Secure and effectively manage remaining key habitats

Identify the sites and ecological processes essential to a threatened species, then secure them through context-appropriate governance such as protected areas, Indigenous or community conserved areas, conservation agreements, land purchase or enforceable spatial planning.

Management must go beyond legal designation. It should define responsibilities, reduce the site-specific pressures, include affected rights-holders, finance recurring operations and monitor biological outcomes. Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3 sets global expectations for effective, equitably governed and ecologically representative conservation.

This approach works only when protection covers the habitats and seasons the species actually uses and when displacement of harmful activity is managed rather than ignored.