We Must Deliver for Nature

Today roughly 16% of the world’s land and 8% of its seas are currently under protection. However, in December 2022, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed upon a historic new deal for nature – The Kunming-Montreal Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. This included the global target to protect at least 30% of terrestrial and inland water and at least 30% of coastal and marine areas by 2030.

If we are to meet the 30 by 30 goal, world leaders need to dramatically increase and expand protected and conserved areas, ramp up funding and ensure the full inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in conservation measures in order to protect the natural world.   

Nature is our life support system

The natural world provides critical resources that sustain all life on Earth including human life — from the air we breathe and the water we drink, to the food we eat and the ecosystem services that counteract the damaging impacts of climate change. There is no substitute for all the ecosystem services nature provides.

Amount of carbon dioxide that forests remove from the atmosphere each year
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Plant species that have been
cultivated for food
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People who depend on
coral reefs to protect against
storm surge & flooding
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Amount of wildlife that has disappeared in the last 50 years

Amount of the global fish stocks that are overfished and the amount of freshwater fish are threatened

We know that in protected areas, life comes back.

Wolves in Yellowstone

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after being locally extinct there for 70 years, ecosystems rebounded. After decades without wolves as a predator, grazing elk in the region had degraded landscapes, reducing the coverage of plants and small trees. With the reintroduction of wolves, elk changed their behavior, avoiding places where they faced threats from the wolves and allowing habitats for birds, otters, and aquatic life to bounce back.

Akagera National Park

After years of destruction from war, land conversion and poaching, life in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park is once again thriving. Akagera is one of the oldest national parks in Africa, and is one of only a handful of places on Earth where the “Big Five” (leopards, lions, Cape buffalo, elephants, and rhinoceros) can be found. But war turned the park into a battlefield and in 1997, the new government reduced the park by two thirds to accommodate resettlement of ethnic Tutsi and their 700,000 cattle. Wildlife, accustomed to roaming outside the newly-set boundaries, were hunted or poisoned. The park’s wildlife began to disappear; lions were gone by 2002 and the last black rhino was seen in 2007. But starting in 2009, the people of Rwanda made a commitment to rehabilitate the Akagera and began reintroducing wildlife. Now the populations of lions, rhinos and other wildlife are rebounding and the park is once again home to the “Big Five.”

Local Biodiversity Outlooks

Local Biodiversity Outlooks provides a snapshot of on-the-ground initiatives being led by Indigenous peoples and local communities that contribute to the successful implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity as well as other related global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.