Developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, DOPA Explorer provides simple means to explore and compare protected areas (PAs), with regard to their species and ecosystems, and the pressures they are exposed to through human development. 

This new version 4.1. of DOPA Explorer, released on 30 April 2021, provides detailed assessments for all marine and terrestrial protected areas in the world that are at least as large as 1 km² using the January 2021 version of the World Database on Protected Areas (UNEP-WCMC & IUCN).

Around 20 key indicators are have been processed automatically for more than 100,000 protected areas to generate a set of key metrics on ecosystems, climate, species and pressures. This information is proposed at site, ecoregion and country level. 

Aside updated data, we are proposing a new web interface (for Chrome and Firefox only for the moment) as well as a new indicator about representation of protected areas. This indicator helps to assess how far countries are from achieving the representation element of Aichi Target 11 of having 17% of the land, and 10% of coastal and marine areas covered by ecologically representative systems of protected areas. 

This indicator will also be applicable to the targets set for area-based commitments in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. 

DOPA Explorer is available from https://dopa-explorer.jrc.ec.europa.eu/