Thirty years after “The Naturalists Are Dying Off”: Regrounding Conservation Biology in a predictive era

Jingrui Sun 

Thirty years after Reed Noss warned that naturalists were dying off, conservation biology has entered an era of unprecedented analytical capacity, driven by global biodiversity databases, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence. This transformation has coincided with declining visibility and support for field-based natural history and taxonomy. The resulting losses extend beyond primary biodiversity observations. Declining taxonomic expertise can compromise species identification and data reliability, while reduced firsthand engagement with nature may constrain observation-driven discoveries and the generation of novel ecological hypotheses. The erosion of organismal and place-based knowledge may also weaken our ability to interpret ecological changes and evaluate predictive models, particularly as climate change, biological invasions, and novel ecosystems alter historical ecological relationships. Addressing these challenges requires sustained investment in field observations, specimen collections, and taxonomic expertise, alongside stronger integration of natural-history knowledge into quantitative and AI-enabled research. Universities, funding agencies, and journals should recognize and support the empirical foundations of conservation science through interdisciplinary training, transparent data provenance, and greater recognition of long-term ecological research.