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30% land conservation and climate action reduces tropical extinction risk by more than 50% |
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| Authors: | Lee Hannah Patrick R. Roehrdanz Pablo A. Marquet Brian J. Enquist Guy Midgley Wendy Foden Jon C. Lovett Richard T. Corlett Derek Corcoran Stuart H. M. Butchart Brad Boyle Xiao Feng Brian Maitner Javier Fajardo Brian J. McGill Cory Merow Naia Morueta-Holme Erica A. Newman Daniel S. Park Niels Raes Jens-Christian Svenning |
| Affiliation: | 1. The Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, 2011 Crystal Dr., Arlington, VA, 22202 USA;2. Dept de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Univ. Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile The Santa Fe Institute, USA, Santa Fe, NM, USA;3. The Santa Fe Institute, USA, Santa Fe, NM, USA Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA;4. Dept of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch Univ, Stellenbosch, South Africa;5. Cape Research Centre, South African National Parks, Cape Town, South Africa;6. School of Geography, The Univ. of Leeds, Leeds, UK Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK;7. Centre for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Yunnan, China;8. Dept de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Univ. Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB), Santiago, Chile;9. BirdLife International, David Attenborough Building, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, UK Dept of Zoology, Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK;10. Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA;11. Dept de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Univ. Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile;12. School of Biology and Ecology, and Senator George J. Mitchell Center of Sustainability Solutions, Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME, USA;13. Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Connecticut, CT, USA;14. Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate;15. GLOBE Institute;16. Univ. of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;17. Dept of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard Univ, MA, USA;18. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands;19. Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE), Dept of Biology, Aarhus Univ, Aarhus, Denmark |
| Abstract: | Limiting climate change to less than 2°C is the focus of international policy under the climate convention (UNFCCC), and is essential to preventing extinctions, a focus of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The post-2020 biodiversity framework drafted by the CBD proposes conserving 30% of both land and oceans by 2030. However, the combined impact on extinction risk of species from limiting climate change and increasing the extent of protected and conserved areas has not been assessed. Here we create conservation spatial plans to minimize extinction risk in the tropics using data on 289 219 species and modeling two future greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP2.6 and 8.5) while varying the extent of terrestrial protected land and conserved areas from <17% to 50%. We find that limiting climate change to 2°C and conserving 30% of terrestrial area could more than halve aggregate extinction risk compared with uncontrolled climate change and no increase in conserved area. |
| Keywords: | area-based conservation biodiversity climate change conservation planning extinction risk |