Dr Thuy Duong Khuu

Global Biodiversity Targets and National Realities: a Case Study of Governing Protected Areas in Vietnam

To halt biodiversity loss, a global plan to protect 30% of the Earth by 2030, a goal known as ‘30x30’, is to be agreed upon by world leaders in December 2022. Countries are expected to contribute to this goal by increasing the coverage of effectively managed Protected Areas (PAs). However, despite widespread efforts to expand the planet’s PAs, evidence on effective and equitable management of existing PAs is substantially lacking. There are also increasing concerns that the 30x30 goal tends to neglect the social implications of PAs, which could harm hundreds of millions of local people.

This research aims to examine, for the first time, the effectiveness and social implications of Vietnamese PAs through an integrated mixed-methods approach. This multidisciplinary research, crossing natural and social sciences and bridging the quantitative-qualitative divide, will provide significant practical and theoretical insights into global biodiversity conservation and development agendas.