Biodiversity is being lost throughout the world and this has negative consequences for the delivery of ecosystem services and human wellbeing. The primary threat to most biodiversity is habitat loss, thus the primary response should be to safeguard these habitats.
The creation of protected area networks helps to reduce biodiversity loss and provides significant contributions to global conservation efforts. However, despite the fact that the surface area of designated protected areas has steadily increased since 1970, the rate of biodiversity loss continues to increase. The discrepancy between the trends in increasing protected area coverage but declining biodiversity over the last four decades may relate to two key factors: (1) the degree to which protected areas deliver biodiversity outcomes; and (2) the degree to which significant biodiversity is represented within protected areas.