During the recent Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada, multiple nations have pledged to achieve the '30 by 30' goal, which is to designate 30% of their lands and seas as protected areas (PAs) by 2030. In this recent published Nature article led by Dr Jedediah Brodie, scientists (including TEE Lab's Dr Eleanor Slade) investigated how PAs across Southeast Asia contribute to vertebrate conservation inside and outside their boundaries.
The effectiveness of PAs depends on safeguarding multiple facets of biodiversity. (Brodie et al. 2023)
Based on a thorough examination of camera trap data and community science records, the study showed that PAs significantly increased all facets of bird diversity and that large PAs were associated with increased mammal diversity in adjacent unprotected landscapes. These findings indicate that having PAs could lead to spillover effects, where larger PAs are sources of larger vertebrate populations that disperse into surrounding unprotected areas. While these results support the 30 by 30 goal, the authors identify the need for effective management practices (e.g. sustainable hunting) when designating new PAs and expanding existing ones to ensure biodiversity conservation.
The TEE Lab is privileged to have contributed to this paper and we are looking forward to more collaborations. Read the full paper published in Nature here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06410-z