Assessing the contribution of zoos to urban greenspace to support the Global Biodiversity Framework

Urban greenspace provides important conservation, climatic and social benefits. The importance of greenspace is reflected in its inclusion in global initiatives such as the Kunming Montral Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes a target to increase the area of cities that is classified as greenspace. Zoological collections are increasingly recognised as multifunctional greenspaces, but their contribution to greenspace has not been examined in spatially explicit terms. Here we digitised the boundaries of 208 European zoological collections across 163 Functional Urban Areas to assess the proportion of functional urban areas that are covered by zoos. Using the Urban Atlas, we also assess the proportion of green urban areas within functional urban areas that are covered by zoos and seek to understand how zoos are classified in land use/land cover data. We demonstrate that on average, zoos occupy a small proportion of functional urban areas and identify geographic variation that is likely driven by the historical development of zoos in these countries. A larger, but still small proportion of green urban areas within functional urban areas are covered by zoos. As individual greenspaces, zoos are on average significantly larger than other individual green urban areas. Whilst these findings suggest a limited spatial contribution to greenspace, zoos may make a disproportionate functional contribution through their conservation, education and wellbeing roles. Inconsistencies in how zoos are classified in land use/land cover data were identified. Whilst the mixed classes seen most frequently reflect true heterogeneity in zoo landscapes, they contradict established definitions and mapping guidelines, which has implications for effective monitoring of progress towards global biodiversity targets.