The Wyss Campaign for Nature is prioritising solutions for financing protection. “We’re studying the cost of protection and also looking at what would be the cost if you didn’t protect this amount of land, in terms of lost ecosystem services, clean waters, and fisheries,” said O’Donnell. “There’s a cost of conserving land, and a cost if we don’t.”
And setting aside lands for protection is by no means the end of the story. The Campaign for Nature is studying possible sources of funding so countries can pay for the cost of managing and protecting these lands.
Among the many threats facing large tracts of land, including those ostensibly under protection, are road building and fragmentation. The number of paved roads is expected to double in the next 25 years, opening up large areas to illegal resource exploitation, poaching, and other threats, says Tabor.
“People will go first to the boreal [forest] or Central Africa,” for protecting large tracts of nature, says Tabor. “But most of where the biodiversity exists is in fragmented areas. To have effective nature in those areas we will have to have a connectivity strategy.”
O’Donnell agrees that there are huge challenges. “Just as the climate crisis requires major systematic change in the coming decades, it’s the same with biodiversity,” he says. “There are a lot of other things competing for money and attention.”
—
Correction
This article originally stated that the International Union for Conservation of Nature was working with Nature Needs Half; we have been informed that this is not the case and have updated accordingly. We apologise for the error.
—
This article was originally published by Yale e360, and is republished with permission – read the original story here. This is also why this story does not have an estimate for its carbon emissions, as Future Planet stories usually do.
—
Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “The Essential List”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.
