Palestra Prof. Stuart Pim

At COP15, many nations approved the “30-30 solution — protect 30% of the land and oceans by 2023.  I ask: is the 30% solution necessary or sufficient? The current state of play is that human actions drive species to extinction about a thousand times faster than they diversify through evolution. Extinctions are primarily in areas — hotspots — where high levels of habitat loss collide with concentrations of species with small geographical ranges. The principal means of preventing species extinctions is the creation of protected areas.  Most are in remote places, too hot, too dry, or too cold for human habitation. Generally, these places have few vulnerable species. Despite this, the fraction of small-ranged species protected is substantially larger than one would expect. The conservation community has done an excellent job of protection. Will expanding the protected area network to 30% improve things?  Not if it’s business as usual, for more land will not equate to more species. In protecting more areas, quality matters, not quantity. Importantly, many protected areas are small and isolated. To maximise effectiveness, we must restore fragmented landscapes, allowing the remnant populations to connect and species to move in response to a heating climate.