Towards a taxonomically unbiased EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030

Data supporting this study and R code to generate graphs and analyses are available in the Dryad Digital Repository: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1rn8pk0s0 [54].
Electronic supplementary material is available online at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare. c.5217460.
Through the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and the financial investments of the LIFE projects, Europe has become an experimental arena for biological conservation. With an estimated annual budget of €20 billion, the EU Biodi versity Strategy for 2030 has set an ambitious goal of classifying 30% of its land and sea territory as Protected Areas and ensuring no deterioration in conservation trends and the status of protected species. We analysed LIFE projects focused on animals from 1992 to 2018 and found that investment in vertebrates was six times higher than that for invertebrates (€970 versus €150 million), with birds and mammals alone accounting for 72% of species and 75% of the total budget. In relative terms, investment per species towards vertebrates has been 468 times higher than that for invertebrates. Using a trait-based approach, we show that conservation effort is primarily explained by species’ popularity rather than extinction risk or body size. Therefore, we propose a roadmap to achieve unbiased conservation targets for 2030 and beyond
R.C. is funded by the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the University of Helsinki. S.M. is supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 882221.