LAUSR

Abstract Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that make significant contributions to the global persistence of biodiversity, but identification of sites alone is not sufficient to ensure their conservation. Monitoring is essential if pressures on these sites are to be identified, priorities set and appropriate responses developed. Here, we describe how analysis of freely available data on a cloud-processing platform (Google Earth Engine) can be used to assess changes in three example remotely sensed threat indicators (fire frequency, tree loss and night-time lights) over time on KBAs in Africa. We develop easily repeatable methods with shared code that could be applied across any geographic area and could be adapted and applied to other datasets as they become available. Fire frequency was found to have increased significantly on 12.4% of KBAs and 15.9% of ecoregions, whilst rates of forest loss increased significantly on 24.3% of KBAs and 22.6% of ecoregions. There was also evidence of significant increases in night-time lights on over half (53.3%) of KBAs and 39.6% of ecoregions between 1992 and 2013, and on 11.6% of KBAs and 53.0% of ecoregions between 2014 and 2018.