Harry Stevens: The countries of the world made a plan to save nature by conserving 30% of their area. For Climate Lab, I looked at the database the UN uses to track progress on the goal. Lots areas are small, contorted and narrow. Can we save nature with crazy shapes? www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The countries of the world made a plan to save nature by conserving 30% of their area. For Climate Lab, I looked at the database the UN uses to track progress on the goal. Lots areas are small, contorted and narrow. Can we save nature with crazy shapes? www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Analysis | Can we save nature with crazy shapes?www.washingtonpost.com The U.N. wants to protect 30 percent of the planet. Many of the areas it counts towards that goal are small and oddly shaped. Can contorted shapes save nature?

Oddly shaped preserves have more edges where nature and humans collide. A recent analysis found a third of all the world’s protected land is within 2km of its borders. All of the land at this protected area in New York is within a half mile of its edge. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

I put the code to generate these maps on @observablehq: observablehq.com/@climatelab/... Thanks to @fil.rezo.net for lots of help on this.

Distance to the border of protected areasobservablehq.com Versions of these maps appeared in the story “Can we save nature with crazy shapes?”, published in The Washington Post on Feb. 14, 2024. Just for fun, I included some extra protected areas in this not...

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Whoops I shared the wrong image. Here are the interior contours. To see more of these, the story is here: www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...