Arlington, VA, Dec. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NatureServe—the authoritative source for biodiversity data on at-risk species and ecosystems throughout North America—today released a comprehensive retrospective on the state of biodiversity conservation in 2025, highlighting major federal program shifts, increased private-sector engagement, and new scientific initiatives that will shape conservation efforts in 2026. The organization emphasized the continued importance of collaboration and evidence-based strategies to meet the scale of biodiversity challenges across the U.S. and Canada.
Federal Conservation Landscape Shifts
This year brought major shifts to government-led conservation programs. As federal capacity shifts, conservation partners outside of government—like private-sector organizations and state-level partners—are poised to play a larger role, both in providing decision-quality information to facilitate effective planning, and through voluntary conservation activities.
“The shifts in federal capacity and funding this year have been significant,” said Anne Bowser, CEO, NatureServe. “Agencies are being encouraged to innovate and leverage partnerships outside of government to deliver on their missions. As these changes continue into 2026, collaboration is key, and the role of state and regional authorities, NGOs, and corporate partners will become even more critical to sustaining conservation momentum.”
The scale of conservation action needed to halt biodiversity decline continues to grow. Throughout 2025, NatureServe and the NatureServe Network supported conservation planning efforts with federal agencies, local land managers, and leading corporations, advancing a science-based approach that identifies priority habitats and species at greatest risk.
Corporate Biodiversity Action Continues to Accelerate
Corporate demand for tools, data, and metrics to manage biodiversity risk grew sharply in 2025, with many companies building voluntary biodiversity risk mitigation portfolios. NatureServe’s data and planning resources helped these organizations identify priority conservation actions, assess environmental risks, and integrate biodiversity goals into corporate sustainability strategies.
“We’re seeing unprecedented levels of interest from companies looking to understand biodiversity risk and value across their footprint,” added Bowser. “Organizations want information they can trust and tools that help them conduct assessments, set targets, measure progress, and ultimately avoid impacts to at-risk species.”
Tools such as InSite by NatureServe, which provides location-based biodiversity risk assessments, are increasingly used by companies to evaluate conservation opportunities and potential impacts. In 2025, a partnership with Regrid, a leading provider of land parcel data, enabled the integration of InSite’s biodiversity index into parcel-data workflows, ensuring biodiversity considerations can be evaluated during the earliest stages of land assessment. For many companies, these tools help drive internal nature strategies, regulatory guidance, and science-based target setting.
Wetlands Face Heightened Threats
Proposed changes to Clean Water Act protections this year heightened concerns for wetlands—habitats that support roughly 1,000 at-risk species in the U.S. and provide broad ecological and community benefits, including water quality that sustains fish and shellfish hatcheries, moderation of flooding and extreme temperatures, and opportunities for wildlife watching.
“If wetland protections are reduced, many already vulnerable species could face significantly increased extinction risk,” said Joshua Daskin, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, NatureServe. “NatureServe’s data play a critical role in identifying where these risks are concentrated and where conservation action is needed most.”
State and local partners increasingly rely on NatureServe’s datasets to inform land-use decisions, especially in regions where federal protections may fluctuate. NatureServe’s data are also foundational to the State Wildlife Action Plan revisions underway through 2026, helping states determine which species to prioritize for conservation.
Fusing Technology with Field Science
Looking ahead, NatureServe is preparing to launch new initiatives that connect satellite-based habitat change detection with the field-collected data on species and ecosystems collected by the NatureServe Network. These efforts will enhance the ability to identify up-to-date conservation risks.
Early pilot analyses using a remotely sensed dataset revealed new development since the last field survey in approximately 4% of a set of over three hundred thousand documented locations of species and ecosystems NatureServe tracks.
“Our goal is to build a seamless pipeline that links recent environmental change to the on-the-ground data that inform conservation decisions,” said Dr. Daskin, “This is part of a broader shift among ecologists toward combining new, advanced technologies—drones, next-generation remote sensing, acoustic monitoring, eDNA, and more— with the irreplaceable expertise of field biologists and taxonomists on the ground.”
This hybrid approach—high-tech tools paired with hands-on scientific expertise—will drive NatureServe’s continued innovation in 2026 and position the organization to support partners as biodiversity threats intensify. Learn more about NatureServe and its network of scientists and data at www.natureserve.org.
About NatureServe:
For 50 years, NatureServe has been the authoritative source for biodiversity data and the central coordinating organization for a network of 60 member programs throughout North America. Together, NatureServe and the network of member programs are dedicated to developing, collecting, and analyzing biodiversity information to support informed decisions about managing, protecting, restoring, and conserving natural resources. NatureServe and the Network develop and manage data for over 100,000 species and ecosystems, answering fundamental questions about what exists, where it is found, and how it is doing. Visit www.natureserve.org to learn more.
Abby Cohen (Rosen Group on behalf of NatureServe) 973.224.0403 abby@rosengrouppr.com