Protecting 1.2% of Earths Land Would Stop Sixth Great Extinction, Scientists Say [Video]

According to a new analysis by a group of conservationists and researchers, expanding another 1.2% of Earth’s land-based protected areas would stop the extinction of most threatened animal and plant species.

The coalition of experts identified 16,825 potential conservation sites that need to be prioritized in the next five years in order to save thousands of rare species.

“Most species on Earth are rare, meaning that species either have very narrow ranges or they occur at very low densities or both,” said Dr. Eric Dinerstein, the study’s lead author and senior biodiversity expert at NGO RESOLVE, in a press release from Frontiers in Science. “And rarity is very concentrated. In our study, zooming in on this rarity, we found that we need only about 1.2% of the Earth’s surface to head off the sixth great extinction of life on Earth.”

Between 2018 and 2023, an additional 1.2 million square kilometers were protected to …