ArticleNature communications2023
The effectiveness of global protected areas for climate change mitigation.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 153 citations in OpenAlex.
- Potential of different area-based governance mechanisms for achieving Global Biodiversity Framework goals.Nature communications · 2026Article
- MaxEnt Projections of Climate-Driven Distribution Shifts forEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Escalating Fire-Driven Forest Loss in Protected Tropical Forests.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Forests in protected areas worldwide face increased thermal pressure from urbanization.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Predicting global distribution of Caryopteris under climate change using an optimized MaxEnt model: insights into ecological adaptation and conservation.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- Global mining has undermined forest conservation within and beyond protected areas.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Effects of Land Management Policies on the Environment and People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review.Campbell systematic reviews · 2026Review
- China's "greening but weakening" protected areas reveal a global conservation quality-quantity dilemma.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Social implications of the 30×30 global conservation target.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Modelling habitat suitability and estimating protected areas coverage for Falco cherrug across its wintering habitats.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Enhanced forest carbon gains from stronger protection in China's protected areas.Nature communications · 2026Article
- PROTOCOL: The Effects of Land Management Policies on the Environment and People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review.Campbell systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Modeling the Habitat Suitability and Range Shift ofBiology · 2025Article
- Highly protected areas buffer against aridity thresholds in global drylands.Nature plants · 2025Article
- Global covariation of forest age transitions with the net carbon balance.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Research on Forest Carbon Sequestration and Its Economic Valuation: A Case Study of the Zixi Mountain Nature Reserve, Chuxiong Prefecture.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The contribution of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) to protecting global biodiversity.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Collaborative management partnerships strongly decreased deforestation in the most at-risk protected areas in Africa since 2000.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Drought-Induced Alterations in Carbon and Water Dynamics of Chinese Fir Plantations at the Trunk Wood Stage.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Forests play a critical role in stabilizing Earth's climate. Establishing protected areas (PAs) represents one approach to forest conservation, but PAs were rarely created to mitigate climate change. The global impact of PAs on the carbon cycle has not previously been quantified due to a lack of accurate global-scale carbon stock maps. Here we used ~412 million lidar samples from NASA's GEDI mission to estimate a total PA aboveground carbon (C) stock of 61.43 Gt (+/- 0.31), 26% of all mapped terrestrial woody C. Of this total, 9.65 + /- 0.88 Gt of additional carbon was attributed to PA status. These higher C stocks are primarily from avoided emissions from deforestation and degradation in PAs compared to unprotected forests. This total is roughly equivalent to one year of annual global fossil fuel emissions. These results underscore the importance of conservation of high biomass forests for avoiding carbon emissions and preserving future sequestration.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.