Last updated | August 18, 2025

Indicator information

Name

Terrestrial protected area coverage

Unit

Percentage or surface (km²) of a terrestrial (land and inland waters) area covered by protected areas.

Area of interest

The indicator is distributed through REST services at country and ecoregion level and available in KCBD - Global Biodiversity Data Viewer (GBDV) at country level.

Related targets

	Sustainable Development Goal 15 on life on land
	Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3

Policy question

How much are terrestrial and inland water areas covered by protected areas at the country and ecoregion level? This is a key question for measuring progress on the coverage element of GBF Target 3 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Use and interpretation

The indicator can be used to assess how far countries or ecoregions are from the GBF Target 3 of having 30% of the land covered by well-connected systems of protected areas. Inversely, the information highlights where on the globe additional efforts are most needed in expanding or reinforcing the coverage by protected areas.

Key caveats

Country boundaries include disputed territories which may contain protected areas. In such cases, protected areas are assigned to all the countries claiming this territory. Note that the designations employed and the materials and maps produced in KCBD - GBDV do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the European Commission concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

Protected areas with a reported area and a point but no boundaries are artificially generated using buffers. This approach can underestimate or overestimate the level of protection of an ecoregion as well inaccurate estimates of the elements that are marine or terrestrial when buffered points cover coastal areas. See Visconti et al. (2013) for further discussions.

Indicator status

Standard indicator of the Global Biodiversity Framework as an indicator to measure PA coverage GBF Target 3. Published in UNEP-WCMC & IUCN (2016).

Available data and resources

Data

The KCBD Global Biodiversity Data Viewer provides typical metrics such as the amount of protection for each country; the relative contribution that a country is making to the protection of an ecoregion worldwide; and the number of different ecoregions falling within a particular protected area.

Update frequency

Planned annually.

Code

The procedure for the computation of the indicator, which currently involves the use of a wide range of software to handle the different steps, is documented in Juffe Bignoli et al. (2024).

Additional guidance from the curators of the World Database on Protected Areas can be found at

https://www.protectedplanet.net/c/calculating-protected-area-coverage

Methodology

We use the GISCO Administrative Units to compute protected area coverage of countries. PA coverage statistics are also calculated for terrestrial ecoregions because these represent more meaningful entities within which to analyze the ecological representativeness of the global protected area network (Figure 1). The terrestrial ecoregion boundaries used are provided by WWF, the Nature Conservancy and partners. The Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TEoW) dataset identifies 871 ecoregions (Dinerstein et al., 2017). These biogeographic classification systems can help ensure that the full range of ecosystems is represented in global and regional conservation and development strategies.

Following current practice, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserves are not included in the calculations, as many of their buffer areas do not meet the IUCN’s protected area definition (Watson et al., 2014; UNEP-WCMC & IUCN, 2016). PAs that are proposed (but not yet fully designated or established) and PAs recorded as points without a reported area are also excluded. In addition, all overlaps between different PA records are removed from the calculations to avoid double counting.

The procedure for the computation of the terrestrial coverage is described in details in Juffe Bignoli et al. (2024). 

Input datasets

References

Dinerstein et al. (2017), An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix014

Juffe-Bignoli et al. (2024) Delivering Systematic and Repeatable Area-Based Conservation Assessments: From Global to Local Scales. Land 2024, 13, 1506. https://doi.org/10.3390/land13091506

Lázaro, C., Mandrici, A., Delli, G., Caudullo, G., Bourgoin, C. et al., Challenges in integrating global environmental data with GISCO administrative layers – A GIS perspective, Publications Office of the European Union, 2025. https://dx.doi.org/10.2760/8183010

UNEP-WCMC & IUCN (2016). Protected Planet Report 2016; UNEP-WCMC: Cambridge, UK; IUCN: Gland, Switzerland, 2016. Protected Planet Report 2016

UNEP-WCMC & IUCN (2025). Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) [On-line], [January /2025], Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. www.protectedplanet.net

Visconti, P., et al. (2013). Effects of errors and gaps in spatial data sets on assessment of conservation progress. Conservation Biology, 27, 5: 1000-1010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12095

Watson, J. E. M., et al. (2014). The performance and potential of protected areas. Nature, 515: 67–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13947