The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the world's roadmap toward the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature (Convention on Biological Diversity 2022). Its operational core is 23 targets, which translate its vision into concrete policy commitments spanning both place-based conservation and broader actions to address the underlying drivers of nature's decline. Among them, Target 3 concerns one of the most established and demonstrably effective conservation measures: protected and conserved areas (Watson et al. 2014). Popularly known as “30×30” for its quantitative element of protecting 30% of land and ocean by 2030, Target 3 succeeds Aichi Target 11, which called for conserving 17% of land and 10% of oceans by 2020, and the 2010 goal of conserving 10% of Earth by 2010. Although each of these targets includes important qualifiers about where protection should occur and how it should be implemented, they have remained defined largely by their numerical area component as the primary measure of conservation progress. And this is unfortunately still the case for Target 3 of the KMGBF. The appeal of area-based targets as the focal point for measuring conservation gains is understandable. Numbers are simple to communicate, compare, and monitor; they offer governments a seemingly clear benchmark of progress; and they lend themselves to global dashboards that can be easily updated. Further, an emphasis on coverage allows countries to report impressive progress without necessarily committing the human and financial resources needed to reverse negative trends and halt biodiversity loss. Thus, focusing on area as the key metric risks repeating decades of misplaced emphasis in global and national biodiversity policy. Indeed, available evidence suggests that the current extent of land and sea protection does not adequately align with key biodiversity features or the threats they face, with most assessed species having insufficient coverage and many high-threat areas falling outside protection (Butchart et al. 2015; Le Saout et al. 2013; Pulido-Chadid et al. 2025; Rodrigues et al. 2004; Zeng et al. 2023). What matters is, therefore, not how much we protect, but where and how protection occurs (Visconti et al. 2019). Ecological representativeness and connectivity determine whether protected and conserved areas can sustain species and ecosystems (Brennan et al. 2022; Podda and Porporato 2023). Equally, effective and equitable management ensures that they deliver conservation benefits and respect the rights of local communities (Geldmann et al. 2013; Gill et al. 2017; Wauchope et al. 2022). Despite this, recent analyses suggest that the global network of protected areas is poorly placed (Butchart et al. 2015; Venter et al. 2014) and that a substantial proportion of protected areas globally suffer from limited management capacity, chronic underfunding, and governance challenges (Coad et al. 2019; Gill et al. 2017). Additionally, a large number of the world's protected and conserved areas have experienced legal “downgrading” of protections, which is not captured well in globally available statistics nor reflected in area-coverage calculations. These changes affect protected-area effectiveness, representativeness, and connectivity (Golden Kroner et al. 2019). The essential elements for effective protection are explicitly included in the text of Target 3, which calls for “well-connected and ecologically representative systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures… effectively and equitably managed” (Convention on Biological Diversity 2022). However, these components are rarely emphasized in national implementation or global reporting, where progress continues to be judged mainly by total coverage (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2020). With the 2030 deadline approaching, it is crucial to establish whether global efforts are actually moving the world toward the goals of the KMGBF. The first global stocktake, now underway, is the mechanism through which the CBD will answer this question. More than a reporting exercise, the CBD's first global stocktake, culminating in decisions at COP 17, represents the most consequential moment for interpreting Target 3 since the adoption of the KMGBF. As Parties prepare their submissions ahead of COP 17, the stocktake will establish the benchmarks against which national progress is assessed for the remainder of the decade. Countries must report how they are implementing the targets, and the CBD will synthesize these inputs into a narrative and technical assessment of global progress. That synthesis, to be finalized at COP 17, will shape not only the midterm evaluation but also the norms, expectations, and incentives guiding policy and investment decisions through 2030. This makes the stocktake far more than a procedural review. It is the decision point that will determine what “success” under Target 3 actually means. If the stocktake continues to treat area coverage as the primary indicator of progress, Parties will be rewarded for expanding the extent of protected and conserved areas regardless of whether these expansions contribute to biodiversity recovery, threat reduction, or equitable governance. In effect, COP 17 risks locking the wrong metric into global biodiversity policy for the remainder of the decade and potentially beyond. As a consequence, the world could reach 30% protection by 2030, and still fail to conserve biodiversity, and maybe 40% in 2040 or even 50% in 2050, without being much closer to reaching the long-term vision of living in harmony with nature. This narrow focus on area is reinforced not only through policy processes but also within the academic community. Despite growing recognition that protected area effectiveness depends on ecological representativeness, connectivity, durability, and governance quality (Dudley et al. 2023; Geldmann et al. 2021; Visconti et al. 2019), 30×30 remains the dominant shorthand used in papers, presentations, dashboards, and global syntheses. Such shorthand collapses a multidimensional target into a single headline number and inadvertently reinforces area as the central measure of success. This matters because Parties and the CBD routinely rely on peer-reviewed analyses to guide national reporting, indicator development, and prioritization tools. Moving beyond 30×30 as the default label is, therefore, essential if science is to support, rather than undermine, the full intent of Target 3. The coming stocktake will determine whether the world evaluates Target 3 by how much land and water is protected or by whether protection actually works. If area continues to dominate reporting and assessment, the global community could meet 30×30 and still fail to conserve biodiversity. To avoid this, the CBD and its Parties must elevate representativeness, connectivity, management effectiveness, durability, and equitable governance as the primary criteria for judging progress. This change will also help push countries and other actors to invest more, and, importantly, to invest more wisely, in protected and conserved areas, by aligning reporting incentives with the ecological conditions under which protection actually delivers biodiversity outcomes, which is ultimately what is needed to reverse current downward biodiversity trends. We cannot afford a decade defined by the wrong metric; the stocktake is a critical opportunity to correct course.
Jonas Geldmann (Sun,) studied this question.