PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - James R. Allan
AU  - Hugh P. Possingham
AU  - Scott C. Atkinson
AU  - Anthony Waldron
AU  - Moreno Di Marco
AU  - Vanessa M. Adams
AU  - Stuart H. M. Butchart
AU  - Oscar Venter
AU  - Martine Maron
AU  - Brooke A. Williams
AU  - Kendall R. Jones
AU  - Piero Visconti
AU  - Brendan A. Wintle
AU  - April E. Reside
AU  - James E.M. Watson
TI  - Conservation attention necessary across at least 44% of Earth’s terrestrial area to safeguard biodiversity
AID  - 10.1101/839977
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 839977
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/12/839977.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/12/839977.full
AB  - More ambitious conservation efforts are needed to stop the global degradation of ecosystems and the extinction of the species that comprise them. Here, we estimate the minimum amount of land needed to secure known important sites for biodiversity, Earth’s remaining wilderness, and the optimal locations for adequate representation of terrestrial species distributions and ecoregions. We discover that at least 64 million km2 (43.6% of Earth’s terrestrial area) requires conservation attention either through site-scale interventions (e.g. protected areas) or landscape-scale responses (e.g. land-use policies). Spatially explicit land-use scenarios show that 1.2 million km2 of land requiring conservation attention is projected to be lost to intensive human land-use by 2030 and therefore requires immediate protection. Nations, local communities and industry are urged to implement the actions necessary to safeguard the land areas critical for conserving biodiversity.