The world may be much closer to its 2030 conservation goal than we thought
New research suggests far more of Earth's land is conserved than official records show, but major gaps in biodiversity protection remain. Nearly every country has committed to conserving 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. The official count says the world is stuck at 18.5%, so the goal seems far away. But that count only includes sites that governments have reported to one global database. Add the parks, reserves and community lands recorded only in national files, and about 27% of the world’s land is likely already conserved in some form. Helen O’Neill of the Zoological Society of London led the work with Bob Smith of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. The team’s estimate rests on a sample covering a tenth of the planet’s land, and they wrote that the true figure is probably higher. The uncounted land, though, mostly lies in the same…