A new report by Earth Insight finds more than 61.5 million hectares (151.9 million acres) of protected and conserved areas — an area roughly 2.5 times the size of the United Kingdom — overlap with ongoing and planned oil and gas blocks across the tropical countries. Another 42.7 million hectares (105.5 million acres) of protected lands overlap with mining blocks or concessions.
“[The] analysis reveals a major gap between conservation commitments and the industrial pressures facing areas already counted as protected and conserved,” Florencia Librizzi, deputy director at Earth Insight and author of the report, told Mongabay over email.
Released on Oct. 8, the report arrived less than two weeks before delegates from around the world gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP17) from Oct. 19 – 30.
The findings show that expanding protected areas is not enough, according to the report.
At COP15 in 2022, 196 nations pledged to conserve at least 30 per cent of the world’s land, inland waters and coastal and marine areas by 2030 (known as “30×30”) under Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This year, delegates will assess global progress toward the 30×30 goal.
But instead, the report says governments should evaluate which ecosystems are being preserved, ensure enforcement is effective and prevent industrial activities from undermining conservation efforts.
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That is high-integrity 30×30: Conserving at least 30 per cent through healthy, connected ecosystems, effective management, equitable governance and Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights upheld, with no place for extractive or large-scale industrial activities.
Florencia Librizzi, Deputy Director, Earth Insight
A coalition of NGOs, including Earth Insight, the World Commission on Protected Areas, the KBA Secretariat, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) and others, analysed extractive pressures from a host of industries and how they overlap with areas under various levels of protection.
Areas under no conservation management face additional extractive pressures researchers found. The report identified that more than 36 million hectares (89 million acres), or 19 per cent, of unprotected Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are threatened by oil and gas blocks and 28 million hectares (69.1 million acres), or “15 per cent, are threatened by mining concessions.” For marine KBAs, 91 million hectares (224.9 million acres) remain unprotected, 19 per cent of which are threatened by oil and gas blocks.
More than 40 per cent of identified terrestrial KBAs in the Amazon remain unprotected, as well as 29 per cent in the Congo Basin and more than 50 per cent in both Southeast Asia and Central America.
Norman Jiwan, a Kerambai Dayak Indigenous leader from Borneo, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, told Mongabay over email that extractive activities can lead to damaging impacts for Indigenous people and their territories. These include restrictions on livelihoods, the denial of rights and justice, increased disease and infectious viruses, conflict and other social and cultural impacts and increased pollution and chemical exposure.
In the Amazon, 15.6 million hectares (38.5 million acres), or 3.9 per cent, of protected lands overlap with oil and gas blocks, along with 21 per cent of unprotected lands and 43 per cent of unprotected marine areas.
In Southeast Asia, oil and gas concessions cover 17 per cent of protected lands, along with 19 per cent of unprotected land KBAs and 12 per cent of unprotected marine KBAs. In addition, the researchers found that mining blocks or concessions threatened 12 per cent of unprotected marine KBAs.
The Congo Basin faces the heaviest threat, with 31 per cent of protected lands designated for oil and gas and 5 per cent for mining. For unprotected KBAs, 33 per cent overlap with oil and gas blocks and 16 per cent with mining areas.
The report raised concerns about the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor, a proposed 54-million-hectare (133.4-million-acre) conservation landscape, of which 39.2 million hectares (96.9 million acres), or 72 per cent, will overlap with oil and gas blocks, as well as 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) with mining blocks or concessions and 6.4 million hectares (15.8 million acres) with logging concessions.
Quality over quantity
According to Chris Sandbrook, a professor of conservation and society at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom who did not contribute to the report, “for the 30×30 target to be met, we can’t just think about the area covered by protected and conserved areas.”
An article published in Nature Communications by Sandbrook and colleagues in May 2026 argues that achieving the global 30×30 conservation target must account for its social as well as ecological impacts, as the effects on people, whether positive or negative, will depend on the social context of newly protected areas and how they are governed and managed. Meeting the 30×30 target must go hand in hand with respecting Indigenous peoples’ and other local communities’ rights and providing support for their livelihoods, according to the authors.
Sandbrook also said the findings of the Earth Insight report raise concerns around the credibility of the 30×30 target, “as it suggests that a lot of places which are currently designated for nature conservation could be lost at a later stage.”
“Governments must meet quantitative and qualitative commitments together and safeguard protected and conserved areas from extractive and large-scale industrial expansion,” Librizzi said. “That is high-integrity 30×30: Conserving at least 30 per cent through healthy, connected ecosystems, effective management, equitable governance and Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights upheld, with no place for extractive or large-scale industrial activities.”
The report argues that governments should establish and enforce rules prohibiting large-scale extractive activities in protected and conserved areas. In addition, conservation commitments should also align with economic and development policies, government spending and financial incentives.
Another recommendation is for governments to recognise, secure and adequately fund Indigenous peoples’ land rights, governance and stewardship. Recognition should be Indigenous-led, it said, and free, prior and informed consent must be respected.
Failing to do so “undermines and violates the human rights and intergenerational rights of Indigenous peoples’ over traditional and customary forest, land and soil, river streams, lakes and other water body areas,” Jiwan said.
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
