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Conservation attention necessary across at least 44% of Earth’s terrestrial area to safeguard biodiversity

J. Allan,H. Possingham,Scott C. Atkinson,A. Waldron,Moreno Di Marco,V. Adams,S. Butchart,O. Venter,M. Maron,B. Williams,Kendall R. Jones,P. Visconti,Brendan A. Wintle,April E. Reside,J. Watson

Published 2019 in bioRxiv

ABSTRACT

More ambitious conservation efforts are needed to stop the global degradation of ecosystems and the extinction of the species that comprise them. Here, we estimate the minimum amount of land needed to secure known important sites for biodiversity, Earth’s remaining wilderness, and the optimal locations for adequate representation of terrestrial species distributions and ecoregions. We discover that at least 64 million km2 (43.6% of Earth’s terrestrial area) requires conservation attention either through site-scale interventions (e.g. protected areas) or landscape-scale responses (e.g. land-use policies). Spatially explicit land-use scenarios show that 1.2 million km2 of land requiring conservation attention is projected to be lost to intensive human land-use by 2030 and therefore requires immediate protection. Nations, local communities and industry are urged to implement the actions necessary to safeguard the land areas critical for conserving biodiversity.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2019

  • Venue

    bioRxiv

  • Publication date

    2019-11-12

  • Fields of study

    Biology, Geography, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1101/839977
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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