Sci. Adv. https://doi.org/gvkp (2021).
Developing targets at a national level that synergistically benefit biodiversity and climate is key to achieving the goals of both the upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 15 and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 26. Writing in Science Advances, Zhu et al. develop a framework for achieving such synergies in terrestrial ecosystems across scales in Asia, which contains 10 of the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots but in which only 9% of land is protected. Using data on terrestrial vertebrate species richness, and below- and above-ground carbon storage, the authors identify priorities at regional, biome and national scales, and assess how those scales can relate to a national-level target of 30% protected terrestrial area. Regions with notably high priority and low current protection include the India–Myanmar pine forests and the southwest Arabian montane woodlands and grasslands. The authors show that whereas current protected areas can only meet effective-protection targets for 20% of mammals, 12% of birds, 10% of reptiles and 8% of amphibians, these numbers increase to 84%, 79%, 70% and 61%, respectively, using their regional priorities. Likewise, the synergy priorities can increase carbon protection from 9% to 46%. The authors acknowledge that meeting human needs is crucial, and that a range of approaches to protection are needed given that cities and agricultural areas feature highly in some of their priority areas. However, by identifying targets that work at different scales, national-level targets can be set to achieve regional and global goals.
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