Establishing New Protected Areas to Support the 30x30 Initiative

Amid our global extinction crisis driven largely by human activity, preserving Earth's biodiversity has never been more urgent. To that end, the 30 x 30 initiative seeks to protect at least 30% of the world's land, freshwater, and ocean habitats by 2030. Currently over 190 nations have pledged their support for this initiative. Achieving this ambitious goal will depend heavily on establishing new Protected Areas (PAs), which safeguard biodiversity and provide a suite of services to local communities. When effectively managed, PAs provide the most promising path to protecting the planet's remaining biodiversity and ecological abundance for future generations.

However, Establishing PAs is no simple matter and requires comprehensive assessments to identify conservation priorities, understand ecosystem threats, and to develop site-specific management plans that incorporate the needs of local stakeholders. Zonation serves as a management framework that divides PAs into distinct functional zones, each with tailored conservation objectives and management protocols. Effective zonation balances biodiversity protection while accommodating appropriate human activities through evidence-based spatial planning. Factors influencing zonation design include ecological sensitivity, threatened species presence, natural boundaries, cultural significance, tourism potential, and local community needs. This approach generally creates a protection gradient consisting of (but not limited to) strictly protected core zones, buffer zones that permit limited sustainable activities, and transition areas that support compatible community uses.