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Social considerations are crucial to success in implementing the 30×30 global conservation target

Published Article

Global

Publication date: April 12, 2023

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This global study highlights that achieving the 30×30 conservation target requires deep attention to social factors, including equity, governance, and the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. Effective implementation depends on understanding social impacts and ensuring fair, inclusive conservation approaches.

Subject Tags

  • Indigenous Peoples
  • Biodiversity
  • Equitable conservation

Abstract

Following intense negotiation over several years, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework1 — adopted in December 2022 — includes an ambitious target for area-based conservation as part of the global effort to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Target 3 of the framework aims to increase the global coverage of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to at least 30 per cent by 2030 (sometimes referred to as ‘30×30’), such that this increase delivers benefits for biodiversity and human society, while “recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories”. We seek to emphasize that achieving target 3 requires new knowledge about the social implications of different scenarios by which it might be implemented. Generating this knowledge will require innovative collaboration across disciplines and sectors.

Target 3 has the potential to be transformative for the long-term future of nature and the benefits it provides to people. However, as might be expected for a global target, the exact wording allows diverse interpretations of how it might be implemented in different contexts. For example, the text of target 3 gives a broad specification of where area-based conservation should take place: “at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services … through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures”. An approach that emphasizes the protection of the most species possible would produce a very different set of protected and conserved areas to one that emphasizes the delivery of benefits to people. Similarly, the target does not specify how the 30% should break down in terms of the area under different governance arrangements or how strict the rules that govern human presence and activities in protected and conserved areas should be.

Citation

Sandbrook, C., Albury-Smith, S., Allan, J. R., Bhola, N., Bingham, H. C., Brockington, D., ... & Zaehringer, J. G. (2023). Social considerations are crucial to success in implementing the 30× 30 global conservation target. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 7(6), 784-785.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02048-2

TNC Authors