Originally published on 2 May 2017, by Jeff Wells on CPAWS
How many people know the truth about what is needed to maintain our wild animals, plants, clean air, clean water, and other values that keep us humans alive and healthy?
Still not enough, apparently, as the last global protected areas target that most countries of the world signed on to in 2010 (the so-called Aichi target) was to protect 17% of their land area by 2020.
Moving from the current level of 10% protection of Canada’s landscape to 17% protection by 2020 would be a solid next step, and one that Canadian governments have now committed to. But this will not be nearly enough to conserve nature in the long run. Scientists around the world are coming to a mass consensus that this goal must be radically raised. In fact, it is clear that protecting only 17% of our planet and allowing the rest to be developed would result in massive numbers of species going extinct and massive costs to try to clean the air and water we humans need to sustain us.
A new paper released last month (Friday, April 18, 2017) in BioScience highlights the science behind the need to protect at least half of each ecoregion to have the highest probability of maintaining its biodiversity, its ability to keep the world’s air and water clean and healthy, and its functionality to slow climate change and buffer its impacts.
Read the full article >