Global Funding for 30×30 Target Still Billions Behind

New report finds that current international financial flows remain billions of dollars short of what is required to protect and conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030.

A new study and interactive dashboard released today in Nairobi at the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) finds that current international financial flows remain billions of dollars short of what is required to achieve the global biodiversity target of protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 (30×30).

The global commitment known as 30×30 was formalized under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), an ambitious plan to achieve a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. The GBF sets four long-term goals and 23 targets to be reached by 2030.

Target 3 — commonly referred to as 30×30 — is at the center of this new report, which provides the first comprehensive overview of international finance flows since world leaders adopted the GBF in December 2022. The results are sobering. According to study author Michael Owen of Indufor North America LLC, “there has been limited public analysis of international funding flows for protected and conserved areas.”

He stressed that transparency among donors remains uneven and that the data needed to understand 30×30 funding are fragmented across various sources, often lacking sufficient detail to track progress effectively.

“Our goal for the 30×30 Funding Dashboard is to centralize these data, enable users to view funding at the project level, and provide a clear view of top-line trends in the accompanying report. We hope this analysis encourages more donors to strengthen transparency and accountability as we move toward the deadline for Target 3,” he said.

The new assessment by Indufor—funded by Campaign for Nature, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Rainforest Foundation Norway—finds that although international funding to help developing countries protect nature has risen by 150 percent over the past decade, reaching just over USD 1 billion in 2024, developed nations remain USD 4 billion short of the funding levels required to make 30×30 achievable.

Brian O’Donnell, Director of the Campaign for Nature, said the analysis shows that significantly more funding is needed.

“Despite some recent progress, funding is projected to fall billions short of what is needed to meet the 30×30 target. There is a clear need to ramp up marine conservation finance, especially for Small Island Developing States, which receive only a small fraction of the funding dedicated to other regions,” he said.

He emphasized that meeting the 30×30 target is essential to prevent extinctions, achieve climate goals, and sustain the life-supporting services nature provides, including storm protection and clean air and water. However, the funding demands are steep: expanding and managing protected areas alone will likely require USD 103–178 billion per year globally by 2030, far above the USD 24 billion currently spent.

Anders Haug Larsen, Advocacy Director at Rainforest Foundation Norway, called for increased international support, saying, “We are currently far off track, both in mobilizing resources and protecting nature.”

“We now have a short window of opportunity in which governments, donors, and actors on the ground—including Indigenous Peoples and local communities—must work together to enhance finance and actions for rights-based nature protection.”

At UNEA, delegates heard that since 2014, international funding for protected and conserved areas in developing countries has risen by 150 percent, increasing from around USD 396 million to over USD 1.1 billion in 2024. Funding levels also grew rapidly after the signing of the GBF, with average annual totals rising 61 percent from 2022–2024 compared with the previous three years.

However, despite this growth, funding remains significantly below the financial requirements outlined in GBF Target 19, which calls for mobilizing USD 200 billion per year from all sources, including USD 30 billion through international finance.

Many of the world’s most biodiverse yet unprotected areas lie in countries with constrained budgets and competing development needs, making international finance essential for delivering 30×30 fairly and effectively. These funds support activities such as establishing new protected areas, strengthening ranger capacity, and assisting Indigenous Peoples and local communities living in and around protected landscapes.

Global costing studies suggest that protected areas will require roughly 20 percent of total biodiversity financing by 2030. For Target 3 alone, an estimated USD 4 billion per year is needed by 2025 and USD 6 billion by 2030, in line with Target 19(a).

The report finds that to reach the 2030 GBF vision from today’s baseline, “international protected and conserved areas funding would need to grow at about 33 percent per year—more than three times the 11 percent annual growth observed from 2020 to 2024.”

Between 2022 and 2024, average annual funding increased by 70 percent compared to the previous four-year period, and philanthropic contributions rose by 89 percent. Still, if the current pace continues, funding for protected and conserved areas will fall short of 2030 needs by approximately USD 4 billion.

Only five bilateral donors and multilateral mechanisms—Germany, the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the European Union, and the United States—provided 54 percent of all tracked 30×30 disbursements since 2022. This concentration makes funding vulnerable to political shifts and changes in donor priorities.

While lower-income countries receive funding, Small Island Developing States and other oceanic regions remain severely underfunded. By 2024, Africa will receive nearly half (48 percent) of all flows, whereas SIDS receive just USD 48 million, or 4.5 percent of annual international 30×30 funding, despite being explicitly prioritized under Target 19(a). Marine ecosystems receive only 14 percent of international funding, even though they cover 71 percent of the planet.

Overall, the report underscores the urgency for stronger commitments from governments, philanthropies, multilateral institutions, and the private sector to dramatically scale up investments before 2030 to protect biodiversity, people, and economies.

The new dashboard aims to translate financial commitments into the targeted strategic actions needed across regions and activities to achieve meaningful progress toward the 30×30 target.