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Making global targets local for freshwater protection

Nature Sustainability (2023)Cite this article

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Freshwaters require targeted policy considerations to achieve biodiversity conservation goals and to support ecosystem services that communities around the globe depend upon. Effective conservation requires creative solutions that build and expand upon conventional protected areas, contextualized for these diverse ecosystems.

Global recognition of the need for protection targeting inland waters has lagged behind protections for marine and terrestrial ecosystems, likely contributing to the greatest biodiversity losses occurring among freshwater species1. In December 2022, at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties, inland waters were specifically included for area-based protection in Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), calling for “at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas” to be protected by 2030 (commonly referred to as ‘30x30’)2. The inclusion of inland waters (defined as fresh, inland brackish and saline systems) in Target 3, and the discussions that led to this outcome, have put more emphasis on the need to protect inland waters in their own right. This heightened attention opens the door to new national-level action, such as explicit and intentional incorporation of inland waters in National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, the main implementation mechanism of the GBF. Nevertheless, how global inland waters protection initiatives are tracked or implemented locally remains unclear.

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Fig. 1: Freshwater protections fall along a spectrum of management intensity and restriction.
Fig. 2: Global patterns of fish species richness are mapped with key biodiversity areas (that include freshwater).

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Ronnenberg for her assistance with graphics development and K. Christiansen for mapping key biodiversity area data. We also thank BirdLife International for sharing the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas, and T. Starnes of the IUCN Science and Data Center for assisting with data interpretation. R.L.F., R.A. and I.H. were supported by their respective organizations to craft this manuscript. I.A. and B.E.P. were supported by H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) programme under the NSF grant LTER8 DEB-2025755.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Rebecca L. Flitcroft & Brooke E. Penaluna

  2. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA

    Robin Abell

  3. Conservation International, Arlington, VA, USA

    Ian Harrison

  4. Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Ivan Arismendi

Authors
  1. Rebecca L. Flitcroft
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  2. Robin Abell
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  3. Ian Harrison
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  4. Ivan Arismendi
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  5. Brooke E. Penaluna
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Contributions

Conceptualization: R.L.F., R.A., I.H., I.A. and B.E.P.; visualization: R.L.F., R.A. and I.A.; writing — original draft: R.L.F., R.A. and I.H.; writing — reviewing and editing: R.L.F., R.A., I.H., I.A. and B.E.P.

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Correspondence to Rebecca L. Flitcroft.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Cecilia Gontijo Leal and Heidi Van Deventer for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Flitcroft, R.L., Abell, R., Harrison, I. et al. Making global targets local for freshwater protection. Nat Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01193-7

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