Global Safety Net v3 (GSN3): a central data platform for the nature conservation agenda

The Global Safety Net v3 (GSN3) is the premier data platform that maps the world’s natural lands and inland water bodies – classified by land type and ecological function – and tracks the extent to which these areas are protected or conserved, including governance by local community conservation organizations and Indigenous territories. GSN3 offers the general public, governments, businesses, philanthropists, and financial institutions the ability to monitor progress towards the 30x30 target and other key biodiversity goals, providing advanced statistics to support decision makers working on environmental policies, investment strategies, and corporate sustainability efforts.

A consortium of 36 contributing authors, led by Dr. Eric Dinerstein, published a set of influential papers to support global conservation efforts in the leadup to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), including “A Global Deal for Nature…” (2019) and “A Global Safety Net...” (2020). The former introduced the 30% conservation target into scientific literature, and the latter produced a spatially explicit meta-analysis integrating 13 global-scale terrestrial models into five broad ecological ‘clusters’ or groups, recently updated in a third paper entitled “Conservation Imperatives…” (2024).

Since 2024, the group managing the Global Safety Net has collected hundreds of product requests from NGOs, researchers, and governments for expanded GSN data outputs and computation capabilities that would improve our ability to better track collective progress towards Target 3 of the UN Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. These inputs fed into a redesign process for GSN3 in 2025, engineered from the ground up to provide higher resolution and higher cadence data, dynamically updated at national and subnational scales based on the latest inventory of natural land cover, surface water extent, established protected areas, and Indigenous territories. 

GSN3 compiles over 20 geospatial data sets through three distinct computation processes – Ecological Group (I), Land Cover Class (II), and Conservation Status (III). These are displayed in three data panels (Fig. 2a-2c), allowing the user to derive statistics from a menu of boundary polygons. Nested jurisdictions are now included (Country/Protectorate, State/Province, County/Municipality), as well as One Earth biogeographical boundaries (ecoregion, bioregion, subrealm, realm). The data sets can be geographically parsed, allowing the user to see the extent of Areas of Importance for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (AIBES) within a given boundary polygon; the classification of those lands by land cover type; and the amount of area under conservation governance.

Clicking a polygon on the map will update the data display panel, presenting a pie chart with topline statistics. The most important number is boldly highlighted – an estimate of the percent of total remaining AIBES protected/conserved. A ‘View Analytics’ button allows the user to access a table with more detailed data intersections (e.g. percent of rare species areas in Colombia that are strictly protected). See Appendix I for a comparative analysis of GSN3 vs. other related geospatial data tools. 

View I (Ecological Group), displaying the extent of natural lands organized in five major ecological and biodiversity clusters: (1) areas of critical importance for rare and threatened species, (2) areas with abundant species populations, (3) areas supporting large mammal assemblages, (4) remaining wild and intact areas, and (5) additional areas critical for climate stabilization.

View II (Land Cover Class), displaying the extent of natural lands and waters in 13 classes: inland water, wetlands, shrublands, grasslands, five forest types (broadleaf, needleleaf, mixed, flooded, mangrove), sparse vegetation, mosaic land, bare areas, and ice/snow. Seminatural lands, croplands, and built-up areas can also be viewed by turning on these layers in the ‘All Layers’ tab. 

View III (Conservation Status), displaying the extent of natural lands and inland waters that are protected or conserved across six major categories: (1) strictly protected areas, (2) other protected areas, (3) other effective conservation measures, (4) other documented conservation areas, (5) Indigenous and traditional territories, and (5) potential ITTs. Light green areas indicate are of importance not currently protected or conserved.

Leveraging reduced costs in cloud computing and a more sophisticated web architecture, the GSN3 application now supports annual updates, making it possible to develop a time series of the degradation or improvement of natural lands by jurisdiction. It also incorporates periodic updates from the UN World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA/Protected Planet), the official repository of nationally reported conservation areas, tracking additions or removals of land and inland waters under conservation. To create a more complete picture of the global conservation estate, GSN3 also aggregates Documented Conservation Areas (DCAs) – additional areas that are under conservation governance but not included in the WDPA. 

Download the GSN3 Technical Documentation to learn more about the processing of modeled data and our novel computation approach.