In order to further scope out ideas and advance on the scientific underpinning for scaling up area-based conservation, UNEP-WCMC, working with the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and with financial support from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, convened a scoping workshop on the 6th June 2017 in Cambridge, UK. This workshop brought together a diverse range of scientific, practitioner and policy experts and institutions to discuss how to establish the scientific basis for scaling up area-based conservation in a post-2020 strategy. Rather than addressing specific current and future protected area targets and initiatives, the workshop focussed on the synthesis and forward-looking approaches for combining and disseminating knowledge that will best support the area-based conservation elements of a post-2020 biodiversity strategy. This included options for bringing together existing data on biodiversity, protected areas and other area-based conservation measures to help determine the highest priorities for new protected and conserved areas. See Annexes 1 and 2 for list of participants and workshop agenda.

The workshop discussions were guided by two framing presentations, which summarized the state of knowledge on mapping biodiversity and threats to biodiversity, and the state of knowledge on protected areas and other area-based conservation measures that might complement traditional protected area approaches within a scaled up conservation ambition for the future. These presentations set the scene for facilitated breakout-group discussions around three key questions:

1. How can we provide meaningful data on biodiversity at a scale needed for decision making?
2. What is needed for the biodiversity community to speak with one voice on biodiversity prioritization - i.e. where is important to focus conservation efforts?
3. How can we assess where important biodiversity is, and is not, being effectively managed?