- A new report reveals that 17.6% of terrestrial areas and 8.4% of marine areas are now under protection, ahead of a 2030 deadline to protect 30% of lands and waters.
- The report comes as countries gather in Cali, Colombia, for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) to discuss how to turn global conservation targets into national actions.
- One solution may be recognizing Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ territories, which cover at least 13.6% of global terrestrial areas, but this must happen with consent and respect for self-determined governance systems.
- While more than two-thirds of Key Biodiversity Areas are either partially or fully protected, significant gaps remain in ecological connectivity, with only 8.52% of land both protected and connected.
In December 2022, nearly 200 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, committing to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030. Now, two years into this initiative, a new U.N. report shows both progress and challenges ahead.
The “Protected Planet Report 2024,” released this week by the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), reveals that 17.6% of terrestrial and 8.4% of marine areas are now protected.
The report comes as countries gather in Cali, Colombia, for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16). There, nations are wrestling with how to turn global conservation targets into national actions.
“The headline figures show glimmers of promise. The rise in coverage [of protected areas] since 2020 is over twice the size of Colombia,” Inger Andersen, the UNEP executive director and undersecretary-general of the U.N., said in a speech at COP16 on Oct. 28. “But we must not celebrate hard because there is a great deal more work to be done to meet the 30% target over the next six years, particularly on oceans.”
Conservation efforts have ramped up in recent years, but reaching the 30% target will require protecting additional land area equivalent to twice the size of the United States and marine areas larger than the Atlantic Ocean by 2030.
One potential path forward is recognizing Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ territories, which cover at least 13.6% of global terrestrial areas. If these areas were recognized alongside current protected areas, global terrestrial coverage could reach 31.2%.
However, the report stresses that this recognition must happen only with Indigenous peoples’ consent and with respect for self-determined governance systems.
“If governments can find a way to work with [Indigenous peoples], recognizing their rights and securing their territories in ways that contribute to the target, then that obviously could really, really boost it,” Heather Bingham, lead of the Protected Planet Initiative at UNEP-WCMC, told Mongabay.
Yet human rights organizations warn of potential dangers with area-based conservation measures. “Around the globe, protected areas have led to widespread evictions, hunger, ill health and human rights violations,” Stefania Carrer, a litigation and advocacy officer at Minority Rights Group (MRG), told Mongabay. “MRG is concerned that the push to achieve the 30 by 30 target will result in an increase of fortress conservation projects worldwide.”
Recent cases highlight these concerns. In Tanzania, local authorities displaced thousands of Maasai people from their ancestral lands in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In Kenya’s Mau Forest, the Ogiek community faces evictions despite court rulings recognizing their land rights. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Batwa peoples have reported conflicts with rangers and military personnel when attempting to access their traditional lands now designated for conservation.
Bingham said the target “isn’t intended to be implemented through strict protected areas. It’s not about putting 30% of the world into strict protected areas that don’t have human access or use,” she said. “In all situations, conservation needs to respect rights and allow for sustainable management and use that’s consistent with conservation outcomes.”
Less than half of the world’s nations submitted their conservation targets before COP16, and fewer than 15% presented plans for reaching targets, according to PBS News.
Funding is another challenge. While the framework calls for $200 billion per year by 2030 for biodiversity projects, wealthy nations are still 23% short of meeting their initial $20 billion commitment to developing countries.
“If we’re expecting developing countries to set aside more area for protected and conserved areas and effectively manage them, then there needs to be resources in place,” Bingham said.
The report identifies several ways to make progress. Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) offer one alternative approach. Unlike strict protected areas, OECMs achieve biodiversity protection while being managed for other purposes, including sustainable use by local communities.
“There are lots of areas globally that are actually already very effectively conserved but aren’t necessarily recognized yet,” Bingham said. “Part of implementing [this target] is really about finding out where those areas are and then making sure that they have the appropriate recognition.”
However, significant gaps remain. More than two-thirds of Key Biodiversity Areas, places with high levels of unique biodiversity, are either partially or fully protected, meaning one third of these crucial areas lack protection. (Data on national KBA networks are brought together in the World Database of KBAs.)
Connectivity is also an issue. Just 8.52% of the land is both protected and connected. This lack of connection between protected areas makes it much harder for wildlife to move around and survive, especially as animals need to shift their ranges to cope with a warming climate.
The report also points to a data problem. Emily Howland, a program officer in the Protected Planet Initiative who helped write the report, told Mongabay that conservation groups need to improve their tracking and sharing of basic information about who’s in charge of these areas and whether they’re making a real difference. “It’s hard to know if we’re succeeding if we can’t measure what’s happening on the ground,” Howland said.
However, she added she remains hopeful: “We’re right at the start of the target. This is the time to highlight the gaps, and then we have the next six years to achieve it.”
Banner image by Gabriel Barathieu from Ocean Image Bank.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
COP16: ‘A fund unlike any other’ will pay tropical nations to save forests
Ahead of COP16, groups warn of rights abuses linked to ‘30×30’ goal
Citation: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2024). Protected Planet Report 2024. UNEP-WCMC and IUCN: Cambridge, United Kingdom; Gland, Switzerland.
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message directly to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Credits
