A new study undertaken by environmental organisation Resolve, has found that protecting 1.2% of the Earth’s surface for nature would be enough to prevent the extinction of the world’s most threatened species.
The team of researchers identified 16,825 sites that should be prioritised for conservation in the next five years to prevent the loss of thousands of the mammals, birds, amphibians and plants that are closest to disappearing.
A strategic expansion of protected areas on land would be enough to prevent the tragic imminent extinctions of animals and plants that are found nowhere else.
38% of the sites identified in the study, classed as 'conservation imperatives' are already situated within one and a half miles of an existing protected area, so expanding these to protect them could be done quickly. Half of the identified conservation imperative sites were located in the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia.
The key focus of the study was to look at how to avert imminent extinctions and not the wider scope of what would be required to restore nature on Earth. In order to prevent the destruction of biodiversity and maintain crucial ecosystems scientists agree that this will require more than just expanding protected areas. A 2020 study found that protecting half of Earth's land would enable us to reverse biodiversity loss and enhance natural carbon removal.
Dr Eric Dinerstein, of the environmental organisation Resolve and lead author of the study, commented: “Despite the recent talk of extinction, the biodiversity crisis and what we should be doing, only 7% of the new protected areas between 2018 and 2023 overlapped with the conservation imperative sites.
“It’s almost as if countries are using a reverse-selection algorithm and picking the non-rare sites to add to the global areas under protection. The call to arms of this paper is that we have to be doing a much better job in the next five years and it is doable.”
Over the next five years it would cost a total of £23billion-£36billion to protect the key sites identified in the study. This would cover a total of 630,000 square miles and could be achieved through a combination of land purchases, expanding Indigenous rights and titles, and creating protected areas on government land.
Prof Neil Burgess, chief scientist at the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, said the research was a useful proposal for immediate action on extinctions, adding: “achieving 30% coverage by protected and conserved areas on its own is not enough, and that it is the location, quality and effectiveness of these protected and conserved areas that will determine whether they fulfil their role in contributing to halting biodiversity loss.”
