Key Biodiversity Areas are ‘sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity’, which means they are the most important places in the world for species and their habitats – whether these be in terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine or marine ecosystems. Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are identified using the Global Standard for the Identification of KBAs, developed by, WWF, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Birdlife International and Conservation International among others, through decades of collaborations. This standard includes five criteria to assess an area’s importance for biodiversity persistence.

Identifying KBAs helps governments and civil society understand where important places for species and their habitats are found in the world. They can then work together to manage and conserve these areas to safe guard the world’s biological richness and report on global biodiversity goals. An area can qualify as a KBA if it hosts a threatened species or ecosystem, supports species with limited global distributions, contains pristine wilderness, sustains essential biological processes, or holds irreplaceable biodiversity. Each criterion includes quantitative thresholds to determine eligibility. The KBA identification process involves reviewing species, ecosystems, and areas against these criteria, delineating site boundaries, and submitting the KBA for independent verification.

KBAs are sites that have been individually selected because the biodiversity that is present is globally significant. The site boundaries are designed to be manageable as a single unit. Once they have been verified, all KBAs are captured on the World Database of KBAs which is accessible online.

The site-based approach means that each KBA is identified for unique reasons. By providing the precise location of places that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity, KBAs can accelerate efforts to reverse the loss of nature, by ensuring conservation efforts are focussed in the places that matter most, and by enabling entities that may have negative impacts on nature to avoid or reduce those impacts in the places they would be most damaging. Many KBAs would benefit from being designated as formal protected areas.

KBAs are useful for the implementation of the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework and can be used by governments and other stakeholders in guiding expansion of protected and conserved areas (Target 3) and in spatial and conservation planning (Target 1) to minimise biodiversity loss and negative impacts. The KBA dataset enables site-based protection efforts – such as new protected areas – to be focussed on the most important places for nature and NGOs to ensure conservation effort is focused where it will have greatest impact for nature.

South Africa is one of the few countries that has evaluated KBAs comprehensively on a national basis, and is an important test case for identifying and using KBAs in a megadiverse country. KBAs (295 in South Africa) will help to showcase South Africa’s unique biodiversity and further improve our global profile.

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) and Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs) serve different but complementary roles in conservation. CBAs, identified through systematic biodiversity planning, are critical for spatial planning and environmental authorizations in South Africa. They are designed to be spatially efficient, reduce conflicts with other land uses, and form a connected network that supports ecological sustainability across landscapes and seascapes.

KBAs, on the other hand, are essential for global conservation reporting and recognition. They highlight areas of high biodiversity value, support international conservation efforts, and help secure global funding. While CBAs are tightly integrated into South Africa’s planning frameworks, KBAs provide valuable conservation data and elevate biodiversity priorities on the international stage, complementing systematic bioregional planning efforts.