Key points
Nature Positive (NP) is a multiscale Earth system stability goal that can be aligned with actions to meet global biodiversity targets and goals.
Achieving NP requires governance and finance mechanisms that operate across political boundaries and match the spatial scales of ecological processes.
Protecting intact ecosystems is the most immediate and effective pathway to stabilizing biosphere function while longer-term restoration efforts mature.
Introduction
The phrase “Nature Positive” (NP) has transitioned remarkably quickly from a conservation advocacy concept to a cornerstone of global environmental policy. It now appears in the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), G7 communiqués, and corporate commitments. Yet its rapid uptake risks a common issue: conceptual ambiguity. NP could become simply a biodiversity scorecard or restoration slogan rather than what the science demands: a systemic program to stabilize the biosphere.
In their compelling Frontiers in Science lead article, Locke and colleagues provide an important conceptual recalibration for NP framing (). They anchor NP firmly in Earth system science and argue that halting and reversing biodiversity loss is inseparable from restoring planetary stability. This requires a shift from viewing the environment as a competing interest to recognizing it as the context for all human activity. Their synthesis clarifies priorities, identifies policy and financial gaps, and introduces the Three Global Conditions Framework (3Cs) for organizing action across landscapes and seascapes.
Building on this contribution, I want to amplify three of their messages that merit particular emphasis. First, NP should be explicitly multiscale, reflecting processes that operate from local ecosystems to the biosphere. Second, effective action must extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries because many of the ecological processes that matter most routinely cross them. Third, the familiar “bending the curve” narrative (), focused on protecting ecosystems and reducing drivers in combination, is not in tension with an Earth-system approach; it is instead the practical framework through which Earth system transformation and a NP future can be achieved.
Nature Positive as an Earth system stability goal
Nearly a century ago, Vladimir Vernadsky described the biosphere as the thin envelope in which living matter exerts a “dominant geochemical role”. He recognized that life and the Earth system are inseparable—an insight that now sits at the heart of planetary boundaries science (). Locke and colleagues point to biodiversity loss and climate change as two “core” planetary boundaries that have been transgressed and argue that achieving climate and development goals will be impossible without restoring biosphere integrity ().
This framing moves NP beyond species conservation into planetary regulation. The drying of the Amazon, the loss of coral reef systems, or disruptions to polar ice dynamics do not simply represent regional crises; they reflect disturbances to planetary feedback that regulate climate and biosphere functions.
Earth system stability is therefore inherently multiscale (). Biodiversity emerged from eco-evolutionary processes operating across nested scales, including forests recycling moisture, plankton regulating productivity, migratory species linking ecosystems, and river basins channeling sediments and nutrients. Global stability emerges from the interaction of these regional processes across landscapes, biomes, and oceans.
Policy discourse sometimes treats NP primarily as a global aggregate goal measured through headline indicators. Such metrics are essential for accountability but risk obscuring the processes that generate local and regional resilience. A multiscale approach, linking site-level ecological condition, landscape connectivity, biome integrity, and planetary feedback, aligns more closely with the Earth system framing articulated by Locke and colleagues.
The 3Cs framework they advance is valuable because it recognizes spatial heterogeneity in human pressure and ecological function. The next phase of work should ensure that metrics and interventions within the 3Cs are explicitly nested across scales rather than treated as parallel categories.
Beyond borders: the governance challenge Nature Positive must confront
As Earth system stability is inherently multiscale, many of the processes essential to sustaining biodiversity often transcend political boundaries. As Locke and colleagues discuss, migration illustrates the challenge clearly. The persistence of migratory birds, marine megafauna, anadromous fish, and many terrestrial mammals depends on connected habitat networks spanning continents and oceans (). Protection at breeding sites cannot compensate for mortality along migratory routes or loss of stopover habitats. Without coordinated monitoring, aligned policy, and cooperative finance, conservation outcomes will remain fragmented.
The Earth system is integrated in ways governance systems often are not. National biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) are crucial for implementing the GBF, but are structurally insufficient in conserving ecological processes that cross jurisdictions. NP cannot be achieved simply through the sum of national actions.
The same logic applies to shared river basins and marine systems beyond national jurisdiction. Effective conservation requires governance mechanisms that match the spatial scales of the ecological processes involved. Strengthening transboundary cooperation through regional agreements, coordinated monitoring, and shared implementation frameworks could become a central component of GBF implementation.
The Earth system framing offered by Locke and colleagues provides a strong rationale for such cooperation. If biodiversity loss destabilizes coupled biophysical systems, governance responses must reflect comparable integration. The current early phase of GBF implementation offers an opportunity to embed these mechanisms before institutional path dependence sets in.
Protecting intact ecosystems as a priority
Locke and colleagues argue that protecting intact ecosystems should be the top priority to achieve NP by 2030. Restoration and species recovery remain essential but are slower in delivering system-level benefits.
This emphasis challenges restoration-heavy narratives such as large-scale tree planting or biodiversity offsets. Many ecosystem functions, including carbon storage, hydrological regulation, and complex species interactions, cannot be rapidly rebuilt once lost and may take decades or even centuries to recover ().
For the scientific community, this message has two important implications. First, it reinforces the need for improved mapping and monitoring of ecosystem intactness. Second, it raises questions about how conservation finance and policy incentives are currently allocated. If protecting intact systems provides the highest return for Earth system stability, then existing investment portfolios may require significant realignment.
Aligning framing with action
Earth system framings can appear abstract relative to reducing pressures on biodiversity, but this is a false dichotomy. The widely cited “bending the curve” narrative (), which focuses on scaling up protected areas, reducing the impacts of direct and indirect drivers, and transforming food systems, is not inconsistent with an Earth-system perspective ().
Actions aimed at reducing habitat loss, curbing unsustainable harvest, reducing pollution, and restoring degraded systems interrupt cascading pressures that destabilize ecosystems across scales. When these pressures are reduced, ecological processes—from trophic regulation to hydrological cycles—can begin to recover.
Tighter integration is needed between threat-based metrics and indicators and Earth system indicators. Efforts to bend the curve by mainstreaming biodiversity knowledge across sectors of the economy must be linked to outcomes at biome and planetary scales. The scientific community should develop scenarios for biodiversity and nested, leading indicators that assess whether reductions in pressures are translating into improved ecological resilience across scales.
Building forward: research and policy priorities
Achieving NP will require a fundamental shift in how financial flows interact with the biosphere. Conservation finance should be evaluated not solely against area-based or species metrics but against its contribution to maintaining intact systems and restoring Earth system processes. This means not only mobilizing new funding but also redirecting existing investments away from activities that drive ecosystem degradation.
Implementation of the GBF should incorporate stronger transboundary cooperation, particularly for migratory species, shared river basins, and lands and seas beyond national jurisdiction. Many of the ecological processes sustaining biodiversity operate across political boundaries. Coordinated international action and monitoring will therefore be essential to avoid spatially fragmented outcomes.
Locke and colleagues also emphasize the importance of integrating Indigenous and local knowledge systems into the management of landscapes and seascapes. Such knowledge, grounded in long-term relationships with place, provides critical insights into ecological variability and change. Supporting Indigenous and community stewardship is both a matter of equity and a practical strategy for sustaining ecological processes the local management of which can have far-reaching effects.
Finally, there is an urgent need to harmonize reporting frameworks across multilateral environmental agreements addressing biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development. Initiatives such as the United Nations Environment Programme-facilitated Bern process illustrate how coordination among biodiversity conventions could reduce reporting burdens while improving policy coherence. Advances in biodiversity and Earth system monitoring and workflows, integrating scientific, local, and Indigenous knowledge, will play a key role in enabling this alignment (, ).
From ambition to alignment
Locke and colleagues provide an essential foundation for understanding NP as a systems-level goal rooted in Earth system science. Their emphasis on protecting intact ecosystems and integrating biodiversity within planetary stability powerfully reframes the NP agenda and the conservation action mobilized to meet GBF targets and goals.
The next phase of the NP agenda must focus on aligning scales of action with those of the Earth system. Interventions must operate across nested spatial domains, transcend jurisdictional fragmentation, and reduce the pressures that erode biosphere resilience. Only through such multiscale coherence can NP move from aspiration to Earth system reality.
Statements
Author contributions
AG: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. AG is supported by the Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Conservation.
Conflict of interest
AG is employed as an associate by Habitat.
AG received funding from the Liber Ero Chair. Neither the funder nor the company was involved in this work’s design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.
Generative AI statement
The author declared that generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. The author used ChatGPT 5.2 to edit and shorten the penultimate draft.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
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Summary
Keywords
biodiversity finance, Earth system stability, Global Biodiversity Framework, Nature Positive, Planetary Boundaries, transboundary governance
Citation
Gonzalez A (2026) Nature Positive across scales: from global biodiversity goals to Earth system stability. Front Sci 4:1829185. doi: 10.3389/fsci.2026.1829185
Received
12 March 2026
Accepted
20 March 2026
Published
09 April 2026
Volume
4 - 2026
Edited by
Frontiers in Science Editorial Office, Frontiers Media SA, Lausanne, Switzerland
Updates
Copyright
© 2026 Gonzalez.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Andrew Gonzalez, andrew.gonzalez@mcgill.ca
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.