem services, and evolutionary processes. Hence integrative in the name of the journal. While evidence-based, conservation is a normative discipline (i.e., it makes value judgments about desirable and undesirable outcomes; Soulé, 1985), which inevitably introduces elements of subjectivity and room for discrepancies. The conservation literature has seen heated—sometimes bitter—arguments such as the SLOSS debate (e.g., Fahrig et al., 2022) or the recent New Conservation controversy (e.g., Hance, 2016). This new journal, Integrative Conservation, will willingly host controversial and sometimes conflicting scientific ideas, understanding that such discrepancies and debates are essential for progress in conservation, even if sometimes it involves making mistakes. Shying away from risky ideas would be a disfavor to conservation. Being in a middle-income country, we are fully aware of the challenges posed by paywalls and article processing fees (APCs) for many readers and authors. To address this issue, Integrative Conservation will be published entirely as Open Access, that is, freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Additionally, XTBG will not make any profit from the journal. Initially (until the end of 2024), all APCs will be waived. Subsequently, XTBG will establish a system of selective APC waivers to facilitate publication to authors from middle- and low-income countries. Integrative Conservation will be published in English because this is the lingua franca of sciences, including conservation. But we are aware that English language can be another barrier (Amano et al., 2016) and are sympathetic with authors for whom this is not their first language (it is not ours either!). Our Editorial Office will facilitate language editing in cases where it is deemed appropriate based on the quality of the research and the relevance of the conservation issue addressed. Additionally, all published articles will have online Abstracts in Chinese and other relevant languages and we encourage authors to provide a plain language summary and practitioner key points in English and the most relevant language(s) for their work. Integrative Conservation is the result of years of planning. It has been conceived as a generalist and interdisciplinary journal, encompassing a wide range of perspectives and scholarly disciplines relevant for our understanding and conservation of biodiversity. Integrative Conservation will publish papers with clear relevance for the theory, practice, or policy of biodiversity conservation. It will cover a wide range of conservation science sub-disciplines, including organismal, population, community, and landscape ecology, evolution, systematics, conservation genetics/genomics, biodiversity, behavior, botany, zoology, conservation physiology, conservation planning, policy, and different aspects of economic and social sciences, as long as there is a direct relevance for biodiversity conservation. We will publish papers from all kinds of taxa, biomes, and geographical regions, although a certain bias in the volume of submissions from Asian and tropical ecosystems may be expected given the geographical location of the journal's publishing institution. Integrative Conservation will publish original research (full articles and short notes), reviews, opinion pieces, methods, policy, practice perspectives, and others. We will publish local case studies when they meet high-quality academic standards and are considered to add value to conservation, beyond the local scale. Integrative Conservation will also publish special issues and sections organized by guest editors. We want the experience of contributing—either as authors, reviewers, or editors—to Integrative Conservation to be as frictionless and positive as possible. For this reason, XTBG has partnered with Wiley, the global leading publisher in ecology and conservation. This partnership guarantees a professional and timely handling of the whole publication process, and, hopefully, a positive experience for all parts involved. We are particularly keen in creating adequate conditions for a quality review process without pressing reviewers with very short timelines that add modest scientific or conservation benefits but may compromise the quality of the review. With the aim of keeping a balance between review quality and timely decision-making, we aim for a 6-week period from submission to the first editorial decision. Integrative Conservation is launching with a small editorial board that has been carefully designed to meet high standards of academic excellence, internationalization, and functional diversity. As the journal develops, the editorial board will expand, aiming for a composition that represents a wide range of areas of expertise, all continents (bar Antarctica) and at least 10 megadiverse countries (sensu Mittermeier et al., 1997), different career stages, and where either gender represents at least 40% of the board members. In this inaugural issue, we want to emphasize that Integrative Conservation is work in progress. As the journal develops and establishes, we will use a tinkering approach where we might try new things, retaining those that work and discarding those that do not. In 2010, the United Nations Environmental Program and the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to a vision for Living in Harmony with Nature where “by 2050, biodiversity will be valued, conserved, restored, and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people” (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2020). By 2050, Integrative Conservation will be 28 years old. By then, we hope to look back and see that our efforts developing this journal from the conservation frontline have contributed to the noble goals of creating an “Ecological Civilization” and achieving the UN target of “Living in Harmony with Nature.” We thank Richard Corlett and Jianqiang Wu for their very helpful suggestions for this editorial; Chi Ma and Yang Bai for help with Figure 1; and Yanhong Zhai, Integrative Conservation's Managing Editor, for compiling the bibliometric data and for her formidable work launching this journal. We are most grateful to XTBG leadership and community for their support, especially to Jin Chen, Richard Corlett, Zhekun Zhou, Ruichang Quang, Min Cao, Jiaolin Zhang, Akihiro Nakamura, Yunhong Tan, Alice Hughes, Xiaoyan Song, and Yufei Zhu for their work in the conceptualization and development of Integrative Conservation. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at Science Data Bank as Yang et al. (2022), https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.06903. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.