Bridging the gap between the scale of protected areas and the conservation target of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Anhui Province

Abstract

Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets specific targets for future protected area (PA) scale. To bridge the gap between the scale of PA and conservation targets in Anhui Province, we identified priority conservation areas under different scenarios based on systematic conservation planning theory with biodiversity and key ecosystem services as conservation objects and HAI as conservation costs, and then identified conservation gap areas based on GAP analysis, and finally set specific PA construction targets for each city. The results of the study show that due to the small scale of established PA in Anhui Province, effective conservation of important areas for biodiversity and key ecosystem services cannot be achieved. Identifying priority conservation areas based on systematic conservation planning theory can effectively enhance conservation benefits of biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Therefore, we propose to use the conservation gap area as the potential construction area of PA and expand PA network which accounts for 23.08% of the total area of Anhui Province. Our work provides spatially explicit potential construction areas of PA to bridge the gap between the scale of PA and the conservation target of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Anhui Province, and provides a reference for cities to set construction targets for PA.

Keywords

• Protected areas
• Conservation gap
• Marxan model