Progress towards an international target to protect nearly a third of the ocean by 2030 is faltering: much of the protection enacted so far is largely ineffective, and thousands more protected areas are needed.
These warnings have been issued by leading marine experts as national negotiators meet in Cali, Colombia, for the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16).
At COP15 in 2022, countries signed up to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes the so-called “30×30” goal. Its aim is to protect at least 30% of Earth’s lands and oceans by 2030.
But a global assessment of progress, commissioned by the Bloomberg Ocean Fund and published last week, suggests the ocean target remains a long way off.
“Marine protected areas” (MPAs), and what are known in conservation circles as “other effective area-based conservation measures”, cover just 8.3% of the ocean, the report states. Even worse, the total area where such measures are actually being implemented to deliver high or full protection is thought to amount to only 2.8%.
More MPAs are being created all the time. Just this month, Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, proudly announced that the country “protects more ocean than any other country on Earth”. Plibersek was remarking upon the incorporation of 310,000 square kilometres of waters around the Heard and McDonald Islands into an existing marine park in the Southern Ocean. And last week, the Azores’ government approved protections for an area of nearly the same size in the North Atlantic.
“There have been more and more MPAs created … but it’s not enough,” says Monica Medina, a former US Assistant Secretary of State who now works on ocean issues at Conservation International.
Based on the current rate of growth, the global assessment team estimate that only 9.7% of the ocean will be protected by 2030.
Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets the world a goal to “conserve 30% of land, waters and seas”.
The full target text contains numerous additional provisions and caveats:
Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.
Another report released this month suggests that protecting 30% of the ocean will require an additional 300 large and 190,000 small MPAs in waters under government control. This does not include the high seas, a vast area that lies outside national jurisdiction.
“The results are alarming. But this is not an insurmountable challenge,” says the report’s author, Kristin Rechberger. She is the CEO of Dynamic Planet, a Washington DC-based company that works on environmental finance.
Indonesia, Canada, Russia and the US would each have to designate over 15,000 protected areas to hit 30%, the report states. China would need nearly 6,000 additional protected areas. This assumes each country would protect 30% of its own waters, something the target itself does not specify. In fact, earlier this year, one team of researchers suggested in the journal Science that countries should be allowed to trade their ocean conservation obligations.
Adding to the problem is the fact that many of the roughly 13,000 MPAs currently in existence have been found to be poorly managed “paper parks”, with little enforcement. Some allow activities such as bottom trawling, which can cause huge damage to the environment.
Rechberger’s team also looked at this problem, analysing how many more MPAs were needed while excluding those that already exist but are incompatible with conservation. The team found another 70 large and 24,000 small protected areas would be required, in addition to their previous calculation. And, if this analysis was based only on highly and fully protected areas, the total number of large and small MPAs still needed to hit 30×30 rises to 422 and 334,000 respectively.
Paper parks
Rechberger’s work builds on a study released earlier this year, which looked at the 100 largest MPAs in the world. These cover 7.3% of the ocean and account for nearly 90% of the area of all MPAs globally.
Beth Pike, the report’s lead author and director of a marine protection database (Marine Protection Atlas), found that in a quarter of the area covered, protections had not actually been implemented. A third of the area was deemed “incompatible with the conservation of nature”, due to the supposed protections allowing for activities such as mining or industrial fishing.
“Things that are fully, highly protected and implemented or actively managed is really the gold standard for what it going to give us the most return on investment,” says Pike, who also contributed to the 30×30 progress report.
The conference runway
Many conservation experts are hoping the COP16 meeting in Cali ends with major government commitments to create more and better protections for the ocean.
Other meetings are also on their agenda.
This week in Samoa, 56 Commonwealth countries’ heads of government are expected to agree a declaration on the importance of ocean protection. Also overlapping the Cali meeting is the latest gathering of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, Australia. There, nations involved in the Antarctic are discussing long-mooted and long-deadlocked plans to expand marine protection in the Southern Ocean.
But, arguably, the key areas for the 30×30 goal are outside of national jurisdiction, on the high seas. These areas make up two thirds of the ocean but just 1.4% of them are currently protected, under agreements such as the convention governing the Antarctic.
In 2023, a deal was struck for an international treaty that would make it easier to create protected areas on the high seas. The treaty requires ratification by 60 countries before it comes into force. To date, only 13 nations have done so.
So, while the 30×30 goal may be simple to explain, achieving it looks anything but.
What’s more, Pike points out that there are 23 targets in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. These include halting extinctions, ensuring sustainable harvesting of wild species, reducing pollution and minimising the impact of climate change on biodiversity.
“There are 22 other targets in regards to the sustainable use of those oceans, without which the 30% could never succeed, even if we got to it,” she says.
