Quiet-quitting conservation undermines green goals

Shrinking national park boundaries are among the forms that conservation abandonment can take. (Stuart Walmsley/AAP PHOTOS)

Alarming rates of conservation abandonment threaten to undermine global climate and nature goals and open up a new frontier in environmental backsliding, researchers warn.

Conservation abandonment takes many forms and can look like shrinking national park boundaries, forgotten plots of carbon-offsetting trees, and underperforming mine rehabilitation.