Ahead of COP15, researchers make key recommendations for policy makers to support Asian countries to meet 2030 biodiversity targets.
Protected areas are one of the most effective tools for safeguarding biodiversity, but new research published today has found that most Asian countries failed to achieve a global minimum target of protecting at least 17% of land by 2020. Under current trends, the outlook for achieving the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 2030 target to protect at least 30% of land is bleak, with Asia set to miss this by an even greater margin.
Asia is one of the richest places on earth for biodiversity and hosts many of Earth’s most charismatic animals, including the giant panda, snow leopard, and Asian elephant. In many areas, however, these species are threatened by some of the world’s highest rates of habitat loss, driven by rapid population growth.
To counter the global biodiversity crisis, at the 2010 UN Convention on Biological Diversity almost 200 countries pledged to protect at least 17% of their terrestrial environments by 2020 (known as Aichi Target 11). To investigate if this had been achieved, researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, with collaborators in Asia, analysed data from official reports submitted to the World Database on Protected Areas. The results are published recently in Communications Biology.
Lead author, Dr Mohammed Farhadinia of the Department of Biology and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, said:
‘Asia is a challenging continent for setting targets for protected areas, since areas of high biodiversity typically conflict with dense human populations and rapid economic growth. While this research demonstrates the need for more investment in protected areas in Asia, it also shows the importance of establishing realistic, achievable goals that take into account socio-geographical restrictions.’
Read more about this research, published in Communications Biology, here: 10.1038/s42003-022-04061-w
Link to the paper video:
Press release from the University of Oxford: