Abstract
Author SummaryUnder the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), governments have agreed to ambitious targets for expanding the global protected area network that could drive the greatest surge in new protected areas in history. They have also agreed to arrest the decline of known threatened species. However, existing protected areas perform poorly for coverage of threatened species, with only 15% of threatened vertebrates being adequately represented. Moreover, we find that if future protected area expansion continues in a business-as-usual fashion, threatened species coverage will increase only marginally. This is because low-cost priorities for meeting the CBD targets have little overlap with priorities for threatened species coverage. Here we propose a method for averting this outcome, by linking threatened species coverage to protected area expansion. Our analyses clearly demonstrate that considerable increases in protected area coverage of species could be achieved at minimal additional cost. Exploiting this opportunity will require directly linking the CBD targets on protected areas and threatened species, thereby formalizing the interdependence of these key commitments.
Highlights
In 2010 the 193 parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a new strategic plan and set of targets to tackle the continuing decline in biodiversity [1,2]
Under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), governments have agreed to ambitious targets for expanding the global protected area network that could drive the greatest surge in new protected areas in history
We find that if future protected area expansion continues in a business-as-usual fashion, threatened species coverage will increase only marginally
Summary
In 2010 the 193 parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a new strategic plan and set of targets to tackle the continuing decline in biodiversity [1,2]. A key element of this plan is Aichi target 11, which includes a commitment to expand the global coverage of terrestrial protected areas from the current 13% to 17% by 2020 [1]. This could drive the most rapid expansion of the global protected area network in history [3], but corresponding biodiversity benefits are far from guaranteed. Recognizing the failures of past protected area expansion, the current CBD text directs that protected areas should target places of ‘‘importance for biodiversity’’ that are ‘‘ecologically representative’’ [1] These locations can be expensive to protect. The majority of terrestrial regions have been identified as important for biodiversity by one or more global prioritization schemes [6], which provides myriad
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