A protected area is defined as an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural and associated cultural resources, managed through legal or other effective means. The Convention on Biological Diversity defines protected areas as: "a geographically defined area which is designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives."

These protected areas provide society with many benefits - habitats to help conserve biodiversity, including for agriculture; natural laboratories for scientific research and knowledge generation; landscapes and seascapes that support local livelihoods and national development through tourism and fisheries; intact watershed areas that yield high-quality water supplies to support human agriculture and residential and industrial development; and opportunities for rest and recreation in more peaceful and pristine environments similar to those in which our ancestors evolved.

Filling gaps in protected areas representation to better conserve the planet's biodiversity - historically many protected areas have been established on the basis of least opportunity cost rather than biological significance;

Ensuring that the protected areas systems we are establishing have the ecological and social adaptability needed to maintain biodiversity and other key values in a period of increasing environmental, economic, and social change - without supportive external land use and resource use contexts, even the largest of today's protected areas will unlikely be able to adapt to the changes in life zones that we can expect from accelerating climate change and the growth in human resource needs;