Is Target 3’s ‘30x30’ supported by science?
The thirty percent protected areas target set out in post-2020 GBF Target 3 is controversial because of the dangers it poses to IPLC lands. But it is claimed that the drastic measure of designating nearly a third of Earth as protected areas (PAs) is justified by scientific research. The CBD Secretariat has stated 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”1 . In its 2021 paper setting out the ‘science’ behind the goals and targets, the CBDS listed eight scientific papers to support this assertion.
Inspection of the evidence presented in these papers finds that the science is much less clear, especially for terrestrial biodiversity. Two of the eight papers refer specifically to marine protected areas, and a third is an IUCN resolution also about MPAs, not a scientific paper. Of the five papers on terrestrial biodiversity, one was written by staff of IUCN who specialize in protected areas, and another led by Conservation International, which works on protected areas in the tropics. Two more were led by Eric Dinerstein, former chief scientist of WWF. These are the most frequently referred to in support of ‘30x30’. One 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”, comprising 30% for biodiversity, and an additional 20% as ‘climate stabilisation’ areas 2.
But it turns out that even Dinerstein doesn’t really believe in the 30 percent target. In an interview with Vox in 2021, he admitted that “there’s no scientific basis for 30 percent…It’s arbitrary”3 As Corey Bradshaw, a professor of ecology at Flinders University told Vox, “At the end of the day, [the target] has nothing to do with biology.”
The remaining scientific publication referenced by the CBD evidently had little influence on the 30x30 target. This 2019 study, called simply ‘Protected area targets post-2020’, was led by Piero Visconti of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)4 . It makes some strong cases against such percentage targets for protected areas, saying that they have “perverse outcomes”. Echoing concerns that occur repeatedly in the scientific literature, Visconti and his colleagues 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”.
So the claimed ‘convergence’ among scientists on the 30 percent target for terrestrial areas is actually limited to very few papers, almost all of which have been led by authors with long careers working on protected areas.
In fact, more of the science papers reveal a wide divergence on how even to approach the problem.
Some say the focus should be on protecting ‘Key Biodiversity Areas, which cover in total about 8.7 per cent of land and 2.1 per cent of oceans. Protecting those which are not already somehow protected would involve an additional 4.5 per cent of the Earth’s land 5 . 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”. Eric Dinerstein and his co-authors 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”6 .
But for others, the whole strategy of saving biodiversity through PAs has to be seen in the context of fundamental flaws in the way existing protected areas have been developed and managed. Concerns are voiced about where PAs are located, and how they are managed7 . “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 8 . The important question of the quality of protected areas recurs repeatedly in the scientific literature. The effectiveness of PAs is very poorly studied or documented 9 . Knowledge of the governance of PAs is similarly lamentable, though it’s clear they’re rarely ‘equitable’. In a very recent ‘expert input’ to the debate, a group of scientists presented a strong case to the CBD that expanding PAs to 30 percent without tackling the underlying reasons for biodiversity loss would likely achieve almost nothing in saving biodiversity 10 .
So there are really many contrary or challenging scientific views. These are largely being ignored, as is the evidence showing that indigenous and community lands can be at least as effective in saving biodiversity as conservationist-run parks.
Target 3’s ‘30x30’ proposal is, at best, just a slogan. It can mislead us into believing that PAs are a simple way to save biodiversity globally. It distracts from the need to address the root causes of biodiversity loss. It diverts attention away from the fact that existing protected areas aren’t working very well and are too often causing harm. 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.
Achievement of Target 3 could well be no more effective in saving biodiversity than the 17% target was over the last decade. What’s needed is a target focused on and demanding good outcomes for biodiversity, rather than just increasing the extent of PAs.
By Simon Counsell, Survival International
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1 CBD, 2021. Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: scientific and technical information to support the
review of the updated goals and targets.
2 Dinerstein et al, 2019. A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets. Science
Advances, 5(4), eaaw2869. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2869.
3 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. Apr 12, 2021 https://bit.ly/3MeXmTe
4 P. Visconti et al. 2019. ‘Protected area targets post-2020’, Science 10.1126/science.aav6886.
https://bit.ly/3tljzq5
5 CBD, 2021.
6 Dinerstein et al, 2020, A “Global Safety Net” to reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize Earth’s climate. Science
Advances 6(36) eabb2824. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb2824
7 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
8 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
9 CBD, 2021.
10 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
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