Wildlife and humans thriving in Unesco-protected sites

Wildlife and humans are thriving within sites recognised by Unesco, research has found, allowing for the recovery of threatened species and habitats around the world.

While wildlife populations have crashed globally by nearly three-quarters since 1970, those within Unesco-protected areas have remained largely stable.

“It’s good news, it shows that these sites are extremely resilient in the face of a changing world,” said Tales Carvalho Resende, one of the co-authors of the report People and Nature in Unesco Sites, published on Tuesday.

But the sites are also under severe threat: more than 300,000 sq km of tree cover, an area larger than the Republic of the Congo, has been lost within Unesco-designated sites since 2000, mostly owing to agricultural expansion and logging. About 90% of Unesco sites globally are also judged to be under “high levels” of environmental stress, chiefly extreme heat.

A black-necked grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) on a lake at the Kizilirmak Delta in Samsun. Photograph: Murat Bakmaz/Anadolu/Getty Images

One in four designated sites could reach critical climate tipping points by 2050, according to Unesco. These include the disappearance of glaciers, collapse of coral reefs and forests drying out, turning from carbon sinks into carbon sources.

“Now climate change is really the key driver that is threatening the sites,” said Carvalho. “They need to adapt to face the challenges that are coming. It’s really worth investing in this.”

Many of the world’s “charismatic megafauna”, whose populations have plummeted in recent decades under an onslaught of poaching, the encroachment of agriculture and other stresses, have found havens in Unesco-designated sites, where they often receive far greater protection than in non-designated areas. About a third of the world’s remaining elephants, tigers and pandas are in Unesco sites, as are about one in 10 of the remaining great apes, giraffes, lions, rhinos and dugongs.

Some of the most endangered species are also found only within Unesco reserves. All of the 10 vaquita, a species of porpoise, thought to be the last of their kind, the 60 or so remaining Javan rhinoceros, and about 85% of the remaining population of Sumatran orangutans, thought to number about 15,000 individuals, are found within designated sites.

Safari vehicles in the Ngorongoro conservation area in Tanzania. Photograph: Rob Taggart

Unesco sites are also home to about a 10th of the world’s population, who are benefiting from the biodiversity, generating about a 10th of global GDP, according to the report, which is the first global assessment examining all of the 2,260 protected areas.

Carvalho gave the example of Virunga national park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where populations of the very endangered mountain gorilla have been protected with the support of local communities.

Of the three forms of Unesco designation, the highest is world heritage sites, which are cultural monuments, achievements or natural areas judged to be of global significance, and governments are bound to protect them under the United Nation organisation’s founding treaty, the World Heritage Convention of 1972. More recently, Unesco has introduced biosphere reserves, which are examples of sustainable development in action, and global geoparks, which have particularly important geology. Governments are expected to manage these areas too, but they lack the full legal force of the original.

A grey heron in the Kizilirmak Delta. Photograph: Murat Bakmaz/Anadolu/Getty Images

All three together cover more than 13m sq km, an area of land greater than that of China and India combined, and more than 60% of the world’s species are found within the sites, about 40% of which are found nowhere else on earth. They are also home to about 900 million people, speaking more than 1,000 languages.

About a quarter of the sites overlap with the territories of Indigenous peoples, and many are managed by Indigenous and local communities.

The report also found that Unesco sites store an estimated 240 gigatons of carbon, equivalent to nearly two decades of emissions from fossil fuel burning.

Khaled El-Enany, director general of Unesco, said: “Inside these [Unesco designated] territories, communities thrive, humanity’s heritage endures, and biodiversity is holding on while it collapses elsewhere. This report reveals what we stand to lose if [these sites] are not prioritised.”