Defending ecology and evolution in an age of democratic backsliding and environmental crisis

“Do not go gentle into that good night” –Dylan Thomas

Context statement

As Field Chief Editor for Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, I am increasingly concerned about the convergence of democratic backsliding, declining academic standing (a proxy for respect for expertise and evidence-based decision making), and weakening environmental governance. These intersecting trends threaten not only democratic institutions but also the capacity of ecology and evolution to generate and apply scientific evidence at a time when biodiversity loss and climate change demand it most. In this Field Grand Challenge, I argue that defending the institutional foundations of independent research is essential to maintaining the integrity and societal impact of ecology and evolution. I examine how democratic regression can undermine scientific and environmental capacity and outline strategic actions for researchers, educators, and policymakers to counter these threats. These challenges are formidable but vital if our discipline is to remain central to evidence-based policy and societal decision-making in the face of global environmental crises.

Introduction

The last eight decades witnessed a Golden Age of scientific discovery, with nations mainly in the Western world and led by the United States, supporting transformational research across virtually all scientific disciplines (Baker, 2014; Powell et al., 2017). Notwithstanding prominent global inequities, developed nations advanced countless discoveries propelled by computational and technological advances that were previously unimaginable and that now fuel innumerable benefits to human health and prosperity (Dong et al., 2016; Coccia, 2023; Wang et al., 2023). Ecology and evolution experienced remarkable breakthroughs during this period, combining theoretical, observational, experimental, and analytical approaches to deepen our understanding of organismal function, variation, and interactions with the environment (Krebs, 2006; Bonsall and Charlesworth, 2010). Notably, these advances went beyond mere academic inquiry and also informed environmental policy and conservation efforts, helping manage species and ecosystems in the face of global change (Carpenter et al., 2009; Kareiva and Marvier, 2012). Sustaining such contributions is vital in light of ongoing biodiversity loss and climate crises that will intensify in the coming decades (Bellard et al., 2012; Segan et al., 2016).

Recent history shows that scientific discovery and innovation are most successful and impactful in liberal democracies, where evidence-based scholarship is valued and governments support academia by protecting the right to teach, investigate, and disseminate knowledge without interference or censorship (Cole, 2017; Whetsell et al., 2021). In these systems, governments allocate public funds for infrastructure, salaries, and research while honoring institutional autonomy over governance and curricula. In return, academic institutions train the next generation of skilled professionals, conduct research and scholarship in areas of pressing societal importance, and provide knowledge and expertise through various forms of professional or public service. Yet, despite that democratic nations were well-served by this arrangement for decades, its long-term stability is increasingly in doubt. Since the early 2000s, many democracies have faced structural, economic, and governance challenges that threaten their integrity and place them on a path of democratic regression (Waldner and Lust, 2018; Diamond, 2021). The rise of populist and neo-nationalist movements, often fueled by economic anxiety, cultural grievance, and demographic change, has shifted political power toward more repressive and authoritarian styles of governance (Galston, 2018; Berman, 2021). As these movements gain traction, they erode a healthy democracy’s key features, including support for academic institutions and evidence-based policy decisions (Mede and Schäfer, 2020; V-Dem Institute, 2025; Figure 1). Almost universally, such movements depict universities as out of step with public needs, training students with ill-suited skills, and conducting expensive, esoteric research (Motta, 2018; Merkley, 2020). These narratives resonate with segments of society lacking post-secondary education, allowing attacks on academia to be framed as fiscal prudence and reining-in the elite class (Mede and Schäfer, 2020; Gligorić et al., 2025).

It follows that democratic stability matters not only for the freedom to conduct research, but also for society’s capacity to generate and apply the knowledge needed to confront growing, intractable problems like the environmental crisis. Thus, the Grand Challenge facing our community is to conduct the best science and ensuring our contribution to informed, evidence-based policy decisions.

Consequences of democratic regression

The anti-democratic playbook includes measures designed to limit academia’s societal influence, including restrictions on institutional funding, constraints on self-governance and curricular autonomy, threats to tenure and employment security, and curbs on free expression (Cole, 2017; Fernandez et al., 2024). Repressive governments often target research that does not align with official priorities or ideology, including basic curiosity-driven inquiry and investigations aimed at strengthening environmental needs. For example, research addressing evolutionary biology, environmental protection measures, climate change impacts, and at-risk species conservation tends to be valued in functioning democracies but frequently delegitimized in more repressive regimes (e.g., Rydén et al., 2019; Menezes and Barbosa, 2021; Frizelle et al., 2025; Temple, 2025). Research defunding may be framed as austerity measures or fiscal reallocations, often redirecting funds toward politically aligned programs while leaving other disciplines under-resourced. Even when research funding is maintained, it is often more restrictive or administered through cost-sharing partnerships with business or special interest groups, thereby reducing efficiency and weakening direct links between objective academic inquiry and societal advancement (Dziundziuk, 2024; Pandey et al., 2025). Concurrently, populist and authoritarian movements often promote science skepticism and diminish the role of expert knowledge in policy decisions (Schlaufer and Van den Dool, 2024). When combined with reduced transparency and restricted public access to information, these measures erode public trust in institutions and reduce engagement in policy processes (Hernández-Huerta and Inclán, 2025). Collectively, such strategies weaken the autonomy and influence of academic institutions and progressively decouple research activity from the broader societal needs it is intended to serve (Figure 2).

An additional feature of democratic regression is that emerging regimes frequently prioritize economic growth over environmental protection and sustainability (Pentz et al., 2025; Figure 1). As the administrative state and public service are weakened or dismantled, environmental oversight and regulations are often removed, relaxed, or inconsistently enforced (Blum and Sellers, 2025), resulting in reduced environmental monitoring, declining quality standards, and diminished protection for sensitive habitats and at-risk species (Kates-Garnick, 2025; Meek and Börk, 2025; Shiffman, 2025; Orr, 2025). Activities such as basic research, monitoring, and assessment of species and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable, whether conducted directly by government agencies or through partnerships with academia and non-governmental organizations (Böhmelt, 2021; Halligan, 2021; Lockwood and Lockwood, 2022). Consequently, data on environmental baselines and human impacts becomes less accessible (e.g., Dillon et al., 2019) while expert involvement in policy decisions is increasingly devalued, leading to weakened evidence-based environmental governance. Collectively, these losses activate a feedback loop promoting increased public detachment from environmental governance and policy, thereby reinforcing populist sentiments in society (Figure 2). It follows that losses in environmental research and policy in one nation can extend to other countries given the large spatial scale of many environmental problems and frequent need for coordinated scientific and regulatory responses. Thus, ongoing and predicted increases in global biodiversity loss and climate change impacts place society in a perfect storm with far fewer scientific and regulatory guardrails.

Democratic losses and related impacts on academia and the environment are well-documented in countries such as Hungary, Turkey, India, and Russia (Ignatieff, 2023; Grigoriadis and Canpolat, 2024), but similar trends, often less overt, are present in nearly all major democracies worldwide. Over the past two decades, the majority of G20 nations, representing roughly 85% of global GDP, 75% of international trade, and 67% of the world’s population, have exhibited signs of democratic regression (Diamond, 2021; Williamson et al., 2025), declining support for academic institutions (Fernandez et al., 2024; Lott, 2024; Hernández-Huerta and Inclán, 2025), and weakening environmental oversight (Pentz et al., 2025; see Supplementary Figure 1). Countries that recently signed international agreements to curb greenhouse gas emissions or expand land and water protection have quietly backtracked on their commitments (Lamb et al., 2020; Roelfsema et al., 2020; Roberts, 2024; Specht, 2025). In most cases, national priorities currently emphasize economic growth and defense spending over support for higher education, independent research or environmental protection.

These changes extend far beyond a simple rightward political shift. Even nations traditionally viewed as exemplars of liberal democracy, including my own country, Canada, classified as a “Full Democracy” (see Economist Intelligence Unit, 2014; 2024) and celebrated for freedom and environmental stewardship, have gradually slipped in measures of democratic performance and academic and environmental protection (see Savoie, 2019; Erl, 2020; Stockemeyer and Gaspard, 2025; Evidence for Democracy, 2025; Supplementary Figure 1). Indeed, Canada is increasingly reliant on public-private partnerships to support academic research (Canadian Association of University Teachers n.d.), potentially weakening research productivity by shifting funding away from investigator-driven research toward projects with more immediate commercial or political relevance, reduced independence from government priorities and weaker research objectivity. Canada is increasingly supported by environmental policy outcomes with political rather than evidence-based motivations (Piper et al., 2022; Migone et al., 2024), imposes various forms of interference on government scientists working on environmental issues (Turner, 2013; Robertson et al., 2023), and has surprisingly weak environmental standards and governance (Cooke et al., 2016; OECD, 2017; Gibson et al., 2019; Ray et al., 2021). Canada’s quiet backtracking on international commitments, such as weakened adherence to the Kunming-Montreal Framework and the Paris Climate Accord (Murray, 2026), represents an insidious version of the overt assaults on environmental governance seen in less democratic nations.

More dramatically and impactfully, the United States is in the midst of a slide into authoritarian governance, with attendant erosion of its basic democratic, academic and environmental standards (Carrier and Carothers, 2025; Grimm and Hornidge, 2025; Scholars at Risk, 2025) and uncertainty as to whether this trend will soon be reversed (Fernandez and Hutchens, 2025). Meanwhile, China’s ascent as a global superpower offers little reassurance given its undeniable authoritarian structure and low rankings in key democratic and environmental metrics (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2014; V-Dem Institute, 2025). Figure 1 and Supplementary Figure 1 synthesize these trends for China and other individual nations up to 2024, illustrating how democratic backsliding is broadly associated with declines in academic freedom and environmental performance across regime types.

Although some democratic nations retain the potential to provide global leadership on matters of democracy and the environment that are currently neglected by superpower nations, most face domestic challenges such as rising populism that limit their capacity to act forcefully. Thus, the global nature of current biodiversity and climate crises, transcending national borders and political regimes, will require unconventional responses if we are to avert a profoundly dark period in human history.

What can we do about it?

Scientists are not powerless in the face of democratic regression and related constraints on research and evidence-based policy decisions. A variety of responses are available, and academics like Hannah Arendt, Bertrand Russell, and Timothy Snyder exemplify the long tradition of intellectual resistance to anti-democratic forces. While such engagement has historically been more common in the humanities and social sciences, natural scientists tend to be less engaged and may encounter greater structural or reputational barriers to public advocacy. Nevertheless, for researchers, educators, and policy specialists in ecology, evolution, and related fields, engagement should be viewed as necessary and may involve forming broad, sometimes unorthodox coalitions to strengthen democratic foundations and safeguard academic integrity and research. The strategies outlined below are broadly applicable across disciplines and draw inspiration from humanities and social science research on best practices for countering democratic backslide and resisting authoritarianism (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012; Snyder, 2017, 2018; Gamboa, 2022; Johnson et al., 2024; Bunce et al., 2025).

Protect data and counter disinformation

Public data accessibility and integrity are at risk in declining democracies, with information from sources such as government environmental monitoring programs or partnerships with other entities being especially vulnerable. Authoritarian regimes tend not to adhere to FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) standards (Reiser et al., 2018), and environmental datasets can be selectively removed or altered (Grigoriadis and Canpolat, 2024). Hungary ended longitudinal analysis of key air and water quality datasets while Turkey’s repressions removed key personnel responsible for monitoring endangered species (Böhmelt, 2021; Halligan, 2021). These disruptions delayed critical biodiversity assessments and reduced data availability for global climate models, illustrating the broad consequences of data suppression and targeted academic repression on research continuity.

In response to such actions, coalitions can work to protect public data, ensuring that datasets and findings remain broadly available in the future. This type of response is illustrated by the coalition of academics and non-governmental organizations who recently downloaded a variety of public datasets prior to their deletion from U.S. Government websites (Lucas, 2025; National Security Archive, 2025; Pacenza et al., 2025). Data custodians may archive public data in locations ranging from open access repositories to shared private platforms (Carlitz and McLellan, 2021), but if such measures are restricted by the regime unconventional or unsanctioned measures may be needed. Establishing international collaborations and data sharing pipelines early may help avoid difficulties once crackdowns arise (e.g., Ma, 2023), and additional best practices for data management and preservation are available (Trognitz et al., 2024). Importantly, there is growing concern that advanced technologies like artificial intelligence will be used to track data across platforms, meaning that state surveillance and legal risks of such actions could be amplified (Volinz, 2025). Regardless, public data protection should remain a high priority and custodians should not surrender data prematurely, in anticipatory obedience (see Snyder, 2017).

When governments present false or biased information to the public, subject-matter experts should mount a robust, evidence-based refutation. Recently, a working group cherry-picked by the U.S. Department of Energy used outlier data and minority viewpoints to misrepresent decades of research and established knowledge on the origin and implication of climate change (Climate Working Group, 2025). In response, experts quickly and forcefully rebutted these false claims (American Meteorological Society, 2025; Clean Air Task Force, 2025; Dessler and Kopp, 2025; see also National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2025), thereby potentially preventing a revisionist narrative from gaining foothold in the broader discourse. Media attention garnered by these responses placed the government in a defensive position which may limit its future ability to mislead the public on climate change matters (Guillén, 2025). Scientific journals, professional societies, and media organizations should be poised to rapidly disseminate expert rebuttals (e.g., Voosen, 2025) while using their social media channels to amplify impact and messaging. Open access journals like Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution should serve as outlets for research examining both fundamental ecological and evolutionary systems and the impacts of political and institutional regime shifts on their sustainability

When releasing government critiques, experts should not remain anonymous because named authorities are more impactful (Sternadori and Thorson, 2009), but some personal shielding is possible through collaborations involving large, international teams and by releasing statements through professional societies. Nevertheless, media organizations should follow best practices by vigorously protecting anonymous sources (Government Accountability Project, 2017).

Sustain research capacity and international collaborations

Maintaining active research under authoritarian or regressive regimes is increasingly difficult when projects depend on public funding and research priorities conflict with state agendas. Basic ecological and evolutionary research is especially vulnerable if seen as expensive, esoteric, or misaligned with government priorities, while applied research may be curtailed if results challenge industrial development, deregulation, or other political objectives. Long-term research and monitoring programs are particularly at risk, as sustained funding and field activity may attract unwanted scrutiny. Once interrupted, such records cannot simply be recreated; the lost temporal baseline is permanent. Yet these programs provide essential baselines for assessing environmental change over time, effectively functioning as natural Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) designs across political and ecological transitions (see Murray and Krebs, 2024).

Some research can persist through careful reframing to align with new mandates (Østebø et al., 2025), securing alternative funding (Ryden et al., 2019), or adopting automated and remote data collection (Stachowicz et al., 2024). Nevertheless, many valuable projects will inevitably be curtailed, driving research programs to be terminated (see Reardon et al., 2017; Crockett, 2025; Mervis, 2025) and some researchers to emigrate (Witze, 2025), creating a global redistribution of knowledge and expertise. This migration exacerbates global inequities, leaving environmentally critical regions under-resourced while concentrating expertise in more democratic nations (Saxenian, 2005; Docquier and Rapoport, 2012). Notwithstanding these challenges, finding ways to sustain active research in repressive regimes serves both academic interests and a strategic necessity to inform environmental policy (Steffen et al., 2015). One avenue for reaching this goal is through international collaborations, with open science and virtual conferencing platforms allowing local capacity and research continuity to be maintained for researchers and professionals in politically fragile regions. These goals should be achievable for ecological and evolutionary research given that individual taxonomic groups, local ecosystems, and specific research design and methodologies are usually broadly transferable. Additional activity channels may include student exchanges, participation on advisory boards, policy engagement, and citizen science collaborations.

Demonstrate why ecology and evolution matter to society

Devaluation of higher education and expertise is a global phenomenon, amplified by perceptions that academia has lost touch with reality and offers little practical benefit to society. Rebuilding public trust requires clearly demonstrating that academic contributions are not only relevant but essential for societal advancement. For instance, undergraduate curricula can better align with societal and workforce needs through experiential learning, community placements, and applied training. These engagements develop soft skills (leadership, professional communication, critical thinking) while providing students with practical exposure to real-world challenges. Because most biology undergraduates do not pursue academic careers, early experience in applied contexts enhances their employability. Simultaneously, such efforts demonstrate to the public tangible societal contributions of academic institutions (Weerts and Freed, 2016; Renick et al., 2024).

Public perception also shapes the broader social contract supporting academic research. Segments of society currently see much academic research as detached from reality (Gauchat, 2012; Li and Amsalem, 2022; Gligorić et al., 2025), and these sentiments are exploited by movements seeking to undermine science funding and discredit expert input in policy decisions (Sutherland et al., 2004). Traditional indicators of academic success, like publication counts or journal impact factors, are increasingly inadequate metrics. Instead, scholars must seek complementary avenues to communicate societal relevance of their work (Caplan, 2025). Universities can strengthen knowledge dissemination via social media releases and outreach programs, while faculty should willingly participate in interviews and policy-relevant discussions.

Although applied research often lends itself to demonstrating direct societal impact and thus is relatable to the broader public, additional effort is usually needed to convey the value of basic or theoretical research (Salter and Martin, 2001; Shaw, 2022). For fundamental ecology and evolution, this task may be eased by existing public interest in natural history, biodiversity, and environmental protection, especially if the research can be framed in terms of organism-environment interactions or conservation challenges (Recher, 2019; Florio and Giffoni, 2023). Beyond demonstrating intrinsic scientific value, these efforts can encourage public recognition of the importance of academic expertise in informing evidence-based policy decisions, from conservation planning to ecosystem management and environmental governance. Ultimately, strengthening public trust will help secure sustained research funding while helping drive evidence-based policy and safeguarding against political efforts to discredit academia (Rose et al., 2020; Seyd, 2025). These outcomes are needed to achieve our broader aim of reinforcing biodiversity protection and environmental health in an age of democratic deterioration.

Conclusion

The world now faces a convergence of major threats related to democratic erosion, declining trust in academic institutions and expertise, and accelerating environmental crises, that collectively undermine our capacity to generate and apply knowledge at the very moment it is most needed. Confronting these challenges will require a broad, interdisciplinary coalition of researchers, educators, and policymakers willing to defend the role of evidence in public life and reassert the societal value of scientific inquiry.

In the immediate term, priorities must be clear and non-negotiable. Over the next decade, safeguarding data integrity and accessibility must be treated as essential scientific infrastructure, with coordinated efforts to archive, duplicate, and disseminate vulnerable datasets before they are lost. Sustaining research capacity, particularly long-term monitoring and mitigative environmental research, will require diversification of funding sources and expansion of international collaborations to buffer against political disruption. At the same time, the academic community must more forcefully demonstrate its societal relevance through public engagement, applied training, and visible contributions to policy and environmental management. Researchers and institutions must be prepared to respond rapidly, publicly, and collectively to disinformation, ensuring that expert knowledge remains prominent and credible in public discourse. These actions are required to prevent further erosion of scientific capacity and influence.

Assuming that collective efforts can help restore the foundations of a functional and sustainable scientific enterprise, attention can then turn to deeper structural reform, including review of longer-term factors that may have contributed to the present crisis. Since the post-war expansion of science, persistent gaps between scientific discovery and societal action have prompted growing calls to re-examine how and why science is conducted, including its relationship to environmental governance (e.g., Díaz et al., 2019; Wyborn et al., 2020). These discussions form part of a broader debate on the structure and function of a new science contract with society (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993; 2025; Nowotny et al., 2001). These perspectives are important but best addressed sequentially, once the more immediate problems of erosion in scientific capacity and institutional stability under democratic backsliding, have been corrected. Efforts to redesign the scientific enterprise will be most effective when evidence-based governance is restored and environmental systems are not under acute and compounding duress.

Recent political turnovers in some failing democracies suggest that authoritarian trajectories are not irreversible (Ivanova, 2022; Krupa, 2026). However, the extent to which such shifts restore durable, evidence-based environmental governance remains uncertain. Failure to act decisively at this juncture will not only slow progress but also compromise the ability of ecology and evolution to inform policy, help protect biodiversity, and respond to global change. The consequences of inaction will be measured not only in lost knowledge, but in lost capacity to confront the environmental challenges defining our time.

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Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2026.1761637/full#supplementary-material

Supplementary material Supplementary material at the source

Footnotes

Edited by: Andrea Sciarretta, University of Molise, Italy

Reviewed by: Marco Malavasi, Università degli Studi di Sassari, Italy