Ecosystems are increasingly threatened by human activities that can interact at different scales. The future of these ecosystems relies on actions to guide their sustainable use and conservation. In the Conservation Action Team, our research synthesizes new and existing data to quantify the what and where of human impacts on biodiversity from local to global scales and the actions that can be taken to reduce these threats. Our work largely falls within four main themes: 1) impacts of food production, 2) spatial conservation planning, 3) land-sea interactions and 4) achieving conservation targets. This work can be used to quantify patterns between different locations, assess trade-offs between management actions, and inform conservation and sustainable development decisions.