Last month, the world marked the International Day of Biological Diversity at an extraordinary moment when political will, global targets, funding, and capacity are aligned to scale up protected and conserved areas globally.

In December 2022, at the COP15 in Montreal, governments formally adopted what we now refer to as the “30×30 target.” This is Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and, through this, countries have committed to protecting at least 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030. The target emphasizes that, in addition to covering 30%, protection must be effective, equitable, and well-governed.

In a very short time, 30×30 has moved from science-driven ambition to globally endorsed political commitment. As the target’s deadline approaches, land and ocean protection are firmly at the center of global policy.

Are we ready to deliver? 

The importance of 30×30 is rooted in a simple reality: human life depends on a healthy, functioning planet. There is no alternative if the systems that sustain us fail. Clean water, stable rainfall, fertile soils, pollination, carbon storage, fisheries, and protection from floods and storms all depend on ecosystems that remain intact and resilient.

Conservation through protected areas has proven to be one of the clearest ways to secure those systems. Protected areas provide the backbone of a healthy planet by safeguarding core landscapes and seascapes, maintaining biodiversity, and allowing ecological processes to continue at the scales they require. Without that foundation, other efforts to address climate change, food security, water security, and sustainable development become much harder to achieve.

Every species deserves a place where it can survive, recover, and continue its role in the web of life. Achieving that means using the 30×30 target not only to expand protected and conserved areas, but to build a global network of places to safeguard the species and ecosystems most in need.

We need to make sure we’re protecting the right 30%.

The goal cannot simply be to protect more places. It must prioritize places where protection can do the most for biodiversity: areas of high endemism, threatened species habitat, intact ecosystems, ecological corridors, and landscapes that allow species to persist and adapt over time.

Biodiversity is not evenly distributed across the planet. Select places hold extraordinary concentrations of life, including species found nowhere else on Earth. Globally, biodiversity hotspots cover only 2.5% of the planet’s intact land area, yet they support more than half of the world’s plant species and nearly 43% of terrestrial vertebrates.

This matters profoundly for 30×30. One million species are at risk of extinction this century, and around 85% of the species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List are threatened by habitat loss. If the world protects 30% of land and ocean without asking “Which 30%?” we could still fail the species at greatest risk.

Protected areas make a difference. On average, they reduce habitat loss and support higher biodiversity than unprotected areas. But these results are highly variable. Many protected areas still face significant challenges, and outcomes ultimately depend on exactly where protection happens, how it’s governed, and how well areas are connected to each other.

If we focus on what’s easiest or most politically convenient, we risk missing the areas that matter most. This is where science plays a critical role, helping to identify places of high biodiversity value, areas of endemism, and regions that are essential for ecological processes.

On the western slopes of the Andes Mountains, for example, scientists are recording new species every year in a biodiversity hotspot. Nearly all of the Chocó rainforest (97%) has been lost to agriculture, mining, and other extraction. But the surviving forest hosts remarkable wildlife. The Chocó is dwarfed by the world’s largest rainforest to the east, yet it rivals the Amazon in terms of biodiversity.

Our project in the Chocó’s Quito-Cayapas landscape shelters 16 Critically Endangered, 58 Endangered, and 83 Vulnerable species. These include endemic hummingbirds, like the Violet-tailed Sylph, and rare mammals like South America’s only bear species, the Andean or Spectacled Bear. We are working with a coalition to preserve this landscape because of its unmatched ecological, scientific, and cultural value, including watersheds that sustain rural and Indigenous communities and wildlife corridors that allow species to migrate as the climate changes.

It is also important to recognize the limits of science on its own.

Often, we already know where protection is needed. The real challenge is aligning biological priorities with what can actually be delivered on the ground. Bridging the gap from knowing to doing, that often means navigating trade-offs between urgency, opportunity, and long-term success. The barriers are rarely ecological. They are social, political, and financial. Issues like governance, land tenure, local support, and sustained financing ultimately determine whether land protection succeeds or fails.

Land protection is more than just formally designated types of areas. We need a broader set of approaches: conserved areas and Indigenous-managed lands, community-led conservation. What matters is not the label, but the outcome. Are these areas effectively governed? Are they delivering real conservation results? And are they durable over time?

This is the space we’re operating in, a moment of unprecedented opportunity paired with complexity in delivery.

We cannot deliver 30×30 alone. No one organization, government, community, funder, or individual can protect the planet in isolation. But, together, we can create the momentum needed to change the future.

That momentum depends on partnership. It depends on transparent communication, openness, trust, and a shared understanding of what we are working toward. Communities, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, governments, and funders all bring different strengths, responsibilities, and perspectives. When those are aligned, conservation becomes stronger, durable, and just.

There is reason for hope. The 30×30 goal has prompted unprecedented collaboration: organizations working together, governments stepping forward, funders aligning resources, and local partners leading solutions on the ground. That is what makes this moment so powerful. The opportunity is global, but the work is deeply local—and it will only succeed if we do it together.