idw

October 20, 2022
Ahead of the global meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Montréal, Canada, which decides new targets for nature, the first-ever study of its kind outlines an urgent need for larger numbers and better-supported protected area staff to ensure the health of life on Earth. In a new scientific paper published today in the journal “Nature Sustainability”, an international team of scientists – including two members of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin – argue that there are not enough rangers and other staff to manage even the current protected areas around the world.

The authors urge governments, donors, private landowners and NGOs to increase the numbers of rangers and other staff five-fold in order to meet global biodiversity conservation goals that have economic, cultural and ecosystem benefits.

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World Economic Forum

May 5, 2022
The ocean is a vital life support system for the planet, and we are running out of time to preserve the marine biodiversity that it is home to and upon which we all depend.

Having played a key role thus far in the mitigation of climate change, our blue ally is quickly running out of steam. With water temperature and sea levels rising, acidification, pollution, unsustainable exploitation of marine resources, depletion of fish stocks, the near disappearance of coral reefs, and the destruction of fragile ecosystems, the ocean is being disproportionately impacted by human activities.

Now, more than ever, we must consider the possible implications of its demise.

The ocean plays an indispensable role in providing and regulating resources that are vital to sustaining life on Earth — from rainwater to drinking water, and as a source of our food, weather, and the oxygen we breathe.

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LA Times

March 7, 2022
In the latest United Nations report on climate change, scientists document the stark toll inflicted by global warming through more intense heat waves, droughts, floods and other disasters, and present a dire warning that humanity should act quickly to move away from fossil fuels and cut planet-heating emissions.

The report goes beyond past assessments not only by detailing the latest science but also by focusing on how the world, while reducing emissions, can better adapt to the accelerating effects of climate change to reduce risks and protect especially vulnerable people.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stresses that the threats to people’s health, livelihoods and lives disproportionately affect those who lack resources to weather the blows. In pursuing climate solutions, the report’s authors say, there should be a focus on equity and justice, because the effects are exacerbating inequality and hitting especially hard for low-income people, marginalized communities and developing countries.

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National Geographic

February 25, 2022
In post-war Britain, natural places were in high demand, as expanding cities and industrialisation drove many, including returning heroes, to seek the solace of the countryside and clean air. In 1945, the Government produced a White Paper on National Parks and a National Parks Committee was established, with MP Sir Arthur Hobhouse as Chair. In 1949 the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act finally made the creation of legally protected areas in the UK possible, and the UK’s first National Park, the Peak District, was designated in 1951, followed by another nine throughout the 1950s.

Over seventy years later, the UK is home to several types of nationally protected landscape areas: National Parks (England, Scotland and Wales), Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty or AONBs (England, Northern Ireland and Wales), and National Scenic Areas in Scotland. The current tally of National Parks is 15 – 10 in England (including Wordsworth’s beloved Lake District), three in Wales and two in Scotland – with government agencies in each country holding the power to designate protected areas: Natural Resources Wales, Natural England and NatureScot.

As the UK slowly emerges from the grip of COVID-19, the UK Government is once more turning its attention to these protected places, which provided invaluable sanctuary for so many during some of the darkest hours of the past two years.

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Nature

December 9, 2021
Advances in spatial biodiversity science and nationally available data have enabled the development of indicators that report on biodiversity outcomes, account for uneven global biodiversity between countries, and provide direct planning support. We urge their inclusion in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

In 2022, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will assemble in Kunming, China to agree on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF). Addressing threats that contribute to species extinctions and affect their role in ensuring ecosystem integrity underpins the GBF’s overarching Goal A, which stipulates “healthy and resilient populations of all species” and “reduced extinction rates”. Although multiple actions are needed to safeguard biodiversity, establishing targets for protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) is recognized as a primary mechanism to achieve Goal A.

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UNDP

November 11, 2021
Protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation that provide co-benefits for achievement of the SDGs, in support of a nature-positive future. This report presents the global status of PAs and OECMs and opportunities for action, focusing on coverage and quality elements of effective management and equitable governance. Recognition is given to Indigenous Peoples' territories and the need to secure tenure rights, as well as embed PAs and OECMs into national policies and frameworks.

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China Dialogue

October 28, 2021
Overshadowed by climate issues, China’s biodiversity governance rarely rises to global attention. Yet, during the recently convened first session of COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference held in Kunming, President Xi Jinping promised to lead the world in “building a shared future for all life on Earth”, based on a vision of an “ecological civilisation”, and using China’s own conservation endeavours as examples. As China strives to tell a positive story of biodiversity conservation at home, has it figured out “China solutions” for conservation governance? Solutions that can face up to the enormous challenges its rapid economic development presents to ecosystems and species?

China is often overlooked as one of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet. Its vast land area, complex topography and several climate zones all contribute to this unique biodiversity. Yet it is also “one of the countries in the world where biodiversity is more threatened”, according to China’s 2018 Sixth National Report on the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The China species red list, a recent national assessment based on the red list system of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), found the extinction risk of China’s vertebrate and higher plant species to be above the global average. About 43% of China’s amphibians are threatened with extinction, compared to a global average of 30.6%; and up to 59% of its 251 native species of gymnosperms (a group of plants including the conifers, cycads and ginkgo) are threatened. Habitat loss and over-exploitation are the most common factors contributing to species endangerment.

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Trade for Development News

August 17, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep global recession in which much economic activity has declined, and one of the hardest hit sectors is tourism. In tourism-dependent economies in Africa and the Caribbean, for example, GDP is projected to shrink by 12%.  

The economic toll is occurring at a time when biodiversity is imperiled globally. The 2020 Living Planet Index reported a 68% average decline in birds, amphibians, mammals, fish and reptiles since 1970. Biodiversity matters because of its intrinsic worth, and because it underpins human wellbeing and supports economic activity. Protected areas, which are key to any global effort to contain biodiversity loss, attract eight billion visitors in a typical year.

How can countries address the intersecting calamities of a pandemic in a time of biodiversity loss?  Moreover, can countries afford to bring even larger areas under conservation when the need for economic recovery is so pressing, fiscal spaces are tight and so many development challenges persist?

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EurekAlert!

July 13, 2021
Scientists have published a global study on the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation.

The study, published recently in Environmental Research Letters, explored the success of country-level protected areas at reducing forest loss, and used machine learning to uncover some of the factors that contribute to differences in effectiveness.

"Protected areas are a key conservation tool that are essential for stemming the tide of biodiversity and habitat loss across the Earth," said first author, Dr. Payal Shah, a research scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), who specializes in applying economic theory to conservation.

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World Bank Blog

July 12, 2021
The rollout of vaccines globally, particularly as this effort picks up momentum, is spreading hope that countries will soon have control over the devastating health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries still, though, have a long path to travel for economic recovery. The pandemic has led to a deep global recession in which much economic activity has declined, including in the hard-hit tourism sector. In tourism-dependent economies in Africa and the Caribbean, for example, GDP is projected to shrink by 12 percent.

The economic toll is occurring at a time when biodiversity is imperiled, globally. The 2020 Living Planet Index reported a 68 percent average decline in birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970; one-third of the world’s terrestrial, and two-thirds of its marine, protected areas are under threat from human impact. Protected areas are not only key to any global effort to conserve biodiversity, they are also crucial to address climate change and achieve sustainable development goals. Currently, 17 percent of land and 8 percent of the marine environment, world over, is protected. The proposed target for 2030 – to be negotiated at the CBD COP-15 in Kunming, China in the coming months -- is to expand this coverage to at least 30 percent, part of an effort to address the threat to biodiversity.

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Reuters

July 7, 2021
China has designated 25% of its onshore territory "ecological conservation" areas, limiting development and human activities in order to improve the environment and conserve resources.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment was tasked with identifying areas in need of protection a decade ago, when the government acknowledged that decades of "irrational development" had put its ecological safety under severe strain.

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Borneo Bulletin

June 22, 2021
The United Kingdom (UK) COP26 Presidency and the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) recently co-convened ‘ASEAN-UK COP26: Framing the Future for Nature and Climate’, a virtual event exploring the important role that ecosystems, like forests, wetlands, and marine and coastal areas, play in combatting climate change.

The event discussed best practices and experiences from across the ASEAN region, and discussed the need to scale up ambition on nature-based solutions on climate and biodiversity. In addition, the event showcased the findings of the ‘Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity’, and the applicability of its findings to the ASEAN region.

It was also an opportunity to bring the region together in preparation for the regional and global meetings, including the Third ASEAN Conference on Biodiversity, the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all taking place this year, with the UK presiding over COP26, in partnership with Italy.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

June 16, 2021
By now you've probably heard of COP26 - the shorthand name for the next major U.N. climate summit, rescheduled for November in Glasgow after being delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic.

But another big "Convention of the Parties" (COP) is taking place a month earlier - one that is far less talked about but also critically important. That is COP15: the U.N. biodiversity summit planned for China in October.

Efforts to protect the natural world have yet to achieve the same high profile as those to limit climate change, despite advocacy by naturalist David Attenborough and many others.

Losses of crucial ecosystems like rainforests and wetlands, as well as animal species, have accelerated even as governments, businesses, financiers and conservation groups seek effective ways to protect and restore more of the Earth's land and seas.

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The Manila Times

June 11, 2021
As unprecedented changes and pressing issues continue to impact both nature and the biodiversity of the planet, a growing global effort is under way to protect 30 percent of the Earth's land and oceans - the 30x30 Wyss Campaign for Nature championed by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), an intergovernmental coalition of more than 60 countries around the world co-chaired by Costa Rica, France and the UK. It calls on other nations, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), to commit to this definite target for the benefit of the environment, climate, economy and society.

As of this moment, only Cambodia has committed to this target as the first HAC member from the Asean region. The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei and Singapore should all follow suit and other neighboring Asian members such as Japan, Pakistan and the Maldives. Dr. Tony Laviña, a former environment undersecretary, explains that such hesitation to commit to the 30x30 target is based more on the fear of unknown, of what committing to this target might mean for economies and livelihoods as well as how it will impact specific sectors like logging, mining and palm oil industries.

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Wired

June 10, 2021
Humanity is struggling to contain two compounding crises: skyrocketing global temperatures and plummeting biodiversity. But people tend to tackle each problem on its own, for instance deploying green energies and carbon-eating machines, while roping off ecosystems to preserve them. But in a new report, 50 scientists from around the world argue that treating each crisis in isolation means missing out on two-fer solutions that resolve both. Humanity can't solve one without also solving the other.

The report is the product of a four-day virtual workshop attended by researchers of all stripes, and is a collaboration between the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In light of the Paris Agreement, it’s meant to provide guidance on how campaigns that address biodiversity might also address climate change, and vice versa.

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