ABC News

June 1, 2022
Ramping up the protection of land within the next decade could make a significant dent in biodiversity and climate change efforts that would get countries closer to their conservation goals, according to new research.

If countries succeed in protecting 30% of global land area by 2030, it could benefit about 1,000 vertebrate species whose habitats currently lack any form of protection, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances.

About half of the species that would benefit from expanding protected areas worldwide are classified as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened, the scientists said.

What is being dubbed by scientists as the "30 by 30" target could also spare about 11 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year in avoided carbon emissions or carbon sequestration, the paper states.

Researchers from Princeton University and the National University of Singapore compared models that maximize different aspects of conservation. They considered only natural areas and excluding croplands and urban areas, and found that additional benefits could result for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and nutrient-regulation if protected area coverage were increased to 30% of the terrestrial area within 238 countries worldwide.

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Campaign For Nature

December 17, 2021
Seeking to protect one of the most biodiverse waterways in the world from industrial fishing, the Costa Rican government announced today it is expanding Cocos Island National Park by 27 times. The waters surrounding the tropical Pacific island teems with wildlife, including sharks, rays, dolphins, turtles and whales. 

The government also unveiled the Bicentennial Marine Managed Area, twice the size of the expanded Cocos Island National Park, which will include some no-take areas and strengthen fisheries management. The expansion of the Cocos Island National Park from an area of 2,034 km 2 to 54,844 km 2 and the Bicentennial Marine Management Area from an area of 9,649 km 2 to 106,285.56 km 2 expands the country’s protection of its ocean from 2.7% of its waters to approximately 30%. With these marine protected area expansions, Costa Rica is leading in its global ambition and drive to achieve the global goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet - land and sea - by 2030. 

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World Economic Forum

December 2, 2021
The conservation movement, since its origins in the 19th century, has primarily relied on public funding and philanthropic contributions to achieve its ends. The Global Canopy Programme estimates that the total annual expenditure on conservation to date has been $50 billion, of which more than 80% was from governmental and philanthropic sources. Ecosystem Marketplace similarly estimates the annual flows of private investment dollars into conservation in the low billions of dollars, with the bulk of these funds going to sustainable food and fibre rather than habitat conservation.

In November 2021 at COP26, a collective $12 billion for forest-related climate finance between 2021-2025 was announced with the support of 11 nations. Yet, all these expenditures lag significantly behind the annual expenditures needed to preserve the planet’s biodiversity, estimated by Credit Suisse, McKinsey & Co and the World Wildlife Fund to be between $300 and $400 billion. Without private investment dollars, this shortfall is likely to persist indefinitely.

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Scientific American - OpEd

November 30, 2021
November 30 is the Remembrance Day for Lost Species, an informal holiday established in 2011 by a U.K.-based coalition of artists, scientists and activists. The point of the day is political: to draw public attention to human-caused extinctions, in hopes of preventing more. But for many participants the day is also personal, an attempt to grasp the enormity of extinction.

Every year brings more species to memorialize, and this year is no exception. Among this year’s newcomers are 23 species of plants and animals that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared extinct at the end of September. Had you heard of the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, the flat pigtoe mussel or the stirrupshell mussel? What about the Scioto madtom or the San Marcos gambusia, two freshwater fish? Me neither. These species, like so many others, went extinct before most of us even knew their names. 

We need a Remembrance Day for Lost Species. But if we want to protect life on a meaningful scale, we also need to remember the species we still have.

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The Washington Post

November 2, 2021
Whales, sea turtles and hammerhead sharks will be able to swim more safely through the Eastern Pacific, thanks to a chain of new marine protected areas announced Tuesday by Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama.

The newly established “ocean highway” will stretch from the Galapagos to the Pacific coast of Central America, officials said, encompassing waters used by many species for hunting, mating and giving birth. This stretch of the tropical Pacific Ocean harbors some of the most productive fisheries on the planet. But it is also threatened by overfishing and the steady warming of the world’s seas.

“This is an unprecedented collaboration,” said conservationist Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence at National Geographic. “Protection of these waters will not only protect marine life, but it will also help to replenish the waters around them.”

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CNN

November 1, 2021
An arid region of open forests and grasslands spanning three countries and more than a quarter of a million square miles, this is Gran Chaco. It's the second-largest forest in South America after the Amazon, but has long been neglected, suffering from deforestation, agricultural expansion and the effects of climate change.

When Bolivian conservation biologist Erika Cuéllar first saw the vast expanse in 1997, she was overcome by an urge to restore it. "I am very attracted to arid lands. When I was young, I was angry that nobody cared about dry lands and everybody cared about tropical rainforest," she says.

Despite looking open and empty, the area is teeming with unique vegetation and wildlife, from jaguars and ocelots to piranhas and vipers. It's also home to nine million people, including several indigenous communities.

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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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The Guardian

October 14, 2021
The calls for biodiversity and the climate crisis to be tackled in tandem are growing. “It is clear that we cannot solve [the global biodiversity and climate crises] in isolation – we either solve both or we solve neither,” says Sveinung Rotevatn, Norway’s climate and environment minister, with the launch in June of a report produced by the world’s leading biodiversity and climate experts. Zoological Society of London senior research fellow Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, who led a study on the subject published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in September, says: “The level of interconnectedness between the climate change and biodiversity crises is high and should not be underestimated. This is not just about climate change impacting biodiversity; it is also about the loss of biodiversity deepening the climate crisis.”

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Campaign For Nature

October 13, 2021
At the much-anticipated virtual opening of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Chinese President Xi, heads of state and ministers from around the world came together to stress the critical importance of conservation and the protection of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who safeguard nature.  

The meeting, which will be followed by meetings in Geneva and Kunming, China next year, underlined growing ambition to change our relationship with nature. It indicated an urgency to agree upon a transformative global vision and commit the financial commitments necessary to champion the critical infrastructure, which are lagging behind. 

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South China Morning Post

October 12, 2021
China will donate 1.5 billion yuan (US$232.5 million) to set up a new fund to help developing countries protect the variety of plant and animal life, President Xi Jinping has pledged at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15).

“China will take the lead and contribute 1.5 billion yuan to set up the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity development of developing countries,” Xi told the conference via video link on Tuesday. “China calls for and welcomes all parties to contribute and support strengthening protection of biodiversity.”

Xi also pledged to accelerate the development of wind and solar power in China.

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Riff Reporter

October 8, 2021
One year late, almost 200 countries will start the final spurt of their negotiations on the future of nature and biodiversity at the 15th World Biodiversity Summit in Kunming, China, starting October 11th. The most important goal is to pass a new agreement to protect the natural foundations of life on earth. This is to stop the greatest extinction of species in human history and bring the use of nature on a sustainable and just path.

The Kunming Agreement is just as important in the fight against the global crisis in nature as the Paris Climate Agreement is in the fight against global warming. The final round of negotiations and adoption is not planned until the second part of the summit in spring. The three-day opening session could, however, bring important preliminary decisions about how ambitious the states are to tackle the fight against the planet's ecological crisis. The eyes are mainly on host China. Insiders think surprises are possible.

There will be no shortage of big words at the opening conference for the first part of the World Biodiversity Conference in Kunming. The Chinese government as host, the United Nations as host and the representatives of the almost 200 states party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), who are only virtually connected, will not miss the dramatic state of nature on our planet and its improvement Prospect to face.

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The Conversation

October 7, 2021
We are currently facing a mass extinction of plants and animals. To remedy this, world leaders have pledged a huge expansion of protected areas ahead of the UN biodiversity summits to be held in October 2021 and May 2022 in Kunming, China.

The focus on how much of the planet to conserve overshadows questions of how nature should be conserved and by whom. In the past some conservation organisations have seen indigenous and local communities as undermining environmental conservation.

Our research strongly contradicts this. Our recent publication in Ecology and Society shows the best way to protect both nature and human wellbeing is for indigenous and local communities to be in control. That conclusion stems from examining examples of conservation projects carried out since 2000 and their results. Our international team of 17 scientists studied the effects on habitats and species and local communities.

We found improvements for conservation and people are much more likely when indigenous and local communities are environmental stewards. When in charge, local communities can establish a shared vision for conserving the environments they live in and for coexisting with wildlife. 

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The Straits Times

September 29, 2021
Nature is not, and cannot be, a passive victim of economic development, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Wednesday (Sept 29).

Not only does nature help make city life more liveable, it can also contribute to mankind's fight against climate change, he said, urging delegates gathered at the Ecosperity Week sustainability conference to take a fresh perspective on the natural environment.

The three-day conference is convened by Singapore's Temasek investment company for policymakers, investors, non-government groups and businesses, and is being held in a hybrid format with some attendees gathered at Marina Bay Sands. Wednesday marks the second day of the conference.

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Path To Scale

September 16, 2021
Launch Announcement: Today an informal network of donors and financial institutions launched Path to Scale which aims to scale-up funding and other enabling factors to secure the land and resource rights, conservation, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant Peoples to the levels necessary to meet 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets.

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South China Morning Post

September 6, 2021

The plan was launched three years ago with the goal of protecting a quarter of China’s land and sea areas and reversing some of the air and water pollution brought about by breakneck growth.

Using a series of “red lines”, various zones were demarcated across the country to safeguard endangered species and their habitats, as well as restore ecologically fragile areas.

Environmental red lines have been drawn in 15 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing and areas along the Yangtze River, and covering more than 2.4 million sq km.

The Ecological Conservation Red Line initiative remains an ambitious strategy but breaches of the zones persist and strict implementation is needed to ensure compliance, according to an environmental group in southern China.

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