According to the study, 16,825 sites should be urgently protected, or 1.22% of the Earth’s surface. They are called by researchers “conservation imperatives”.
A protected area to preserve biodiversity
According to a report from the Ministry of Ecology, a protected area helps to fight against the erosion of biodiversity and climate change. Today, in mainland France and in the overseas territories, “thehe total surface area of protected areas represents 33% of the national territory”.
As detailed by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), several threats weigh on these protected ecosystems, most of them coming from human activity, in particular:
- Pollution
- Land artificialization
- Fragmentation of environments
- Withdrawals…
This is why government recognition and legal and targeted protection of these areas are necessary.
16,825 sites that are “conservation imperatives”
These actions would be literally visceral to prevent the extinction of some of the most threatened species in the world and above all much more effective than we think, according to a new study published on June 25, 2024 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Science.
Scientists started from an objective, that of protecting at least 30% of the Earth’s surface by 2030, to which governments have committed, within the framework of the United Nations biodiversity objectives. The team of researchers therefore established a hierarchy of areas, estimating which ones need to be protected urgently, containing species on the verge of extinction.
Scientists have thus counted 16,825 sites that must be preserved, or approximately 164 Mha (1.64 million hectares) on a global scale, which is equivalent to 1.22% of the earth’s total land surface. As relayed The Guardian, half of these sites are in the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia and Madagascar.
Only 7% of conservation requirements are protected
Although the budget required for this undertaking is estimated at 169 billion US dollars, “38% of the 16,825 sites are adjacent to or within 2.5 km of an existing protected area, which could reduce land acquisition and management costs.
A welcome list of areas requiring conservation, given the few protected areas that are part of it, 7% according to the authors. “It’s almost as if countries are using a reverse selection algorithm and choosing non-rare sites to add to global protected areas. This newspaper’s call to arms is that we need to do a much better job over the next five years and it can be done”, concluded Eric Dinerstein, of the environmental organization Resolve and lead author of the study.
