The 30×30 initiative – the global effort to protect and conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 – centers around the idea of creating a connected network of protected areas. Several recent multi-national strategic plans, such as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, represent major steps toward achieving that goal.
Eckert, I., Brown, A., Caron, D., Riva, F. and Pollock, L.J. 2022. 30×30 biodiversity gains rely on national coordination. Nature Communications 14: 7113.
However, there are still many questions about exactly how to protect so much area. Plans for achieving 30×30 goals often focus on protecting biodiversity, but biodiversity itself can involve many different facets, such as endemic species, species-at-risk, or threatened lineages. Even when biodiversity hotspots are identified, climate change may decrease their value as protected land in the future. On top of this, there are implementation challenges that manifest at multiple scales, leaving questions about whether management and policy directives should concentrate on the local, regional, or national level.
Explicitly detailing the trade-offs between these various scenarios can help with decision-making in 30×30 efforts. Recent research has done this by comparing a range of 13 different 30×30 scenarios to determine which one best captures biodiversity once 30% of land is under protection. These scenarios varied either the level of coordination of protection (such as national or regional), or type of biodiversity (such as specific taxa, specific at-risk species, or functional diversity). Priority was given to land that could protect species current ranges and continue to act as climate refugia in the future. These scenarios were modeled using terrestrial vertebrates, plants, and butterflies in Canada, a country that’s experiencing rapid climate change and is at the forefront at connectivity conservation.
The scenario results showed that at current protection levels, only 15% of terrestrial vertebrates, plants, and butterflies are represented, including only 6% of at-risk species and a single species of amphibians/reptiles. The optimal scenario proved to be focusing on coordination at the national level. By doing so, 65% of all taxa could be protected, including 40% of at-risk species and 60% of amphibians and reptiles.
By comparison, prioritizing land at a smaller scale (Provinces and Territories) would protect 33% fewer species, and prioritizing it at an even smaller scale (Ecozones) would protect 38% fewer species, or over 1,000 taxa. In contrast, coordinating at the transnational scale would decrease protection by only 16% fewer species, suggesting that national coordination – a much more feasible level of coordination – could still contribute toward global priorities.
How this protection is coordinated is far more important than how biodiversity is defined. Scenarios that prioritized different types of biodiversity, such as birds or butterflies or global species-at-risk, showed a much lower trade-off compared to the optimal scenario of national coordination. In these cases, only 1-11% fewer species were protected.
Although national coordination seems most effective, the reality is that management actions often occur at a much more local scale. In addition, different regions within a nation contribute unequally to biodiversity and its associated physical geography, making national implementation an seemingly unfair process for some. However, understanding the outcomes from different scenarios of 30×30 implementation can ultimately lead to better policy outcomes and better land protection that benefits biodiversity around the globe.
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