Colombia has quietly become one of the world’s most ambitious examples of how a country can outpace a global conservation target — and do it in a way that includes Indigenous communities, Afro-descendant territories, and private landowners. While the world as a whole has protected just 18.4% of land and 10% of marine and coastal areas, Colombia has already hit 26.3% for land and a remarkable 47.4% for marine and coastal zones.
At a glance
- 30×30 goal: In 2022 C.E., 196 nations pledged at the U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Montreal to protect 30% of land and 30% of marine areas by 2030 — Colombia has already exceeded the marine target by a wide margin.
- Heritage Colombia: The government-led HECO initiative, backed by $245 million in funding, has so far protected and conserved around 19 million hectares (47 million acres) using a project finance for permanence model that locks in binding agreements between partners.
- Civil society reserves: More than 1,400 privately owned nature reserves are voluntarily registered under Colombia’s national protected area system, collectively covering over 2,700 square kilometers and encouraging local participation in biodiversity management.
Why Colombia stands out
Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth. It holds nearly 2,000 bird species — more than any other nation — along with roughly 4,270 orchid species, and ranks second globally in plants, butterflies, freshwater fish, and amphibians. Protecting this richness is not just a domestic priority. It matters for the whole planet.
In its 2024-2030 C.E. Biodiversity Action Plan, the Colombian government went beyond the global 30×30 goal and pledged to protect and conserve 34% of all terrestrial and marine areas by 2030. That target encompasses not just formal protected areas, but also other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) and the territories of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and campesino communities.
Colombia accounts for eight of the 86 protected areas on the IUCN Green List, a rigorous international standard for well-managed conservation sites. It has 331 protected areas with management effectiveness evaluations — covering more than half of the protected land and more than 85% of the protected marine area.
An ocean sanctuary the size of Switzerland
Five hundred kilometers off Colombia’s Pacific coast, the Malpelo Flora and Fauna Sanctuary stretches across 48,151 square kilometers — an area larger than Switzerland. Created in 1995 C.E. and expanded several times as research revealed the scale of habitat needed for migratory species, it is now the largest no-fishing zone in the eastern tropical Pacific.
The sanctuary protects aggregations of hundreds of critically endangered Sphyrna lewini (scalloped hammerhead sharks) and Carcharhinus falciformis (silky sharks), along with tuna, billfish, and the world’s largest breeding colony of Nazca boobies (Sula granti). Sandra Bessudo, founder of the Malpelo and Other Ecosystems Foundation, has conducted research there since 1999. She says monitoring confirms the expanded no-fishing zone is benefitting multiple species — though illegal fishing remains an ongoing challenge in such a vast area.
Adjacent management districts allow for regulated fishing, but Bessudo is frank about the limits: current practices, including longline equipment and large nets that catch sharks, turtles, and dolphins as bycatch, are not sustainable. Her team is using environmental DNA and baited cameras to map critical habitats and build the case for stronger protections at key sites like the Navigator seamount.
A private forest where mountain springs came back
About two hours northwest of Bogotá, Natalia Laverde and her husband have been restoring a 45-hectare cloud forest on a property they bought in 2007. Most of the land had been cleared for cattle and potato farming, but 10 hectares of mature cloud forest remained. They removed grazing leases, reinforced fencing, planted native species, and let natural regeneration do the rest.
In 2022 C.E., their reserve, La Ilusión, became the first OECM registered in Latin America and the Caribbean on Protected Planet, the international database of protected and conserved areas. Since then, Laverde and her husband have recorded 180 bird species. Camera traps have captured pumas, oncillas (Leopardus tigrinus), the rare brown hairy dwarf porcupine (Coendou vestitus), and western mountain coatis (Nasuella olivacea).
Neighboring farmers have noticed that as the cloud forest has recovered, soils retain more water and mountain springs have grown more reliable. Many are now planting native seedlings along their property edges — creating living corridors that connect reserves across the catchment and allow safe passage for wildlife.
“All the decisions that they are making about nature are because of this forest and the gifts that the forest is showing,” Laverde says.
A model built on inclusion
What makes Colombia’s approach worth watching is not just scale, but structure. The national protected area system includes areas co-managed by the government with Indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and other communities, and the country is working toward a formal category allowing those communities to independently manage conserved areas. Carlos Mauricio Herrera of WWF Colombia notes that private reserves, though often small, drive something harder to measure: people actively choosing to participate in biodiversity stewardship.
OECMs — areas where conservation is a benefit even if not the primary goal — are gaining ground as a practical tool for connecting larger protected zones and maintaining habitat corridors. Jorge Parra of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Colombia office points out that connectivity is one of the biggest unresolved problems in conservation biology: without genetic flow between populations, even well-protected areas can become islands where species quietly decline.
Colombia’s story is genuinely good news, but the work is far from finished. Illegal fishing around Malpelo, unsustainable practices in adjacent management districts, and the challenge of patrolling vast ocean areas are real constraints. Globally, the world remains well short of the 30×30 targets, and political will in many countries has not matched the 2022 C.E. pledges. Colombia’s example is a proof of concept, not a finished solution — but it is a detailed, replicable one, built over decades by government agencies, research foundations, Indigenous communities, and private landowners working in the same direction.
As the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework heads toward its 2030 deadline, countries looking for a model could do worse than study what Colombia has built — one marine sanctuary, one mountain reserve, and one living fence at a time.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Mongabay
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Indigenous land rights recognition reaches 160 million hectares ahead of COP30
- Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Colombia
About this article
- 🤖 This article is AI-generated, based on a framework created by Peter Schulte.
- 🌍 It aims to be inspirational but clear-eyed, accurate, and evidence-based, and grounded in care for the Earth, peace and belonging for all, and human evolution.
- 💬 Leave your notes and suggestions in the comments below — I will do my best to review and implement where appropriate.
- ✉️ One verified piece of good news, one insight from Antihero Project, every weekday morning. Subscribe free.
