data source · draft
Protected Planet
UNEP-WCMC's World Database on Protected Areas: the world's protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, updated monthly from government and other submissions
What is reusable: unknown sourceopen dataAPI unknownpartly open participation The database can be downloaded from the site and is built from submissions by governments, NGOs, landowners and communities; its terms of use were not read for this entry.
The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is a joint project of the UN Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.2 The UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge manages it, and Protected Planet is its public site.1,2 Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are places outside formal protected areas that still conserve nature.1 The site says the WDPA is the most up to date and complete source of data on protected areas and OECMs.1 Governments, non-governmental organisations, landowners and communities submit the data.1
The site also holds the World Database on OECMs, a database of management-effectiveness assessments (GD-PAME) and the IUCN Green List.1 Thematic pages cover connectivity and equitable governance.1 Running global statistics in October 2026 counted 506,250 protected areas and 7,749 OECMs.1,2 Together they covered 18.69 per cent of land and inland waters and 10.04 per cent of the sea.1
The database was established in 1981.2 The site traces its mandate to a 1959 UN Economic and Social Council resolution calling for a list of national parks and equivalent reserves.2 Progress on the 30 by 30 target is officially measured against the WDPA.3
- homepage
- https://www.protectedplanet.net/en
- coverage
- global, terrestrial and marine
- cadence
- monthly
needed by
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FAO's free registry of ecosystem restoration initiatives, with their mapped areas, activities and indicators; the official monitor of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
partly open datapartly open participation
measures
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Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity: by 2030 at least 30 per cent of land, inland waters and coastal and marine areas effectively conserved through protected areas and other area-based measures.
Tags: protected areas, biodiversity, global, monthly, wdpa