Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
November 30, 2022
Indigenous nations are leading global efforts to protect the planet's biodiversity. Eric Sorensen explains why their efforts are succeeding, and how they'll be promoting their initiatives at December's United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal.
November 17, 2022
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend next month's U.N. biodiversity summit in Montreal, the country's environment minister said on Thursday - despite the event's official host China plan to send no invitations to world leaders.
At the nature summit, dubbed COP15, countries will try to agree a global deal to protect nature and wildlife, as species populations plummet and landscapes are degraded.
China, which holds the COP15 presidency, has not invited world leaders to the COP15 summit. It is taking place in Montreal on Dec. 7-19, after being postponed four times from its original 2020 date in China's city of Kunming.
November 16, 2022
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) winds up, Canada is urging the international community to continue collaborating to address the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Today, during Biodiversity Day COP27, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced that Canada is investing up to $855,000 to ensure that not-for-profit environmental groups and Indigenous partners can fully participate in the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), taking place in Montréal from December 7–19, 2022. Over fifty groups will receive the funding, which is being coordinated by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, to support their participation in the lead up to the Nature COP and facilitate many important events that will be accessible to the general public.
September 20, 2022
Indigenous-managed conservation areas are key to Canada’s pledge to designate nearly one third of its land and ocean waters for biodiversity protection by the end of this decade, according to a new report.
The report from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada stresses that protected areas should be “co-developed and implemented with Indigenous consent” as part of Canada’s reconciliation process.
Its release on Tuesday coincides with efforts by a group of world leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to press their counterparts on biodiversity preservation ahead of international negotiations in Montreal later this year.
Mr. Trudeau is set to speak at an event on Tuesday evening occurring on the margins of the UN General Assembly, now under way in New York. The event was co-organized by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, a group of more than 100 countries that have all formally endorsed the target of protecting at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.
June 21, 2022
The date for a key UN nature summit has finally been confirmed after more than two years of delays and amid fears momentum to halt biodiversity loss across the globe has been lost.
Ahead of the latest round of negotiations in Nairobi this week, the UN convention on biological diversity confirmed that the Cop15 biodiversity conference will now take place in Montreal, Canada, from 5 to 17 December, after it became clear China would not be able to host the event in Kunming due to the country’s zero-Covid policy.
It comes after several pandemic-related delays to the meeting, which was meant to take place in October 2020, and amid intense frustration with Beijing, who are holding the presidency for a major UN environmental agreement for the first time.
Fears had been building over the prohibitive cost for smaller countries to participate in Cop15 if it were held in China, along with concerns over restrictions on civil society, Indigenous groups and the press.
June 21, 2022
The summit was originally planned for Kunming, China, in 2020. It was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently split into two parts, with the first part successfully completed in Kunming in October 2021 and the second meeting in Kunming taking place this spring.
The second meeting was unsuccessful, with no final deal agreed. Interim talks in Nairobi were, therefore, added to the UN’s calendar for this summer, and a final meeting for Kunming in autumn. However, China saw a spike in Covid-19 cases in the first quarter of the year and places including Beijing and Shanghai were put into lockdown.
With all of this in mind, concern had been growing that the summit would not conclude this year if its conclusion depended on a face-to-face event in China. This would mean that the post-2020 set of international biodiversity goals would be more than two years delayed in terms of their creation and implementation. The previous set of goals, the Aichi Goals, went unmet, and pressure is mounting on the UN to deliver a strong agreement to prevent Earth’s sixth mass extinction.
June 21, 2022
The United Nations said on Tuesday it would move talks to secure a global post-2020 biodiversity agreement from Kunming in China to Montreal, Canada, following multiple pandemic-related delays.
Delegates to the Dec. 5-17 summit of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP-15, will aim to adopt a global framework for biodiversity to halt and reverse losses of the world's plants, animals, and ecosystems.
Initially scheduled to take place in the southwestern Chinese city in October 2020, COP15 was delayed due to COVID-19. Though a first round of discussions was held virtually in Kunming in October 2021, the convention's secretariat announced this March that the summit had been delayed for a fourth time as China battled another wave of COVID-19 cases.
June 20, 2022
A long-delayed UN biodiversity summit will be held in Canada this year rather than China as originally planned, after concerns that the Chinese government would postpone it until 2023 due to covid-19.
The COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to bring together the world’s governments to agree a new deal on halting the loss of animals, plants and habitats globally by 2030.
However, the conference has been repeatedly delayed from its original date of October 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, despite other major environment summits taking place. Now, a decision has been taken by the COP bureau to relocate the meeting from Kunming, China, to Montreal, Canada, on 5 to 17 December, three sources have told New Scientist. An official announcement by the CBD is expected imminently today.
June 20, 2022
The annual global summit on biodiversity, COP15, has been delayed by two months to December and will now be hosted in Canada rather than China, according to environmental charities.
This follows concerns the Chinese government would postpone the event for a fourth time into 2023 because of Covid-19 - the conference was originally due to be held in 2020.
The summit will provide governments a chance to come up with a long-term plan to reverse the threat to life on Earth - nearly a third of all species are currently endangered due to human activities.
November 6, 2021
Climate change and biodiversity loss are intrinsically connected, which is why a coordinated approach to tackle them both is essential. Nature-based solutions, such as conserving carbon-rich natural areas and restoring wetlands, can help countries tackle both these challenges.
To address these interconnected crises, Canada will allocate at least 20 percent of its $5.3 billion climate finance commitment to nature-based climate solutions with biodiversity co–benefits in developing countries over the next five years. This represents more than CA$1 billion. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced at COP26 that Canada would provide $15 million in support for the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs. This funding will help developing countries build domestic capacity to take climate action, build resilience, and advance adaptation efforts while also increasing biodiversity.
As part of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and the Global Ocean Alliance, Canada is leading the way to build support for an international target to protect 30 percent of our lands and oceans by 2030.
October 15, 2021
In the run-up to the UN’s crucial climate conference at month’s end, global leaders have laid the foundation for an international framework to protect nature and halt the collapse of biodiversity worldwide while also curbing global warming and protecting human health.
More than 100 nations committed to the Kunming Declaration on Wednesday, a promise to put the natural world on a path to recovery by 2030.
The world is in a dire situation, facing an era of unprecedented species extinction, said COP15 president and China’s Environment Minister Huang Runqui.
As many as a million species of animals and plants are at peril in coming decades, according to a UN report.
The fate of the natural world and humanity are intertwined, Huang said.
“Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose major risks to human survival and sustainable development.”
January 11, 2021
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that Canada would commit up to $55 million to a United Nations initiative aimed at preventing further degradation of land and protecting vital ecosystems.
The investment in the UN Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN) will go toward projects in low- and middle-income countries, Trudeau said. The LDN invests in private sector land sustainability projects to restore land degraded by environmental damage and human activity.
"When sea levels rise, when droughts become the norm and not the exception, this has catastrophic effects on national habitats," Trudeau told the virtual One Planet Summit.
January 5, 2021
To stop biodiversity loss, Canada recently committed to protecting 30% of its land and sea by 2030. But making conservation decisions about where to locate new protected areas is complicated. It depends on data both about biodiversity and about a range of benefits (e.g. freshwater, climate regulation, recreation) that people get from nature. Surprisingly, despite the size of the country, new mapping suggests that less than 1% of Canada's land (0.6% of total area or approximately 56,000 km2) is a hot spot, providing all these benefits in one place. Moreover, the study published today in Environmental Research Letters suggests that some of the most critical areas where people receive these key benefits from nature do not occur within currently protected areas and may be threatened by current or future natural resource extraction.
December 21, 2020
As Canada embarks on a massive effort to address climate change and the loss of nature, while fighting a simultaneous battle against COVID-19, Nature-based Solutions hold the promise of tackling the economic and ecological challenges we face today.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature identifies Nature-based Solutions as "actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits".
Nature-based Solutions sound a lot like a convenient repackaging of familiar calls to protect nature, for our own sake and for the sake of the planet. What sets NbS apart, however, is the systematic approach that it demands and its multiple benefits for people, our economy, for Indigenous reconciliation and for human well-being.
September 28, 2020
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on the world’s largest countries to commit to protecting 30 per cent of their lands and waters to stop the loss of the planet’s biodiversity.
Trudeau made that call today at a special session of the United Nations via video conference on the sidelines of the virtual General Assembly meeting.
Trudeau was taking part in the Leaders Event for Nature and People that also featured the leaders of Costa Rica and Norway.
