Climate change and the continued expansion of human activities are increasingly proving fatal for the most endangered species. And as a result, the rate at which new extinctions are occurring on our planet is constantly increasing, so much so that many scientists are talking about a sixth great mass extinction just around the corner. To prevent it, the United Nations launched the 30×30 initiative in 2022, which aims to transform at least 30% of the planet’s land and seas into protected areas by 2030. An ambitious goal, which will take time. And many species critically at risk of extinction now have very little time left.
Fortunately, a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Science has identified a much easier-to-achieve short-term goal that would maximize the impact of conservation efforts in the years ahead: by strategically choosing which areas of land to turn into parks and nature reserves, protecting just 1.2 percent of the world’s landmass would be enough to ensure the survival of most species at imminent risk of extinction.
Rare species
The research was conducted by an international team of biodiversity conservation experts, and in many ways, it is a way to make a coupon for the 30×30 strategy, adopted by over 190 nations during the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP 15). The project – write the authors of the study – is indeed commendable, but it does not take into sufficient account the urgency that conservation interventions for many endangered species require. And by setting a goal that only takes into account the territorial extension of protected areas, it risks losing sight of the importance of verifying the quantity of biodiversity contained in the new protected areas that will arise in the coming years.
Not all biomes on the planet, in fact, are the same in terms of the quantity of living species they contain. “Most of the species that inhabit the Earth are rare, and this means that they are animals that have a very restricted habitat or a very low density of specimens, or both,” explains Eric Dinerstein, a biologist at the NGO Resolve and coordinator of the new research, “and the rarity is very concentrated.”
The tropics, for example, cover an area equal to 40% of the earth’s land mass, but they alone host 80% of the terrestrial biodiversity. Therefore, by intervening in these areas, many more benefits are obtained than elsewhere. And unfortunately, in recent years, exactly the opposite has been done: between 2018 and 2023, only 2.4% of new protected areas were created in tropical or subtropical forests, while almost 70% involved temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, like those in our parts, which are much less important in terms of biodiversity at risk.
Conservation imperatives
So where to intervene? According to the authors of the study, the best starting point would be what they define as conservation imperatives (Conservation Imperatives), currently unprotected areas that contain rare, at-risk species with an extremely limited habitat. In the study they list 16,000 of them, a high number but one that in extension reaches just 1.2% of the Earth’s surface (much less, therefore, than the 30% foreseen by international treaties). Half of the sites indicated are in the tropics, and many are located in areas adjacent to already existing nature reserves. According to the researchers’ calculations, involving all conservation imperatives in protection programs would require 34 billion dollars a year for the next five years. A high figure, but one that is equivalent to just 0.2% of the gross domestic product of a country like the United States, and which would be enough to secure most of our planet’s biodiversity.