Biodiversity hotspots are the Earth’s most biologically rich—yet heavily threatened—terrestrial regions. These are regions where success in conserving species can have an enormous impact in securing our global biodiversity. To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, an area must meet two strict criteria: it must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else on Earth (known as "endemic" species), and it must have lost at least 70% of its primary native vegetation. 36 regions are identified as hotspots by Conservation International and partners, 9 of which lay (partially or fully) in Africa. This dataset shows their location.

The Biodiversity Intactness Index shows the modelled average abundance of originally-present species in a grid cell, as a percentage, relative to their abundance in an intact ecosystem. Originally available for year 2015, the data is now available in a time series covering the period 2000-2015 - here we provide a bi-decade subset of the index.

Healthy coral reefs provide a home for millions of aquatic species. They protect coastal homes from storms and support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through tourism and recreation. Yet they are severely threatened by pollution, disease, habitat destruction and climate change. When corals are stressed, they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues and become white (bleached) and vulnerable. Corals are vulnerable to bleaching when the sea surface temperature (SST) exceeds the temperatures normally experienced in the hottest month of the year. The NOAA Coral Reef Watch daily global 5km Coral Bleaching HotSpot product measures the occurrence and magnitude of instantaneous heat stress, potentially resulting in coral bleaching. It highlights regions where the SST is warmer than the highest monthly mean. HotSpot values of 1°C or more indicate heat stress leading to coral bleaching and are highlighted in yellow to dark red colors.

Food crisis response planning can save lives if put in place in a timely manner. To do this, decision makers must be warned of climate extreme events impacting agricultural production. The Anomaly hotSpot of Agricultural Production tool (ASAP) is an online decision support system for early warning about hotspots of agricultural production anomaly (crop and rangeland), developed by the JRC for food security crises prevention and response planning anticipation. This map shows the frequency at which countries were classified as hotspots for agricultural production problems between 2004 and 2018. Hotspots are identified on a monthly basis.

Mapping ongoing project activities in the field of conservation in protected areas is essential to identify the various actors and to identify the areas where information and actors are scarce. The aim is to better understand who is funding what and where, with a view to improve decision-making on biodiversity conservation. This map provides the geolocation of all sites that have received funding in the frame of a biodiversity conservation project -or an activity within a project- within approx. the last 20 years. It specifies whether the site is protected or not. One project usually includes several sites.

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are the most important places in the world for species and their habitats. Faced with a global environmental crisis we need to focus our collective efforts on conserving the places that matter most. The KBA Programme supports the identification, mapping, monitoring and conservation of KBAs to help safeguard the most critical sites for nature on our planet – from rainforests to reefs, mountains to marshes, deserts to grasslands and to the deepest parts of the oceans. By providing the precise location of places that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity, KBAs can accelerate efforts to reverse the loss of nature, by ensuring conservation efforts are focussed in the places that matter most, and by enabling entities that may have negative impacts on nature to avoid or reduce those impacts in the places they would be most damaging. This layer shows the location of the KBAs, identified and mapped by the KBA partnership.