Protecting 1.2% of Earth Would Prevent Most Extinctions, Study Says 

Mexican gray wolves, an endangered native species, are seen resting in their enclosure at the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Mexico July 1, 2020. Picture taken July 1, 2020. (Reuters)
Mexican gray wolves, an endangered native species, are seen resting in their enclosure at the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Mexico July 1, 2020. Picture taken July 1, 2020. (Reuters)
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Protecting 1.2% of Earth Would Prevent Most Extinctions, Study Says 

Mexican gray wolves, an endangered native species, are seen resting in their enclosure at the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Mexico July 1, 2020. Picture taken July 1, 2020. (Reuters)
Mexican gray wolves, an endangered native species, are seen resting in their enclosure at the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Mexico July 1, 2020. Picture taken July 1, 2020. (Reuters)

Setting aside an additional 1.2% of the world's land as nature preserves would prevent the majority of predicted plant and animal extinctions and cost about $263 billion, according to a study published on Tuesday.

The world is racing to meet a goal to protect 30% of the world by 2030 to protect wildlife that is being decimated by climate change, pollution and habitat destruction.

Global policymakers will meet at a United Nations summit in Colombia in October to discuss plans for reaching that goal.

The study in the journal Frontiers in Science aimed to identify the highest value areas in hope that they be included in those protection plans, said Carlos Peres, a study co-author and conservation ecology expert at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

"Most countries do not actually have a strategy," Peres said.

"The 30-by-30 targets still lack a lot of details because it doesn't actually say what 30 percent should be protected."

The study's proposed protections would cover an additional 1.6 million square km (633,000 square miles) - an area about a fifth the size of the United States - across 16,825 sites globally that are home to rare and threatened species.

That's on top of the nearly 16% of the world that already have some level of protection.

The study estimated the $263 billion bill is how much it would cost to acquire the new areas, many of which include private property, at current value over the next five years.

"Time is not on our side because it will become increasingly more expensive and more difficult to set aside additional protected areas," Peres said.

Land acquisition makes up most of the cost of creating protected areas, and the study did not consider the upkeep costs for policing the reserves.

About three-quarters of the sites are tropical forests, as those are the world's most biodiverse ecosystems. The Phillipines, Brazil and Indonesia are home to more than half of the high-value sites.

Russia is the single country with the most high-valued area ripe for conservation with 138,436 square km identified in the study, an area the size of Greece.

Several African countries also topped the list with Madagascar having the fourth-highest number of sites overall while the Democratic Republic of Congo had the largest area targeted for conservation on the continent.

The United States is the only developed nation among the top 30 countries in the analysis, with 0.6% of the sites or an area twice the size of Delaware.

The researchers only considered land and freshwater ecosystems but not oceans or marine protected areas. Researchers did not include invertebrates in the study, as the geographical distributions insects and other such animals are not well mapped.



Prince William Says Visit With Diana to Homeless Shelter Was Eye-Opener

This handout photograph released by Kensington Palace on October 25, 2024, shows Britain's Princess Diana (2R) with her 11-year-old son William (L), now Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales in the kitchens during one of his first visits to homelessness charity, The Passage in London, taken on December 14, 1993.. (Photo by THE PASSAGE / AFP)
This handout photograph released by Kensington Palace on October 25, 2024, shows Britain's Princess Diana (2R) with her 11-year-old son William (L), now Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales in the kitchens during one of his first visits to homelessness charity, The Passage in London, taken on December 14, 1993.. (Photo by THE PASSAGE / AFP)
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Prince William Says Visit With Diana to Homeless Shelter Was Eye-Opener

This handout photograph released by Kensington Palace on October 25, 2024, shows Britain's Princess Diana (2R) with her 11-year-old son William (L), now Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales in the kitchens during one of his first visits to homelessness charity, The Passage in London, taken on December 14, 1993.. (Photo by THE PASSAGE / AFP)
This handout photograph released by Kensington Palace on October 25, 2024, shows Britain's Princess Diana (2R) with her 11-year-old son William (L), now Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales in the kitchens during one of his first visits to homelessness charity, The Passage in London, taken on December 14, 1993.. (Photo by THE PASSAGE / AFP)

Prince William has recalled how his late mother Princess Diana took him to a shelter for homeless people when he was just 11 years old, saying how the visit opened his eyes to how others lived a different life to him.
In an extract from a documentary about his efforts to end homelessness to be broadcast this week, the heir to the British throne said how Diana introduced him and his younger brother Prince Harry to the cause as part of her determination to raise wider awareness of social issues from AIDS to mental health, Reuters said.
"I'd never been to anything like that before, and I was a bit anxious as to what to expect. My mother went about her usual part of making everyone feel relaxed and having a laugh and joking with everyone," William said of the 1993 visit to The Passage charity in London.
Last June, the elder son of King Charles launched a five-year project "Homewards" which he said was inspired by Diana.
Homeless charities say it is hard to know exactly how many people are living on the streets but statistics released this month said 178,560 households were assessed as homeless in England in 2023-24, up 12.3% on the year before.
In focusing on homelessness, William said he was "desperately trying to help people who are in need, and I see that as part of my role".
He recalled during his visit to The Passage playing chess and chatting with those there.
"That's when it informed me that there are other people out there who don't have the same life as you do," he says in the documentary. "When you're quite small ... you just think life is what you see in front of you. You don't really have concept to look elsewhere.
"And it's when you meet people that I did then who put a different perspective in your head and say ... I was living on the street last night."
The full ITV documentary, "Prince William: We Can End Homelessness", will be shown on Oct. 30 and 31.