America the Beautiful
Meeting "30 × 30" Conservation Goals Through Connected Protected Areas
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3775932 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amy E Frazier (0000-0003-4552-4935, University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author), Peter Kedron (0000-0002-1093-3416, University of California, Santa Barbara), Wenxin Yang (0000-0002-9332-4500, University of California, Santa Barbara), Hejun Quan (Arizona State University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 115 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-24 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annals of the American Association of Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2469-4452 • E-ISSN: 2469-4460 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/24694452.2024.2410008 |
| OpenAlex | W4403729052 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 72 |
Protected areas are a primary instrument for biodiversity conservation, and area-based targets have become a hallmark of global efforts with the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biological Framework recommending at least 30 percent of land and water be protected by 2030. In parallel, the United States has implemented “America the Beautiful,” a call for local, state, and regionally led efforts to conserve, connect, and restore 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Achieving these goals is complicated, however, by the multiple policy scales at which conservation decisions are made and governed and the limited guidance provided on how gains to protected and connected areas should be evaluated. We assess the connectedness of U.S. protected areas at multiple scales and find that less than 3 percent of the United States is protected and connected. Connectedness increases when the area under investigation is partitioned into smaller policy units (e.g., counties), a product of the modifiable areal unit problem. Similarly, connectedness values increase by an order of magnitude when assessed relative to the protected area network rather than considering all land area. Both findings support the need for standardized reporting frameworks and highlight the challenges in coordinating conservation goals across administrative units
Economics · Environmental ethics · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Political science · Sociology · American Environmental and Regional History · Economic and Environmental Valuation · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm
Biodiversity management in the face of climate change
Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation
Increasing Isolation of Protected Areas in Tropical Forests Over the Past Twenty Years
Connectivity Is a Vital Element of Landscape Structure
Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century
A global-level assessment of the effectiveness of protected areas at resisting anthropogenic pressures
Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change
Securing the Conservation of Biodiversity across Administrative Levels and Spatial, Temporal, and Ecological Scales – Research Needs and Approaches of the SCALES Project
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |