The world may be closer to its 30% land conservation goal, but gaps in grassland and shrubland protection show why acreage alone cannot safeguard wildlife.
Some areas that support wildlife appear in national conservation records but are missing from the global tally. Including them could bring the share of land in some form of conservation to 26.8%, or nearly 27%, well above the officially reported 18.5%.
That difference changes the picture for an international commitment to protect nature. Almost every country has agreed to conserve 30% of land and sea by 2030 to help halt and reverse the biodiversity crisis, yet official figures suggest that progress on land has stalled.
“With four years to go, the terrestrial component of the 30% target seems out of reach. Our analysis suggests that much more of the land is in some type of conservation area than currently recognized,” says lead author Helen O’Neill, a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute of Zoology in London.
Conservation areas beyond the official count
To build the broader estimate, an international team of conservation experts combined global measures of protection with national data on conservation areas. The study, published in Nature, was led by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
“We need much more effort to officially recognize the existing conservation areas that are currently only recorded in national datasets.” That is the call from the study’s lead investigator, Bob Smith, director of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. The university is part of the London and Southeast University Group.
Grasslands and shrublands need more protection
Grasslands and shrublands, home to uniquely adapted wildlife, still have limited protection even within this larger conservation network. These gaps mean that expanding the total area alone cannot ensure that the full range of habitats receives protection.
Co-author Heather Bingham, who leads the Protected Planet Initiative at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, stresses that “conserving 30% of lands and seas is not sufficient on its own. The target also calls for these areas to be managed effectively for positive biodiversity outcomes, and to be placed where they will have the greatest impact for biodiversity.”
Meeting those requirements means connecting conservation areas, including diverse ecosystems, and managing sites fairly for local people. Smith adds, “We also need to focus much more on improving the effectiveness of all conservation areas, as increasing the area of land under conservation will do little unless these sites are effectively and fairly managed.”
Reference: “Global conservation area coverage substantially exceeds current estimates” by Helen M. K. O’Neill, Joe Beeken, Heather C. Bingham, Rachel E. Golden Kroner, Yifan He, Jessica L. Stewart, Adil Mohamed Ali, Javier Beltran, Joseph W. Bull, Susan Canney, Nuwanthika Dharmaratne, Cristina Eghenter, James A. Fitzsimons, Samantha Hill, Clinton N. Jenkins, Cindy Julianty, Yolanda M. Leon, John MacKinnon, Alphonce B. Mallya, Daniel Marnewick, Golo Maurer, Mayra Milkovic, Ameer Awad Mohammed, Yuvenal Pantaleo, Blair Parsons, Fábio Ricarte, Ryan Richards, Sushma Shrestha Sangat, Dewi Puspitasari Sutejo, Mridhu Tandon, Corrado Teofili, Kasmita Widodo, Jens Wunderlich, Steffen Zuther, Zoe G. Davies and Robert J. Smith, 14 October 2026, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11157-4
H.M.K.O., Z.G.D. and R.J.S. disclose support for the research of this work from the UK Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Fund (grant no. ES/S008160/1) and Research England ‘Expanding Excellence in England’ fund. J. Beeken discloses support for the research of this work from the University of Kent Social Science Faculty Research Fund 2019/2020. N.D. discloses support for the research of this work from the Natural Environment Research Council and ARIES DTP (grant no. NE/S007334/1).
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