Nature reserves on rise, but not funds

Vast areas of land and sea have become environmental sanctuaries in recent years, but the world is not funding them adequately, the United Nations warned on Thursday.

The United Nations Environment Programme said that countries were on track to meet targets to protect 17 percent of land and 10 percent of marine areas by 2020.

With more than 1 million square kilometers acquiring protected status in the past two years, "the physical coverage aspect of the target is likely to be met", a report from the agency said. But more needed to be done to ensure that "protected areas are appropriately located in areas important for biodiversity, and ecosystem services are effectively and equitably managed and are well-connected".

The warning comes as thousands of delegates attend this week's World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia, to lay out a global agenda for protected areas over the next decade.

The UNEP, citing a 2012 estimate, said $76.1 billion was needed each year to effectively establish and manage the world's protected areas. Executive Director Achim Steiner said taking care of sanctuaries was critical to tackling climate change and supporting biodiversity.

"This report shows that the will to do so is present," Steiner said in a statement.

The UN agency estimates that 15.4 percent of land and inland water areas and 3.4 percent of the world's oceans - a total of 32.6 million square kilometers - are now protected, an increase of 1.6 million sq km since 2012.

Some of the world's largest land sanctuaries include Northeast Greenland National Park and Rub'al-Khali in Saudi Arabia.

But the report warned that only 0.25 percent of the high seas - open ocean outside territorial waters - was currently included, "highlighting the urgent need to overcome challenges in establishing such areas where national governance systems do not exist".

A further 2.2 million sq km of ocean within national jurisdictions and 21.5 million sq km of the high seas need to be protected to meet the 2020 goals, which were outlined at the Convention on Biological Diversity's last meeting in Japan in 2010.