Leveraging Roadless Areas to Support Strict Protection in the EU

Aim Strictly protected areas exhibit lower levels of disturbance to habitats and species and are central to biodiversity conservation. Yet only 4% of the EU's land is currently placed under strict protection, far below the 10% target set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. This study examines the potential of roadless areas to contribute to closing this protection gap. Location European Union terrestrial land. Methods Roadless areas, defined as land patches larger than 1 km 2 located at least 1 km from paved roads and railways, were mapped using data from OpenStreetMap. We quantified their extent and combined them with climate, soil, and topographic layers to capture abiotic environmental gradients. We then assigned an inclusion priority for strict protection to the identified roadless areas by quantifying their contribution to environmental representativeness relative to the current network of strictly protected areas. Results We found that 12% of EU land remains roadless, of which only 19% is already under strict protection. If all roadless areas were integrated into the network, strict protection would increase to 13% of EU land, while representation of abiotic environmental space would rise from 79% to 94%. However, many roadless areas have limited extent and overlap with conditions already represented in protected areas. Main Conclusions Roadless areas represent a critical yet underused opportunity to strengthen the EU's strict protection network by improving both coverage and environmental representativeness. Nonetheless, they cannot alone deliver biodiversity targets due to patchiness and redundancy. Meeting the EU's commitments will require a balanced strategy that complements roadless area protection with ecological restoration, cross‐level governance coordination, and prioritization of areas based on other biodiversity features.