The paper, Oct. 16 -- The tally that governments use to track their pledge to conserve 30 percent of the world's land has been leaving out land that is already being conserved, according to a study published in Nature on Wednesday. The authors say the omission makes the target look further off than it is, then warn that closing the gap on paper will not by itself stop species disappearing.

the study works from 2022 records, the official tally is the current one.

The team gathered two global datasets and 65 national and subnational ones covering 25 countries and territories, about a tenth of the world's land, and extrapolated. By their count, 15.79 percent is in globally recognised protected areas, 3.64 percent in nationally recognised o...