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Global protected area expansion is compromised by projected land-use and parochialism

Nature volume 516, pages 383–386 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Protected areas are one of the main tools for halting the continuing global biodiversity crisis1,2,3,4 caused by habitat loss, fragmentation and other anthropogenic pressures5,6,7,8. According to the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the protected area network should be expanded to at least 17% of the terrestrial world by 2020 (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets). To maximize conservation outcomes, it is crucial to identify the best expansion areas. Here we show that there is a very high potential to increase protection of ecoregions and vertebrate species by expanding the protected area network, but also identify considerable risk of ineffective outcomes due to land-use change and uncoordinated actions between countries. We use distribution data for 24,757 terrestrial vertebrates assessed under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘red list of threatened species’9, and terrestrial ecoregions10 (827), modified by land-use models for the present and 2040, and introduce techniques for global and balanced spatial conservation prioritization. First, we show that with a coordinated global protected area network expansion to 17% of terrestrial land, average protection of species ranges and ecoregions could triple. Second, if projected land-use change by 2040 (ref. 11) takes place, it becomes infeasible to reach the currently possible protection levels, and over 1,000 threatened species would lose more than 50% of their present effective ranges worldwide. Third, we demonstrate a major efficiency gap between national and global conservation priorities. Strong evidence is shown that further biodiversity loss is unavoidable unless international action is quickly taken to balance land-use and biodiversity conservation. The approach used here can serve as a framework for repeatable and quantitative assessment of efficiency, gaps and expansion of the global protected area network globally, regionally and nationally, considering current and projected land-use pressures.

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Figure 1: Global priority map for the expansion of the PA system.
Figure 2: Cumulative average coverage of species ranges in different fractions of terrestrial land.
Figure 3: Global and national priority expansion areas (2040), and their overlap (38% of top 17% priority areas).

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Acknowledgements

F.M.P., T.T., E.D.M., A.S.K., P.K., J.L. and A.M. thank the European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC-StG) 260393 (Global Environmental Decision Analysis, GEDA), the Academy of Finland centre of excellence programme 2012–2017 and the Natural Heritage Services (Metsähallitus) for support. P.H.V. thanks the ERC grant 311819 (GLOLAND). We thank A. Santangeli, I. Hanski and H. Tuomisto for comments on the manuscript, and CSC-IT Center for Science Ltd, administered by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Finland, for its support and high-performance computing services. We are grateful for the efforts of data providers, IUCN, BirdLife International, Conservation International, the IUCN Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups and IUCN Red List Partners, the World Wildlife Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and their partners and contributors for kindly providing publicly available data, without which this and many other studies would not have been possible.

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Author notes

  1. Federico Montesino Pouzols

    Present address: Present address: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Science & Technology Facilities Council, Harwell Oxford Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK.,

  2. Federico Montesino Pouzols and Tuuli Toivonen: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Metapopulation Biology, Biocenter 3, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1), FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland,

    Federico Montesino Pouzols, Tuuli Toivonen, Enrico Di Minin, Aija S. Kukkala, Peter Kullberg, Johanna Kuusterä, Joona Lehtomäki & Atte Moilanen

  2. Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, PO Box 64 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2a), FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland,

    Tuuli Toivonen & Henrikki Tenkanen

  3. Department of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University Road, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa,

    Enrico Di Minin

  4. Regional Council of Helsinki-Uusimaa, Esterinportti 2 B, FI-00240 Helsinki, Finland,

    Johanna Kuusterä

  5. Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands,

    Peter H. Verburg

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Contributions

F.M.P., T.T. and A.M. wrote the manuscript, with contributions from all authors. F.M.P., T.T., E.D.M., J.L., P.K. and A.M. designed the study. A.M. conceived and led the study. F.M.P. and T.T. analysed the data and prepared the figures and tables. F.M.P. implemented prioritization algorithms and analyses. T.T., E.D.M., A.S.K., P.K., J.K., J.L., H.T. and F.M.P. collected and processed the data. P.H.V. contributed land-use models and data. T.T., E.D.M., A.S.K., P.K., J.K., J.L., H.T. and F.M.P. collected and processed the data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Federico Montesino Pouzols, Tuuli Toivonen or Atte Moilanen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

Original results data and additional interactive visualizations are available online at http://avaa.tdata.fi/web/cbig/.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Changes in spatial conservation priority between present and future (2040).

a–d, The top areas for PA expansion remain relatively stable: the congruence between priority expansion areas for present and projected future land use is 77.9%. Despite relatively high congruence (Supplementary Information), there are important localized differences. The biggest declines in priority would happen in China (d), India (c), eastern Europe and Turkey (b), whereas the changes are more subtle in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.

Extended Data Figure 2 Box plots of protection of effective range (species) and effective extent (ecoregions) in the expanded global PA system, under projected future (2040) land-use conditions.

a, b, Summaries of coverage for species grouped by taxonomic groups (classes) (a) and IUCN status (b). c, Ecoregions grouped by biome. These box plots show median values, twenty-fifth and seventy-fifth percentiles (boxes), whiskers (1.5 times the interquartile range) and outliers. Protection levels are well balanced for different species groups, and between species and ecoregions. Protection levels tend to be lower for less threatened species, as these tend to have wider ranges.

Extended Data Figure 3 Box plots of loss of effective range (species) and effective extent (ecoregions) from projected land-use changes by 2040.

a, Species grouped by taxonomic groups (classes), distinguishing small-range species (range size <50,000 km2). b, Species grouped by IUCN threat status. c, Ecoregions grouped by biome. The proportion of species that are expected to lose a significant fraction of their habitat is higher for species with a higher threat status.

Extended Data Figure 4 Comparison of priority areas for threatened species, and all species and ecoregions, both considering projected future land-use (2040).

a–d, The overall overlap of the respective top 17% priority areas is 62%. Priorities are highly congruent in most biodiversity hotspots of the world. More top priority areas are identified for threatened species in the tropics, whereas there are more top priority areas in higher latitudes for ecoregions and all vertebrate species. IUCN threat categories: critically endangered (CR), endangered (EN) and vulnerable (VU).

Extended Data Figure 5 Global expansion priority areas for projected future (2040) land-use.

a–d, Some of the areas in which the largest spatially contiguous overlaps occur are highlighted. Areas that overlap with biodiversity hotspots (full red) and those outside hotspots (green) are shown.

Extended Data Figure 6 Stacked bar plot showing the distributions of 17% expansion areas across different continents (left) and biomes (right), for future (2040) land-use.

When following national priorities, the distribution of expansion areas tends to be more balanced between biomes, at the expense of lower average protection of species and ecoregions, particularly favouring grasslands over tropical forests. The continental responsibility for Asia is virtually independent on whether national or global priorities are followed, whereas if planning is made nationally, responsibility clearly increases in Africa and North America and decrease in Central and South America. These patterns are stable across time (Supplementary Information).

Extended Data Table 1 Species with projected effective range loss above 30, 50 and 70% for land-use change projected for 2040
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Summary of protection levels of species ranges and ecoregions area for the expanded (17%) PA system
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text and Data 1-6, which include Supplementary Figures 1-56 and Supplementary Tables 1-24 – see Contents for more information. (PDF 10461 kb)

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Montesino Pouzols, F., Toivonen, T., Di Minin, E. et al. Global protected area expansion is compromised by projected land-use and parochialism. Nature 516, 383–386 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14032

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