Our oceans and the ecosystems they support play a crucial role in maintaining life on Earth. They absorb 30 percent of human-generated carbon dioxide and provide food and livelihoods for over three billion people worldwide. Yet, efforts to achieve sustainable management of our oceans remain severely underfunded.
This week in Colombia, governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society groups, donors, and business leaders are coming together at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Their goal is to build consensus on how to protect nature, including our global oceans, with the ambitious Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) guiding the discussions
.With four long-term goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030, the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) outlines a vision for a world where people live in harmony with nature, ensuring that “biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored, and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet, and delivering essential benefits for all people.” We are excited about the opportunity to drive new funding for the protection of the planet’s ocean and coastal ecosystems.
Since the GBF was adopted at the 2022 CBD COP, much of the focus and funding has centered around Target 3—the “30×30” target, which aims to protect 30 percent of the world’s land and seas by 2030. In the marine realm, this has sparked a rush to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective forms of area-based management, both within national jurisdictions and beyond, in the High Seas.
However, this focus can lead to narrow or short-term success if it is defined solely by the number of square kilometers under protection or the percentage of the ocean that is managed. Are these the right measures of success? On their own, we believe they are not.
First, a focus on quickly protecting the most area can lead to prioritizing the easiest places to designate—often without adequate consultation with traditional owners or local stakeholders. To avoid “ocean grabbing,” we need inclusive and thoughtful marine spatial planning processes that recognize some areas are more critical than others for biodiversity, ecosystem function, and services. It is these areas that should be prioritized for protection and management.
Locations with high ecological integrity—such as biodiverse tropical coral reefs or productive coastal upwelling zones that support whales, sardine runs, and seabirds—or those that can be restored, present the best opportunities for the sustained delivery of ocean services, even in the face of future climate challenges.
Management of these areas should be innovative and aligned with local needs and values. For example, small-scale fishing communities from six continents have recently called for preferential access to—and co-management of—coastal zones, allowing them to continue supporting local economies, health, culture, and well-being.
If we don’t secure seascapes in the right places, there’s a risk that the "30 percent protection" could end up being ineffective, doing little to protect biodiversity, sustain a healthy planet, or ensure vital ocean services.
Second, the number of square kilometers under management alone doesn’t reflect the equity or effectiveness of that management. In the rush to meet area-based targets, it’s crucial to ensure that new protected areas are established through human rights-based, inclusive processes, and that the costs and benefits of management are equitably shared, especially with Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
To ensure these areas are effective, significant investment in long-term monitoring is essential to track whether protected and conserved areas are actually meeting their biodiversity objectives. Additionally, we must not overlook the urgent need to strengthen the governance and management of existing marine protected areas (MPAs) to prevent them from becoming "paper parks"—areas designated on maps but not actively managed or achieving their intended outcomes.
Third, MPAs and other managed areas cannot succeed in isolation. They must be part of a larger, well-managed seascape, where sustainable use is both enabled and properly regulated, the impacts of climate change are minimized, pollution is controlled, and gender equality and gender-responsive management plans are prioritized.
For the 30×30 target to achieve long-term success, we must also address the other 22 critical targets within the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that support sustainable ocean management. This includes climate-smart marine spatial planning, restoring ecological integrity, controlling invasive species, preventing species extinctions, promoting sustainable use through harvest regulations and trade controls, and taking action to mitigate pollution risks, among other priorities.
What are the right measures of success? To hold ourselves accountable, we must track the outcomes we aim to achieve—specifically, the protection of biodiversity and the safeguarding of ecosystem functions and services that are essential for human well-being.
Success will not be possible if global financing remains insufficient. According to some estimates, the oceans require $175 billion annually to achieve sustainable ocean management by 2030. Yet, between 2015 and 2019, only $10 billion in total was invested. Urgent, coordinated investment is needed—not only to meet Target 3’s goal of protecting 30 percent of the ocean but also to support a broader, more holistic approach to financing the full range of actions needed to secure these outcomes.
In short, without significant investments across all targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework, the vision of a nature-positive future is at risk. We hope that the CBD parties in Cali this week make substantial progress toward this critical goal.
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