---
id: data-sources/protected-planet
about:
  label: Protected Planet
  description: >-
    UNEP-WCMC's record of the world's protected areas and other effective
    area-based conservation measures, the World Database on Protected Areas,
    updated monthly from government and other submissions and downloadable from
    the site.
  tags:
    - protected areas
    - biodiversity
    - global
    - monthly
    - wdpa
datasource:
  homepage: 'https://www.protectedplanet.net/en'
  coverage: 'global, terrestrial and marine'
  cadence: monthly
open:
  source: unknown
  data: open
  api: unknown
  participation: partly
  note: >-
    The database can be downloaded from the site and is built from submissions
    by governments, NGOs, landowners and communities; its terms of use were not
    read for this entry.
domains:
  - ecology
  - places
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Explore the World's Protected Areas
      url: 'https://www.protectedplanet.net/en'
    - title: Protected Areas (WDPA)
      url: 'https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/wdpa'
  created: '2026-10-18'
  reviewed: '2026-10-18'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Protected Planet is the public face of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), a joint project of the UN Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature managed by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. The site describes it as the most up to date and complete source of data on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), updated monthly with submissions from governments, non-governmental organisations, landowners and communities, and downloadable from the site.

Beside the WDPA it holds the World Database on OECMs, a database of management-effectiveness assessments (GD-PAME), the IUCN Green List, and thematic pages on connectivity and equitable governance. The site publishes running global statistics; in October 2026 it counted 506,250 protected areas and 7,749 OECMs, with protected areas and OECMs together covering 18.69 per cent of land and inland waters and 10.04 per cent of the sea.

The database was established in 1981, with a mandate the site traces to a 1959 UN Economic and Social Council resolution calling for a list of national parks and equivalent reserves, and it is the record against which progress on the [30 by 30 target](/mandates/thirty-by-thirty/) is officially measured.