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Although one of the main purposes of protected areas is to provide viable habitats for species, the effectiveness of protected areas in retaining the landscape's ecological integrity is highly variable (Coetzee, 2017; Watson et al., 2014). As demand for landscape conservation from NGOs and governments increases and financial resources to support conservation remain limited, more careful consideration of the variability in ecological condition of the landscape is needed to design efficient protected area networks. Keywords: 30 × 30; additionality; Aichi targets; biodiversity conservation; counterfactual; landscape conservation; land-use conversion; reserve selection; 30 para el 30; adicionalidad; conservación de la biodiversidad; conservación del paisaje; conversión del uso de suelo; hipotético; objetivos de Aichi; selección de reserva; > ; , , "30 by 30" , , , , , EN 30 × 30 additionality Aichi targets biodiversity conservation counterfactual landscape conservation land-use conversion reserve selection 30 para el 30 adicionalidad conservación de la biodiversidad conservación del paisaje conversión del uso de suelo hipotético objetivos de Aichi selección de reserva > , , "30 by 30" , , , , , 1 10 10 10/04/22 20221001 NES 221001 INTRODUCTION With the world's biodiversity in peril (IPBES, 2019), many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government conservation agencies are focusing on biological conservation through establishing protected areas. [Extracted from the article]

The Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) strategic plan will expire in 2020, but biodiversity loss is ongoing. Scientists call for more ambitious targets in the next agreement. The nature‐needs‐half movement, for example, has advocated conserving half of Earth to solve the biodiversity crisis, which has been translated to protecting 50% of each ecoregion. We evaluated current protection levels of ecoregions in the territory of one of the CBD's signatories, the European Union (EU). We also explored the possible enlargement of the Natura 2000 network to implement 30% or 50% ecoregion coverage in the EU member states' protected area (PA) network. Based on the most recent land‐use data, we examined whether ecoregions have enough natural area left to reach such high coverage targets. We used a spatially explicit mixed integer programing model to estimate the least‐cost expansion of the PA network based on 3 scenarios that put different emphasis on total conservation cost, ecological representation of ecosystems, or emphasize an equal share of the burden among member states. To realize 30% and 50% ecoregion coverage, the EU would need to add 6.6% and 24.2%, respectively, of its terrestrial area to its PA network. For all 3 scenarios, the EU would need to designate most recommended new PAs in seminatural forests and other semi‐ or natural ecosystems. Because 15 ecoregions did not have enough natural area left to implement the ecoregion‐coverage targets, some member states would also need to establish new PAs on productive land, allocating the largest share to arable land. Thirty percent ecoregion coverage was met by protecting remaining natural areas in all ecoregions except 3, where productive land would also need to be included. Our results support discussions of higher ecoregions protection targets for post‐2020 biodiversity frameworks. Article impact statement: Greater ecoregion‐protection targets for post‐2020 biodiversity frameworks warrant discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]