edie

October 13, 2022
Nature NGO WWF has today (13 October) published the latest edition of its Living Planet Report. The last edition, published two years ago, revealed that the population sizes of animals (excluding insects) had decreased by an average  of 68% between 1970 and 2020.

The last two years has seen an acceleration of nature degradation and destruction in many regions, the new report states. It puts the average population size decline for wildlife globally at 69% since 1970.

The speed and intensity of population decline has not been uniform in all regions and among all species, the report emphasizes. WWF has stated that it is “particularly concerned” that the average wildlife population size in Latin America and the Caribbean has dropped by 94% since 1970.

In the UK specifically, the report contains some shocking examples of decline. It states that 97% of the UK’s wildflower meadows have been lost since the 1930s, as have 92% of the UK’s seagrass meadows. There has also been a sharp decline in many bird populations including starlings, skylarks and spotted flycatchers.

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UK.Gov

June 1, 2022
Action to drive the recovery of the global economy and bolster food security worldwide by protecting and restoring nature will be set out today by government ministers, CEOs and civil society leaders at a major multinational summit being held today (Wednesday 1 June).

‘Financing the Transition to a Nature Positive Future’ will be held in association with Stockholm +50, a major environmental meeting led by the United Nations between 2-3 June. The event is being convened by the UK Government and supported by the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature (LPN).

Over half of GDP - $44 trillion - relies on the services that nature provides or natural capital - from the bees that pollinate the plants we eat, to the trees that purify our air and the forests and oceans that absorb carbon emissions. However, we are spending our natural capital much faster than it is being replenished.

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SciDevNet

March 18, 2022
Once swathed in green, only three per cent of the Philippines remains covered with pristine forests.  Losing these ecosystems — not to mention the impacts of overfishing, climate change and extreme weather events — has taken a tragic toll on the country’s rich biodiversity and its people.

While the Philippines remains well-stocked with unique fauna and flora and is recognised as one of the world’s 17 mega biodiverse countries, the latest science and fieldwork make it clear that this precious biodiversity is under threat.  Especially at risk are the indigenous people and local communities, who battle to protect it.

We are hopeful that a new global target to protect 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 (30×30 goal) is included in a new global strategy to safeguard biodiversity that is expected to be approved in Kunming, China, later this year.

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The Guardian

December 31, 2021
It is no secret that the diversity of life around us is plummeting. Scientists declared more than 100 species to be extinct in 2020 alone. That’s bad news not only for the creatures themselves but for those of us (that would be all of us) who rely on them for food, to produce oxygen, to hold soil in place, to cleanse water, to beautify our world and so much more. According to the World Economic Forum, nature plays a key role in generating more than half of global GDP.

So what can we do to reduce future harm? One big thing is to identify emerging threats and opportunities to protect biodiversity and proactively shape policies and actions to prevent harm early on. To this end, a group of scientists and conservation practitioners led by William Sutherland, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Cambridge, create and publish a “horizon scan” of global trends with impacts for biodiversity each year. Read on for this year’s top picks.

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The Guardian

December 30, 2021
It was supposed to be a “super year for nature”: 2020 was going to be “a major opportunity to bring nature back from the brink”. But then the coronavirus pandemic set in and long-held plans to tackle the environmental crisis, kickstarted at Davos in January, where the financial elite underscored the risks of global heating and biodiversity loss to human civilisation, never happened. The biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, Cop15 in Kunming, China, where world leaders were expected to strike a deal to halt and reverse the destruction of ecosystems by reaching a Paris-style agreement for nature was postponed until 2021. The Cop26 climate summit was also postponed for a year.

As we enter 2022, there has still not been a super year for nature. Substantive negotiations for the biodiversity Cop15 meeting in China, the little sister to the climate convention, are likely to be delayed a fourth time as a result of the Omicron variant. Preparatory talks planned for January 2022 in Geneva have been pushed back – again – until March in a process that is feeling increasingly cursed, despite the best efforts of organisers.

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New Scientist

December 29, 2021
As the world examines the outcome of the COP26 climate summit, spare a thought for conservationists trying to protect the planet’s natural riches. A landmark UN biodiversity summit has been postponed three times because of the pandemic and now won’t be held in person in China until April, after a first session was held virtually last October.

The delay means that, incredibly, there are currently no global goals for stopping biodiversity loss. While countries missed most of the targets set for 2020, a new set of goals for 2030 – known as the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – is still seen as essential for slowing and eventually reversing the decline of wildlife and habitats.

“I’m really hopeful that what’s adopted in Kunming will help move the needle on biodiversity,” says Susan Lieberman at the Wildlife Conservation Society, referring to the Chinese city where the COP15 biodiversity summit will be hosted.

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The Statesman

November 14, 2021
It’s becoming increasingly clear that we not only need to adapt to protect vulnerable communities and natural habitats against climate change but we also need to look to nature as a regenerative solution, not just something that we need to protect, but something that will protect us, Google has stressed.

During the past two weeks at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), world leaders committed to averting the worst consequences of climate change.

“When we observe the Earth’s surface over the past few decades in Google Earth’s Timelapse, the immensity of the change to our natural environment is arresting,” said Nithya Sowrirajan, Director, Global Solutions, Google Earth and Earth Engine.“At Google, we’re keenly invested in preventing the worst effects of climate change, and helping our customers use Google Cloud technology to build a more sustainable future,” added Jen Bennett, Director, Office of CTO, Google Cloud.

It was 11 years ago at COP16 that the tech giant unveiled Google Earth Engine, an earth observation platform that combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets with powerful analysis capabilities.

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ENDS Report

November 8, 2021
In a conversation with fellow economist Lord Stern at COP26, Sir Partha Dasgupta said that a ‘bold and imaginative’ response is needed to provide a financial incentive to protect globally valuable ecosystems.

“Rainforests are a global public good… and yet they are in national jurisdictions,” said Dasgupta, the author of a review of the economics of biodiversity commissioned by the Treasury. But the incentive that they have to protect such habitats is less than their value for the biosphere as a whole, posing an economic dilemma. There is a similar problem with the deep ocean, too: “nobody has to pay for it” when extracting resources such as fish or minerals, the professor said.

So a new body to protect global public goods, akin to the International Monetary Fund or World Bank but operating under the United Nations, should be established, he argued. They could charge for access, providing funding for the maintenance of ecosystem services.

A good deal of negotiation would be needed to set it up, of course – “but I think we should not fear that”.

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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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Campaign for Nature

October 31, 2021
In a statement adopted today by the G20, the intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union, recognized the importance of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030.

The declaration states: “We recognize the efforts made by a number of countries to adhere to the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature and to ensure that at least 30 % of global land and at least 30 % of the global ocean and seas are conserved or protected by 2030, and we will help to make progress towards this objective in accordance with national circumstances.”

G20 members include Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and other biodiversity-rich countries that have yet to join a growing global effort to endorse the global goal to protect 30x30.

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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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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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The Wire

October 8, 2021
A growing global push to safeguard nature by pledging to protect about a third of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 will fall short unless biodiversity-rich Southeast Asian nations get behind the ambitious proposal, environmentalists have warned.

Leaders of the G7 wealthy nations this month backed a coalition of about 60 countries that have already promised to conserve at least 30% of their land and oceans by 2030 (30 × 30) to curb climate change and the loss of plant and animal species.

Cambodia is the only Southeast Asian nation to have signed up to the goal so far, although it has been endorsed by countries in other parts of the Asia-Pacific, including Japan, Pakistan and the Maldives.

Brian O’Donnell, director of the US-based Campaign for Nature, which is calling on world leaders to back the pledge, said it was “very important” to get governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on board.

“Given the incredible biodiversity in the region, much of which is facing pressure, ASEAN countries are a key voice to support 30 × 30,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Southeast Asian countries cover just 3% of the Earth’s surface but are home to three of the world’s 17 “megadiverse” countries – Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, according to the Campaign for Nature.

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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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NDTV

October 7, 2021
Just weeks before the crucial COP26 climate conference, another global UN summit -- this one tasked with reversing the destruction of nature -- officially kicks off next week in Kunming, China.

Focusing on biodiversity, COP15 is less well known than its sister climate summit but deals with issues that are no less vital to the health of the planet, such as fighting pollution, protecting ecosystems and preventing mass extinction.

The online session beginning on Monday will be followed by a face-to-face gathering in late April, where a final pact for nature will be hammered out.

Who is involved?

Discussions at the COP15 are grounded in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a treaty ratified by 195 countries and the European Union -- but not the United States, the world's biggest historical polluter. Parties meet every two years.

The CBD was drafted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio. Its stated goals are to preserve the diversity of species on Earth and set guidelines on how to exploit natural resources sustainably and justly.

This year's gathering, originally set for 2020, was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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