---
id: mandates/thirty-by-thirty
about:
  label: '30 by 30: conserve 30% of land, waters and seas by 2030'
  description: >-
    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:
    - biodiversity
    - protected areas
    - conservation
    - global target
    - 2030
mandate:
  issued_by: Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
  binds: 'the Parties to the Convention, that is almost every country'
  by: 2030
  homepage: 'https://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/3'
domains:
  - ecology
  - places
relations:
  - predicate: raises
    target: questions/land-use-change
    note: >-
      which land counts, where the gaps are, and what a change of use does to
      coverage
  - predicate: measured_with
    target: data-sources/protected-planet
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Target 3
      url: 'https://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/3'
    - title: >-
        Research shows we're surprisingly close to conserving 30% of the world's
        land | EurekAlert!
      url: 'https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1147778'
    - title: >-
        Global conservation area coverage substantially exceeds current
        estimates (Nature, 14 October 2026)
      url: 'https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11157-4'
  created: '2026-10-18'
  reviewed: '2026-10-18'
  reviewed_by: >-
    Claude, from the sources listed; the Nature paper itself was not read, only
    its press release
  status: draft
---
The areas must also be managed, and the system that holds them must be ecologically representative, well connected and equitably governed. Indigenous and traditional territories are recognised where applicable. The areas counted can range from strictly protected land to areas with sustainable use consistent with conservation.

Protected Planet, the official record, reported in October 2026 that protected areas and other measures covered 17.58 per cent of land and inland waters. A study published in Nature on 14 October 2026 combined that record with national datasets and put the figure at 26.8 per cent. The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent led the study, with the Institute of Zoology and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The authors caution that grasslands and shrublands remain poorly covered. They add that area alone is not enough, since the target also asks that the areas be effective, connected and fairly governed.

The modelling work is spatial. It finds areas that are in national records but missing from the global one, and gaps in the network by habitat type. It measures how connected the pieces are, and tests what a proposed change of land use would do to coverage and connectivity. The data starts at Protected Planet and the national conservation registers. The models are those of the [land use](/questions/land-use-change/) use case, with connectivity tools such as [Circuitscape](/engines/circuitscape/).