Social media–driven recreational foraging threatens China’s coastal and forest ecosystems

The rapid expansion of social media has transformed recreational foraging into a widespread, mass-participation activity with growing global relevance. Drawing on emerging patterns observed in China, this Comment highlights how platform-amplified coastal and forest foraging can cause intensive habitat disturbance, overexploitation, and emerging invasion risks. These novel pressures remain poorly monitored and regulated, suggesting similar conservation challenges may arise elsewhere without timely governance, monitoring, and public guidance.