Identifying and quantifying links among ecosystems, i.e. terrestrial, freshwater and marine, is necessary for the uptake of integrated conservation actions across realms. In this new paper, published in Conservation Letters, we found that less than a third of “multi-realm” species benefited from projects that included conservation actions across multiple realms. The paper, based upon work from COST Action 15121 ‘Advancing marine conservation in the European and contiguous seas (MarCons), highlighted the necessity to reinforce integrated conservation efforts across realms in order to achieve the EU’s conservation target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 and effectively protect multi-realm species.