Global conservation area coverage substantially exceeds current estimates

Journal article

Conservation areas are critical for tackling the global environmental crisis1. These sites are reported as covering 18.5% of the terrestrial realm2 and governments have committed through Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3 to increase this to at least 30% by 2030 (ref. 3). There are concerns that this potential near-doubling of conservation area coverage will negatively affect vulnerable people and over-stretch conservation resources4. However, nationally available datasets indicate that more conservation areas exist than are reflected in global figures5-7. We evaluated progress towards the area component of Target 3 using a globally representative sample across 25 countries and territories that incorporated these national datasets8. Extrapolating from this sample, we show that conservation areas likely already cover 26.81% of the terrestrial realm. We may be much closer to achieving 30% terrestrial coverage than previously thought. However, we also show that the extra land does not substantially address gaps in ecological representativeness, indicating that solely meeting the area component of Target 3 will do little to solve continuing global biodiversity loss. More focus and resources are needed to achieve the other components of the target, using a more strategic and inclusive approach to fill present gaps and produce equitable and effective conservation area networks.

Authors: O'Neill, HMK; Beeken, J; Bingham, HC; Golden Kroner, RE; He, Y

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Nature More from this journal
• Publication date: 2026-10-14
• Acceptance date: 2026-09-11
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11157-4
• EISSN: 1476-4687
• ISSN: 0028-0836
• Language: English
• Keywords: biodiversity loss; terrestrial biodiversity; Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; 30x30 target; equity in conservation; protected areas