In a recent study, researchers identified exactly 16,825 locations – yes, that precisely. And the good news is: It wouldn’t take much to effectively combat the sixth major mass extinction. You just have to do it.
According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), one million animals and plants are threatened with extinction. It is impossible to protect them all individually. But there is a way to save many threatened species at the same time: protected areas. Their central importance for species protection was recognized a year and a half ago at the World Conference on Nature in Montreal: the so-called 30×30 goal, which was agreed at the time, calls for 30 percent of the land area and 30 percent of the oceans to be protected. The only question is: where in the world should these refuges be created?