THE UN:Over 11 per cent of the Earth's land surface is now protected by the UN, the organisation said yesterday.
The number of protected areas has surpassed 100,000 and a large portion of the Amazonian rainforest and Arctic tundra were also safeguarded.
Although 11.5 per cent of the Earth's land surface - an area the size of South America - was protected, the UN Environment Programme said progress on protecting other sensitive ecosystems, notably marine environments, was far too slow.
"Less than 10 per cent of the world's large lakes are protected ... (and) less than 0.5 percent of the world's seas and oceans are within protected areas," it said, on the second day of the fifth World Parks Congress in Durban.
The reasons for protecting sites included their value in researching particular ecosystems, their unique wildlife, their status as national monuments and their natural beauty.
"Between 10 and 30 per cent of some of the planet's vital natural features such as the Amazonian rainforests, the Arctic tundra and the tropical savannah grasslands are now held in these protected areas," the Environment Programme said in a statement.
The number and size of the protected areas on the list has grown more than 10-fold since it was first produced in 1962, with protected sites covering an area of 18.8 million sq kms now catalogued.
Europe was the region with the most protected areas, with 43,000, but Central and South America had the highest percentage of land under protection, at more than 25 per cent each, according to the UN programme. - (Reuters)