Cross‐Ecosystem Biodiversity Action Is Systemically Overlooked

ABSTRACT The Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) stands as the world's foremost strategy for biodiversity protection. However, despite emphasizing ecosystem connectivity, the GBF remains largely organized around discrete ecosystem types, biomes, and political jurisdictions. Consequently, it falls short of explicitly addressing a fundamental ecological reality: biodiversity is shaped by biotic and abiotic processes that transcend ecosystem and institutional boundaries. Biodiversity in one type of ecosystem can strongly depend on ecological processes occurring in another, yet these cross‐ecosystem dependencies frequently fall outside existing governance structures. In this perspective, we confront the oversight of cross‐ecosystem dependencies in biodiversity management and policy as a systemic problem. We present evidence showing how ecological change propagates across ecosystem interfaces (e.g., aquatic‐terrestrial) through biotic and abiotic pathways, and how institutional fragmentation undermines coordinated conservation action across these same boundaries and scales. We discuss how failing to account for cross‐ecosystem dependencies of biodiversity undermines the GBF's vision for halting and reversing biodiversity loss. Finally, we outline pathways for integrating cross‐ecosystem biodiversity dependencies into global biodiversity policy, through creative interpretation of ecosystem connectivity and integrity, implementation within National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, and the development of cross‐ecosystem indicators and management frameworks.