Way back in 2010, the UN released the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. The Plan’s mission was to "take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of biodiversity in order to ensure that by 2020 ecosystems are resilient and continue to provide essential services”. To that end, the Plan listed 20 targets, such as “the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero” and “all fish and invertebrate stocks and aquatic plants are managed and harvested sustainably”. Almost 200 governments signed off on the Plan. Unfortunately, none of its targets were achieved.
The UN has recently released its First Draft of The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. As with the 2010 Plan, this latest version includes multiple targets for urgent action over the coming decade. They include:
Ensure that at least 20 per cent of degraded freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems are under restoration, ensuring connectivity among them and focusing on priority ecosystems.
Ensure that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.
Ensure active management actions to enable the recovery and conservation of species and the genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species, including through ex situ conservation, and effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to avoid or reduce human-wildlife conflict. [Ex situ conservation is the process of protecting an endangered species outside their natural habitat; for example, by removing part of a population from a threatened habitat and placing it in a new location, such as wildlife parks or zoos with breeding programs.]
Ensure that the harvesting, trade and use of wild species is sustainable, legal, and safe for human health.
Reduce pollution from all sources to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity and human health, including by reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste.
Minimize the impact of climate change on biodiversity and ensure that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.
Ensure benefits for people, including food security and livelihoods, through sustainable management of wild terrestrial, freshwater and marine species.
Ensure all areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably, increasing the productivity and resilience of these production systems.
Maintain and enhance nature’s contributions to regulation of air quality, quality and quantity of water, and protection from hazards and extreme events for all people.
Increase the area of, access to, and benefits from green and blue spaces, for human health and well-being in urban areas and other densely populated areas.
Require all businesses (public and private, large, medium and small) assess and report on their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, from local to global, and progressively reduce negative impacts.
Ensure that people are encouraged and enabled to make responsible choices to reduce by at least half the waste and, where relevant the overconsumption, of food and other materials.
Establish and implement measures in all countries to prevent, manage or control potential adverse impacts of biotechnology on biodiversity and human health, reducing the risk of these impacts.
Of course, this is just a draft of the next Strategic Plan, which should be finalized later this year. I’m hoping some of the draft targets are revised, or even eliminated. For example, requiring all small businesses to assess and report on “their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, from local to global” sounds like an excessive regulatory burden that would dampen global economic growth and could very well disrupt the transition of small-scale farming to urban employment in developing countries - a transition that has been mostly a plus for biodiversity as well as for human well-being.
That said, I’m hoping the upcoming 2021 Plan is way more successful than the last one. As it is, the planet is facing its sixth mass extinction. More than 27, 500 species are threatened with extinction, including 40% of amphibians, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef corals, 31% of sharks and rays, 27% of selected crustaceans and 14% of birds. Given gaps in the data, the total number of species threatened with extinction is likely to be much higher (OECD, 2019). It’s definitely time for bold action.
Which will cost a lot of money. How much? Per the 2021 Strategic Plan: “at least $700 billion per year by 2030”. Actually, that sounds kinda low. But it’s a good starting point.
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References:
First Draft of The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Convention on Biological Diversity, July 5, 2021 https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/abb5/591f/2e46096d3f0330b08ce87a45/wg2020-03-03-en.pdf
'Massive failure': The world has missed all its biodiversity targets by Adam Vaughan/New Scientist, September 5, 2020 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2254460-massive-failure-the-world-has-missed-all-its-biodiversity-targets/
OECD (2019), Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case for Action, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a3147942-en.
Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 Convention on Biological Diversity and United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), 2010 https://www.cbd.int/doc/strategic-plan/2011-2020/Aichi-Targets-EN.pdf
UN plan would protect 30% of oceans and land to stem extinctions by Adam Vaughan/New Scientist, July 12, 2021 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2283791-un-plan-would-protect-30-of-oceans-and-land-to-stem-extinctions/?utm_source=nsday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NSDAY_130721