Conservationists claim that their aim to place thirty per cent of the planet in protected areas by 2030 is supported by science. It isn’t. What the science does and doesn’t say about 30×30

By Simon Counsell

Summary

The proposed new ten-year action plan to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity includes the controversial target to increase protected areas worldwide to thirty per cent of the area of land and seas by 2030 (‘30×30’). It is claimed that such a drastic measure is justified by scientific research. But inspection of the evidence presented to support this claim finds that the science is much less clear. The relatively limited number in favour of 30×30 are generally very closely associated with the conservation industry. Many scientists point to serious problems with such targets and with the way the existing estate of protected areas is working. But these contrary views – as well as the evidence showing that indigenous and community lands can be at least as effective in saving biodiversity as conservationist-run parks – is largely being ignored.

Background

Governments and the conservation industry hope to agree on a new 30-year action plan for saving the world’s biodiversity. The plan, a draft of which will be negotiated in Geneva starting on March 14th, is known as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). It sets out some big-picture goals and around twenty specific targets, achievement of which would ostensibly help implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and reverse the loss of biodiversity worldwide. The third of the proposed targets is that, by 2030, 30 per cent of the planet should be designated as areas for conservation. It states:

Target 3: Ensure that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.”¹

The 30×30 target is highly controversial. It follows from a similar target set in 2010 to double protected areas (often abbreviated to ‘PAs’) to 17% of land worldwide. There are fears that another near-doubling of protected areas globally could, as with the earlier target, result in the grabbing of vast areas of indigenous and other local community lands, and attendant destruction of livelihoods and cultures, as well as human rights abuses.² One estimate suggests that 300 million people could be impacted.³ The concept of ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’, (‘OECMs’), included in the target, could potentially involve community-based nature protection, but does not necessarily overcome all the problems of ‘fortress conservation’.⁴ In addition, questions remain unanswered as to whether a global 30×30 target would necessarily result in the most important areas being conserved.⁵ Larger and richer nations might simply designate vast national parks or ‘other conservation areas’ with no additional wildlife benefit simply to achieve the target.⁶

The ‘science’ behind ‘30×30’, according to the CBD Secretariat

Because of the many doubts, any plan to put nearly a third of the planet’s lands and seas under protection should be supported by very strong evidence that such a step, first, is necessary, second, would be effective in saving biodiversity, and third, would not come at huge cost to local people. The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which oversees the current negotiations, maintains that 30×30 – and all the rest of the new biodiversity action plan – is based on solid evidence. It set out the scientific case for 30×30 in a paper in June 2021.⁷ In this, it claims that “Many recent proposals converge around protecting 30 per cent or more of the land and sea surface by 2030, with the possibility of higher targets established subsequently”.⁸ It lists eight references to support this assertion.

Scrutiny of these eight documents presents a much less ‘converging’ scientific view than the CBD would have us believe – especially in relation to protection of terrestrial biodiversity. Two of the eight papers are about marine wildlife, and indeed support the 30% protection target.⁹ A third is not a scientific paper, but a resolution from a congress of the global conservationist body, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), calling for 30% protection of the oceans.¹⁰ That leaves five papers about protection of biodiversity on land.

For two of these, the lead author is Eric Dinerstein – more about these papers and what’s said in them in a moment. Of the remaining three papers, one is a meta-study from 2019, reviewing other studies looking at percentage-based global conservation targets.¹¹ Four of the “key publications” it reviews are in favour of a 30 per cent or higher global figure, as is the paper itself. All six of the paper’s authors work for IUCN, five of them directly on protected areas. The next paper is not about saving biodiversity globally, but is specifically about wildlife in the tropics. It says that 30% land conservation in the tropics, plus action on climate change, can reduce species extinction risk by more than 50%.¹² The lead author works for the international NGO, Conservation International, which specialises in conservation projects in the tropics.

The remaining scientific publication referenced by the CBD evidently had little influence on the 30×30 target. This 2019 study, called simply ‘Protected area targets post-2020’,¹³ was led by Piero Visconti of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. It looked back at the previous target of 17% protected areas to be achieved by 2020. It makes some strong cases against such percentage targets for protected areas. Echoing concerns that occur repeatedly in the scientific literature, Visconti and his colleague say that:

“Continuing to protect areas of low opportunity costs for human uses, especially agriculture, in order to cover 17% of land will have negligible biodiversity benefits. By contrast, if PAs were strategically sited to protect under-represented threatened species, 30 times more species could be adequately represented with the same extent of PAs”.¹⁴

They describe percentage-based PA targets as having “perverse outcomes”. Instead, the authors advocate a target on actual biodiversity outcomes, ensuring that the value of “all sites of global significant for biodiversity, including key biodiversity areas, is documented, retailed and restored through protected area and other effective area-based conservation measures”. In other words, the onus would be on conservationists to first show that PAs were justified and located in the right places to protect biodiversity, rather than willy-nilly setting out to expand them (as has often been the case in the past, to the detriment of local people).

Eric Dinerstein and the “arbitrary” target

Dr. Dinerstein’s work is the most frequently referred to in support of ‘30×30’. He was for many years the lead scientist at WWF, and since 2014 has been responsible for ‘Biodiversity and Wildlife Solutions’ at the NGO Resolve. In 2019, Dinerstein was the lead author of a paper published in Science Advances entitled “A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets.”¹⁵ This paper says that the “most logical” path to avoid the approaching dual crises of biodiversity loss and climate change is “maintaining and restoring at least 50% of the Earth’s land area as intact natural ecosystems”. This would comprise 30% for biodiversity, and an additional 20% as ‘climate stabilisation’ areas. The paper is a complex analysis which takes a wide-ranging approach to putting endangered species and biodiverse ecoregions under protection.

But it turns out that even Dinerstein doesn’t really believe in the 30 per cent target. In an interview with Vox in 2021, he admitted that “there’s no scientific basis for 30 percent . . . It’s arbitrary.”¹⁶ He went on explain that “The inside story is that we thought that 50 percent by 2030 would just be unpalatable”. As the Vox article explains, “the catchy ‘30 by 30’ phrase, could attract the backing of lawmakers, even if it’s not some kind of precise threshold. Indeed, such a universal threshold doesn’t exist”. As Corey Bradshaw, a professor of ecology at Flinders University told Vox, “You’ve got to play the politics with respect to assigning particular values to targets or thresholds. At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with biology.”¹⁷

Dinerstein is a ‘Half Earther’, an adherent of the idea to protect 50% of the planet for wildlife. This was most strongly promoted by the American biologist, E O Wilson, and has been widely criticised as misguided, extreme, and potentially dangerous.¹⁸ Still, Dinerstein does make some valid points that qualify his overall conclusion. Most of important of these – also raised by many other scientists – is that any such global target would have to be translated and applied at the ‘ecoregional’ level, “because biodiversity is unevenly distributed”. There would be no point, he explains, “adding more land to reach the global target that is similar to what is already well accounted for” in PAs. There is also the danger that governments protect ‘wild’ areas where there is little real threat and “may be lower priority from a biodiversity perspective.”¹⁹

The second of the Dinerstein-led papers followed in 2020. In this, he and eight other authors set out the idea of a ‘global safety net’ for biodiversity.²⁰ This basically repeated the conclusions of the earlier paper, and also conflated the need for biodiversity conservation with measures to prevent greenhouse gas emissions. It identifies “50% of the terrestrial realm that, if conserved, would reverse further biodiversity loss, prevent CO₂ emissions from land conversion, and enhance natural carbon removal”. Importantly, Dinerstein recognises that there is a significant overlap between indigenous lands and the areas deemed necessary for this ‘global safety net’. Indeed, the paper explains that the overlap is so great that, “a 30% area–based target for protection by 2030…effectively already exists when accounting for indigenous land”.

This begs the question as to why the CBD does not simply formally include the contribution that indigenous territories make to biodiversity conservation. Doing so would mean that the 30 per cent target is already achieved and is thus redundant. The problem is the way the CBD and most of its member governments define ‘protection’ and ‘protected areas’. These have to be deliberately dedicated and managed to “achieve the long term conservation of nature”.²¹ Even though Dinerstein accepts that the 30% target, in reality, is already being achieved with the help of indigenous lands, this can only be recognised if such lands are “formally acknowledged by governments as other area based effective conservation measures (OECMs)”.²²

So the problem is not that there is not enough area under already protection. It’s that conservation scientists won’t recognise the important contribution that existing indigenous lands make unless these are somehow re-designated with terms like ‘OECMs’, part of the western conservation lexicon. As I have explained elsewhere, lands designated as OECMs would have to have a ‘management plan’ which at least includes an explicit objective of conserving nature, which could be contrary to cultures, land stewardship regimes and social organisation of many indigenous peoples.²³ It’s not enough that indigenous lands have de facto conserved much of the world’s biodiversity for millennia and will most likely continue to do so in the future. They also have to be brought within the conservation-science narrative.

What do independent scientists really say about how to protect biodiversity?

So the ‘convergence’ among scientists on the 30 per cent target for terrestrial areas is actually limited to a few papers, almost all of which have been led by authors with long careers working on protected areas, the economic mainstay of the conservation industry. What more of the science papers do reveal, however, is a divergence of views on how even to approach the problem, and widely held views that any such global target has to be heavily qualified. In particular, the whole strategy of saving biodiversity through protected areas has to be seen in the context of fundamental flaws in the way existing protected areas have been developed and managed.

As the CBD admits, “Estimates vary regarding the proportion of land and sea that needs to be covered by protected areas and OECMs in order to reach conservation objectives.” How much is needed depends on how one decides what’s the most important to protect: whole areas that are richest in biodiversity? Or areas containing the most endangered species? Or specific threatened populations of wildlife? Or endemic species limited to very specific areas? All of these potentially different strategies or priorities result in different areas, and sizes of areas, needing to be protected. Many other ways of looking at the problem are possible, including targeting specific kingdoms or phyla.²⁴

For example, some say the focus should be on protecting ‘Key Biodiversity Areas’ – “sites contributing significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity”, in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.²⁵ According to the CBD, these cover in total about 8.7 per cent of land and 2.1 per cent of oceans.²⁶ Most are already conserved in some way. Protecting the rest would involve an additional 4.5 per cent of the Earth’s land. On the other hand, covering hotspots of endemic species, and other areas with a high density of threatened species “would require 1 per cent additional to the current terrestrial protected area coverage”. One paper notes that “It is theoretically possible to protect large fractions of species in relatively small regions”.²⁷ Even Eric Dinerstein and his team find that all the most endangered and rare species could be protected “by an addition of only 2.3% more land area if allocated to the right places and well managed.”²⁸ Using another very different approach, though – that of “adequately covering species niche’s for birds, mammals and amphibians” would, according to one study, require expanding PAs to about 34 per cent of the planet’s land area.²⁹

The problem of protecting only large, remote, ‘wild’ areas is noted by many. For example, “Achieving conservation goals by creating more protected areas in current wilderness might locally be helpful, but it is not sufficient to protect biodiversity at large”, notes one paper.³⁰ For some, it’s not thirty or even fifty per cent that needs to be put into protected areas, but that biodiversity needs to be better looked after everywhere and especially in areas that are being heavily impacted by humans. This ‘Whole Earth approach’ focuses on taking a more integrated approach, (re)uniting humans and nature rather than trying to separate them out.

There is no common agreement about which strategy to follow, or which mix of different approaches would work best. So, the ‘science’ is, in reality, a hodge-podge of different bits of data and analysis reflecting many different ways of looking at the problem.

Many authors point to the need to prioritise good outcomes for biodiversity, rather than just increasing the area of PAs. The CBD itself rather understatedly acknowledges that in the science, “the importance of focusing on biodiversity outcomes rather than spatial area is emphasized; an increase in coverage alone will not be sufficient.”³¹ The important question of quality of protected areas also recurs repeatedly in the literature. Concerns are voiced about where PAs are located, and how they are managed. As the CBD notes “In addition [to] the coverage and location of protected areas and OECMs, attention also needs to be given to their management effectiveness”. CBD admits that “many protected areas are not effectively or equitably managed.”³² and that effectiveness “is currently challenging to assess. Only about 11 per cent of the world’s protected areas have management effectiveness assessments recorded . . . ”³³

Despite all the divergence, uncertainties, qualifications and problems with the current implementation of PAs, the CBD not only claims there is science ‘convergence’ on the 30 per cent target, but also that it “is likely feasible and necessary”. The scientific literature actually demonstrates neither. Few of the papers grapple with the problem, for example, that the cost of measures to protect biodiversity will likely be most heavily borne by relatively few countries, almost all of them poor. None of the papers the CBD cites address issues such as possible negative impacts on local communities, even if many of them point out the importance of indigenous lands and peoples. Where there seems to be the strongest scientific consensus – that on the need for 30% spatial protection of marine habitats – is precisely what is currently less feasible, because there is simply no global mechanism for agreement on the use or designation of the open oceans.

Sufficient evidence to shape the future of a third of the Earth and hundreds of millions of lives?

Whilst the continuing loss of the world’s species is widely indicated in the literature, the plan to put nearly a third of Earth in protected areas is not supported with a solid body of scientific evidence. Rather than just setting out to expand protected areas, many scientists variously advocate that the existing PA areas should be better located and connected, more representative, focus on achieving specific outcomes, and be better and more fairly governed. Many seem to concur with the sentiment that conservation “must better collaborate with the many Indigenous peoples, community groups and private initiatives that are central to the successful conservation of biodiversity”.³⁴ However, the CBD cites none of the growing body of evidence showing that indigenous and other community lands can be better conserved even than protected areas.

In a very recent ‘expert input’ to the debate, a group of scientists presented a strong case to the CBD that expanding protected areas to 30 per cent without tackling the underlying reasons for biodiversity loss would likely achieve almost nothing in saving biodiversity.³⁵ They emphasised the need to address overconsumption, destructive agricultural subsidies, pollution and climate change – most of which are only weakly addressed in the draft Global Biodiversity Framework. They said that ‘transformative’ social, economic and political change is needed. They also made the point that, whatever the general global target, translation of it into regional and national targets would be critical. As the CBD itself states, “The outcomes of conservation and restoration activities . . . strongly depend on location and the ecosystem being addressed”. As yet, however, CBD has not even considered how this could or would follow from a general global target.

The reality is that 30×30 is, at best, just a slogan. It could help the cause of environmentalists in some rich countries where most biodiversity has already been destroyed. But insofar as it could mislead decision-makers into believing that it is a simple and effective way to save biodiversity globally, it is dangerous. It could distract from the need to address the root causes of biodiversity loss. It could divert attention away from the fact that existing protected areas aren’t working very well, are causing harm, and often need re-planning and reconsideration. It fails to recognise that indigenous lands, if properly respected, could fulfil many of the needs of biodiversity protection in many of the most biodiverse parts of the world, regardless of whether they have some official ‘conservation designation’ attached to them. It would justify the continued expansion of ‘fortress conservation’ for the coming ten years. It would enhance the power, wealth and reach of rich world, international conservation NGOs, and militarised protected areas’ agencies in the poorer world. But achievement of it would likely be no more effective in saving biodiversity than the 17% target was over the last decade.

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1. CBD, 2021. Reflections of the Co-Chairs following the first session of the third meeting of the working group on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, CBD/WG2020/3/6 24 November 2021. https://bit.ly/34BBSic

2. See for example, Dowie. M, 2009. Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples https://bit.ly/3K2TdjB

3. Rainforest Foundation UK, 2020. Press release: UN 2030 conservation plan could dispossess 300 million people. https://bit.ly/3JKRNKh

4. Counsell, S. 2022. ‘Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures’ (OECMs): an acceptable face of protected areas that can save biodiversity? REDD-Monitor. 22 February 2022. https://bit.ly/3JPnhz9

5. Counsell, S. 2021. The new ‘con’ in conservation: Why the proposed voluntary, Paris Agreement-style, ‘30×30’ target for protected areas won’t save the world’s biodiversity. REDD-Monitor. 24 September 2021. https://bit.ly/35kxS6d

6. Alves-Pinto H, 2021. Opportunities and challenges of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) for biodiversity conservation. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation Volume 19, Issue 2, April–June 2021, Pages 115-120. https://bit.ly/3Bn4nfX

7. CBD, 2021b. Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: scientific and technical information to support the review of the updated goals and targets, and related indicators and baseline. Note by the Executive Secretary, CBD/SBSTTA/24/3/Add.2/Rev.1 23 April 2021 https://bit.ly/3MgpcyO

8. CBD, 2021b

9. O’Leary et al, 2016. Effective Coverage Targets for Ocean Protection. Conservation Letters, 9: 398-404. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12247 and Jones et al, 2019. Area requirements to safeguard Earth’s marine species. One Earth https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.01.010

10. IUCN (2016). Increasing marine protected area coverage for effective marine biodiversity conservation. https://bit.ly/3HxMn3X

11. Woodley et al (2019). A review of evidence for area-based conservation targets for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. PARKS. 31-46. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2019.PARKS-25-2SW2.en

12. Hannah, et al (2020), 30% land conservation and climate action reduces tropical extinction risk by more than 50%. Ecography, 43: 943-953. https://bit.ly/3K3CzAk

13. P. Visconti et al. 2019, Science 10.1126/science.aav6886. https://bit.ly/3tljzq5

14. P. Visconti et al. 2019, Science 10.1126/science.aav6886. https://bit.ly/3tljzq5

15. Dinerstein, 2019. A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets. Science Advances, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2869. Other authors included staff from National Geographic, also a strong advocate and funder for the 30×30 campaign.

16. Jones, B. 2021. The hottest number in conservation is rooted more in politics than science. The goal to protect 30 percent of the Earth is more arbitrary than you might think. Vox. 12 April 2021 https://bit.ly/3MeXmTe

17. Jones, B. 2021

18. See for example, Buscher et al, 2016. Half-Earth or Whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications, Oryx https://bit.ly/3KfSuf7

19. Dinerstein E et al, 2019

20. Dinerstein et al, 2020, A “Global Safety Net” to reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize Earth’s climate. Science Advances 6(36). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb2824

21. Dudley N and Stolton, S (Eds). Defining Protected Areas; An international conference in Almeria, Spain, May 2007 IUCN, 2008. https://bit.ly/3IGE72L

22. Dinerstein e. et al., 2020

23. Counsell, S. 2022

24. See for example, Dinerstein et al (2020), A “Global Safety Net” to reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize Earth’s climate. Science Advances 6(36). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb2824

25. IUCN, undated. Key Biodiversity Areas. https://bit.ly/35iG6Mo

26. CBD, 2021b

27. Pimm et al 2018. How to protect half of Earth to ensure it protects sufficient biodiversity. Science Advances. 4 (8). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat2616

28. Dinerstein et al, 2020

29. Hanson et al (2018). Global conservation of species’ niches. Nature, vol. 580, 232–234. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2138-7.

30. Pimm et al, 2018

31. CBD, 2021b

32. CBD, 2021b

33. CBD, 2021b

34. Maxell et al (2020) Area-based conservation in the 21st century. Nature, volume 586, pages 217–227. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2773-z

35. CBD, 2022. Expert Input to the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Transformative actions on all drivers of biodiversity loss are urgently required to achieve the global goals by 2050. CBD/WG2020/3/INF/11 14 January 2022. https://bit.ly/3Ju8mtS