Conservation targets and how to achieve them

The fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted four Global Goals for 2050 and 23 Targets for 2030. One concern has been the lack of a monitoring mechanism to measure the progress of countries in protecting biodiversity as a step towards the 2050 Goal of 'halting extinction'. Clearly defined conservation targets are essential. There is abundant quantitative evidence of human impacts. We ask three questions. (i) Does conservation slow global extinction rates? (ii) Does conservation rescue previously declining populations? (iii) What is the progress of protecting areas globally? Are such areas selected optimally to slow extinctions and reverse population declines? We find a disconnect between unsupported claims about impending planetary doom and carefully documented evidence of conservation's successes and failures. Certainly, gaps exist in our knowledge about biodiversity loss. Nonetheless, conservation has prevented extinctions and allowed some once-declining species to flourish. It protects ever-greater areas of land and ocean, often doing so in sensible places. Future success will depend on clearly defined metrics to measure what works and what does not. Such a recommendation resonates strongly with the work that Professor Dame Georgina Mace pioneered.