Information support to Millennium Development Goal 7:
Ensure environmental sustainability
Habitat conservation is vital for stemming the decline in biodiversity. The establishment of protected areas is an important mechanism for achieving this aim. In addition to protecting biodiversity, protected areas have become places of high social and economic value. Since 1981 UNEP-WCMC has been compiling information from regional, national and sub-national agencies on the protected areas of the world. This information is then used to produce a comprehensive global dataset (the World Database on Protected Areas) and support the development of relevant indicators. Data is available for 233 countries and territories, including marine and coastal areas and can be aggregated and presented in many ways (e.g. by country or region). Explicit quality control criteria are applied to ensure consistency and comparability between national datasets.
MDG target and indicator
Target addressed: Target 9 - 'Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.'
There are 5 indicators for measuring progress towards this target (indicators 25 to 29). Indicator 26 is defined as follows:
'Ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area'
The methodology to calculate this indicator can be found is provided here.
UNEP-WCMC currently provides protected areas information to support the development of Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
'Indicator 26'. A recent report from the UN Statistics Division demonstrating the use of this data, and can be
found by clicking here.
The table below provides a snapshot of the information held within the WDPA. This was last updated on the 31st January 2007 , incorporating information on all designated protected areas.
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i MDG defined regions.
Click here to download MS Excel table containing 'Total number and area (km) of nationally designated protected areas per country'
Harmonisation with other global targets and processes.
Protected area related indicators are key among the suite of biodiversity indicators that are being elaborated for several global targets and processes. UNEP-WCMC provides support to these processes including the MDG, the 2010 biodiversity target, which was adopted by 188 governments through the Convention on Biological Diversity and in the World Summit on Sustainable Development Plan of Implementation, and are also included in the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development indicators.