In the most comprehensive report to date on the economic implications of protecting nature, over 100 economists and scientists find that the global economy would benefit from the establishment of far more protected areas on land and at sea than what exist today.

The report considers various scenarios of protecting at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean to find that the benefits outweigh the costs by a ratio of at least 5-to-1.

One of the authors is a Nigerian, based in Canada, Dr. Rashid Sumaila, who doubles as professor and Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

The report offers new evidence that the nature conservation sector drives economic growth, delivers key non-monetary benefits and is a net contributor to a resilient global economy.

The findings follow growing scientific evidence that at least 30 per cent of the planet’s land and ocean must be protected to address the alarming collapse of the natural world, which now threatens up to one million species with extinction.

With such clear economic and scientific data, momentum continues to build for a landmark global agreement that would include the 30 per cent protection target. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has included this 30 per cent protected area goal in its draft 10-year strategy, which is expected to be finalized and approved by the Convention’s 196 parties next year in Kunming, China.

This new independent report, “Protecting 30 per cent of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications,” is the first ever analysis of protected area impacts across multiple economic sectors, including agriculture, fisheries, and forestry in addition to the nature conservation sector.

The report measures the financial impacts of protected areas on the global economy and non-monetary benefits like ecosystem services, including climate change mitigation, flood protection, clean water provision and soil conservation. Across all measures, the experts find that the benefits are greater when more nature is protected as opposed to maintaining the status quo.

Currently, roughly 15 per cent of the world’s land and 7 per cent of the ocean have some degree of protection. The report finds that the additional protections would lead to an average of $250 billion increase in economic output annually and an average of $350 billion in improved ecosystem services annually compared with the status quo.

The nature conservation sector has been one of the fastest growing in recent years and, according to the report, is projected to grow from 4-6 per cent per year compared to less than one per cent for agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, after the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Protecting natural areas also provides significant mental and physical health benefits and reduces the risk of new zoonotic disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, a value that has not yet been quantified despite the extraordinarily high economic costs of the pandemic. A recent study estimated the economic value of protected areas based on the improved mental health of visitors to be $6 trillion annually.

“Our report shows that protection in today’s economy brings in more revenue than the alternatives and likely adds revenue to agriculture and forestry, while helping prevent climate change, water crisis, biodiversity loss and disease. Increasing nature protection is sound policy for governments.”

“You cannot put a price tag on nature — but the economic numbers point to its protection,” said Anthony Waldron, the lead author of the report and researcher focused on conservation finance, global species loss and sustainable agriculture.

The report’s authors find that obtaining the substantial benefits of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and ocean, requires an average annual investment of roughly $140 billion by 2030. The world currently invests just over $24 billion per year in protected areas.

“This investment pales in comparison to the economic benefits that additional protected areas would deliver and to the far larger financial support currently given to other sectors,” said Enric Sala, co-author of this report, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.

“Investing to protect nature would represent less than one-third of the amount that governments spend on subsidies to activities that destroy nature. It would represent 0.16 per cent of global GDP and require less investment than the world spends on video games every year.”

Sumaila said “The ocean is like an investment account: to protect it from the unknown and unknowable, you’ve got to put part of it in a conservative portfolio as a ‘rainy day’ investment. In the same vein, we need to put part of our ocean portfolio in marine protected areas.

“The general advice is that 30-year-olds should put 30 per cent of their portfolio in a ‘rainy day’ investment — older people should increase this percentage according to their age. By this measure alone, one can say that 30X30 is long overdue since the ocean is much older than 30 years….”