Language barriers in conservation: consequences and solutions

Amano, T. and Berdejo-Espinola, V. (2025) Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

This review is a major outcome based on 5 years of work on the translatE project, which has shown consequences of language barriers in science and conservaiton and proposed potential solutions.

We first describe, with evidence based on a growing body of literature, three types of language barriers in evidence-based conservation: barriers to (i) the generation of evidence; (ii) the global synthesis of evidence; and (iii) the local application of English-language evidence.

We then provide a checklist of solutions that can be adopted by individuals, institutions, journals, conferences, and funders for overcoming three types of language barriers and facilitating evidence-based conservation, based on the suggestions proposed in a total of 21 articles.

We also provide a (non-exhaustive) list of examples of AI tools that can be used to overcome language barriers in conservation and discuss the pros and cons of using those AI.

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Three major pathways through which language barriers impede evidence-based conservation.

A checklist of actions for overcoming the three types of language barriers and further facilitating the implementation of evidence-based conservation.

Lights and shadows of AI use for overcoming language barriers in science.