World’s protected areas do not benefit wildlife

For protected areas to be effective, they need to be large and in the right place to keep wild species alive.

The world’s governments will this year negotiate a series of targets in response to the global biodiversity crisis that has already led to a massive loss of the planet’s wildlife. While none of the previous round of targets agreed in 2010 have been met, the one that gained the most publicity, and arguably the one we got closest to achieving was target 11. Its aim was that: By 2020, at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas … are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas.