Scientists and Environmental Leaders Call for “global deal for nature” to Protect Half the World’s lands and seas

Nations must commit to protect half of the Earth to avoid massive biodiversity loss and the worst effects of dangerous climate change, according to a new scientific paper entitled A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding Principles, Milestones, and Targets, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The paper lays out a science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth by protecting natural ecosystems that play a critical function in storing carbon, producing freshwater, and providing food security – the enabling conditions required for humanity to thrive.

The proposed GDN targets 30% of Earth to be formally protected no later than 2030 under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with approximately 20% in additional lands designated as Climate Stabilization Areas (CSAs), to help the world stay below the recommended target of a 1.5°C rise in average global temperature and to preserve biodiversity.

Building on a landmark study from 2017 by many of the same scientists, the new paper provides the rationale for a GDN agreement between nations to protect half of the Earth - adding analysis of existing conservation strategies and a clear pathway to achieving the goal through, for example, a stronger focus on the rights of indigenous communities to steward their lands for effective conservation.

This campaign, being spearheaded by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s One Earth initiative, aims to usher in a new era of ambitious conservation in which international institutions, governments and people work together to save nature - from supporting communal conservancies in Namibia’s Damaraland that is home to wild lions and elephant herds, to indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon that conserve key ecosystems and safe havens for jaguars and rare primates, to the last home of the orangutan in indigenous reserves in Borneo.

Based on the GDN paper, a petition has now been launched by One Earth and leading nongovernmental and indigenous organizations, asking the public to support the most comprehensive conservation targets yet to save biodiversity, avert a climate crisis, and ensure a future for humanity.

GDN paper co-author Anup Joshi, who is also the Conservation Sciences program coordinator and a research associate in CFANS, said: “High spatial overlap between intact vertebrate assembles, high beta-diversity areas and total carbon storage (above ground and below ground) in 566 ecoregions out of 846 terrestrial ecoregions in the earth, provide an opportunity to address both species extinction and climate change issues simultaneously. We found enough remaining intact habitats in these ecoregions to meet GDN target of 30% protection goal by 2030, an important milestone towards protection of 50% terrestrial realm by 2050 (Dinerstein et al. 2017), necessary to reduce species extinction and greenhouse gas emissions, to remain below 1.5°C rise in global temperature. Integrating GDN efforts with the Paris Agreement on Climate change will be an efficient way to tackle both species extinction and climate change. All signatory countries of the Paris Agreement have to provide biannual report on their Nationally Determined Contributions towards greenhouse gas emissions, most countries have identified management of forestry sector as one of their means to reduce emissions. By encouraging countries to set aside intact forests in these ecoregions under protection or sustainable management, both goals can be achieved.”