The Nature Map project (https://naturemap.earth/) has developed a set of integrated global maps on biodiversity and ecosystems services, including carbon storage, based on the best available scientific data. These new and innovative maps represent an important decision support tool for countries. For example, supporting identification of areas where conservation and restoration actions would deliver the highest benefits to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation – aiding in the implementation of relevant multilateral environmental agreements.

A priority for Nature Map is to improve knowledge of the global distribution of species that have been poorly mapped in the past, such as plants. Thanks to Nature Map’s modelling work and support from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, IUCN, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, and Botanical Information and Ecology Network, the project has been able to mobilise existing, but unpublished range maps, generating new range maps for some 200,000 plant species in total, corresponding to about 41% of all plants known to science. This has allowed us to produce new global maps of species richness, threatened species richness and rarity-weighted richness considering mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile and plant species.

Nature Map strives for maximum transparency to help stakeholders understand the strengths and weaknesses of the data and aggregation methodologies. The project has designed an interactive web platform for expert visualisation, Nature Map Explorer (https://explorer.naturemap.earth/), to facilitate peer-review of the layers.

Whether you are a world expert on species distribution modelling or would enjoy helping the community by helping to identify inaccuracies of the maps for an area you know well, your input would be highly valuable to Nature Map.

If you’re interested in contributing to the project, go to Nature Map Explorer (https://explorer.naturemap.earth/) and register as a user! Once registered, simply clicking on any area of a selected map will allow you to provide feedback.

Thanks and happy reviewing!