Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the findings are important because most terrestrial species live in forests and because the study suggests that just 6.5% of the Earth’s woodlands are truly protected, well below the 2020 target of 17% set by the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity.
The findings are also timely given President Biden’s recent executive order on climate change, which calls for protecting 30% of the United States’ land and waters, up from the current 12%, and developing “a plan for promoting the protection of the Amazon rainforest and other critical ecosystems that serve as global carbon sinks.”
