Environmental Conservation (ENC) seeks excellent papers on all aspects of environmental conservation science and/or practice. We screen all submitted manuscripts using the following criteria:

• Title and abstract relevant, informative and succinct
• Originality of contribution explained, international readership targeted
• Natural environment(s), ecosystem(s) or species conservation goal
• Specific objectives/hypotheses/questions justified and clearly stated
• Content related solely to the stated aims and well presented
• Paper type selected appropriate to content and correct structure for it
• Implications for conservation science and/or practice revealed
• Compliance with Author Instructions, including length and Figure/Table formats

The Journal considers submissions of six different types, each with its own guidelines on length and structure (Table 1), and these are sometimes in special themes; please see this page for information related to any open calls for papers. 

Table 1 Types of papers publishable in ENC.

N.B.  The only article types  considered for Gold Open Access funding are clearly marked with a (*). A Corresponding Author is eligible for this funding if they i) are in an  institution with an Open Access agreement with Cambridge University Press, ii) are in a low to middle-income country that can benefit from the Cambridge Open Equity Initiative or Research4Life or iii) have their own funding (e.g. relevant research grant). From the start of 2028, they will also be eligible for iv) a CUP discretionary waiver or v) on application to the Chief Editor, an Open Access subsidy from the Foundation for Environmental Conservation. Options i-iv will be flagged to authors only when they complete the author information form on acceptance of their paper for publication; this therefore has no influence on the peer review or acceptance procedure.

Type (with normal size limits; word count includes abstract and references)	Purpose	Type (with normal size limits; word count includes abstract and references)
Subject Review* (limit 8000 words, 6 display items)	Systematic review of existing literature on a substantial topic	Summary, Introduction including rationale and objectives (s), Methods, review text, synthesis, References
Research Paper* (limit: 6000 words, 6 display items)	Original research data and analysis on a broad topic (e.g. large scale)	Summary, Introduction including rationale and objective(s), Methods, Results, Discussion, References
Report* (limit: 4000 words, 4 display items)	Original research data and analysis on a specific topic	Summary, Introduction including rationale and objective(s), Methods, Results, Discussion, References
Perspective*(limit: 4000 words, 6 display items)	Forward-looking essay on an issue or issues (e.g. project, event, policy, method, practice, development) and means of mitigation	Summary, background including rationale and objective(s), Discussion/Arguments/ Conclusion, References
Comment (limit 2000 words, 2 display items)	Well-sourced concise commentary on a specific past or current issue (project, event, policy, practice, development etc)	First paragraph to explain rationale and objective(s)(serves also as online Abstract), main text, References
Editorial (limit 2000 words, 2 display items)	Articles on broad topic  agreed with the Chief Editor	Freestyle essay with clear purpose(s)

ENC employs a highly interactive processing and editing procedure which favours less experienced authors, but we receive many more submissions than we have space for. Papers are pre-screened for compliance with Table 1 and when acceptable to the Chief Editor they are referred to an Associate Editor, who then considers whether they are ready for review. Selected manuscripts are sent out to external reviewers, who agree to undertake the review  within 30 days. Where manuscripts are revised in response to review, the same reviewers may not be able to review the revision, thus new reviewers may be called on. ENC employs a single-blind peer review system.

Please see this page for more detailed information on preparing your materials and the submission process. 

Environmental Conservation publishes special themes. Please see this page for information related to open calls for papers.