George W. Bush Presidential Center

April 21, 2023

Up to 1 million species currently face extinction, many within decades.

If we want a future with sea turtles, monarch butterflies, joshua trees, whale sharks, orangutans, and lemurs, we must address the largest causes of biodiversity decline – loss of habitat on land and overexploitation of the oceans.  This will help mitigate the impacts of climate change; directly benefit people by providing essential ecosystem services such as clean air, food, water, and medicine; and reduce the increasing risk of natural disasters such as floods and landslides.

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Campaign for Nature

June 30, 2022
At the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference taking place in Lisbon this week, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC) announced that 100 countries have now committed to its core mission to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by the end of the decade, also known as “30x30.” The science-driven, global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 is one of the cornerstones of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework set to be agreed at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) now taking place in Montreal 5 to 17 December 2022. 

Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United States of America, Estonia, Saint Lucia, Bahrain, Montenegro, and Burkina Faso are among the latest countries to sign on to the HAC, an intergovernmental group of over 100 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom as the Ocean co-chair. Together, HAC member countries hold more than 58% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and more than 38% of the world’s terrestrial carbon stocks. HAC member countries hold more than 54% of the biodiversity conservation priorities that exist within marine exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and more than 54% of the seafloor carbon within EEZs.

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Campaign for Nature

May 17, 2022
While science shows that the crisis facing the natural world is accelerating, the U.N. process for addressing global biodiversity loss is at serious risk of further slowing down. Initially scheduled for October 2020, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has already been delayed four times because of the COVID pandemic. 

With no official date announced for COP15, there is growing concern among scientists and other experts that countries are failing to address the biodiversity crisis with the required leadership and commitment.

Some 196 countries are working through the CBD to develop a global strategy to help stem the tide of catastrophic biodiversity loss, which threatens up to one million species with extinction within decades. Countries have touted COP15 as an opportunity to deliver a deal for nature similar in ambition and significance to the Paris Climate Agreement, but repeated delays and a lack of urgency or high-level political attention could undermine that outcome if not addressed immediately.

The CBD COP Bureau is slated to meet on 19 May to discuss plans for COP15 and determine when the COP will take place. It is critical that the COP dates be firmly set and that the COP allows for equitable participation from all interested parties, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and civil society organizations.

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Hospitality Net

April 20, 2022
For greater context, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was originally signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, committing a dedication to promoting sustainable development and recognizing humanity's reliance on biological diversity. The UN Biodiversity Conference serves to address the CBD and the main objective of the conference now is to adopt the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The first session of the 2020 UN Biodiversity Conference took place in October 2021 and the second session will resume at the end of this month (April 2022). There is increasing global momentum organizing around a rallying cry to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, a rapidly approaching deadline.

Many intergovernmental coalitions have aligned in support of the 30x30 mission. Campaign for Naturetracks the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, the Global Ocean Alliance, Leaders Pledge for Nature, and the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York witnessed public support from over 100 countries. Civil society, nonprofits, scientists, athletes have also come together to raise their voices for our shared blue planet, WSL's We Are One Ocean is one example of a nongovernmental coalition voicing support for 30x30. Countries have individually begun to implement 30x30 through legislation at the national and local level. In the U.S., Biden began his presidency with an Executive Order to protect at least 30% of land and 30% of ocean areas by 2030, and state and local actionin the U.S. has also been underway.

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Campaign for Nature

March 10, 2022
Led by former US Senator Russ Feingold and comprised of eight former Heads of State, two former Prime Ministers, six former Ministers, and four environmental and Indigenous and local experts, the Campaign for Nature’s Global Steering Committee (GSC) has released a joint statement asserting that the success of an upcoming global biodiversity agreement hinges on the adoption of the global, science-backed 30x30 target.

The statement urged governments that have not yet endorsed the global 30x30 goal to join the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), a group of countries championing the target on a global scale. Many GSC members hail from countries that have not yet signed on in support of the HAC including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand, and Iceland. Currently, HAC members include over 85 countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, and beyond.

In the statement, the GSC welcomed the endorsement of the 30x30 goal in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The UN study asserted that the protection of 30-50% of the world’s land and ocean is required for maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale.

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Campaign for Nature

March 1, 2022

Leading environment groups have agreed that the US, the countries of the European Union, the UK, Japan, Canada and other wealthy countries should support a target of at least $60 billion annually of international finance for biodiversity in developing countries. To stop biodiversity loss and achieve a nature-positive economy, this financing effort must be part of a broader and holistic package to close the biodiversity finance gap, including increased domestic and private finance for biodiversity and the elimination of  public and private investments that are harmful to biodiversity.

The recommended $60 billion figure was released in advance of a major round of United Nations biodiversity negotiations set to take place in Geneva, Switzerland this month—an important moment on the road to the final biodiversity summit in Kunming, China later this year.

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Reuters

January 11, 2021
A global fund launched on Tuesday aims to boost climate financing to indigenous communities to help them secure land rights and preserve forested areas from the Congo Basin to the Andes, the initiative's backers said.

Governments, philanthropists and companies are expected to contribute to the Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI), which will distribute funding among groups working to conserve forests and other ecosystems on the ground.

Over the last decade, less than 1% of international climate finance has gone to indigenous and local communities to manage forests that absorb planet-heating carbon emissions and are rich in biodiversity, but the new fund hopes to change that.

"For too long indigenous peoples and local communities have received shockingly little climate funding," said Stanley Kimaren ole Riamit, founder-director of Kenyan group Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners and a CLARIFI steering committee member. The fund will act as the "missing link" between donors that want to curb climate change and conserve biodiversity, and forest groups with the skills to do that, said Solange Bandiaky-Badji, coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an NGO which is leading CLARIFI with the Campaign for Nature group.

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Campaign for Nature

January 11, 2022
As the role played by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in safeguarding the planet gains long-due recognition by global climate and conservation initiatives, their representatives and allies have launched a new mechanism to finance locally-led efforts with full respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

The Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI), led by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Campaign for Nature (C4N), will mobilize and strategically deploy public and private funds to scale up the legal recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ rights, as well as their efforts to strengthen their conservation of natural resources, traditional livelihoods, and gender justice.

About 1.8 billion Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities claim, inhabit and steward the earth’s most critical ecosystems, including its forests. Securing their rights and following their guidance is a powerful bottom-up opportunity to address the catastrophic threats facing the planet. For example, RRI estimates that 33% of the Earth’s tropical forest carbon is at risk without recognizing community rights to their lands. Securing these rights will avoid 1.1 to 7.4 GtC02e of emissions.

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New Strait Times

October 14, 2021
At a meeting of Parties to the United Nation's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the southern Chinese city of Kunming, world governments are looking ahead to the adoption of new goals and targets for nature to be met this decade: CBD's "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework" (GBF).

The draft framework lays out broad actions to help transform society's relationship with biodiversity and fulfil a previously agreed shared vision of "living in harmony with nature" by 2050.

This week's online summit Part One sets the stage for a decisive face-to-face meeting in April. Among the new targets is one advanced by the Campaign for Nature (CFN): protect 30 per cent of the world's land and marine areas by 2030.

These should consist of protected areas and "other effective area-based conservation measures" (OECMs), such as territories inhabited by indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs).

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

September 17, 2021
Ahead of a global summit to agree a new pact to protect nature that kicks off next month, environmentalists said developing nations will need more funding to implement its goals, branding the $10 billion a year now being sought "woefully inadequate".

Governments are tasked with finalising an agreement to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems - similar to the Paris climate accord - at the two-part U.N. biodiversity summit due to conclude next May in the Chinese city of Kunming.

A draft of the biodiversity pact published in July includes a pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet's land and oceans by 2030 - but finding the funds needed to help nature-rich developing countries with conservation is a challenge.

The text calls for "redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity", meaning things like subsidies for fossil fuel production or intensive farming.

It also urges an increase in investment to protect and restore nature from all sources to $200 billion annually, including an additional $10 billion in "international financial flows" for developing nations.

"It is woefully inadequate," said Brian O'Donnell, director of the U.S.-based Campaign for Nature, adding that existing funding from rich to poorer countries was about $10 billion.

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France 24

September 10, 2021
The world's most influential conservation congress passed resolutions Friday calling for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth's surface -- land and sea -- to be designated "protected areas" to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is meeting in Marseille, does not set global policy, but its recommendations have in the past served as the backbone for UN treaties and conventions.

They will help set the agenda for upcoming UN summits on food systems, biodiversity and climate change.

- Saving the Amazon -

An emergency motion calling for four-fifths of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025 -- submitted by COICA, an umbrella group representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations -- passed with overwhelming support.

"Indigenous Peoples have come to defend our home and, in doing so, defend the planet. This motion is a first step," said Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA and a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela.

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Mongabay

August 31, 2021
In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030 via protected areas, other effective conservation measures (OECMs), and Indigenous- and community-led conservation. One of the products of that commitment is the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to turn that 30×30 target into a reality.

The Director of Campaign for Nature is Brian O’Donnell, who previously headed the Conservation Lands Foundation and worked as the Public Lands Director of Trout Unlimited. O’Donnell told Mongabay that in the three years since its launch, more than 70 countries have endorsed the “30×30” goal, ranging from G7 nations to Costa Rica. Those endorsements have been supported by the development of sub-initiatives and alliances, including the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and Global Oceans Alliance.

And critically, says O’Donnell, one of the key tenets of the campaign — centering conservation efforts around the rights of Indigenous Peoples — has continued to gain traction and prominence in 30×30 discussions.

“Campaign for Nature seeks to ensure that Indigenous and local community rights are advanced in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, as Indigenous peoples and local communities have demonstrated that they are incredibly effective stewards of biodiversity and success for a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will rely on this,” O’Donnell told Mongabay.

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Reuters

June 28, 2021
A growing global push to safeguard nature by pledging to protect about a third of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 will fall short unless biodiversity-rich Southeast Asian nations get behind the ambitious proposal, environmentalists have warned.

Leaders of the G7 wealthy nations this month backed a coalition of about 60 countries that have already promised to conserve at least 30% of their land and oceans by 2030 (30x30) to curb climate change and the loss of plant and animal species.

Cambodia is the only Southeast Asian nation to have signed up to the goal so far, although it has been endorsed by countries in other parts of Asia-Pacific, including Japan, Pakistan and the Maldives.

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New Straits Times

June 16, 2021
Scientists and policymakers recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected, but in practice they are largely addressed in their own domains.

Followers of the biodiversity loss crisis, therefore, welcomed last week's report on a joint workshop by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Science-Policy Advice on Ecosystems and Biodiversity (IPBES).

Since 1992, when the two issues (along with desertification) became the subject of individual United Nations treaties, biodiversity has never received the same level of global attention accorded to climate. However, neither will be successfully resolved unless they are tackled together and urgently. That was the main takeaway from the report by 50 leading experts jointly chosen by the IPCC and IPBES.

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Mongabay

June 4, 2021
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Canada’s McGill University, most tropical forested countries looking to benefit from these markets still need to define the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples over carbon in their customary lands and territories.

If these rights are not meaningfully recognized, the researchers argue, the viability of these nature-based solutions will be fundamentally threatened.

RRI has tracked the land rights of Indigenous communities throughout the world for two decades. This latest research is in the context of a global task force established to rapidly expand voluntary carbon markets. Major international corporations like Amazon, Unilever, Salesforce, Airbnb and Nestlé, as part of the LEAF coalition, are pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion using Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.

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