The world is not on track to meet the ambitious Target 3, popularly known as the 30x30 target. The target is part of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) set up in 2022 under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and mandates that 30 per cent of the land and water would be protected by 2030 to ensure that biodiversity is protected.
Only a little more than 3 years remain to the deadline but member countries have committed barely 23 per cent of the land and water.
While this itself is a worrisome finding, a new report released by non-profits such as Earth Insight and the World Commission on Protected Areas indicate that the most important tropical ecosystems, though protected, are threatened by oil, gas and mining industry.
The report, titled High-Integrity 30x30 Implementation: Industrial Threats and Promising Pathways for Effective and Rights-Based Biodiversity Conservation is based on case studies from around the world and spatial analysis in tropical areas.
The study found that nearly 62 million hectares of protected and conserved areas are overlapped by oil and gas blocks and another 43 million hectares overlapped by mining concessions. Additionally, over 40 per cent of identified terrestrial Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in the Amazon remain unprotected. Over 19 per cent of KBAs are threatened by oil and gas blocks, and as much as 15 per cent are threatened by mining concessions.
The case studies in the report include one from Cambodia, where 97 per cent of the country’s remaining undisturbed tropical forest sits within protected areas but 21 per cent of these are threatened by mining concessions and 71 per cent by oil and gas. Another case study from Western Australia, indicates that 30 per cent of identified terrestrial KBAs remain unprotected, and mining concessions overlap with 14.6 million hectares, or 26 per cent, of high biodiversity and ecological representativeness areas.
“30x30 is no longer only about protecting more places; it is about protecting the right places, in the right way. Governments cannot count hectares while losing the ecosystems those hectares were meant to protect,” says Tyson Miller, Founder and Executive Director, Earth Insight.
The authors call on the governments, public and private actors to commit to high-integrity implementation of 30x30. They say that governments should measure progress by biodiversity outcomes rather than hectares alone and treating the 30 per cent target as a global minimum rather than an ecological ceiling. They point out that expansion toward 30x30 should prioritise the places that matter most for biodiversity, beginning with KBAs and intact, high-integrity ecosystems. Brian O’Donnell, Director, Campaign for Nature, which was involved in the study, pointed out in a press release that the findings indicate what could erode that progress towards Target 3. “At COP17 in Yeravan, governments must redirect harmful subsidies, require extractive industries that profit from nature to help pay for its protection, and give protected and conserved areas the long-term funding they need to succeed.”
There is also a call to involve indigenous peoples and local communities in the efforts to protect area usefully. “We, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, know how to care for these territories because we have governed and defended them for generations. 30x30 must recognise our rights, guarantee our consent, and put resources directly in the hands of those who protect these territories,” says Juan Carlos Jintiach Arcos, Executive Secretary, Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC).
The KMGBF was put in place in 2022 under the CBD and the 30x30 target is one of the 23 targets that are part of the framework that need to be met by 2030. Since 2022, global coverage of protected areas increased by approximately 1.1 percentage points (approximately 1.3 million sq.km) on land and 1.7 percentage points (approximately 6 million sq. km) at sea. More than 50 countries and territories already report terrestrial coverage of at least 30 per cent. Additionally, 23 countries and terrritories report marine and coastal coverage above 30 per cent.
Progress towards the targets is going to be discussed at COP17 which is scheduled to begin on October 19 in Armenia. Multiple reports have been published in the recent months analysing the situation on the ground.
In recent years, some positive action has been taken on the ground too. For example, in 2025 Colombia committed to prohibit new oil, gas, and large-scale mining across its entire share of the Amazon. This would protect more than 48 million hectares from new large-scale extractives. Other steps include Ghana’s revocation of a regulation that permitted mining in forest reserves; Canada’s Marine Protected Area Protection Standard; The Philippines’ titling of Indigenous Peoples ancestral domains through Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title to secure tenure and support rights-based stewardship of some of the country’s most intact ecosystems.