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Overexploitation is the second biggest driver of global plant extinction. Meanwhile, useful plant species are vital to livelihoods across the world, with global conservation efforts increasingly applying the concept of 'conservation-through-use.' However, successfully balancing conservation and biodiversity use remains challenging. We reviewed literature on the sustainability of wild-collected plant use across the countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia—a region of global importance for its biological and cultural richness. After applying defined search terms and a two-stage screening process, 68 articles were reviewed. The numbers which reported sustainable, unsustainable, or context-dependent outcomes were relatively even, but national differences emerged. Through narrative synthesis, we identified five key, reoccurring themes: plant biology; land tenure; knowledge, resource, and capacity; economics and market pressures; and institutional structures, policy, and legislation. Our results show the need for flexible, context-specific approaches and the importance of collaboration, with bottom-up management and conservation methods involving local communities and traditional ecological knowledge often proving most effective. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01529-7.

Societal Impact Statement Bioenergy is a major component of the global transition to renewable energy technologies. The plant and fungal kingdoms offer great potential but remain mostly untapped. Their increased use could contribute to the renewable energy transition and addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all." Current research focuses on species cultivated at scale in temperate regions, overlooking the wealth of potential new sources of small‐scale energy where they are most urgently needed. A shift towards diversified, accessible bioenergy technologies will help to mitigate and adapt to the threats of climate change, decrease energy poverty, improve human health by reducing indoor pollution, increase energy resilience of communities, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Summary Bioenergy derived from plants and fungi is a major component of the global transition to renewable energy technologies. There is rich untapped diversity in the plant and fungal kingdoms that offers potential to contribute to the shift away from fossil fuels and to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all." Energy poverty—the lack of access to modern energy services—is most acute in the Global South where biodiversity is greatest and least investigated. Our systematic review of the literature over the last 5 years (2015–2020) indicates that research efforts have targeted a very small number of plant species cultivated at scale, mostly in temperate regions. The wealth of potential new sources of bioenergy in biodiverse regions, where the implementation of SDG7 is most urgently needed, has been largely overlooked. We recommend next steps for bioenergy stakeholders—research, industry, and government—to seize opportunities for innovation to alleviate energy poverty while protecting biodiversity. Small‐scale energy ...