The Bloomberg Ocean Initiative, together with conservation technology NGO SkyTruth, on Tuesday announced an expansion of SkyTruth’s 30×30 Progress Tracker at COP16.

The move introduces a new terrestrial component to complement existing marine conservation monitoring capabilities.

“With the addition of terrestrial data to our 30×30 Progress Tracker, we’re moving toward providing a more complete picture of global conservation efforts,” said Jason Schatz, CTO of SkyTruth, upon the announcement.

“This tool democratises access to critical environmental data,” he added. “As we face unprecedented biodiversity loss, transparency and accessibility of information are key to driving the urgent action needed to protect our planet.”

Key features of the new terrestrial feature include: side-by-side display of marine and land-based data, country-specific conservation targets and progress, maps of protected terrestrial habitats, research-based biodiversity protection recommendations, and an interactive ‘Conservation Builder’ tool for visualising potential protected areas.

While the marine component includes assessments of how effective protections have been, comparable data for terrestrial areas is under development, as per the announcement.

Across both components, SkyTruth intends to add socioeconomic data, and data on the lands and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as the availability of information improves.

The 30×30 Progress Tracker claims to be the first free, public, interactive platform designed for government agencies, civil society, and the public to see how well the world is advancing toward the goal to conserve 30% of Earth’s land and sea by 2030 through protected areas and other conservation methods, codified in the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

It is a data aggregator that draws upon varied sources, including the World Database on Protected Areas, Marine Protection Atlas, ProtectedSeas Navigator, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

To date, protection of global marine areas has increased by just 0.5% since the adoption of the GBF, according to a report published last week by SkyTruth, the Bloomberg Ocean Fund, Campaign for Nature, and the Marine Conservation Institute. With this rate of progress, just 9.7% of the ocean will be protected by 2030, the study said.

The SkyTruth tracker was originally launched in Apr. 2024 to follow marine conservation efforts, with support from Bloomberg Ocean Initiative.

By Alejandra Padin-Dujon in Cali – alejandra@carbon-pulse.com