Hidden Potential of Private Governance

Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to conserve 30% of the Earth's lands and oceans by 2030, contributing to the overall goal of halting and reversing the global loss of nature. Achieving this will require a vast, cross-societal effort, and the protected and conserved areas that could contribute towards this target are diverse. Governments oversee the management of many of these areas, and while they play a crucial role, the potential of private governance of protected and conserved areas is often underrecognized.

Private governance actors include individuals, non-governmental organisations, corporations, for-profit owners, research entities, and religious entities. Here, we discuss the importance of private governance for achieving progress towards Target 3 and the value of privately governed protected and conserved areas receiving increased recognition.

What is the current state of private governance worldwide?

The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and World Database on Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (WD-OECM) are the world’s most comprehensive databases on protected and conserved areas, used for tracking progress towards Target 3. However, sites under private governance comprise just 6.55% of globally reported protected areas and 2.44% of reported OECMs by number (Lewis et al., 2023) and only 0.5% of global coverage of these areas (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, 2024).

These figures are likely a significant underestimation of the actual conservation efforts carried out by private actors worldwide. Privately governed protected and conserved areas often lack formal recognition, or remain unreported, leaving a gap in our understanding of their true contributions on the global scale.

How is private governance contributing to Target 3?

A recent study by Lewis et al. (2023) assessed the current contribution of privately governed protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to different elements of Target 3. Here are the key findings:

1. Private governance is growing, but recognition and reporting remains limited.

• Since 1950, the coverage of protected areas under private governance (privately protected areas) has increased rapidly worldwide.
• In some areas, private governance can significantly expand national protected area networks, with privately protected areas representing over 50% of sites in Colombia, the Kingdom of Eswatini, Bermuda, and South Africa.
• However, many countries still do not formally recognise privately protected areas, with just 39 countries and territories reporting them to the WDPA and only 3 countries (Australia, South Africa, and USA) responsible for 82% of all records.

2. Privately protected areas can protect key ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots.

• Ensuring representation of different ecological regions (ecoregions), and the protection of areas of importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, is an essential element of Target 3.
• Privately protected areas provide some level of protection to 28.5% of terrestrial and 15.2% of marine ecoregions worldwide and 13.8% of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs).
• For 44 KBAs, privately protected areas provide over 30% of their coverage and, when combined with other protected areas, the addition of sites under private governance pushed the area protected to over 30% for eight terrestrial ecoregions and 53 KBAs.
• Despite this, overall coverage of ecoregions remains minimal, with over 95% of ecoregions having less than 1% coverage provided by privately protected areas, with even lower levels of protection in priority ecoregions.

3. Private governance improves connectivity

• Connectivity is vital for sustaining biodiversity, minimising the impacts of habitat fragmentation.
• Privately protected areas increase connectivity across 261 terrestrial ecoregions and for protected area networks in 60 countries and territories.
• In Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, protected and connected land increased by 23.2 percentage points and in Mexico’s Oaxacan montane forests, connectivity was 31 times greater due to private governance.

4. Privately governed OECMs offer a key opportunity

• Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) offer a new opportunity for private governance actors.
• 20 privately governed OECMs have been reported to the WD-OECM from four countries.
• Whilst this comprises just 2.4% of all OECM records, they already contribute to 5.4% of global terrestrial OECM coverage and show potential for conserving priority ecoregions and key biodiversity areas.

Why should we increase recognition and reporting of privately governed protected and conserved areas?

This study highlights that privately governed protected and conserved areas can have an important role in achieving essential elements of Target 3, but these results are based on limited data, from only a small number of countries and territories. The results highlight the urgent need to upscale efforts for recognition and reporting, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of current global conservation efforts, supporting more informed conservation planning and prioritised future action. This is not only about numbers, but also to demonstrate the significant role that private actors play in safeguarding biodiversity worldwide and providing incentives and encouragement for others to do the same.

Recognizing sites under private governance within national databases, and reporting these such that they are recognized by the WDPA and WD-OECM has four key benefits:

1. Providing appropriate recognition to conservation efforts carried out by private actors.
2. Allowing a more complete understanding of global conservation efforts and supporting more informed conservation planning.
3. Enabling these privately governed protected and conserved areas to contribute to national and international biodiversity targets.
4. Inspiring other private actors to take action.

What can you do?

We can see that the efforts undertaken by private actors will be essential to achieving Target 3. Already, these areas are enhancing global protected and conserved area coverage, protecting key ecological areas and enhancing connectivity across landscapes, but for them to be fully realized, we need increased recognition, reporting and support for private conservation actors worldwide.

If you’re a private actor, responsible for governing a conservation area, your achievements matter more than ever. By reporting your site to Protected Planet, you can receive recognition for your efforts and contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the conservation actions being taken at local levels, which combined are helping to halt and reverse the loss of nature worldwide. Only through collaborating across all sectors of society will it be possible to conserve 30% of our planet by 2030.

For more information on how to report to Protected Planet, please see our reporting guide for private actors and email protectedareas@unep-wcmc.org if you have any further questions.