A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2014.

This paper presents the output of our fifth annual horizon-scanning exercise, which aims to identify topics that increasingly may affect conservation of biological diversity, but have yet to be widely considered. A team of professional horizon scanners, researchers, practitioners, and a journalist identified 15 topics which were identified via an iterative, Delphi-like process. The 15 topics include a carbon market induced financial crash, rapid geographic expansion of macroalgal cultivation, genetic control of invasive species, probiotic therapy for amphibians, and an emerging snake fungal disease.

This is an exercise of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We thank the large number of individuals who suggested issues or responded to questions. For suggesting issues that in some form are included in this paper we thank Jeremy Clifford (changing costs of energy storage and consumption models), Jason Dinsdale (increasing aquatic concentrations of testosterone), Annewieke Vroom (the idea on which ecological civilisation policies in China was based), Victoria Price (passive acoustic monitoring), Jean-Louis Ecochard (one of those who suggested artificial superintelligence) and Jennifer Wickens and Victoria Wickens (use of managed bees as vectors). Nibedita Mukherjee documented and made useful contributions to the meeting discussion. WJS is funded by Arcadia.

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.11.004