Trade-offs between nature and people in Ethiopia’s protected areas demonstrate challenges in translating global conservation targets into national realities

nature ecology & evolution Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03047-9 Trade-offs between nature and people in Ethiopia’s protected areas demonstrate challenges in translating global conservation targets into national realities Received: 1 September 2025 Accepted: 13 March 2026 Published online: 12 May 2026 Check for updates A list of authors and their affiliations appears at the end of the paper Achieving global biodiversity targets, such as the commitment to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030, depends on the ability of individual countries to translate targets into reality. While there has long been recognition that protected areas can bring costs as well as benefits, the implications of this for delivery of global targets have not been fully explored. We focus on Ethiopia, a country supporting globally important biodiversity but facing substantial poverty challenges. We characterize the extent and representativeness of Ethiopia’s protected area network, demonstrating that a threefold expansion—particularly into ecoregions with higher opportunity cost—would be required to meet the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3. Using a quasi-experimental approach (accounting for known confounders and exploring sensitivity to potential unobserved confounders), we show that the existing protected area network has reduced forest loss and agricultural expansion, and helped to maintain grasslands. Yet, this has brought social wellbeing costs equivalent to 3.9 million fewer household-months of adequate food. Surveys show that national conservation stakeholders recognize these challenges and prioritize improving effectiveness of the existing network over expansion. Our findings highlight that trade-offs between environmental and social outcomes are not simply challenges to be managed, but are central to whether global biodiversity commitments can be delivered. Ambitious global targets provide a shared vision for halting biodiversity loss, but achieving them depends on the ability of individual countries to turn commitments into action1. In 2022, 196 parties committed to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 under the Kunming– Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Target 3 (30-by-30)2, a substantial increase from the current terrestrial protected and conserved area coverage of 17.2% (ref. 3). While attention has largely been focused on area coverage4, both 30-by-30 and its predecessor, Aichi Target 11, also require protected areas to be ecologically representative, well connected, effectively managed and equitably governed2—dimensions that are far less often systematically assessed or reported5. Evidence from the global south shows that simple ‘win–win’ narratives can be misleading with costs often borne locally, especially by marginalized groups6. As the target deadline approaches, understanding what progress is realistically achievable at the national level, and at what cost, is essential. Protected areas have predominantly been established on land with lower economic value and fewer opportunity costs, rather than in the locations that would yield the greatest benefits for biodiversity conservation7,8. As a result, many ecologically important areas remain under-protected. In 2020 only 44.5% of terrestrial ecoregions had reached the 17% coverage target outlined in Aichi Target 119. To meet the e-mail: Nature Ecology & Evolution | Volume 10 | June 2026 | 1057–1070 1057 Article more ambitious 30-by-30 target, and ensure ecologically representative networks, countries will need to expand into underrepresented ecoregions, which risks increasing competition with alternative land use such as agriculture. Consequently, trade-offs with local food supplies, local livelihoods and the number of people impacted are likely to increase dramatically10,11. While area-based approaches dominate global conservation policy12,13, debates continue over whether protected areas are performing effectively14,15. A growing requirement for evidence to inform conservation policy decisions has driven an increase in research using quasi-experimental methods16,17. While studies exploring the impacts of protected areas vary in robustness18, researchers have applied quasi-experimental designs to evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas across different outcome measures including forest cover19–23, agricultural expansion24, anthropogenic threats more broadly25, species populations26,27 and measures of human wellbeing28–30. Studies also vary in scale; however, global syntheses pool highly diverse socio-ecological contexts, which can mask heterogeneity in outcomes and limit national policy relevance25,29,31. There is also an ongoing debate about the extent to which conservation successes from protected areas come at the detriment of the wellbeing of local communities11,32–35. In low-income countries where rural poverty remains a considerable challenge, protected areas are increasingly expected to contribute to socio-economic development alongside conservation goals, despite environmental and social goals often conflicting with one another36–38. In such contexts, there is little credible evidence of sustained positive social outcomes11 and transparent evaluation is needed to identify who bears the costs33,39. A few studies have explicitly looked at trade-offs between environmental and social outcomes of protected areas; however, many rely on data aggregated across large administrative units40–45, limited outcome indicators31,40–43,46 or global proxies for development31 that are insensitive to local variation, and household-level multidimensional analyses remain rare47–49. With 30-by-30 requiring a near-doubling of the global protected and conserved area estate, understanding current effectiveness and trade-offs between environmental and social wellbeing outcomes—through robust analyses that capture multiple components of wellbeing at fine spatial scales—is increasingly urgent11. Without a clearer understanding of trade-offs, countries may be reluctant to support protected area expansion that risks harming local communities, or may require additional funding and international support to offset potential negative effects11. Ethiopia is a good example of a country where there is potential for trade-offs between environmental and social wellbeing outcomes50. Ethiopia encompasses two global biodiversity hotspots51, but also faces long-standing poverty52 and food security challenges53. Ethiopia is committed to conserving its biodiversity54, having ratified the Convention on Biodiversity in 1995 and signed up to meet the GBF targets in 2022. However, its natural resources are facing growing pressures driven by the need for development and improved living standards55,56. In 2020, around 18 million people lived within 10 km of a protected area in Ethiopia, and tensions over land use in these areas has been widely documented57–60. Here we provide a comprehensive national-scale evalua (...truncated)