Map of Life
Read and download the recently released Species Protection Report here.

Species Protection Index

Overview

The Species Protection Index (SPI) captures how adequately Protected Areas or Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures, i.e. conservation areas, conserve habitat and support the health and survival of species and their populations1,2. The SPI directly addresses the Protected Area Target of the draft Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention of Biological Diversity which stipulates an increase in protected areas to achieve the Goal of "healthy and resilient populations of all species" and "reduced extinction rates".

As part of a new generation of data-driven, species-level indicators, the SPI is designed to support biodiversity assessment and conservation decision making. The SPI is a flexible tool that can be adapted to be partly or fully informed by regionally held data, and it can be adapted to account for the management effectiveness of protected areas, where such information is available. Map of Life has conducted an initial computation of global and national SPI values to assist biodiversity assessment and reporting. Any and all parts of this calculation, however, can be conducted independently nationally, and underlying species or protected area information currently used in Map of Life readily updated or replaced as needed.

Metric

National SPI values are calculated based on species protection scores (SPS). SPS measures how much of a species' range or population (e.g. its habitat-suitable range1) is currently protected (realized representation) relative to how much conservation area we think is needed for its population to thrive. There is no gold standard for determining how much area a species needs, but we can apply an intuitive rule of thumb: the rarest species with small range sizes generally need the most protection, and the most widespread and common species probably need the least. In practice, many other conservation principles will also influence species persistence through time—such as population size and trends and protected area management effectiveness—but this rule of thumb is a useful proxy for setting area-based conservation targets for species. We set area targets of 100% for species with range areas less than 10,000 km2 and 15% for species with range areas greater than 250,000 km2, and use a log-linear relationship for any species in between.

The SPI applies representation targets equitably at the national level, with national SPS calculated as the percent of the globally targeted adequate representation level for that species (say, 50% for Species X) achieved by a country. A species that has met its conservation target (Species X: >=50% of range protected in a country), will have an SPS of 100; a species halfway to meeting its target (Species X: 25% of range protected in a country) will have an SPS of 50.

A country's SPI value is then given as the average SPS, weighted by their respective stewardship (country-endemic species weigh most). SPI values range from 0 and 100, where a value of 50 means that on average species are half-way to sufficient representation in conservation areas. Conservation areas additions that improve species representation will increase SPI values.

Latest SPS and SPI products in Map of Life

Protected area (PA) data were derived from the January 2024 version of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). We note that for some countries, e.g. China, this database only provides a portion of the actual reserve network. We followed the WDPA's recommendations on cleaning data for calculations of global coverage and removed PAs without designated, inscribed, or established status, points without a reported area, marine reserves, and UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserves. For PAs lacking polygons and represented only as points, we created a buffer around data with the area of the buffer equal to the reported area of the PA. The PA polygons and buffered points were dissolved together, and intersected with a coastline from GADM 4.1. The results were then rasterized to a 1 km grid with values indicating percentage of PA cover in each grid cell, and then transformed to a Behrmann equal-area projection using bilinear interpolation.

Distribution information is currently based on the expert range map sources in Map of Life (mol.org/datasets) refined to habitat-suitable range (excluding non-suitable land-cover and elevation) following ref3. All datasets are available from their original sources and accessible or are viewable at mol.org. For intersections with country borders we used the Global Administrative Areas database, GADM, V 4.1 (gadm.org).

Further resources

  1. W. Jetz, M. A. McGeoch, R. Guralnick, S. Ferrier, J. Beck, M. J. Costello, M. Fernandez, G. N. Geller, P. Keil, C. Merow, C. Meyer, F. E. Muller-Karger, H. M. Pereira, E. C. Regan, D. S. Schmeller, E. Turak (2019). Essential biodiversity variables for mapping and monitoring species populations. Nature Ecology & Evolution 3:539-551.
  2. W. Jetz, J. McGowan, D. S. Rinnan, H. P. Possingham, P. Visconti, B. O’Donnell, M. C. Londoño-Murcia (2021) Include biodiversity representation indicators in area-based conservation targets. Nature Ecology & Evolution.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01620-y

    Author reprint: Article and Supplementary information

  3. Powers, R.P. & Jetz, W. (2019) Global habitat loss and extinction risk of terrestrial vertebrates under future land-use-change scenarios. Nature Climate Change, 9, 323-329.
  4. D. S. Rinnan, Y. Sica, A. Ranipeta, J. Wilshire, W. Jetz (2021). Multi-scale planning helps resolve global conservation needs with regional priorities. bioRxiv:0.1101/2020.02.05.936047v2.
  5. D. S. Rinnan, , G. Reygondeau, J. McGowan, V. Lam, R. Sumaila, A. Ranipeta, K. Kaschner, C. Garilao, W. L. Cheung, W. Jetz (2021). Targeted, collaborative biodiversity conservation in the global ocean can benefit fisheries economies. bioRxiv:2021.2004.2023.441004.
  6. IPBES (2019) Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service. In: eds. E.S. Brondizio, J. Settele, S. Díaz and H.T. Ngo), p. 1148. IPBES Secretariat, Bonn, Germany.
  7. Environmental Performance. "Environmental performance index." Yale University and Columbia University: New Haven, CT, USA (2018).
  8. CBD Secretariat (2021). CBD/WG2020/3/INF/6. 24 August 2021, Montreal. https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/2397/5133/3ce87fa6c735a7bf1cafb905/wg2020-03-inf-06-en.pdf
  9. The Species Protection Index: Measuring progress toward comprehensive biodiversity conservation. Map of Life. September 24, 2021

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