A surprising revision to global conservation figures
Governments may be much closer to conserving 30% of the world’s land than official figures suggest, according to a major new study published in Nature on 14 October 2026.
Researchers estimate that 26.81% of the terrestrial realm was already covered by some form of conservation area in 2022, substantially above the 18.5% reported in recent official global statistics.
The difference does not mean that vast new national parks have appeared. Instead, the researchers found that many nationally documented, privately managed and community-governed conservation areas have not been fully reflected in global databases.
However, the authors emphasise that the headline percentage is only part of the story. Even with the additional land counted, conservation areas still leave important ecosystems underrepresented.
The findings raise a fundamental question for international biodiversity policy: is success about the amount of land counted, or about whether conservation actually protects nature and benefits people?
What the 30 by 30 target requires
In 2022, countries agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes a commitment to conserve at least 30% of terrestrial and inland-water areas and 30% of marine and coastal areas by 2030.
Often called the 30 by 30 target, this commitment is intended to address accelerating biodiversity loss.
The terrestrial target is not simply a numerical land-allocation exercise. It also calls for areas to be effectively managed, ecologically representative, connected and governed fairly.
Official international reporting has primarily counted protected areas such as national parks, reserves and other formally recognised designations.
Yet some land is conserved through different arrangements, including long-term stewardship by local communities, Indigenous Peoples, private landowners and other organisations.
These arrangements can make meaningful contributions even when they have not yet been entered into the international databases used to track progress.
The new research investigated how much this undercount might change the global picture.
How the researchers assembled the evidence
Helen M. K. O’Neill and colleagues designed a globally representative sample covering parts of 25 countries and territories.
The sample comprised nine complete countries or territories and portions of another 16, selected to represent factors linked to biodiversity and conservation coverage.
These factors included biome, elevation, government effectiveness, income, geography, land cover, latitude, population density and world region.
The sampling design represented approximately 10% of the terrestrial realm while reducing the amount of country-level mapping required.
Researchers assembled two global datasets and 65 national or subnational datasets to identify conservation areas that might otherwise be missed.
Those sources included 14 publicly available national datasets from five countries and 51 non-public national datasets from 16 countries and territories.
The team separated sites into internationally recognised protected areas, nationally recognised protected areas and places that could potentially qualify as other effective area-based conservation measures.
They then estimated global coverage using 1,000 representative sets of spatial sampling units and performed sensitivity analyses.
Because the sample was not a complete global census, the final estimate involved extrapolation rather than direct measurement of every conservation site on Earth.
Where the 26.81% estimate comes from
The researchers estimated that 15.79% of land was covered by protected areas already recognised in the international database used for the study’s 2022 baseline.
A further 3.64% was estimated to fall within nationally recognised protected areas not fully captured in that global count.
An additional 7.38% was identified as potentially eligible for recognition as other effective area-based conservation measures.
Together, those three categories produce the estimated 26.81% global coverage figure.
That is approximately 3.19 percentage points below the 30% land-coverage goal.
Importantly, the 7.38% category describes possible future recognition, not areas that have already satisfied every formal requirement.
Researchers did not simply declare these sites protected. Formal recognition would require appropriate assessment and agreement from the relevant governing parties.
The figures are also tied to the 2022 data baseline used for the analysis. They should not be presented as a direct measurement of land coverage in October 2026.
Why official and research figures differ
Global conservation statistics depend on countries and organisations submitting accurate spatial information to international repositories.
Some governments maintain detailed national registers that do not fully overlap with the international record.
Other conservation arrangements may be governed by communities or private organisations and therefore fall outside conventional protected-area reporting.
Recognition procedures for other effective area-based conservation measures are also relatively new in many countries.
The study suggests that counting these additional arrangements could substantially revise estimates of the land already managed with conservation objectives or outcomes.
However, the authors did not recommend bypassing local consent or treating every candidate site as automatically eligible.
Respecting governance arrangements is especially important where conservation areas overlap with customary land rights and community livelihoods.
More protected land does not mean biodiversity is secure
The most consequential warning in the paper is that the additional land does not substantially close gaps in ecological representation.
Ecological representation asks whether conservation networks protect a balanced range of ecosystems rather than concentrating on places that are already well represented.
A country could conserve a large area of remote or less economically contested land while leaving highly threatened habitats largely unprotected.
Likewise, two reserves may cover the same broad habitat type while other ecosystems receive little protection.
The researchers found that many newly counted conservation areas overlapped with ecological regions that were already relatively well represented.
This means that reaching 30% on paper could still leave important habitats exposed to land conversion, degradation and other pressures.
Effective conservation requires attention to where areas are located, how they connect and whether their ecological condition is maintained.
The study therefore challenges the assumption that adding percentage points necessarily delivers an equivalent improvement in biodiversity outcomes.
Management and fairness remain central
Protected areas require resources, institutions and long-term management to achieve their intended outcomes.
Simply drawing boundaries does not prevent illegal extraction, invasive species, habitat degradation or harmful development.
Conservation policies can also affect local access to land and resources, sometimes creating social costs if decisions are imposed without meaningful participation.
The Global Biodiversity Framework recognises these concerns by incorporating effectiveness and equitable governance into its targets.
The researchers argue that the newly identified conservation areas should be evaluated within this wider framework rather than treated as a shortcut to numerical compliance.
Community-led stewardship and private conservation initiatives may have valuable roles, but the appropriate governance arrangements depend on local conditions.
The priority is to recognise legitimate contributions while protecting rights and ensuring that conservation delivers durable ecological benefits.
What the findings could mean for South Africa
South Africa contains internationally significant biodiversity and a mix of national parks, provincial reserves, private conservation areas and other land-management arrangements.
The study’s global findings are relevant to debates about how different forms of stewardship should be counted and assessed.
However, the paper deliberately reports its principal results at the global level rather than releasing revised estimates for individual countries.
It would therefore be incorrect to claim that South Africa has already achieved a particular conservation percentage based on the 26.81% global estimate.
National policymakers would need to examine local datasets, legal designations and governance arrangements before changing official coverage figures.
Any recognition of additional sites should also consider ecosystem gaps, management quality and the rights of people who live or work in those landscapes.
For researchers, the study illustrates the value of integrating national and global records instead of relying on a single database.
Important methodological limitations
The estimate is based on a carefully designed sample, but it remains an extrapolation from 25 countries and territories.
Some of the underlying datasets were confidential, limiting the ability of outside readers to inspect every individual boundary used in the analysis.
The authors provided methodological information and supporting data to make the overall estimation process more transparent.
Potential other effective area-based conservation measures have not necessarily completed formal recognition processes.
Consequently, the estimate should not be interpreted as the share of land that already satisfies every condition of the international target.
The work primarily evaluates terrestrial coverage and ecological representation. It does not directly measure biodiversity recovery at every included site.
Different baseline dates also matter: the study’s central estimate uses 2022 spatial data, while later official figures reflect subsequent reporting.
Finally, coverage alone cannot establish whether a reserve is well funded, properly connected or successful in preventing species declines.
A new way to measure progress
The study offers an important correction to a potentially incomplete global picture of conservation land.
Its 26.81% estimate suggests that the world may be much closer to the numerical terrestrial component of 30 by 30 than widely assumed.
At the same time, the research argues against celebrating the percentage without examining the quality and distribution of protected ecosystems.
Better data integration could help governments recognise existing stewardship and avoid unnecessary duplication of conservation designations.
More strategic expansion could then focus on underrepresented ecosystems, ecological connectivity and places facing substantial threats.
The authors’ central message is that biodiversity policy should move beyond counting hectares and invest in effective, inclusive conservation.
Reaching a global percentage target may be an important milestone, but the ultimate measure of success is whether nature and people benefit.
Source Information
Study: Global conservation area coverage substantially exceeds current estimates
Authors: Helen M. K. O’Neill, Joe Beeken, Heather C. Bingham and colleagues.
Journal: Nature
Published: 14 October 2026
Methods: Representative spatial analysis covering 10% of terrestrial land across 25 countries and territories, integrating two global and 65 national or subnational datasets and extrapolating from 1,000 sampling-unit sets.
