Indicators for tracking progress of effective, representative ecosystem protection

To halt and reverse rapid biodiversity loss, countries are pursuing the ambitious goals and targets in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to restore and protect biodiversity in representative networks of protected areas. However, the associated monitoring framework lacks indicators of ecosystem representativeness for Target 3. Using South Africa as an example, we tested different indicators that could fill this gap and made recommendations for globally relevant options for national and international reporting. Specifically, we calculated seven indicators that use different combinations of data on protected areas, ecosystem types, and ecological condition. We used these indicators to measure progress in effective, representative ecosystem protection at different scales in South Africa: country, ecosystem group (e.g., realm), and ecosystem type. The indicators revealed more informative insights, such as which ecosystem types are best progressing toward meeting their protection targets and where protection levels could improve if degraded habitat within protected areas was restored, than protected area coverage (PAC; total % protection). We tabulated the data requirements, advantages, and disadvantages for the indicators and provided recommendations for their use. We recommend condition-adjusted representativeness (CAR) and the ecosystem protection level index be added as component indicators in the GBF monitoring framework for Target 3. These two indicators could also be assessed using the Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) for standardized aggregation or disaggregation of ecosystem types at different levels. For single time points, plotting PAC, representativeness, CAR, and ecosystem protection level by ecosystem functional groups (GET level 3) can be informative. Applying these indicators can strengthen biodiversity reporting under the GBF.