A new study warns that language barriers may be limiting the reach and impact of global biodiversity policies, calling for better inclusion of languages that cover a large share of the world’s species — such as Portuguese and Malay — but are underrepresented in international environmental agreements.
The research, published in Conservation Letters and led by Dr Diogo Veríssimo of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI), highlights a critical gap: while biodiversity spans across national borders, international conservation efforts — often guided by Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) — typically operate in a narrow set of official languages. This restricts access for many of the local practitioners responsible for turning policy into action.
Using IUCN Red List species data, the team examined the relationship between species distribution and language. They found that the world’s most biodiversity-rich regions are linked to official languages such as Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and Malay. However, when assessing languages by the number of species their regions contain — rather than the number of speakers — languages like Portuguese emerge as especially important, despite being less prominent in international negotiations. This reveals a mismatch between the languages most relevant to biodiversity and those most commonly used in policy.
Dr Veríssimo, who leads the Biodiversity and Behavioural Science Team (BBeST) at the ECI, said:
Nature doesn’t recognise borders, so conservation depends on international cooperation. But if the guidance produced by global agreements isn’t accessible in the languages spoken where biodiversity is richest, we risk excluding the very practitioners who are critical to making conservation happen on the ground.
Language is often treated as an afterthought in conservation policy, but it is a fundamental enabler of participation. By making biodiversity resources available in the languages of the people who live in and manage these rich ecosystems, we can give them the tools to succeed and improve our chances of meeting global targets.”
While expanding the number of official MEA languages may be impractical, the authors recommend selectively translating essential technical guidance into languages such as Portuguese and Malay, which are highly relevant to biodiversity but not routinely featured in international agreements. Doing so, they argue, could enhance local engagement, support more effective conservation, and help meet global targets like those set out in the new Global Biodiversity Framework.
Dr Veríssimo led the study, working with Dr Ricardo Rocha, from the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford, and colleagues from The Nature Conservancy, London, and the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Read the full study in Conservation Letters: Languages of Life: A Global Perspective on Linguistic Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation