Catastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets

Abstract

Humans have altered terrestrial ecosystems for millennia [1], yet wilderness areas still remain as vital refugia where natural ecological and evolutionary processes operate with minimal human disturbance [2-4], underpinning key regional- and planetary-scale functions [5, 6]. Despite the myriad values of wilderness areas-as critical strongholds for endangered biodiversity [7], for carbon storage and sequestration [8], for buffering and regulating local climates [9], and for supporting many of the world's most politically and economically marginalized communities [10]-they are almost entirely ignored in multilateral environmental agreements. This is because they are assumed to be relatively free from threatening processes and therefore are not a priority for conservation efforts [11, 12]. Here we challenge this assertion using new comparable maps of global wilderness following methods established in the original "last of the wild" analysis [13] to examine the change in extent since the early 1990s. We demonstrate alarming losses comprising one-tenth (3.3 million km) of global wilderness areas over the last two decades, particularly in the Amazon (30%) and central Africa (14%). We assess increases in the protection of wilderness over the same time frame and show that these efforts are failing to keep pace with the rate of wilderness loss, which is nearly double the rate of protection. Our findings underscore an immediate need for international policies to recognize the vital values of wilderness and the unprecedented threats they face and to underscore urgent large-scale, multifaceted actions needed to maintain them.

Unexpected high vulnerability of functions in wilderness areas: evidence from coral reef fishes

“…large areas geographically isolated from humans by natural geographical barriers or with very limited human presence, may provide ecological baselines close to a ‘natural’ status [2,26,28]. Indeed, wilderness areas are traditionally viewed as areas featuring exceptional concentrations of biodiversity and abundance [29], albeit potentially suffering from global changes in a near future [30]. …”

Informing Canada’s commitment to biodiversity conservation: A science-based framework to help guide protected areas designation through Target 1 and beyond

“…Tracts of ecologically intact wilderness have been lost across the globe; less than 25% of non-barren ice-free land remains free from anthropogenic use (Ellis and Ramankutty 2008;Venter et al 2016;Watson et al 2016a). Yet intact wilderness supports high levels of biodiversity (Gurd et al 2001;Pollock et al 2017), diverse communities (see Crooks 2002;Ferraz et al 2003;Gibson et al 2013), ecosystem services (Bala et al 2007), and processes such as fire regimes (Gill et al 2013;Stephens et al 2014).…”

“…Human pressures on the environment have had profound detrimental impacts on species across the globe (Ceballos et al 2015; see Box S1). Even within Canada, a country with vast remaining wilderness and an international reputation for natural resources (Watson et al 2016a), human-dominated regions show extensive biodiversity loss (see Fig. 1; Fig.…”

Protecting wild land from wind farms in a post-EU Scotland

“…There have been significant declines in the area of the globe defined as wilderness (Watson et al 2016), and wilderness mapping has highlighted the inadequacies of the extent of protected areas. It is because of these things that studies have reported on the state of the current law, and calls have been made for improved legislative protection for wilderness, wild areas (a term used by the EC) and wild land.…”