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The inextricable links between climate change and sustainable development have been increasingly recognised over the past decade. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1 concluded with very high confidence that climate change would impede the ability of many nations to achieve sustainable development by mid-century and become a security risk that would steadily intensify, particularly under greater warming scenarios. Article 4.8 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) lists several groups of countries that merit particular consideration for assistance to adapt to climate change “especially: (a) small island countries, (b) countries with low-lying coastal areas, c) countries with areas prone to natural disasters.” Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have characteristics which make them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, sea level rise (SLR) and extreme events, including: relative isolation, small land masses, concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal areas, limited economic base and dependency on natural resources, combined with limited financial, technical and institutional capacity for adaptation.2

The nations of CARICOM16 in the Caribbean together with Pacific island countries contribute less than 1% to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (approx. 0.33%17 and 0.03%18 respectively), yet these countries are expected to be among the earliest and most impacted by climate change in the coming decades and are least able to adapt to climate change impacts. These nations’ relative isolation, small land masses, their concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal areas, limited economic base and dependency on natural resources, combined with limited financial, technical and institutional capacity all exacerbates their vulnerability to extreme events and climate change impacts. Stabilising global GHG emissions and obtaining greater support for adaptation strategies are fundamental priorities for the Caribbean Basin and Pacific island countries. CARICOM leaders recently unveiled their collective position that global warming should be held to no more than 1.5°C19 and continue to develop a Climate Change Strategic Plan. The Pacific island countries have expressed their priorities for addressing climate change regionally through the Pacific Leaders’ Call to Action on Climate Change20 and the Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015.21

Nations of the world have committed to a number of goals and targets to address the global environmental challenges humanity faces. Protected areas have for centuries been a key strategy in conservation and play a major role in addressing current challenges. The most important tool used to track progress on protected area commitments is the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Periodic assessments of the world’s protected area estate show steady growth over the last two decades. However, the current method, which uses the latest version of the WDPA, does not show the true dynamic nature of protected areas over time, nor does it provide information on sites removed from the WDPA. In reality, this methodology can only show growth or remain stable. This paper presents a novel approach to assess protected area change over time using twelve temporally distinct versions of the WDPA that quantify area added, and removed, from the WDPA annually from 2004 to 2016. Results show that both the narrative of continual protected area growth and the counter-narrative of protected area removal are overly simplistic. The former because growth has been almost entirely marine and the latter because we demonstrate that some areas removed are re-protected in later years. Analysis indicates that, on average, 2.5 million km2 is added to the WDPA annually and 1.1 million km2 is removed. Reasons for the inclusion and removal of protected areas in the WDPA database are explored and discussed. To meet the 17% land coverage component of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 by 2020, which stands at 14.7% in 2016, the world will either need to reduce the rate of protected area removal or increase the rate of protected area designation and addition to the WDPA.

Protected Planet presentation powerpoint slides.