16 April 2022 | New Scientist | 51be foolish to invest too much optimism in it,
he says. And it is just one of 21 targets in the
draft treaty. “It is an important part, but it’s
largely insufficient to achieve the overall
objectives,” says Leadley. We also need to make
sure other causes of biodiversity loss are
managed, he says – things like climate change,
pollution and invasive species that don’t
respect the boundaries of protected areas.
And if the CBD process were all we had, we
would be right to be worried, says Dinerstein –
but it isn’t. “I think change is going to come
from a coalition led by scientists, young
people, Indigenous peoples and local
communities and by civil society that will force
governments to act,” he says. “I’m optimistic
that we can save life on Earth. It takes crises for
humanity to respond, but we do respond.” ❚Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the
University of Queensland in Australia. The fear
is that, even if 30 by 30 makes the final cut, new
protected areas will be similarly toothless – and
there is little that can be done to prevent it,
says Woodley. Though the IUCN has laid
down formal definitions of what constitutes
protection, and has got better at measuring
and monitoring, “it doesn’t stop countries
from cheating, it can’t solve the corruption
that lies at the heart of the issue”, says Woodley.
Resourcing is a real concern, says Leadley,
and the danger is 30 by 30 might backfire if
countries spread already-scarce resources even
more thinly. Negotiators may also smuggle
some cheats into the treaty, such as allowing
heavily managed forests or even palm
plantations carved from richly biodiverse
tropical rainforests to be counted towards
the target. “That’s false accounting, and that
would be tragic,” says Dinerstein.
Ultimately, achieving 30 by 30 relies on
so many things that have gone wrong in the
past going right in the future that it wouldthat has seen very little human influence will
not necessarily do much to help biodiversity.
“Biodiversity is distributed very unevenly
on planet Earth,” says Woodley. It is equally
important to preserve the right places, to
manage them well and to connect them up
where possible to increase their effectiveness.
All of these goals were in the Aichi targets
and are in the draft of the new ones. This is, in
part, why the 20 Aichi targets were missed, says
Piero Visconti at the International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg,
Austria. Too many nations gamed the system
by establishing protected areas in places that
were “disproportionately unimportant for
biodiversity”, he says, such as in Alaska and
the arid Australian outback, and too many
new areas were “paper parks” with boundaries
drawn on maps but little or no management
or actual protection put in place.
Indeed, even though areas under protection
have increased since 2010, protection of
biodiversity hasn’t increased proportionately,
says Sean Maxwell at the Centre for
Graham Lawton is a feature writer
for New ScientistVery low human influenceLow human influenceWhere the wild places are
There is no one way to quantify human influence on nature, but combining different methods allows us
to produce maps of areas of Earth’s surface where human influence is low and very low. Different types
of ecosystem differ vastly in the proportions deemed to be low or very-low influence.Global
Tundra
Boreal forests
Deserts
Temperate coniferous forests
Montane grasslands
Tropical moist forests
Mediterranean
Tropical grasslands
Flooded grasslands
Temperate broadleaf forests
Mangroves
Temperate grasslands
Tropical dry forests
Tropical coniferous forests
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%Global
Tundra
Boreal forests
Deserts
Temperate coniferous forests
Montane grasslands
Tropical moist forests
Tropical grasslands
Flooded grasslands
Temperate grasslands
Mediterranean
Mangroves
Temperate broadleaf forests
Tropical coniferous forests
Tropical dry forests
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%SOURCE: Riccio et al. doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15109Permanent ice & snow Most likely low influence Least likely low influencePermanent ice & snow Most likely very low influence Least likely very low influencePercentage of ecosystem type with different grades of influence