Expanding protected areas (PAs) to include 1.2% of the world’s terrestrial surface would help save the most threatened species from extinction at a lower cost than expected, a paper has said.
The study, led by researchers at the NGO Resolve and published in the journal Frontiers in Science, identified 16,825 sites covering approximately 164 million hectares that host the last remaining habitats for rare and endangered terrestrial species outside of PAs.
Permanently conserving 0.74% of land in the tropics, where these sites are concentrated, would cost $169 billion, or $34 bln per year over the next five years, according to the study.
“While this sounds like a lot of money, it is insignificant in comparison to the $44 trillion of economic value generation that the World Economic Forum estimates is potentially at risk as a result of biodiversity loss and the erosion of ecosystem conditions,” said the study.
“Major advances in protecting areas to prevent irreversible biodiversity loss is more financially feasible than previously thought,” it added, citing a separate study that estimated costs could reach $76.1 billion annually.
The sites identified in the newly published paper, dubbed conservation imperatives, harbour over 4,700 threatened species in some of the world’s most biodiverse yet threatened ecosystems, and 38% of them are very close to existing PAs, which would reduce management costs.
Researchers called for prioritising these sites over the next five years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global PA network.
“Most species on Earth are rare, meaning that species either have very narrow ranges or they occur at very low densities or both,” said Eric Dinerstein of Resolve, lead author of the study.
IMPROVING EFFICIENCY
While the current number of PAs is inadequate to preserve biodiversity, the researchers also said efficiency must be improved to ensure areas of high value for nature are conserved, as less than 7% of the 1.2 mln square kilometres of PAs designated between 2018 and 2023 hosted rare and threatened species.
“Embedded in the area-based approach should be the commitment to protecting irreplaceable sites harbouring rare and endangered biodiversity,” said the study.
“Conservation imperatives occupy only a small portion of the emerging global conservation portfolio, but offer high-quality opportunities to protect the diversity of life on Earth.”
Currently representing more than 15% of Earth’s terrestrial area, PAs are considered key to advancing biodiversity conservation under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which includes a target of 30% of land protected by 2030.
However, researchers and conservationists have recently called for establishing more robust criteria for their identification to increase the number of protected areas that are particularly important for global biodiversity preservation.
A separate paper published in March by researchers from the University of Queensland said that conservation efforts should focus on smaller, higher risk areas, as this could lead to more effective and cost-efficient outcomes.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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