[00:00.00]A recent report by environmental researchers says that protecting 1.2 percent of the Earth's land surface could prevent most extinctions.
[00:13.99]Extinction is the permanent disappearance of an animal or plant from the Earth.
[00:22.31]The researchers estimated that such an expansion of nature preserves would cost about $263 billion.
[00:34.43]In 2022, United Nations delegates to the COP15 meeting in Montreal, Canada, promised to protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface by 2030.
[00:51.76]The U.N. calls the promise the "30-by-30 target."
[00:57.07]It aims to protect plants and animals severely affected by climate change, pollution, and habitat destruction.
[01:07.96]In October, U.N. delegates will gather for a COP16 biodiversity meeting in Colombia to discuss plans for reaching the 30-by-30 goal.
[01:23.38]The recent study was published in Frontiers in Science.
[01:28.53]In it, the researchers aimed to identify the highest value areas around the world.
[01:36.58]Carlos Peres said he hopes the areas identified will be included in protection plans.
[01:44.36]Peres was a co-writer of the study and is a conservation ecology expert at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
[01:57.02]Perese said, "Most countries do not actually have a strategy."
[02:02.46]He said, "The 30-by-30 targets still lack a lot of details because it doesn't actually say what 30 percent should be protected."
[02:14.84]The study's proposed protections would cover an additional 1.6 million square kilometers.
[02:25.23]This is an area about one fifth the size of the United States.
[02:31.78]The study includes 16,825 sites that are home to rare and threatened wildlife.
[02:43.68]It is estimated that nearly 16 percent of the world's surface already has some level of protection.
[02:53.46]The study estimated that the cost of purchasing land by governments would be about $263 billion.
[03:04.73]Many of these areas include private property and would be bought at current market values over the next five years.
[03:15.31]"Time is not on our side," Peres said, "because it will become increasingly more expensive and more difficult to set aside additional protected areas."
[03:30.02]Most of the cost of creating protected areas is in buying the land.
[03:38.08]The study did not consider the costs for policing and maintaining the nature preserves.
[03:46.01]About three-quarters of the sites are tropical forests.
[03:52.47]The Philippines, Brazil, and Indonesia are home to more than half of the high-valued areas.
[04:02.19]Russia is the one country with the most high-valued areas.
[04:08.37]The study said about 138,000 square kilometers should be the target of conservation.
[04:18.52]Several African countries are also at the top of the list.
[04:24.31]Madagascar has the fourth-highest number of areas.
[04:29.11]And the Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest area targeted for conservation in Africa.
[04:39.89]The United States is among the top 30 countries in the study.
[04:45.35]The study said about 0.6 percent of the U.S. should be targeted for conservation.
[04:53.08]That is an area about the size of the state of Delaware.
[04:59.33]The researchers only considered land and freshwater areas.
[05:04.57]They did not consider oceans or marine protected areas.
[05:10.95]The study also did not include kinds of animals such as invertebrates, or animals without a backbone, like insects.
[05:21.24]The U.S.-based nonprofit group One Earth paid for the study.
[05:27.72]I'm Anna Matteo.
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Words in This Story
preserve -n. a protected area for a special purpose
habitat -n. a place where wildlife naturally lives
biodiversity -n. the condition of having many different kinds of plants and animals in a place
conservation -n. efforts to preserve and maintain natural lands and resources
ecology -n. the study of relationships between living things
strategy -n. a long-term plan to reach a goal
expensive -adj. costly; requiring a lot of money
tropical -n. related to areas of the Earth between about 22 degrees north and 22 degrees south latitude
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