Protected areas: are they safeguarding biodiversity?

Protected areas spearhead our response to the rapidly accelerating biodiversity crisis. However, while the number of protected areas has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years, the extent to which the world’s protected areas are effectively conserving species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services is poorly understood.

Protected areas spearhead our response to the rapidly accelerating biodiversity crisis. However, while the number of protected areas has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years, the extent to which the world’s protected areas are effectively conserving species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services is poorly understood. This information is essential for understanding the global, regional and national status and trends of the world’s biodiversity and is required in order to develop a strategic response to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2020 targets. It is also essential for assessing the overall role of protected areas in biodiversity conservation and identifying where protected areas need to be further integrated with other conservation efforts to achieve effective species conservation. A better understanding of which protected areas are more successful at conserving intact wildlife populations, and which are not, will enable the identification of conditions and management practices that lead to successful protection.

This symposium will provide a synthetic analysis of the world’s protected area portfolio. A key theme will be to identify components of the current portfolio: how is it funded, managed and monitored, and to ask how protected areas have performed from a biodiversity conservation perspective. The symposium will also address how we can most effectively manage the portfolio into the future, and identify the new tools and technologies, including governance and financing mechanisms, necessary for ensuring effective biodiversity preservation within the global protected area network.

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