Did you know about 13 percent the planet’s ecosystems have no protected areas specifically aimed at conserving biodiversity?

A new paper in Biological Conservation by my colleagues Clinton Jenkins and Lucas Joppa predicts that without major investments in conservation globally, earth will miss the target set by the international Convention on Biological Diversity: To protect 10% of all ecological regions by 2010.

“Protected areas are the best chance we have to save the world’s biodiversity, and they are going to play an increasing role in climate change negotiations as well,” says Joppa. “Missing a conservation milestone is regrettable, but we hope our results turn attention to the achievable tasks at hand, and not to what the world has failed to accomplish.”

I hope so too. On a more positive note, the article also reports that Brazil is protecting a lot of the Amazon.