The signs of a crisis abound. Underwritten by global human population growth and our appetite for land and resources, potentially cataclysmic climate changes are combining to create a human-induced sixth mass extinction1 for global biodiversity, with as many as one million species now threatened with extinction.2
Creating protected areas has been recognized as a key strategy for addressing species decline. These areas offer “land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means”3 and form the backbone of most countries’ conservation systems.4 Protected areas have steadily grown in both number and acreage since their inception.5,6 Globally, these cover approximately 16 percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface;7 in Australia, 13,389 recognized protected areas cover 151,881,469 hectares – almost 20 percent of the continent, as of 2018.8
In late 2022, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Target Three (also called “30×30”)9 posited an urgent response to a global challenge. Ratified by moreby 2030. Achieving this target on a planetary scale, however, is a tremendous task.
