Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people

Nature Sustainability volume 2, pages 1094–1096 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

In light of continuing global biodiversity loss, one ambitious proposal has gained considerable traction amongst conservationists: the goal to protect half the Earth. Our analysis suggests that at least one billion people live in places that would be protected if the Half Earth proposal were implemented within all ecoregions. Taking into account the social and economic impacts of such proposals is central to addressing social and environmental justice concerns, and assessing their acceptability and feasibility.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: Additional areas to be protected to meet Half Earth 50% protection targets within each ecoregion.

Data availability

The datasets used in this study are all publically available or available to educational institutions for non-commercial purposes, but not distributable by the authors. Details of each dataset and download links are provided in the Supplementary Information.

Code availability

The R code used to reproduce the results is provided in the Supplementary Information.

References

  1. The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (CBD, 2010).

  2. Tittensor, D. P. et al. A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets. Science 346, 241–245 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Global Assessment Preview (IPBES, 2019).

  4. Locke, H. Nature needs half: a necessary and hopeful new agenda for protected areas in North America and around the world. George Wright Forum 31, 359–371 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Wilson, E. O. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (Liveright, 2016).

  6. Dinerstein, E. et al. A global deal for nature: guiding principles, milestones, and targets. Sci. Adv. 5, eaaw2869 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Synthesis of Views of Parties and Observers on the Scope and Content of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (CBD, 2019).

  8. Dinerstein, E. et al. An ecoregion-based approach to protecting half the terrestrial realm. BioScience 67, 534–545 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Mehrabi, Z., Ellis, E. C. & Ramankutty, N. The challenge of feeding the world while conserving half the planet. Nat. Sustain. 1, 409–412 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Ellis, E. C., Pascual, U. & Mertz, O. Ecosystem services and nature’s contribution to people: negotiating diverse values and trade-offs in land systems. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 38, 86–94 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Brockington, D. & Wilkie, D. Protected areas and poverty. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 370, 20140271 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Oldekop, J. A., Holmes, G., Harris, W. E. & Evans, K. L. A global assessment of the social and conservation outcomes of protected areas. Conserv. Biol. 30, 133–141 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. West, P., Igoe, J. & Brockington, D. Parks and peoples: the social impact of protected areas. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 35, 251–277 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Büscher, B. et al. Half-Earth or whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications. Oryx 51, 407–410 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kopnina, H. Half the earth for people (or more)? Addressing ethical questions in conservation. Biol. Conserv. 203, 176–185 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Venter, O. et al. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Nat. Commun. 7, 12558 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. World Database on Protected Areas (UNEP-WCMC & IUCN, 2018); https://protectedplanet.net

  18. Bright, E. A., Rose, A. N., Urban, M. L. & McKee, J. LandScan 2017 High-Resolution Global Population Data Set (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2018).

  19. Balmford, A. et al. Conservation conflicts across Africa. Science 291, 2616–2619 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Visconti, P., Bakkenes, M., Smith, R. J., Joppa, L. & Sykes, R. E. Socio-economic and ecological impacts of global protected area expansion plans. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 370, 20140284 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Ten Brink, B. et al. Rethinking Global Biodiversity Strategies: Exploring Structural Changes in Production and Consumption to Reduce Biodiversity Loss (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010).

  22. Database of Global Administrative Areas (GADM, 2018) https://gadm.org/

  23. Country Classification (World Bank, 2018).

  24. ArcGIS for Desktop v.10.4.1 (ESRI, 2016).

  25. R Core Team R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2018).

Download references

Acknowledgements

J.G.Z. undertook this work while a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (May 2018–April 2019), and was supported by the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme), which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (grant no. 400440 152167). Our analysis was conducted utilizing the LandScan (2017) high resolution global population data set copyrighted by UT-Battelle, LLC, operator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the United States Department of Energy.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Judith Schleicher, Julie G. Zaehringer, Bhaskar Vira & Chris Sandbrook

  2. Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Julie G. Zaehringer

  3. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK

    Constance Fastré

  4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Piero Visconti

Authors
  1. Judith Schleicher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Julie G. Zaehringer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Constance Fastré
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Bhaskar Vira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Piero Visconti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Chris Sandbrook
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.S., J.G.Z., C.F., B.V., P.V. and C.S. designed the analyses. J.S. and J.G.Z. compiled the data and conducted the analyses. J.S. wrote the paper with input from J.G.Z., C.F., B.V., P.V. and C.S.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Judith Schleicher.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3, methods, notes and references.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schleicher, J., Zaehringer, J.G., Fastré, C. et al. Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Nat Sustain 2, 1094–1096 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0423-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0423-y

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing