DURHAM, N.C. – Under the global Convention on Biological Diversity, governments worldwide set a goal of protecting 10 percent of Earth’s major ecosystems regions by the year 2010. In an article published this week in the journal Biological Conservation, however, scientists from 51 and the University of Maryland conclude we are nowhere near achieving this goal.

In the article, lead author Clinton Jenkins of the University of Maryland and co-author Lucas Joppa of 51’s Nicholas School of the Environment find that fully half of the world’s major ecosystems have yet to reach 10 percent protection.

With less than one year to the 2010 Biodiversity Target deadline, it will be impossible for the world to reach this vaunted conservation milestone, Jenkins and Joppa report. Further, approximately 13 percent of the world’s ecosystems still have no protected areas devoted specifically to protecting biodiversity.

“Without major investments in conservation, spread across the world’s ecosystems, the world is likely to miss the 2010 Target,” says Jenkins, a former research associate at the Nicholas School. “We should not despair though. Reaching the 10 percent goal in 2011 or 2015 or later will still be a major societal achievement, helping preserve the world’s natural heritage for future generations”

Progress is being made, he and Joppa note. Almost 13 percent of the world’s land mass outside Antarctica is within some form of protected area, an increase from earlier estimates. The challenge, the researchers say, is that these protected areas are unevenly distributed across the world’s ecosystems, leaving large gaps in the global safety net.

Recent years have seen the world’s protected area network grow at an average of 0.13 percent of global land area per year. Most of the expansion since 2003 though, has been concentrated in Brazil, and particularly in the Amazon.

“Protected areas are the best chance we have to save the world’s biodiversity, and they are going to play an increasing role in climate change negotiations as well,” says Joppa, a doctoral student at the Nicholas School. “Missing a conservation milestone is regrettable, but we hope our results turn attention to the achievable tasks at hand, and not to what the world has failed to accomplish.”

The article can be found at:  or by contacting the authors.