Protecting 1.2 percent of land as nature preserves could prevent majority of extinctions: Research 

Protecting just more than 1 percent of land as nature preserves could prevent most extinctions, according to new research published Monday.

The research in the Frontiers in Science journal proposed preventing futher extinctions by protecting areas it labeled as Conservative Imperatives, which it defined as “currently unprotected sites that contain rare, threatened, and narrow-range endemic species.”

The research listed 16,825 unprotected sites.

“These sites should be prioritized for conservation action over the next 5 years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global protected area network,” according to the research.

The Conservative Imperatives span across about 633,000 square miles, which represents only 1.22 percent of the Earth’s land surface. Protecting these areas would prevent the “most likely and imminent extinctions” as they are home to rare and threatened species, according to the research.

Protecting all of these sites could cost approximately $263 billion, according to the research.

The study outlined a strategy to meet the global goal to protect 30 percent of the world by 2030. This was a proposal introduced by the United Nations in 2020 as part of a conservation plan to address climate change.

“Conservation Imperatives can contribute to a science-based priority-setting strategy for expanding the global protected area network to at least 30% by 2030, which is in line with ambitious targets outlined in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” the research said.

The researchers said conserving these sites “is achievable and affordable, especially in the tropics.” Nearly three-quarters of the sites listed are in tropical forests, according to the research.

Protecting just 0.74 percent of land found in the tropics, which is where most of the Conservative Imperatives are located, “could prevent the majority of predicted near-term extinctions once adequately resourced,” according to the study.

The cost of protecting the land in the tropics is between $29 billion and $46 billion per year over the next five years, the study stated.