Life on Land: Safeguarding Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Every 10 seconds, a forest the size of a football pitch is cleared. Every year, approximately 1 million plant and animal species edge closer to extinction. The land beneath our feet — the forests, grasslands, wetlands, mountains, and drylands that cover 29% of Earth's surface — supports 80% of all terrestrial species and provides food, medicine, clean water, and climate stability for humanity. Protecting it is not optional: it is the foundation of everything else in the sustainable development agenda. SDG 15, Life on Land, is the United Nations commitment to reverse the catastrophic damage already done and to ensure terrestrial ecosystems still function when our grandchildren inherit them.

Related reading: Life Below Water: Protecting and Preserving Our Oceans | Marine Life: Exploring the Richness of Ocean Biodiversity | Marine Life Preservation: How Governments Can Help Drive Conservation

What Is SDG 15 Life on Land and Why Does It Matter

SDG 15 is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal dedicated to protecting, restoring, and promoting the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, managing forests sustainably, combating desertification, reversing land degradation, and halting biodiversity loss by 2030. It is one of 17 global goals adopted in the 2030 Agenda and links directly to food security, poverty eradication, clean water, and human health — proving that land is the bedrock of every other goal.

The goal encompasses 12 measurable targets covering forests, mountains, drylands, freshwater ecosystems, biodiversity, genetic resources, wildlife trafficking, invasive alien species, ecosystem services, protected areas, and financing for conservation. Unlike SDG 14, which focuses exclusively on marine and coastal ecosystems, SDG 15 is entirely concerned with what happens on solid ground — from the soil microbes that make agriculture possible to the tigers and elephants whose survival signals whether an ecosystem is still intact.

The IPBES Global Assessment of 2019 — the most comprehensive inventory ever conducted — found that 75% of the terrestrial environment has been severely altered by human activity. Around 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are now threatened with extinction, hundreds within decades. The economic cost of inaction is staggering: ecosystem services provided by terrestrial and freshwater systems contribute an estimated US$125 trillion annually to the global economy, dwarfing the entire cost of meeting the SDGs. Understanding SDG 15 means understanding that environmental responsibility is inseparable from economic survival.

What distinguishes SDG 15 from environmental aspirations of earlier decades is its insistence on measurable targets tied to specific deadlines. By 2020, countries were expected to halt the loss of forests, wetlands, mountains, and drylands. By 2020, they were also expected to promote the sharing of benefits from genetic resources, combat poaching and trafficking of protected species, prevent invasive alien species from establishing in ecosystems, and integrate biodiversity values into national accounting. Most of these 2020 targets were missed — which is why the Kunming-Montreal framework adopted in late 2022 has elevated ambition and accountability simultaneously. Progress toward SDG 15 is now tracked through 14 official indicators monitored by the UN Statistics Division, and each country's performance is reviewed through Voluntary National Reviews submitted to the UN High-level Political Forum. The SDG framework's great innovation is exactly this architecture of transparency: it does not leave conservation to rhetorical commitment alone but demands data, reporting, and accountability.

How Fast Are the World's Forests Disappearing

The world loses approximately 10 million hectares of forest every year, according to FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020. Between 1990 and 2020, some 420 million hectares — an area larger than the European Union — were stripped of tree cover. Although the rate has slowed slightly from earlier decades, the absolute loss remains enormous, and secondary forests replacing old-growth carry a fraction of the biodiversity value.

The Amazon rainforest, which stores an estimated 150 to 200 billion tonnes of carbon and shelters the highest density of terrestrial biodiversity conservation targets on Earth, lost 11,568 square kilometres in Brazil alone in 2022, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The Congo Basin, Earth's second largest tropical forest, faces rising deforestation pressure from agricultural expansion and charcoal production. In Southeast Asia, peatland forests in Borneo and Sumatra are burning at catastrophic rates, releasing centuries of stored carbon and erasing the habitat of orangutans, pygmy elephants, and Sumatran tigers.

The primary driver in every region is agricultural expansion — responsible for around 73% of global deforestation, according to WWF. Cattle ranching, soy cultivation (largely fed to livestock), palm oil, and smallholder subsistence farming collectively account for the overwhelming majority of tree cover loss. Commercial logging opens the door to further encroachment. Infrastructure — roads, dams, and mining concessions — fragments what remains, preventing animals from migrating, feeding, and reproducing. The link between the deforestation issue and collapsing biodiversity is direct and measurable: a forest reduced below a critical fragment size cannot sustain its full community of species, and a cascade of local extinctions follows within years. Combating this requires transforming the food system — particularly shifting sustainable agriculture practices to reduce land clearing — alongside strong zero-deforestation commitments from commodity traders and governments.

The relationship between forest loss and broader ecosystem collapse is more systemic than the raw acreage numbers convey. Forests regulate rainfall patterns through a process called evapo-transpiration: Amazonian trees collectively release so much water vapour into the atmosphere that they generate their own rainfall, supporting agriculture across thousands of kilometres of downwind territory. When deforestation breaks this feedback cycle — as researchers now believe the Amazon is approaching at roughly 20–25% loss — the consequences cascade far beyond the cleared land itself, threatening the drylands and savannas that neighbour tropical forests. Forest loss also releases soil carbon, warming the local climate and reducing moisture, which in turn makes remaining fragments more vulnerable to fire. The 2019 and 2020 Amazon fire seasons, and the record-breaking fires in Australia's eucalyptus forests, offered stark previews of what ecosystem collapse at scale looks like. Halting deforestation is therefore not a standalone conservation priority but the single most important terrestrial action available to stabilise climate systems on which billions of people depend. This is why SDG 15 and climate action (SDG 13) are structurally inseparable, even as they address distinct dimensions of the crisis.

What Is Desertification and How Does It Affect Food Security

Desertification is the degradation of dryland ecosystems — which cover about 40% of Earth's land surface and support 2 billion people — caused by a combination of climate variability and unsustainable land use including overgrazing, deforestation, poor irrigation, and intensive tillage. UNCCD estimates that up to 40% of Earth's ice-free land is already degraded, and this degradation costs the global economy around US$490 billion annually in lost agricultural productivity and ecosystem services.

The consequences for food security are severe and direct. Productive topsoil, which takes up to 1,000 years to form one centimetre, is being lost at rates up to 100 times faster than it is being created. The UN estimates that 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil are lost every year. In sub-Saharan Africa, where 43% of land is classified as dryland, soil degradation threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers. The Sahel region alone loses 48,000 square kilometres of productive land to desert conditions annually, creating a feedback loop in which failing harvests drive poverty, which drives further over-exploitation of marginal land, which drives further degradation.

The Great Green Wall initiative — an African-led movement to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land across a 8,000-kilometre swathe of the continent from Senegal to Djibouti — represents the most ambitious land restoration programme in history. By 2030 it aims to lock 250 million tonnes of carbon in soils, create 10 million green jobs, and secure food and water for communities on the frontline of desertification. SDG 15 target 15.3 specifically calls for achieving land degradation neutrality — meaning no net loss of productive land — by 2030. Reaching that target requires integrating sustainable land management practices including conservation tillage, cover cropping, agroforestry, and managed grazing into mainstream agricultural policy. Zero Hunger and SDG 15 are inextricably linked: you cannot end hunger on degraded land.

What Are the Most Endangered Land Species and What Is Driving Extinctions

The IUCN Red List, the world's most authoritative database on species conservation status, assessed more than 150,000 species as of 2023 and found that over 42,100 — nearly 28% of all assessed species — are threatened with extinction. Among mammals, 26% are threatened; among amphibians, 41%; among reptiles, 21%; among conifers, 34%. The current extinction rate is estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural background rate, leading scientists to describe this period as the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history.

Habitat destruction is the single largest driver of species loss, implicated in the decline of 86% of threatened species. When forests are cleared and grasslands ploughed, habitat conservation becomes impossible for species that require large territories — jaguars, African wild dogs, snow leopards, and forest elephants among them. Fragmentation isolates populations, causing inbreeding and reducing their capacity to adapt to environmental changes. A jaguar population in a 500-hectare forest fragment will not survive; it needs a connected corridor of tens of thousands of hectares.

Beyond habitat loss, overexploitation is the second leading cause of terrestrial biodiversity decline. Unsustainable hunting, logging, and collection have pushed species including the saiga antelope (which lost 90% of its population to poaching in just a few years), multiple rhinoceros subspecies, and dozens of turtle species toward extinction. Endangered species monitoring by IUCN tracks 902 species as already extinct in the wild and thousands more as critically endangered. Species conservation programmes — captive breeding, habitat protection, anti-poaching enforcement, and community-based conservation — have demonstrated that extinction can be reversed when resources and political will converge. The Arabian oryx and black-footed ferret are rare but genuine success stories, returned from the brink through systematic intervention. Conservation education is equally critical: communities that understand the ecological and economic value of local wildlife become its most effective guardians.

The extinction crisis is not distributed evenly across the planet. Biodiversity hotspots — regions defined by the presence of 1,500 or more endemic plant species and having lost at least 70% of their original habitat — concentrate both the greatest richness and the greatest threat. Conservation International has identified 36 such hotspots, covering just 2.4% of Earth's land surface but home to more than half of all endemic plant species and 43% of endemic vertebrate species. The Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, the Western Ghats of India, the forests of Sundaland in Southeast Asia, and the tropical Andes all qualify. Each hotspot is under severe anthropogenic pressure, and each represents an irreplaceable genetic library that once destroyed, cannot be reconstructed. The Red List Index — SDG indicator 15.5.1 — measures the aggregate change in extinction risk across all assessed species groups; between 2000 and 2022, it declined continuously, meaning the collective extinction risk worsened every single year of monitoring. Reversing that trend requires not merely slowing habitat destruction but actively restoring habitat at a scale large enough to rebuild viable population sizes for fragmented and declining species.

How Does Wildlife Trafficking Threaten Terrestrial Biodiversity

Wildlife trafficking — the illegal trade in wild animals, plants, and their derivatives — is estimated by UNODC to generate between US$15 billion and US$23 billion annually, placing it among the world's four largest illegal trades alongside drugs, human trafficking, and counterfeiting. It operates across every continent, exploiting weak enforcement, corruption, and insatiable consumer demand for exotic pets, traditional medicines, luxury goods, and bush meat.

The scale of the damage is staggering. Between 2007 and 2014, poachers killed approximately 144,000 African elephants — 30% of the continental population — for ivory destined primarily for Asian markets. African rhino populations have been devastated by demand for horn: South Africa alone recorded over 8,000 poaching incidents between 2008 and 2022. Pangolins — the world's most trafficked mammals — are estimated by CITES to have seen over 1 million individuals trafficked in the last decade, pushing all eight species toward threatened or endangered status. Tiger populations have rebounded slightly thanks to intensive protection, but illegal trade in bones and skins remains a constant threat to all 3,900 wild individuals.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) regulates international wildlife trade through listings of over 38,000 animal and plant species, categorising them across three appendices based on the degree of protection required. But CITES can only regulate legal trade — it relies on national enforcement to address the illegal dimension, which is where many governments fall short. Wildlife crime is systematically under-resourced in enforcement budgets relative to its ecological damage. Digital marketplaces have created new vectors for trafficking, with social media platforms routinely used to sell live animals, ivory, and skins with relative impunity. The connection to conservation technology is increasingly important: AI-powered monitoring tools, DNA forensics, and satellite tracking are being deployed to intercept trafficking networks and identify poaching hotspots before species are lost.

What Role Do Protected Areas Play in Saving Terrestrial Ecosystems

Protected areas — national parks, wildlife reserves, nature sanctuaries, indigenous territories, and community conserved areas — are the cornerstone of in-situ biodiversity conservation. UNEP-WCMC data show that approximately 17% of Earth's terrestrial and inland water area was under some form of protection as of 2023, covering around 23 million square kilometres. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at COP15 in December 2022, elevates the ambition dramatically: the "30x30" commitment pledges to protect 30% of land and seas by 2030.

The evidence for protected areas working is strong when they are properly managed, funded, and governed. Studies published in Science and Nature Ecology have shown that species populations inside well-managed reserves are on average 10% to 16% larger than outside, and local extinction rates are significantly lower. Protected areas also buffer against poaching, regulate watershed hydrology, sequester carbon, and provide the cultural and recreational services that underpin nature tourism — a sector worth over US$600 billion annually globally.

However, the gap between nominal protection and effective protection is vast. Studies estimate that fewer than 25% of the world's existing protected areas receive adequate management resources. Many are "paper parks" — designated on maps but unpatrolled, underfunded, and subject to encroachment. Corruption allows mining, logging, and agricultural concessions inside formally protected zones in dozens of countries. The expansion needed to reach 30x30 must be accompanied by genuine management investment, not simply the drawing of new boundary lines. Indigenous communities must be centred in this expansion: research consistently shows that indigenous-managed territories, covering roughly 22% of the world's land surface, contain some of the highest concentrations of biodiversity and the lowest deforestation rates of any land category globally. Recognising indigenous territorial rights is therefore not only a matter of justice — it is among the most cost-effective biodiversity conservation strategies available. Sustainable forestry within and around protected areas further reinforces habitat integrity and provides livelihoods that reduce pressure on remaining wild lands.

How Do Invasive Species Devastate Native Ecosystems

Invasive alien species — non-native organisms introduced by human activity that establish, spread, and cause harm to native wildlife, habitats, and economies — are identified by IPBES as a direct driver of 60% of recorded plant and animal extinctions globally. On islands, where endemic species have evolved in isolation without exposure to continental predators or competitors, invasives are implicated in 86% of extinctions. The economic damage to agriculture, forestry, and fisheries is estimated at US$423 billion annually worldwide.

The pathways of introduction are diverse: ballast water in ships, contaminated horticultural trade, deliberate introductions for biological control that spiralled out of control, escaped pets and aquarium species, and accidental transport on vehicles, timber, and agricultural goods. Once established, invasive species are extraordinarily difficult and expensive to eradicate. Brown tree snakes, introduced to Guam after World War II, eliminated 9 of the island's 12 native forest bird species within decades. Invasive rats are responsible for more island bird extinctions than any other single cause. In Africa, the invasive water hyacinth chokes waterways used for fishing and transport across 49 countries. In Australia, feral cats kill an estimated 1.4 billion native birds annually, making them the primary driver of the country's ongoing mammal extinction crisis.

Invasive species management requires biosecurity at borders, early detection and rapid response systems, and in some cases sustained eradication programmes that can take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. SDG 15 target 15.8 calls for measures to prevent the introduction of invasive alien species and significantly reduce their impact on land and water ecosystems by 2020 — a target that was widely missed. The 2023 Kunming-Montreal framework strengthens the language, requiring countries to manage pathways, prevent introductions, and reduce the impact of established invasives. Conservation technology including environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling, satellite tracking of invasive spread, and AI-powered early warning systems are transforming the speed and precision of detection. The lesson from the best-managed island eradications — Macquarie Island, South Georgia, Lundy Island — is that sustained investment produces remarkable biodiversity recovery, often within years of invasive removal.

How Does Soil Degradation Undermine Land Restoration and Biodiversity

Soil is the living foundation of terrestrial life. A single teaspoon of healthy topsoil contains more microorganisms than there are people on Earth — bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, and arthropods whose metabolic activity makes plant growth possible. FAO's State of the World's Soil Resources report identifies soil degradation as one of the most severe environmental threats globally, with 33% of the world's soils already moderately to highly degraded from erosion, compaction, salinisation, acidification, contamination, and loss of organic matter. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) — a joint initiative of UNEP and FAO — has mobilised governments, businesses, and communities to restore 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by 2030, with the potential to sequester up to 26 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases.

The agricultural implications of soil loss are alarming. Degraded soils require ever-increasing inputs of synthetic fertilisers to maintain yields, driving up costs for farmers and escalating nutrient runoff into rivers and groundwater. Salinisation — caused by poor irrigation management that leaves salt concentrations behind as water evaporates — has rendered over 1 million hectares of previously irrigable land unproductive annually, according to IIASA. The Loess Plateau in China — one of the most eroded landscapes on Earth — was transformed through a 20-year programme of terracing and revegetation, reducing sediment entering the Yellow River by 90% and lifting millions from poverty. In Costa Rica, payment for ecosystem services and aggressive reforestation policies doubled forest cover from 26% in the 1980s to over 52% by 2020, proving that determined restoration policy works at national scale.

For biodiversity, soil degradation is equally catastrophic. Soil fauna communities, which include over 25% of all known species, crash in degraded soils, breaking nutrient cycles and reducing the capacity of ecosystems to support above-ground life. Regenerative agriculture practices — farming approaches that rebuild soil organic matter through composting, cover crops, reduced tillage, and diverse crop rotations — are demonstrating measurable soil health improvements within three to five years. Agroforestry, which integrates trees into cropping and livestock systems, rebuilds organic matter, prevents erosion, diversifies income, and creates habitat corridors for wildlife. Native species reintroduction complements revegetation: wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone triggered a trophic cascade that changed river hydrology; beaver reintroduction in UK rivers restored wetland habitats at a fraction of the cost of engineering. Sustainable development depends on restoring the natural capital base that every economy runs on. Linking land restoration to food security investments, climate action finance, and no poverty strategies — with soil health at the centre — is the integrated approach SDG 15 demands. The Bonn Challenge has secured restoration commitments covering over 210 million hectares from 73 governments; meeting SDG 15 target 15.3 on land degradation neutrality will require scaling that ambition across all of global agriculture.

What Are the Global Frameworks and Targets Driving SDG 15 Progress

SDG 15 does not operate in isolation. It is embedded in and reinforced by a constellation of international agreements, national action plans, and multilateral financing mechanisms that collectively constitute the global governance architecture for terrestrial biodiversity. Understanding these frameworks is essential to evaluating whether the political commitments being made will translate into outcomes on the ground.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ratified by 196 countries, provides the primary legal framework. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in December 2022 replaces the failed Aichi Biodiversity Targets (none of the 20 targets set for 2020 were fully met) with 23 action targets and 4 long-term goals. The headline 30x30 commitment is flanked by targets to restore at least 30% of degraded terrestrial ecosystems, reduce pesticide risks by two-thirds, halve nutrient pollution, eliminate or phase out harmful subsidies by US$500 billion, and mobilise US$200 billion annually for biodiversity finance by 2030. The partnerships for the goals architecture — SDG 17 — is critical to delivering this financing, particularly the pledged US$30 billion annually for biodiversity from developed to developing countries.

CITES, UNCCD (UN Convention to Combat Desertification), the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Migratory Species all contribute complementary frameworks targeting specific dimensions of SDG 15. UNCCD's Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) programme has enrolled over 140 countries in setting national targets and implementing restoration projects. The IUCN, which maintains the Red List and manages global protected areas standards, plays the central scientific advisory role. Measuring progress requires robust indicator systems: SDG indicator 15.1.1 (forest area as a proportion of total land area), 15.4.2 (mountain green cover index), 15.5.1 (Red List Index), and 15.8.1 (proportion of countries adopting invasive species legislation) provide the data scaffolding on which accountability rests. The challenge is that data quality is highly uneven across countries, with many of the most biodiverse nations in the global south having the weakest monitoring capacity — a gap that conservation technology tools including satellite remote sensing and AI-powered biodiversity monitoring can help close. Achieving SDG 15 also demands addressing the systemic economic drivers of biodiversity loss embedded in the global trading system, requiring action on responsible consumption and production patterns in wealthy countries that create demand for deforestation-linked commodities.

How Can Businesses and Individuals Take Action for Life on Land

The scale of the SDG 15 challenge can make it feel abstract, but the pathways for meaningful action by both organisations and individuals are concrete, measurable, and increasingly supported by a maturing ecosystem of tools, standards, and markets. The transition from extractive to restorative relationships with land is not an idealistic ambition — it is a commercially rational and scientifically validated strategy for long-term value creation.

For businesses, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework, launched in 2023, provides a structured methodology for companies to assess, manage, and report on nature-related risks and dependencies — including land use, biodiversity impacts, and supply chain deforestation. Companies with agricultural supply chains — food processors, retailers, traders, and consumer goods manufacturers — are particularly exposed to land degradation risk. The Forest 500, compiled by Global Canopy, identifies the 500 most influential companies and financial institutions in tropical deforestation and assesses their policies against zero-deforestation commitments. Fewer than 15% of the most influential companies receive passing grades. For businesses committed to sustainability, third-party certified sustainable sourcing standards — Rainforest Alliance, FSC for forestry, RSPO for palm oil — provide credible pathways to reducing deforestation footprints, though their rigour varies and independent auditing remains essential.

Individuals can take meaningful action through consumption choices, civic engagement, and direct conservation support. Reducing meat consumption — especially beef from deforestation-linked supply chains — is the single highest-impact dietary change for terrestrial biodiversity. Choosing products certified sustainable, avoiding species or products traded through illegal wildlife channels, supporting rewilding and land restoration organisations, and advocating for stronger national and international policies all amplify individual agency. The connection between SDG 15 and SDG 10 — reduced inequalities — is direct: the communities bearing the greatest burdens of land degradation and biodiversity loss are overwhelmingly the world's most marginalised populations, and solutions that fail to address inequality will fail to address the environmental crisis. Global goals only succeed when they are owned and acted on at every level — by governments, businesses, communities, and individuals simultaneously. The land beneath our feet has sustained human civilisation for 10,000 years. Whether it continues to do so for the next 10,000 depends entirely on the choices made in the decade ahead.

For a business-oriented perspective on biodiversity protection, see our business case for biodiversity and SDG 15 in 2026.