The Globe and Mail

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.

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Antara News

September 28, 2021
Historic announcement follows ASEAN member states' calls for more funding for global biodiversity agreement

At a high-level event in the margins of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, nine philanthropic organizations launched the "Protecting Our Planet Challenge" and pledged $5 billion to protect and conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 by supporting protected areas and Indigenous stewardship of their territories. This marks the largest-ever philanthropic commitment to nature conservation.

The science based 30x30 target has emerged as a central element of the Convention on Biological Diversity's draft 10-year strategy, which is expected to be approved at COP15 in Kunming, China in April 2022. Indigenous leaders welcomed the announcements as a sign of how the 30x30 target could be aligned with human rights.

Throughout the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiations, ASEAN member states have raised the important topic of biodiversity finance. A landmark study found that current global spending on biodiversity needs to increase by more than a factor of five in order to protect the most important biodiversity around the world.

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Associated Press

September 23, 2021
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans Thursday to spend more than $900 million over the next five years to curb global malnutrition, a move to stem the rise in world hunger during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s one of several pledges private donors made this week as world leaders gather in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly.

On Wednesday, a coalition of nine foundations said they would collectively spend $5 billion by 2030 to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and sea, known as 30x30. The pledge from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Washington D.C.-based Wyss Foundation and others is believed to be the largest private pledge to protect biodiversity.

One of the donors, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had already announced on Monday his Bezos Earth Fund would earmark $1 billion to aid with conservation efforts. That commitment is part of the $10 billion Bezos pledged last year to fight climate change following years of criticism about Amazon’s carbon footprint. He stepped down from the company in July.

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Asia News International

September 23, 2021
Nine organisations have pledged 5 billion US dollars over the next ten years to support the creation, expansion, management and monitoring of protected and conserved areas of land, inland water and sea, working with indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society and governments, the United Nations said.

Heads of State, philanthropic leaders and indigenous representatives came together on Wednesday to announce unprecedented commitments to protect and restore nature at the opening session of the Nature for Life Hub, a high-level event Transformative Action for Nature and People, coinciding with the 76th United Nations General Assembly, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

“This is not a moment where we should not have hope. At the centre of all this, people will have to be the ones who shape what happens next,” Achim Steiner UNDP Administrator said here in a statement.

“Societies have found within themselves the ability to address things that often were long overdue whether it was the issues of inequality or exclusion, but also investments in systematic transformations. We are investing in one another’s ability to, together, change the trajectory of the world,” he added.

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African Arguments

September 23, 2021
Earlier this week, nine philanthropic organisations launched the “Protecting Our Planet Challenge” and pledged $5 billion to protect and conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 (30×30). This can be achieved by supporting protected areas and indigenous stewardship of their territories. This marks the largest-ever philanthropic commitment to nature conservation.

Whilst this may not naturally lead you to consider the implications for peace and security, this type of financial commitment could play an important role in the global effort to bring peace, prosperity and sustainability to the continent of Africa.

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Thomson Reuters

September 22, 2021
A group of private donors pledged a record $5 billion to help safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at an event during the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

The nine charitable funders, which include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rainforest Trust, launched the decade-long "Protecting Our Planet Challenge" to help finance larger and better-managed natural areas worldwide.

"Halting and reversing biodiversity loss and climate change requires expanded protected and conserved areas, especially in tropical forests," said James Deutsch, CEO of the Rainforest Trust, which contributed $500 million to the pot.

"Developing nations and indigenous peoples need financing to achieve this, which is why we are pledging to more than double our level of funding between now and 2030, and (are) urging other private and public funders to do the same," he added in a statement.

The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge also said on Wednesday that 75 financial institutions - worth a combined 12 trillion euros ($14 trillion) in assets - have committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity through their investments.

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Washington Post

September 22, 2021
The Wyss Foundation and eight other philanthropic organizations pledged Wednesday to give $5 billion by 2030 to protect biodiversity around the planet, the largest-ever private gift for conservation.

Wyss said it would donate $500 million, which comes on top of a $1 billion commitment it made three years ago. Wyss has already invested nearly $676 million of that amount to help local communities, Indigenous peoples and governments safeguard their lands, water and wildlife.

The philanthropic group’s goal is to maintain 30 percent of the planet in its natural state. In May, a United Nations report concluded that a million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, a rate of decline that is unparalleled in human history.

“The actions we take from today through 2030 will determine the fate of our natural world,” Hansjörg Wyss, founder and chairman of the Wyss Foundation, said in a statement. “For our grandchildren and their grandchildren to have the same opportunities we’ve had, for them to inherit a functioning planet, we have to rapidly slow the rate at which our economies are destroying nature.”

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China Dialogue

October 8, 2020
Originally scheduled as a last push for world leaders to connect before the COP15 negotiations on a global deal for nature protection, the ongoing pandemic downgraded the UN’s biodiversity summit into more of a push of the reset button.

The meeting, streamed live from New York, featured speeches by more than 100 heads of state, and other dignitaries including Prince Charles and chiefs of multiple UN bodies.

The summit was preceded by the launch of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, a high-level initiative to commit to reverse nature loss by the end of the decade. The text of the pledge stresses the links between climate change, nature degradation, human health, poverty and inequality, and economic security.

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The Christian Science Monitor

October 2, 2020
A new framework for defending the environment is emerging across the world allowing people to sue on behalf of the environment. More than 60 leaders signed a Pledge for Nature at the U.N. summit this week.

From Bolivia to New Zealand, rivers and ecosystems in at least 14 countries have won the legal right to exist and flourish, as a new way of safeguarding nature gains steam, U.S. environmental groups said on Thursday.

Rights of nature laws, allowing residents to sue over harm on behalf of lakes and reefs, have seen “a dramatic increase” in the last dozen years, said the groups the Earth Law Center, International Rivers, and the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.

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Mongabay

September 29, 2020
In the midst of a planetary biodiversity crisis, 71 world leaders have endorsed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

Jacinda Ardern, Prince Charles, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Justin Trudeau, are among those who signed the pledge, stating the world is in a “state of planetary emergency: the interdependent crises of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation and climate change” and that this emergency requires “urgent and immediate global action.”

News of the leaders’ participation, announced Sept. 28, comes ahead of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity this week. It builds upon mounting support for a science-based target: to protect 30% of the planet by 2030, which is included in the most recent draft of the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity as one of its 20 post-2020 strategies.

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The Hill - OpEd

September 28, 2020
This month, world leaders are convening for the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly. While nations will sign a declaration marking the milestone, the reality is that this is no time to rest or to celebrate.

Interlinked challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and economic recovery will be in full focus during UNGA, and the 75th session will culminate with a special high-level Summit on Biodiversity on Sept. 30. There are many overlapping crises that the world is facing, from a global health crisis to record job losses to a growing recognition of long standing systemic racism and growing inequality. 

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