The world is going through one crisis after another. 2020 is the best proof of that statement. Whether it’s this ongoing pandemic or whatever emergency conquering the news’s headlines. However, these crises will keep on increasing unless humanity wakes up and makes the appropriate measures. Thus, officials should focus their efforts on averting the looming biodiversity and climate change crises.
Creating a Global Safety Net
The increase in human industrial development has harmed the planet in many, but not irredeemable, ways. Over the years, it turned natural biodiverse lands into wastelands. Thus, these actions were the cause of this unstable climate we are witnessing today.
However, hope still persists despite the current horrible situation. A newly discovered study argues that the solution to these problems lays between our reach. Via preserving the roughly 50 percent of land that remains relatively undeveloped, researchers believe that we can avert the biodiversity and climate issues. They are calling these conserved areas a “Global Safety Net”. a net that is supposed to save the planet when all other efforts perish. Furthermore, this study published September 4 in Science Advances also maps out regions that can meet critical conservation and climate goals.
Moreover, with the aid of existing biodiversity databases, a team of researchers and experts are mapping out the area. At first, the project started with claiming the already protected spaces. However, these areas only covered about 15 percent of the much-needed land. Therefore, Eric Dinerstein, a conservation biologist at RESOLVE, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., along with his colleagues started mapping other areas. Such additional lands have to meet up different conservation goals for the team to select them.
Preserving and protecting engaged species
As a means of protecting threatened species that aren’t already protected via other methods, the team will have to set aside an extra 2.3 percent of the land. Moreover, they were able to identify and classify new areas that can serve as preserving hot spots of exceptional species diversity. Furthermore, large areas of the wilderness will be needed to help in saving wide-ranging animals such as the caribou.
Additionally, not only do such lands serve as a silver lining for near-extinct species, but they also store a lot of carbon. This fact serves to further underline the deep and distinct connection between both the conservation and climate goals. Moreover, researchers were able to find an additional 4.7 percent of lands, such as forests in the northeastern United States, that would aid in keeping climate-warming carbon out of the earth’s atmosphere.
The plan to protect 30% of the globe
During the last years, scientists and environments have argued about the importance of preserving 30% of the globe. They aimed for the same goals as this project. Moreover, they constructed a global deal for nature that aims to reach its goal in 2030. However, these last occurrences have proved that giving back nature only 30% of the land might not be enough. Thus, a plan to preserve 50% of the lands is in humanity’s best interest.
On the other hand, governments are still drafting plans to protect 30 percent of the globe by 2030. They didn’t even start implementing the important measures needed for this procedure. Thus, Dinerstein urges nations to act much faster. “That’s not fast enough,” he says. “We have to achieve a whole lot more in a decade than what people are arguing for.”
References:
Boitnott, B. (2020, September 4). Protecting half the planet could help solve climate change and save species. A Finance Broker. https://afinancebroker.com/index.php/2020/09/04/protecting-half-the-planet-could-help-solve-climate-change-and-save-species/M. (2020, September 4). Protecting half the planet could help solve climate change and save species. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/protecting-half-planet-climate-change-save-speciesWe need to protect 30% of the planet by 2030. This is how we can do it. (2019, April 22). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/why-protect-30-planet-2030-global-deal-nature-conservation/Why we’ll succeed in saving the planet from climate change. (2020, March 25). ..Nationalgeographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2020/04/why-we-will-succeed-in-saving-the-planet-from-climate-change-feature/
