The World Wide Web became broadly available in August 1991, ushering in the Information Age and catalyzing profound changes in almost every aspect of human endeavor. This new age is characterized by online connectivity, real-time interactions, and the convergence of information and communication technology, institutions, people, and processes (Castells 2003). Statistics from 2020 show that approximately 58.8% of the global population (a little over 4.5 billion people) use the internet (https://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Most of these people leave digital traces of their interests and attitudes in the form of, for example, the websites they visit, the photos and comments they post on social media platforms, and the videos of their activities they record and share online. Much of these data are publicly available and, with application of some technical expertise, can yield fascinating insights into human culture, including interactions and attitudes toward nature and conservation. The quantification of human culture through the analysis of vast digital corpora has been termed “culturomics” (Michel et al. 2011) and “conservation culturomics” is the application of these methods to the study of human–nature interactions (Ladle et al. 2016). As the frequency and quality of encounters with wild nature decrease (Soga & Gaston 2016), individual knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward nature and nature conservation are increasingly shaped by experiences in the virtual world. Conservation culturomics is uniquely placed to support monitoring and reactions to changes in the environment and human–nature interactions. Such new capabilities allow conservation organizations to proactively enact policy and management to tackle emerging threats and harness new opportunities. Moreover, the power of culturomic analysis to detect these changes will improve as internet access increases globally, new tools become available, and digital corpora expand in number, coverage, and volume. A review of conservation culturomics research (Appendix S1) shows that this area of study is still in its early stages, but publications have increased rapidly (Fig. 1a) and already cover a remarkable range of subjects (Fig. 1b). These include assessing public interest in species and support for their conservation, understanding human uses of natural areas and the values derived from such interactions, and evaluating the prominence and dynamics of conservation-related topics in political discourse (see Appendix S2 for a list of conservation culturomics publications and their attributes). Conservation culturomics research has been carried out from site-based to global spatial extents, taking advantage of the increasingly global reach of the internet (Appendix S3), and has examined plants, fungi, invertebrates, and aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates (Fig. 1c). For this, researchers have used data from diverse sources, such as social media platforms, digital encyclopedias, internet web pages, and search engines, and even sports-tracking applications (Fig. 1d & Appendix S4). Nevertheless, there are numerous ways conservation culturomics research can be expanded in reach and scope. Articles in the special section on conservation culturomics advance this emerging field through at least 2 key aspects. The first is methodological, by outlining and expanding the conservation culturomics toolbox. Correia et al. (2021) provide an overview of the data sources and methods available for data collection and analysis and the challenges associated with this type of research. They also outline some of the upcoming challenges for this emerging research area. Mittermeier et al. (2021) focus specifically on the Wikipedia platform, exploring its utility as a source of data for culturomics. Wikipedia allows open access to its raw data, an advantage over many other sources of culturomic data, but has particular characteristics and limitations. The authors suggest several methodological approaches for analysis of Wikipedia data and exemplify them by exploring trends in Wikipedia page views of birds globally. Väisänen et al. (2021) highlight the potential of automated image identification for culturomics. Images are increasingly a relevant source of data, and they clearly illustrate this potential through an analysis of thousands of photos taken by local and foreign visitors to Finnish national parks. In doing so, they disentangle how different groups of people interact with and obtain value from these diverse protected areas. Di Minin et al. (2021) address the privacy concerns arising from use of personal digital data and provide clear guidelines on how to address these concerns. Taking social media data as an example, they provide specific recommendations on how to handle personal data that are in line with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. The second key aspect of the special section is its expansion and enhancement of the scope of culturomics applications. Specifically, Jarić et al. (2021) show how culturomics tools, approaches, and data can be applied to the challenges posed by invasive non-native species. They highlight how culturomics data can be used to find and identify such species and to gauge people's attitudes and interactions with them, both of which have potentially important consequences for early assessment, control, and eradication of invasive species. Li and Hu (2021) use culturomics to improve understanding of the human dimensions associated with the consumption of illegal wildlife products. Using social media data and focusing on tiger bone wine, they explore the profile of the people purchasing these products and the factors motivating their consumption. Vardi et al. (2021) provide a unique and detailed assessment of public interest in Israeli wildflowers in a comparison of metrics derived from Wikipedia and Google. They found clear seasonal trends associated with interest in wildflowers that are associated with their natural phenology and that these trends differ between platforms based on the types of digital engagement people have with nature. Finally, Millard et al. (2021) propose a new indicator of public awareness of biodiversity derived from Wikipedia data. They developed this indicator to help monitor progress toward Aichi target 1, which pertains to public awareness of biodiversity and adopts a similar approach to the Living Plant Index's assessments of natural populations over time. Significantly, Millard et al. (2021) also propose how this indicator can be integrated with other existing monitoring tools based on data derived from other digital platforms. Conservation of the natural world is faced with vast, complex, and expanding problems. These problems demand new and creative solutions, and culturomics approaches to the study of human–nature relationships provide one way forward. The diverse and novel contributions in this special section represent an important milestone in the development of conservation culturomics. They introduce this field of research to a broader readership and raise awareness about its tools and applications. We hope the articles will stimulate debate and discussion and encourage more researchers to engage with this rapidly expanding conservation research area. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.