Broader context

Biodiversity governance has largely been built around the Earth’s surface. Pressures such as habitat loss, land-use change, pollution, and species decline are usually monitored and reported within territorial boundaries. This structure becomes incomplete as human infrastructure expands into the upper atmosphere and near-Earth orbit. Satellites, rocket launches, and atmospheric re-entry events may generate physical outputs that move through atmospheric, radiative, electromagnetic, or depositional pathways before intersecting with ecological receptor systems. The issue is not that space infrastructure has already caused demonstrated biodiversity loss but that plausible vertical pressure pathways are emerging faster than biodiversity monitoring and responsibility systems. This perspective frames that gap as a space-biodiversity nexus. We propose a vertical biodiversity responsibility framework to identify accountable actors, record vertical pressure indicators, allocate responsibility across multiple participants, and connect responsibility to reporting, review, monitoring support, or compensation. By adding a vertical dimension to biodiversity governance, this perspective shows how ecological responsibility may need to extend beyond territorial space as orbital infrastructure becomes part of the connected Earth system.

Abstract

Human infrastructure is rapidly extending beyond the Earth’s surface into high-altitude and orbital domains, while biodiversity science and governance remain largely organized around territorial space. This spatial mismatch creates an emerging nexus between space infrastructure, atmospheric processes, and ecological systems that is not yet systematically recognized in biodiversity assessment. Here, we argue that vertical activities, including satellite constellations, high-frequency launches, and atmospheric re-entry, should be examined as potential sources of non-territorial ecological pressure rather than assumed sources of demonstrated biodiversity harm. The evidence base is uneven across pathways: some physical phenomena, such as rocket emissions, orbital light, and re-entry-derived material inputs, are observed or measurable; atmospheric transport and radiative pathways can be modeled; and ecological relevance can be inferred from known sensitivities of polar ecosystems, marine productivity, and migratory species, but direct biodiversity outcomes remain insufficiently quantified. This distinction is central to the argument. We therefore frame vertical space activity as a governance-relevant risk-recognition problem under uncertainty. To address this gap, we propose a vertical biodiversity responsibility framework that links four institutional components: responsibility anchors that identify accountable entry points for non-territorial activities, a vertical impact ledger that records activity-based pressure indicators and uncertainty status, proportional allocation principles that distribute responsibility among multiple actors, and compliance mechanisms that translate attribution into reporting, monitoring support, and adaptive review. Rather than claiming acute ecological damage, the framework establishes a precautionary architecture for tracking plausible vertical externalities before responsibility becomes fragmented or untraceable as orbital activity intensifies. The framework is operationalized through stakeholder-specific entry points, evidence requirements, and staged governance products, allowing regulators, operators, monitoring networks, and biodiversity institutions to follow, test, and discuss the proposed responsibility architecture in practice.

Introduction

Over the past half century, global biodiversity governance has been constructed primarily around pressures that can be observed, reported, and managed on the Earth’s surface.¹

Existing monitoring frameworks are becoming more sophisticated, but they still largely organize evidence around surface-based ecosystems, species distributions, and nationally reported indicators.⁴

In recent years, however, infrastructure development has expanded rapidly into vertical domains beyond the Earth’s surface. The growth of low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations, recurrent launch activity, and atmospheric re-entry has raised environmental questions that extend beyond conventional space-safety and debris-management concerns.⁷

Although orbital systems are often perceived as technologically detached from natural environments, they can generate physical outputs that enter Earth-system pathways. Rocket launches release gases and particles whose atmospheric effects can be estimated and modeled.¹²

Ecological relevance can be inferred from known sensitivities of migratory birds to light exposure along flyways.¹⁸

This perspective argues that biodiversity governance must evolve from a two-dimensional territorial paradigm to a three-dimensional pressure architecture (Figure 1). We first clarify the spatial terms used in the manuscript and define the scope of vertical, operational, impact, and configured space. We then examine biodiversity-relevant pressure pathways associated with vertical space activities, drawing on examples from polar ecosystems, migratory networks, and marine primary productivity to identify plausible mechanisms, evidence levels, and knowledge gaps. Building on this analysis, we propose a vertical biodiversity responsibility framework (VBRF) to address structural deficiencies in attribution and recording mechanisms. The framework integrates responsibility anchors, a vertical impact ledger, allocation principles, and compliance mechanisms into a coherent governance structure capable of recognizing, recording, and reviewing non-territorial ecological pressure pathways. We do not assume that vertical space activities inevitably generate severe biodiversity risks. Rather, we contend that when the spatial scale of human activity expands, the conceptual and institutional logic of biodiversity governance must adapt accordingly. Establishing anticipatory scientific and regulatory linkages between technological expansion and ecological stability is essential to prevent the accumulation of unrecognized risks in an increasingly vertically integrated human-Earth system. To make this governance logic operational, the analysis specifies how distinct stakeholders can participate through existing authorization, registration, disclosure, monitoring, and review routines rather than through a wholly new institutional system.

Figure 1 Plausible vertical pressure pathways linking orbital infrastructure to biodiversity-relevant receptor systems

Conceptual definitions and analytical scope

This manuscript uses spatial terms in an analytical rather than purely legal sense. The purpose is to identify the part of the vertical domain that remains physically and institutionally connected to biodiversity governance. We therefore distinguish vertical space, operational space, impact space, and configured space. We use vertical space not as a synonym for all of outer space but as an analytical category describing the coupled operational and environmental domains above the terrestrial surface through which human activities can generate Earth-system pressures. This usage is narrower than outer space in the legal sense, where state responsibility is linked to authorization and continuing supervision of national activities in outer space.²⁰

Configured space refers to the socio-technical spatial order produced by infrastructure design, orbital allocation, satellite density, launch frequency, communication architecture, ownership, licensing, and monitoring. This term emphasizes that vertical space is not only a physical environment but also an institutionally configured domain shaped by human decisions. A satellite constellation, for example, is not simply a collection of objects at altitude; it is a configured spatial system whose density, brightness, orbital residence time, replacement cycle, and governance structure determine its possible Earth-system interactions. The problem resembles other commons settings in which shared domains require rules for access, monitoring, and accountability rather than uncoordinated use.²³

Vertical activities as a coupled complex system

The ecological significance of vertical activities should be evaluated through a complex-systems lens rather than through a single-cause, single-effect model. The relevant system contains interacting technological, atmospheric, ecological, and institutional components. Launch frequency, propellant chemistry, satellite turnover, atmospheric circulation, aerosol transformation, light regimes, migratory behavior, microbial processes, and biodiversity reporting rules are not independent variables; they form a coupled system in which small pressures may become meaningful through repetition, delay, interaction, and feedback. This framing draws on ecological resilience theory, which shows that systems may absorb disturbance for a time before crossing thresholds or losing recovery capacity.²⁴

Cross-scale coupling is central to this system. A launch or re-entry event may occur over minutes to hours, while atmospheric transport, chemical transformation, deposition, ecological exposure, and population response may unfold over months, years, or decades. Spatial coupling is equally important: an activity authorized in one jurisdiction or registered through one institutional system may produce physical signals that are transported into polar, oceanic, or migratory systems far from the operational site. Resilience and biodiversity research has long emphasized that delayed responses, cross-scale feedbacks, and regime shifts can make ecological change difficult to attribute to a single event or actor.²⁵

The framework also needs to account for emergence and nonlinearity. No individual launch, satellite, or re-entry event may generate a detectable ecological response, yet repeated low-intensity perturbations can accumulate; interact with climate warming, habitat loss, ocean acidification, nutrient stress, or existing light pollution; and eventually contribute to resilience loss or threshold behavior. Nonlinear ecosystem change is a recurring feature of coupled ecological systems, where gradual pressure can precede abrupt shifts in system state.²⁶

A complex-systems framing does not imply that all vertical perturbations will generate measurable biodiversity loss. Instead, it makes uncertainty, time lag, nonlinearity, and emergence central to the analysis. The governance implication is therefore adaptive rather than deterministic: vertical pressure pathways should be recorded, monitored, and periodically recalibrated as atmospheric models, ecological indicators, and exposure data improve. This logic supports precautionary recognition without requiring complete causal certainty before governance begins.

Vertical ecological externalities and biodiversity risks beyond territory

Human infrastructure systems are expanding rapidly into vertical domains, including low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations, recurrent commercial rocket launches, and atmospheric re-entry pathways. Satellite constellations have already become large enough to alter the visibility and optical properties of the night sky, especially near twilight and at particular latitudes.²⁹

Rocket engine emissions can produce radiative forcing and atmospheric perturbations even when released far above the surface.³¹

Conceptual sequence of the argument

The manuscript is organized around a pathway-to-responsibility sequence. Vertical activities first create physical outputs, such as emissions, reflected light, electromagnetic signals, or re-entry-derived materials. These outputs may then move through atmospheric, radiative, depositional, or electromagnetic pathways. Only after this transmission stage do they become biodiversity relevant, by intersecting with ecological receptor systems such as polar ecosystems, ocean-surface productivity, high-latitude soils, or migratory species. Because the ecological outcome is often delayed, diffuse, or uncertain, the governance problem is not simply to assign liability after confirmed damage. It is to build a system that can recognize, record, and review plausible pressure pathways before responsibility becomes untraceable. The VBRF follows this same sequence: it identifies accountable entry points, records activity-based pressure indicators, distributes responsibility among actors, and converts responsibility into reporting and adaptive review.

Evidence hierarchy and modeling needs

The pathways summarized in Table 1 should be read as an evidence hierarchy rather than a completed causal chain. At the physical level, several outputs of vertical space activity are observable or increasingly measurable, including rocket exhaust constituents, satellite brightness, and re-entry-derived metals in atmospheric particles. At the atmospheric level, transport, residence time, radiative forcing, and deposition can be investigated through emissions inventories, chemical transport models, radiative transfer models, and scenario-based exposure analysis. At the ecological level, however, evidence is less direct. The relevant receptors—polar ecosystems, ocean-surface productivity, nocturnal and migratory species, and high-latitude soils—are biologically plausible interfaces because they are sensitive to light regimes, trace inputs, atmospheric deposition, or cumulative stress. Yet the species-level and ecosystem-level outcomes remain unresolved. We therefore treat these pathways as testable hypotheses and governance-relevant monitoring priorities, not as demonstrated impact claims. This distinction is important for a perspective article: the contribution is not a new empirical attribution study but a framework for recognizing, recording, and governing plausible vertical pressure pathways before they become institutionally invisible.

Upper atmospheric chemical perturbations and polar biodiversity

Rocket launches emit chemically and radiatively active exhaust products, including nitrogen oxides, black carbon, chlorine-containing compounds, and alumina-related particles. These emissions have been examined through inventories and atmospheric models rather than biodiversity attribution studies. Global launch and re-entry inventories now provide a basis for estimating where emissions enter the atmosphere and how they may be transported.¹⁵

The Arctic and Antarctic are not ecological voids. Arctic tundra systems support lichens, mosses, and dwarf shrubs that provide habitat and food-web structure for migratory species. In the Southern Ocean, biological productivity is closely tied to nutrient availability, and iron enrichment experiments show that trace inputs can affect phytoplankton growth under certain oceanographic conditions.³⁷

A defining feature of vertical chemical perturbations is temporal lag. Launch emissions occur within minutes, yet atmospheric transport, deposition, and ecological responses may unfold over months or years. This temporal decoupling complicates monitoring and attribution, as ecological signals may emerge long after the initiating activity. From the perspective of ecosystem resilience theory, chronic low-dose disturbances may pose greater long-term risks than acute shocks, as they can gradually erode recovery capacity and reduce adaptive thresholds.²⁴

Evidence status

The evidence for this pathway is strongest at the physical and atmospheric stages and weaker at the biodiversity-outcome stage. Rocket emissions and their upper-atmospheric chemical effects can be measured or modeled, particularly for black carbon, nitrogen oxides, chlorine-containing compounds, and alumina-related particles. However, direct attribution from specific launch activities to measurable changes in polar biodiversity has not yet been established. In the revised framing, polar and high-latitude ecosystems are therefore treated as sensitive receptor systems and monitoring priorities rather than as confirmed impact sites. Future work should combine launch-emission inventories, stratospheric chemistry models, deposition measurements, and biological monitoring of microbial communities, lichens, mosses, phytoplankton, and krill-linked food webs.

Light and electromagnetic pollution in migratory systems

The rapid proliferation of low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations has altered the optical properties of the night sky. Numerous satellites reflect sunlight during twilight periods, increasing moving light trails and diffuse sky brightness. Studies of orbital-object proliferation show that artificial night-sky brightness can increase even outside urban areas.¹³

Migratory flyways constitute critical global biodiversity networks. Research on terrestrial light pollution has shown that migratory bird exposure is high within major nocturnal migration passage areas.¹⁸

Electromagnetic emissions represent an additional variable. Although current satellite communication frequencies operate at relatively low power levels, dense constellation deployment may elevate background electromagnetic complexity. Many migratory birds and other animals possess magnetoreceptive capabilities, making magnetic information relevant to orientation and navigation.⁴⁶

Evidence status

This pathway is supported by two different bodies of evidence that should not be conflated. The first concerns the physical light environment: satellite constellations and orbital debris can increase reflected light, moving light trails, and diffuse night-sky brightness. The second concerns ecological sensitivity: extensive research on terrestrial artificial light at night shows that nocturnal and migratory species can be sensitive to changes in light regimes. What remains unresolved is the direct ecological effect of orbital light on migration success, navigation accuracy or population dynamics. We therefore frame orbital light as a plausible exposure pathway requiring targeted monitoring, including spectral sky-brightness measurements along flyways, radar- or telemetry-based migration tracking, and experimental tests of orientation under satellite-like light conditions.

Re-entry debris and atmospheric metal inputs

As the number of low-Earth-orbit satellites increases, so too does the frequency of atmospheric re-entry. During re-entry, satellites and rocket bodies ablate and can generate metal-containing particles, including aluminum- and titanium-bearing material. Modeling of satellite demise during atmospheric re-entry has raised concern that aluminum oxide production may have atmospheric chemistry implications in the era of megaconstellations.⁵⁰

Marine surface ecosystems are particularly sensitive to trace metal inputs. Iron is a well-known limiting nutrient in large ocean regions, and shifts in micronutrient availability can restructure phytoplankton communities.¹⁹

A further pathway involves soil deposition in terrestrial ecosystems. In high-latitude regions, soil formation proceeds slowly, and the accumulation of exogenous metals may gradually modify physicochemical properties. Empirical data on long-term ecological consequences remain sparse, and this knowledge gap itself constitutes a governance concern. Without systematic monitoring, incremental changes may remain undetected until ecological thresholds are approached or exceeded.

The VBRF should be read as an institutional translation chain rather than as four independent tools. Responsibility anchors define when a vertical activity becomes visible to biodiversity governance. The vertical impact ledger records the activity and its plausible pressure pathways in standardized form. Allocation principles distribute responsibility among actors that jointly produce, authorize, or benefit from the activity. Compliance mechanisms then convert the recorded and allocated responsibility into reporting, review, monitoring support, or compensation obligations. The logic is therefore sequential—trigger, record, allocate, and comply—but also adaptive, as new ledger evidence should recalibrate future thresholds, weights, and responsibility shares.

Evidence status

The re-entry pathway has a relatively strong emerging physical basis but a weak ecological attribution basis. Spacecraft-derived metals have been detected in stratospheric aerosol particles.¹⁴

From pathway uncertainty to governance design

The preceding sections identify a common structural problem. Vertical space activities can generate physical outputs whose transmission pathways are spatially extended, temporally delayed, and unevenly evidenced. In such cases, conventional biodiversity governance faces three linked difficulties. First, the actor responsible for initiating or enabling the activity may be institutionally distant from the ecosystem that could eventually be exposed. Second, the relevant pressure may not be captured by existing biodiversity indicators because it is atmospheric, radiative, depositional, or cumulative rather than locally observable. Third, multiple actors may contribute to the same pathway, creating the risk that responsibility becomes either over-concentrated on one actor or diluted across many. The VBRF is designed to address these three coherence problems in sequence: it identifies an accountable entry point, records the pressure pathway, allocates responsibility, and connects that allocation to compliance and adaptive review.

Responsibility anchors in vertical governance

Sequential logic of the VBRF

The VBRF is organized as a sequential governance architecture rather than a set of independent principles. Each component answers a distinct question. The responsibility anchor asks who enters the framework and provides the first accountable node. The vertical impact ledger asks what activity, pressure pathway, and uncertainty status must be recorded. Proportional allocation asks how responsibility should be distributed when several actors contribute to the same pathway. Compliance asks what institutional consequence follows from attribution, including disclosure, technical review, monitoring support, or compensation. The sequence is therefore as follows: entry, recording, distribution, and implementation. This ordering prevents the framework from becoming conceptually circular. Responsibility cannot be allocated before an accountable pathway is anchored, compliance cannot operate before activity and uncertainty are recorded, and adaptive review cannot occur unless reporting and monitoring feed back into future thresholds and weighting factors.

Within the VBRF, the responsibility anchor functions as an institutional trigger. Its purpose is to determine when a vertical activity enters the scope of biodiversity responsibility and which actor provides the first point of accountability. Unlike conventional environmental attribution models that often begin after ecological damage has been demonstrated, the responsibility anchor operates at the level of traceable institutional linkage. Responsibility is activated by participation in an activity pathway that may generate vertical ecological externalities, not only by retrospective proof of ecological loss.

A trigger condition is satisfied when three elements are present. First, the activity must be vertically extended or non-territorial, such as launch activity, orbital operation, constellation deployment, atmospheric re-entry, or a comparable upper-atmospheric process. Second, the activity must have a plausible Earth-system transmission pathway, including atmospheric transport, radiative disturbance, deposition, electromagnetic propagation, or material transfer. Third, an identifiable institutional actor must be linked to the activity through authorization, licensing, registration, operation, ownership, economic benefit, or critical technological enablement. These conditions prevent the framework from becoming unlimited while ensuring that diffuse impact space does not erase responsibility.

In multi-actor settings, the responsibility anchor also provides an ordering function. Vertical infrastructure projects may involve licensing states, registry states, launch providers, private operators, investors, insurers, and technology suppliers. When several actors satisfy trigger conditions, the framework identifies an initial anchor according to institutional control and traceability, typically beginning with the authorizing or licensing entity, followed by the registering authority and then the principal operational or economic beneficiary. This hierarchy does not eliminate shared responsibility; it prevents responsibility from dissolving across a fragmented actor network.

The broader institutional significance of the responsibility anchor lies in its reconfiguration of biodiversity governance from a territorial logic to a pathway logic. Traditional biodiversity frameworks implicitly assume that ecological responsibility is spatially bounded by national authority over biological resources, even while recognizing that activities under one state’s jurisdiction should not damage environments beyond national jurisdiction.⁵³

The vertical impact ledger

The vertical impact ledger translates ecological externalities arising from non-territorial activities into identifiable, classifiable, and cumulative institutional records. Its purpose is not to measure biodiversity loss directly but to ensure that vertical pressures enter formal governance systems in a structured and traceable manner. This logic extends the monitoring orientation of existing biodiversity frameworks to activity-based pressure indicators that are currently missing from biodiversity accounting.

Conventional biodiversity reporting frameworks are geographically anchored. They organize information around land-use change, habitat degradation, and species status within defined territorial boundaries, and national authorities submit reports based on impacts occurring within their jurisdiction. When infrastructure operates in orbital or upper-atmospheric domains, however, ecological effects often exhibit cross-layered, cross-regional, and transboundary characteristics. Emissions released in the upper atmosphere may deposit months later in polar regions. Metal particles generated during satellite re-entry may affect ecosystems far removed from launch sites. Optical or electromagnetic disturbances may alter migratory pathways rather than impact a specific territory of origin. In such cases, the spatial location of activity and the spatial location of ecological response become structurally decoupled. Traditional geographically anchored reporting systems are ill-equipped to capture these vertical spillovers.

The core logic of the vertical impact ledger is therefore straightforward: all infrastructure activities entering non-sovereign vertical domains must generate standardized “vertical impact entries” that are incorporated into a unified reporting architecture. These entries are not measurements of realized ecological damage; rather, they represent activity-based indicators of potential vertical influence, analogous to emission factors in greenhouse gas inventories. By institutionalizing ex ante recording, the ledger establishes continuous traceability even before ecological consequences are fully observable. This anticipatory function is particularly important in systems characterized by temporal lag and diffuse transmission.

The central contribution of the vertical impact ledger lies in institutional visibility. Many non-territorial activities remain absent from biodiversity governance not because their impacts are nonexistent but because they are unrecorded in systematic form. The ledger transforms diffuse and delayed externalities into explicit reporting entries, thereby preventing a structural disconnection between responsibility and data. Once activities are rendered visible within a standardized framework, they can be linked to attribution and compliance mechanisms.

The ledger also incorporates a temporal dimension. Vertical pressures are not only a function of scale but of persistence. Long-duration orbital platforms may generate cumulative atmospheric interactions that exceed those of short-term missions. Consequently, recording must be cumulative rather than one-off. Annual updating procedures enable the construction of longitudinal datasets, capturing the evolving footprint of vertical activities over time. Such data streams can subsequently inform adjustments in responsibility intensity, allocation shares, or compensation mechanisms. Once the activity and pathway are recorded, the framework can move from visibility to distribution. Ledger entries provide the informational basis for determining how responsibility should be shared among actors whose roles, benefits, and risk-generating influence differ.

Proportional responsibility allocation

The allocation principle addresses how responsibility should be distributed among multiple actors involved in non-territorial vertical activities. In the absence of an allocation logic, responsibility risks either excessive concentration or excessive fragmentation: it may be assigned disproportionately to a launching state or diluted across actors to the point that no party meaningfully bears it. Vertical space infrastructures are rarely controlled by a single entity. A single orbital project may involve a licensing state, a registration authority, a private operator, investors, and technical contractors. Attribution based solely on one responsibility anchor cannot adequately reflect the distribution of benefits, influence, and risk. For this reason, the VBRF advances a contribution-responsibility alignment principle: actors whose structural contribution to the activity pathway is greater should bear a correspondingly larger share of vertical biodiversity responsibility.

A second layer of the allocation principle is minimum responsibility assurance. Even when an actor’s proportional contribution is small, the satisfaction of responsibility anchor conditions precludes full exemption. Without a baseline threshold, actors might strategically fragment participation to dilute accountability. The VBRF therefore contemplates a minimum responsibility floor, ensuring that all entities structurally engaged in vertical activities retain a foundational obligation. This mechanism guards against scale-based evasion and preserves the integrity of the attribution system.

The third layer is dynamic adjustment. Vertical activities are cumulative and adaptive. Deployment scale, revenue structures, and technological configurations may evolve over time. Responsibility shares should therefore not be fixed permanently but recalibrated periodically in light of updated ledger data. When an actor expands operations or increases its economic stake, its allocated share should correspondingly increase; when participation contracts, responsibility should adjust downward. Such temporal recalibration ensures alignment between institutional allocation and evolving operational realities.

The institutional significance of the allocation principle lies in its transformation of collective responsibility into structured responsibility. International environmental law has long recognized the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities, yet operationalizing this concept in emerging vertical domains requires calculable and transparent criteria. By translating collective obligation into a proportional allocation function, the VBRF provides a computable architecture suited to non-territorial contexts. Responsibility ceases to be a generalized political commitment and becomes a traceable, distributable, and adjustable governance variable. Allocation alone does not complete the governance process. Responsibility shares become meaningful only when they are connected to disclosure, review, monitoring support, or compensation. The final component of the VBRF therefore converts allocated responsibility into operational compliance.

Compliance and the global biodiversity commons

The compliance and commons mechanism transforms the preceding structural components into an operational governance loop. Without enforceable procedures, the responsibility anchor, impact ledger, and allocation principle remain conceptual constructs. The VBRF becomes a complete framework only when responsibility triggers reporting obligations, financial contributions, monitoring support, or institutional review. Compliance is therefore the hinge that converts attribution into action, consistent with a precautionary approach to governance under incomplete evidence.⁵⁵

The first layer of compliance lies in embedding reporting obligations within existing biodiversity disclosure systems. Any actor meeting responsibility anchor conditions must submit vertical impact ledger data and declare its allocated responsibility share within annual biodiversity reports or relevant international reporting platforms. Reporting is no longer confined to ecological indicators within territorial boundaries but must include quantified vertical impact values associated with non-territorial activities. The significance of this mandatory disclosure is structural rather than punitive: it integrates vertical activities into routine governance processes instead of treating them as exceptional or peripheral cases. Through formal reporting, responsibility transitions from abstract attribution to documented institutional record.

A third layer concerns review and transparency. Compliance cannot rely solely on self-reporting. Vertical impact ledger entries and responsibility allocations should be subject to independent technical review or multilateral assessment processes. Transparency performs two governance functions. First, it enhances procedural legitimacy by subjecting data and allocations to scrutiny. Second, it generates reputational incentives. In global environmental governance, reputational standing often intersects with economic and diplomatic interests. Publicly accessible reporting and review mechanisms thus create indirect but powerful compliance drivers.

The fourth layer is adaptive feedback. Vertical activities are characterized by rapid technological development and potential scale expansion. Static compliance rules risk obsolescence. The mechanism must therefore incorporate periodic recalibration. If ledger data indicate rising impact intensities for particular activity categories, weighting coefficients, threshold values, or compensation multipliers may require adjustment. This feedback structure ensures that the governance architecture remains responsive to evolving operational realities rather than being fixed to outdated baselines. The VBRF establishes a closed governance loop. Trigger conditions identify responsibility anchors; the ledger records vertical pressure indicators and uncertainty status; allocation rules distribute responsibility across actor networks; and compliance mechanisms convert responsibility into reporting, technical review, monitoring support, and possible compensation. The loop is adaptive: new evidence from monitoring and modeling can revise future trigger thresholds, weighting factors, ledger variables, and compliance duties. In this way, the framework turns uncertainty into structured learning rather than institutional inaction.

Stakeholder feasibility and implementation pathways

The feasibility of a VBRF depends on whether its requirements can be translated into actions that existing stakeholders can recognize, execute, and review. The framework is designed around institutional routines that already exist in adjacent governance domains, including launch authorization, space-object registration, environmental disclosure, emissions inventory construction, orbital-debris mitigation, biodiversity monitoring, and adaptive review. Its practical value therefore does not require the immediate creation of a new global authority before implementation can begin. It can operate as a layered reporting and deliberation protocol attached to licensing, registry, monitoring, and disclosure processes. Table 3 maps stakeholder groups to feasible entry points, evidence requirements, and discussion products. This mapping establishes that each stakeholder has a concrete task: regulators can request ledger entries, operators can submit activity variables, scientific networks can define exposure indicators, and biodiversity institutions can translate uncertain pathways into monitoring priorities.

A second feasibility condition is procedural sequencing. Stakeholders require a process that separates risk recognition, evidence screening, proportional allocation, and adaptive review. This separation avoids premature liability claims while preventing uncertainty from blocking scientific and institutional discussion. Table 4 provides a phased implementation pathway. The first phase uses activity data rather than ecosystem-loss data. The second phase screens physical pathway plausibility. The third phase links monitoring priorities to stakeholder responsibilities. The fourth and fifth phases recalibrate thresholds and compliance duties as evidence improves. Because each phase produces a concrete document or decision product, stakeholders can deliberate over the same evidence base instead of debating diffuse and unrecorded externalities.

The framework is feasible under incomplete causal attribution because obligations are graduated according to evidentiary confidence. When only physical outputs are measured, the appropriate duties are disclosure, ledger filing, and monitoring support. When atmospheric transport, radiative exposure, or deposition pathways are modeled with sufficient confidence, duties can expand to independent review, exposure mapping, and targeted baseline measurement. When ecological thresholds, biological uptake, or damage are established, the same ledger and allocation records provide the basis for stronger mitigation, restoration, or compensation duties. This structure gives stakeholders an administratively realistic route from precautionary monitoring to evidence-confirmed responsibility. It also creates a practical agenda for intergovernmental and scientific discussion: which variables should be mandatory, which thresholds should trigger review, how uncertainty classes should be assigned, and how monitoring costs should be shared among beneficiaries of vertical infrastructure.

Outlook

As human activity extends into the upper atmosphere and near-Earth orbit, a class of biodiversity-relevant pressure pathways is beginning to emerge. These pathways differ from conventional drivers such as land-use change, climate warming, or nutrient pollution because their physical origin, atmospheric transmission, and possible ecological expression may be spatially and temporally decoupled. The current evidence does not yet support strong claims of demonstrated biodiversity loss from vertical space activities. Instead, it supports a more cautious conclusion: several physical and atmospheric perturbations are observable or modelable, while their biodiversity outcomes remain uncertain and under-monitored. This evidence gap should not be interpreted as proof of negligible risk. It should be treated as a reason to build monitoring, modeling, and responsibility systems before high-frequency orbital activities make attribution more difficult.

A central priority for future research is the identification of measurable indicators of vertical pressure within ecological frameworks. For upper-atmospheric emissions, long-term monitoring of deposition in polar and high-latitude regions will be critical, including assessments of impacts on soil microbial communities, phytoplankton composition, and surface albedo dynamics. For orbital light sources, interdisciplinary approaches integrating migration ecology and behavioral physiology are needed to test whether spectral and luminance shifts in the night sky affect orientation accuracy in migratory birds and insects. For re-entry-derived metal particles, systematic evaluation of accumulation trends in surface oceans and coastal sediments, alongside the identification of ecological thresholds, will be essential to determine whether incremental inputs translate into functional change.

Equally important is the integration of vertical pressures into multiple-stressor assessment frameworks. Polar ecosystems, coral reefs, and migratory networks are already subject to climate warming, ocean acidification, and habitat fragmentation. Even if vertical perturbations are modest in isolation, their cumulative interaction with existing stressors may reduce system resilience. Future research should therefore prioritize synergistic effects, threshold responses, and regime shifts rather than treating vertical drivers as isolated variables.

From a monitoring perspective, existing global biodiversity observation networks provide a foundation that can be expanded to incorporate vertical dimensions. Long-term monitoring should be adaptive rather than static, so that monitoring questions, indicators, and thresholds can evolve as new evidence emerges.⁵⁶

Species-population EBVs provide one route for translating repeated observations into biodiversity-relevant indicators at global scale.⁵⁸

Marine biodiversity observing networks offer a useful model for linking physical observing systems to biological and ecosystem indicators across dynamic seascapes.⁶⁰

From a governance standpoint, incorporating vertical activities into biodiversity reporting systems increases institutional sensitivity to emerging pressures. Yet governance innovation must be grounded in scientific evidence. Current debates remain largely at the stage of risk recognition rather than confirmed impact assessment. The coming decade represents a critical window. If monitoring infrastructures and evaluation protocols are established early, vertical activities may evolve within an adaptive governance envelope. If not, potential effects may accumulate before becoming visible within existing frameworks.

Vertical space activities should not be framed as a discrete environmental issue detached from broader ecological dynamics. Rather, they represent an additional variable within already complex multi-pressure systems. Recognizing this dimension does not imply exaggerating risk; it acknowledges that ecological connectivity now extends beyond surface boundaries. Ensuring that technological expansion proceeds in parallel with biodiversity stewardship requires a feedback loop linking observation, interdisciplinary research, and institutional response. Only through such integration can ecological stability and vertical innovation be maintained in dynamic balance. Stakeholder feasibility also depends on treating the framework as a shared evidentiary infrastructure. Licensing authorities, operators, scientific monitoring bodies, and biodiversity institutions can use the ledger to narrow disagreement to observable variables, uncertainty categories, threshold values, and responsibility weights, thereby converting diffuse concern into a structured research and policy agenda.

Declaration of interests

The authors declare no competing interests.