Area-based protection initiatives like 30×30 – the global effort to protect 30% of earth’s land and water by 2030 – aim to conserve biodiversity in part by removing the possibility of extractive activities in an area. Worldwide, countries are achieving their 30×30 goals by protecting land and water from activities like mining, logging, fishing and agriculture, and creating connected networks of protected areas.
While progress made towards achieving 30×30 is worth celebrating, one side effect of conservation may be undermining that progress. In a recent paper, researchers call attention to the problem of “leakage”, i.e. when conservation interventions in one geographic area displace extractive activities like mining or fishing to another area. For example, if soybean crops in the U.S. are converted to prairie in order to benefit biodiversity, the U.S. might instead import soybeans from Brazil, where tropical rainforests are cleared to grow the crops.
The problem of leakage calls into question the value of conservation interventions. In the soybean example, a less diverse ecosystem is protected, while a more diverse ecosystem is destroyed. In the end, there is a net biodiversity loss. Leakage may not always lead to biodiversity loss, but could reduce the supposed value of conservation measures.
Biodiversity leakage can be hard to measure, especially in a modern, globalized economy. To try to halt leakage and ultimately make conservation efforts more meaningful, researchers outlined possible strategies for reducing the likelihood of leakage:
- Document forgone production as the result of protections. New conservation interventions should examine possible reductions in productivity for the possibility of leakage.
- Reduce demand for high leakage goods. Reducing demand as productivity falls due to conservation can lessen the likelihood of leakage. For example, increasing the use of fuel-efficient stoves as forests are protected from logging.
- Target conservation to areas where leakage is less likely. The restoration of degraded areas with no production is less likely to result in leakage.
- Plan to increase yields near protected areas or where biodiversity will be less affected. Proactively displacing production to nearby sites where biodiversity is unaffected or to low biodiversity sites can reduce the possibility of leakage further afield where the impacts to biodiversity could be stronger.
Biodiversity leakage reminds us that conservation efforts like 30×30 are a global project. Conservation projects in one place can have unintended consequences across the world. In addition to prioritizing connectivity between protected areas, keeping the concept of biodiversity leakage in mind will ultimately make our conservation efforts more impactful.
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