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News: A study by the Natural History Museum (NHM) has found that biodiversity decline is faster inside key protected areas than outside them, raising serious questions about the ongoing conservation practices.
1. Researchers analysed the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), which registered a decline of 1.88 percentage points globally between 2000 and 2020.
2. Biodiversity Intactness Index is a metric used to assess the health and integrity of ecosystem by estimating how much of a region’s natural biodiversity is still left on average.
3. Researchers also studied the Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA), 22% of which are protected. It was found that critical areas that were not protected saw biodiversity decline by an average of 1.9% points, and within the areas that were protected the biodiversity declined by 2.1% points between 2000 and 2020.
4. Critical Biodiversity Areas are the ecosystems and regions that are particularly important for the conservation of biodiversity. They are known for their high species richness, unique ecosystems, or the presence of threatened and endemic species.
5. The reasons for biodiversity decline in protected areas can be attributed to the failure of protected areas to safeguard the whole ecosystem, granting land for oil, gas and mining exploration, climate change.
6. There is a need to adhere to the 30×30 target, which aims to conserve at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. This target has been fixed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
