Conservation Imperatives: Securing the Last Unprotected Terrestrial Sites Harboring Irreplaceable Biodiversity

Version 1 : Received: 22 September 2023 / Approved: 28 September 2023 / Online: 28 September 2023 (03:31:14 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 8 March 2024 / Approved: 11 March 2024 / Online: 11 March 2024 (11:52:38 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Dinerstein, E.; Joshi, A.R.; Hahn, N.R.; Lee, A.T.L.; Vynne, C.; Burkart, K.; Asner, G.P.; Beckham, C.; Ceballos, G.; Cuthbert, R.; et al. Conservation Imperatives: Securing the Last Unprotected Terrestrial Sites Harboring Irreplaceable Biodiversity. Frontiers in Science 2024, 2, doi:10.3389/fsci.2024.1349350. Dinerstein, E.; Joshi, A.R.; Hahn, N.R.; Lee, A.T.L.; Vynne, C.; Burkart, K.; Asner, G.P.; Beckham, C.; Ceballos, G.; Cuthbert, R.; et al. Conservation Imperatives: Securing the Last Unprotected Terrestrial Sites Harboring Irreplaceable Biodiversity. Frontiers in Science 2024, 2, doi:10.3389/fsci.2024.1349350.

Abstract

Ambitious biodiversity goals to protect 30% or more of the Earth’s surface by 2030 to prevent the most likely and imminent extinctions require strategic near-term targets. We propose Conservation Imperatives, spanning 164 Mha across 16,825 unprotected sites harboring rare and threatened species. These sites should be prioritized for conservation action over the next three to five years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global protected area network. The expansion of global protected areas between 2018–2023 incorporated only 7% of sites harboring range-limited and threatened species, highlighting a renewed urgency to conserve these habitats. Permanently protecting only 0.74% of land found in the tropics, where Conservation Imperatives sites are concentrated, at a cost of US$34 to $56 billion per year over the next 3-5 years, could prevent the majority of predicted near-term extinctions once adequately resourced. Multiple approaches could achieve this goal: providing rights and title to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) conserving traditional lands, government designation of new protected areas on federal and state lands; or land purchase and long-term leasing of privately held lands.

Keywords

Conservation imperatives; 30 by 30; Protected area targets; Rare species; Land cover fraction mapping; Geospatial analysis; Land costs analysis

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Ecology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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