Earth’s Natural Heritage’

For professionals tasked with managing protected areas, it is imperative that they have a broad understanding of the intrinsic natural values of our planet. In this chapter we provide this overview. We describe some of Earth’s natural processes, and its exceptional geodiversity and biodiversity. Then we briefly introduce, at a global scale, the impacts that humans are having on Earth’s natural heritage early in the 21st Century. This helps to emphasise why protected areas of all types, including government, non-government, private, indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs), are needed and why the efforts of each individual manager or ranger working in support of their local protected area or protected area system is so critical. Fundamentally it is the sum total of these individual and local conservation efforts that is contributing to the retention of life on Earth.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Crop expansion and conservation priorities in tropical countries

Expansion of cropland in tropical countries is one of the principal causes of biodiversity loss, and threatens to undermine progress towards meeting the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. To understand this threat better, we analysed data on crop distribution and expansion in 128 tropical countries, assessed changes in area of the main crops and mapped overlaps between conservation priorities and cultivation potential. Rice was the single crop grown over the largest area, especially in tropical forest biomes. Cropland in tropical countries expanded by c. 48,000 km2 per year from 1999–2008. The countries which added the greatest area of new cropland were Nigeria, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Brazil. Soybeans and maize are the crops which expanded most in absolute area. Other crops with large increases included rice, sorghum, oil palm, beans, sugar cane, cow peas, wheat and cassava. Areas of high cultivation potential—while bearing in mind that political and socio-economic conditions can be as influential as biophysical ones—may be vulnerable to conversion in the future. These include some priority areas for biodiversity conservation in tropical countries (e.g., Frontier Forests and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas), which have previously been identified as having ‘low vulnerability’, in particular in central Africa and northern Australia. There are also many other smaller areas which are important for biodiversity and which have high cultivation potential (e.g., in the fringes of the Amazon basin, in the Paraguayan Chaco, and in the savanna woodlands of the Sahel and East Africa). We highlight the urgent need for more effective sustainability standards and policies addressing both production and consumption of tropical commodities, including robust land-use planning in agricultural frontiers, establishment of new protected areas or REDD+ projects in places agriculture has not yet reached, and reduction or elimination of incentives for land-demanding bioenergy feedstock

Global trends in protected area connectivity from 2010 to 2018

Connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is needed to ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery. The Convention on Biological Diversity agreed in 2010 to have 17% of land covered by well-connected PA systems by 2020 (Aichi Target 11). We here globally assess, for all countries, the trends in terrestrial PA connectivity every other year from 2010 to 2018 using the ProtConn indicator, which quantifies how well the PA systems are designed to support connectivity. The percentage of protected connected land (ProtConn) has increased globally from 6.5% in 2010 to 7.7% in 2018. Oceania experienced the largest recent increase in PA connectivity, whereas Asia is the only content with a lower ProtConn in 2018 than in 2010. Globally, the relative increase in the percentage of protected connected land (ProtConn) is nearly twice that of the percentage of land under protection (PA coverage), due to clear improvements in the design of PA systems for connectivity in many regions. The connectivity of the PA networks has become more dependent on the permeability of the unprotected landscape matrix in between PAs and on the coordinated management of adjacent PAs with different designations and of transboundary PA linkages. The relatively slow recent increase in PA connectivity globally (2016–2018) raises doubt as to whether connectivity targets will be met by 2020, and suggests that considerable further action is required to promote better-connected PA systems globally, including the expansion of the PA systems to cover key areas for connectivity in many countries and regions

Inland surface waters in protected areas globally:Current coverage and 30-year trends

Inland waters are unique ecosystems offering services and habitat resources upon which many species depend. Despite the importance of, and threats to, inland water, global assessments of protected area (PA) coverage and trends have focused on land habitats or have assessed land and inland waters together. We here provide the first assessment of the level of protection of inland open surface waters and their trends (1984–2015) within PAs for all countries, using a globally consistent, high-resolution (30 m) and validated dataset on permanent and seasonal surface waters based on Landsat images. Globally, 15% of inland surface waters are covered by PAs with mapped boundaries. Estimated inland water protection increases to 16.4% if PAs with reported area but delineated only as points are included as circular buffers. These coverage estimates slightly exceed the comparable figure for land but fall below the 17% goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Target 11 for 2020. Protection levels are very uneven across countries, half of which do not yet meet the 17% target. The lowest coverage of surface water by PAs (<5%) was found in Africa and in parts of Asia. There was a global trend of permanent water losses and seasonal water gains within PAs, concomitant with an increase of both water types outside PAs. In 38% of countries, PAs lost over 5% of permanent water. Global protection targets for inland waters may well be met by 2020, but much stronger efforts are required to ensure their effective conservation, which will depend not only on sound PA governance and management but also on the sustainable use of water resources outside PAs. Given the pressures on water in a rapidly changing world, integrated management planning of water resources involving multiple sectors and entire basins is therefore necessary

Remote sensing methods for the biophysical characterization of protected areas globally: challenges and opportunities

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy to reverse global biodiversity declines, but they are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities and concomitant effects. Thus, the heterogeneous landscapes within PAs, containing a number of different habitats and ecosystem types, are in various degrees of disturbance. Characterizing habitats and ecosystems within the global protected area network requires large-scale monitoring over long time scales. This study reviews methods for the biophysical characterization of terrestrial PAs at a global scale by means of remote sensing (RS) and provides further recommendations. To this end, we first discuss the importance of taking into account the structural and functional attributes, as well as integrating a broad spectrum of variables, to account for the different ecosystem and habitat types within PAs, considering examples at local and regional scales. We then discuss potential variables, challenges and limitations of existing global environmental stratifications, as well as the biophysical characterization of PAs, and finally offer some recommendations. Computational and interoperability issues are also discussed, as well as the potential of cloud-based platforms linked to earth observations to support large-scale characterization of PAs. Using RS to characterize PAs globally is a crucial approach to help ensure sustainable development, but it requires further work before such studies are able to inform large-scale conservation actions. This study proposes 14 recommendations in order to improve existing initiatives to biophysically characterize PAs at a global scale

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) Explorer 1.0

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been developed to support the European Union’s efforts in strengthening our capacity to mobilize and use biodiversity data, information and forecasts so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. Conceived as a set of web based services, DOPA provides a broad set of free and open source tools to assess, monitor and even forecast the state of and pressure on protected areas at local, regional and global scale. DOPA Explorer 1.0 is a web based interface available in four languages (EN, FR, ES, PT) providing simple means to explore the nearly 16,000 protected areas that are at least as large as 100 km2. Distinguishing between terrestrial, marine and mixed protected areas, DOPA Explorer 1.0 can help end users to identify those with most unique ecosystems and species, and assess the pressures they are exposed to because of human development. Recognized by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as a reference information system, DOPA Explorer is based on the best global data sets available and provides means to rank protected areas at the country and ecoregion levels. Inversely, DOPA Explorer indirectly highlights the protected areas for which information is incomplete. We finally invite the end-users of DOPA to engage with us through the proposed communication platforms to help improve our work to support the safeguarding of biodiversity

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) Explorer 1.0

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been developed to support the European Union’s efforts in strengthening our capacity to mobilize and use biodiversity data, information and forecasts so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. Conceived as a set of web based services, DOPA provides a broad set of free and open source tools to assess, monitor and even forecast the state of and pressure on protected areas at local, regional and global scale. DOPA Explorer 1.0 is a web based interface available in four languages (EN, FR, ES, PT) providing simple means to explore the nearly 16,000 protected areas that are at least as large as 100 km2. Distinguishing between terrestrial, marine and mixed protected areas, DOPA Explorer 1.0 can help end users to identify those with most unique ecosystems and species, and assess the pressures they are exposed to because of human development. Recognized by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as a reference information system, DOPA Explorer is based on the best global data sets available and provides means to rank protected areas at the country and ecoregion levels. Inversely, DOPA Explorer indirectly highlights the protected areas for which information is incomplete. We finally invite the end-users of DOPA to engage with us through the proposed communication platforms to help improve our work to support the safeguarding of biodiversity.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Global Priority Conservation Areas in the Face of 21st Century Climate Change

In an era when global biodiversity is increasingly impacted by rapidly changing climate, efforts to conserve global biodiversity may be compromised if we do not consider the uneven distribution of climate-induced threats. Here, via a novel application of an aggregate Regional Climate Change Index (RCCI) that combines changes in mean annual temperature and precipitation with changes in their interannual variability, we assess multi-dimensional climate changes across the “Global 200” ecoregions – a set of priority ecoregions designed to “achieve the goal of saving a broad diversity of the Earth’s ecosystems” – over the 21st century. Using an ensemble of 62 climate scenarios, our analyses show that, between 1991–2010 and 2081–2100, 96% of the ecoregions considered will be likely (more than 66% probability) to face moderate-to-pronounced climate changes, when compared to the magnitudes of change during the past five decades. Ecoregions at high northern latitudes are projected to experience most pronounced climate change, followed by those in the Mediterranean Basin, Amazon Basin, East Africa, and South Asia. Relatively modest RCCI signals are expected over ecoregions in Northwest South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, yet with considerable uncertainties. Although not indicative of climate-change impacts per se, the RCCI-based assessment can help policy-makers gain a quantitative and comprehensive overview of the unevenly distributed climate risks across the G200 ecoregions. Whether due to significant climate change signals or large uncertainties, the ecoregions highlighted in the assessment deserve special attention in more detailed impact assessments to inform effective conservation strategies under future climate change.This study was supported by the Environmental Protection Public Service Project of China (201209031) (URL:http://kjs.mep.gov.cn/gyxhykyzx/)

Biophysical characterization of protected areas globally through optimized image segmentation and classification

Protected areas (PAs) need to be assessed systematically according to biodiversity values and threats in order to support decision-making processes. For this, PAs can be characterized according to their species, ecosystems and threats, but such information is often difficult to access and usually not comparable across regions. There are currently over 200,000 PAs in the world, and assessing these systematically according to their ecological values remains a huge challenge. However, linking remote sensing with ecological modelling can help to overcome some limitations of conservation studies, such as the sampling bias of biodiversity inventories. The aim of this paper is to introduce eHabitat+, a habitat modelling service supporting the European Commission's Digital Observatory for Protected Areas, and specifically to discuss a component that systematically stratifies PAs into different habitat functional types based on remote sensing data. eHabitat+ uses an optimized procedure of automatic image segmentation based on several environmental variables to identify the main biophysical gradients in each PA. This allows a systematic production of key indicators on PAs that can be compared globally. Results from a few case studies are illustrated to show the benefits and limitations of this open-source tool

The State of the Evidence on Blended Finance for Sustainable Development: An Evidence Gap Map

Blended finance, which aims to mobilise private capital towards sustainable development in developing countries (OECD, 2018), is becoming increasingly important for bridging the investment gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, little is known about its development impact. This report presents the findings of a systematic search on blended finance studies and evaluations, which are visualised as an evidence gap map (EGM). The EGM presents the resultson a matrix of eight blended finance instruments and 14 sub-effects, which were grouped into four categories of effects: financial additionality, development additionality, market development and sector effects. The search identified 33 publications that met the inclusion criteria, containing 87 individual pieces of evidence. Almost half of the blended finance instruments focused on results-based incentives, with grants and guarantees being the next most numerous. Most of the evidence was found in programme evaluation reports (67%), while (quasi-)experimental evidence was scarce (12%). The comparison with a blended finance database (Convergence, 2020) showed that the increase in the size of the blended finance market from USD 16 billion in 2007 to USD 136 billion in 2018 did not trigger a similar increase in research. A particularly strong mismatch between frequency of use and lack of research was found for insurance, hedging and junior/subordinated capital, and for sector effects in energy and financial services.Blended Finance zielt darauf ab, privates Kapital für die Finanzierung nachhaltiger Entwicklung zu mobilisieren (OECD, 2018) und wird immer wichtiger, um die Investitionslücke für die Erreichung der Nachhaltigkeitsziele (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs) zu schließen. Bisher ist jedoch wenig über die entwicklungspolitische Wirkung von Blended Finance bekannt. Dieser Bericht stellt die Ergebnisse einer systematischen Suche nach Blended Finance Studien und Evaluierungen vor, die als Evidenzkarte (Evidence Gap Map, EGM) visualisiert sind. Die EGM bildet die Evidenz auf einer Matrix von acht Blended-Finance-Instrumenten und 14 Subeffekten ab, die unter vier Kategorien fallen: finanzielle Additionalität, entwicklungspolitische Additionalität, Marktentwicklung und Sektoreffekte. Die Suche ergab 33 Publikationen, die die Kriterien erfüllten. Diese enthielten 87 Einzelergebnisse (pieces of evidence), von denen sich fast die Hälfte auf das Blended-Finance-Instrument der ergebnisorientierten Anreize bezog, gefolgt von Garantien und Zuschüssen. Die meiste Evidenz stammt aus Programmevaluierungsberichten (67%), während (quasi-)experimentelle Evidenz nur selten vorhanden ist (12%). Der Vergleich mit einer Blended-Finance-Datenbank (Convergence, 2020) zeigte, dass der Anstieg der Größe des Blended Finance Markts seit 2007 nicht mit einem ähnlichen Anstieg an Publikationen einherging. Eine besonders starke Diskrepanz zwischen tatsächlicher Nutzung und mangelnder Evidenz wurde bei Versicherungen, Hedging und nachrangigem/nachrangigem Kapital sowie bei Sektoreffekten in den Bereichen Energie und Finanzdienstleistungen festgestellt