Campaign For Nature 

November 7, 2022
On the first day of COP27, presidents and ministers from Palau, Nigeria, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States have today affirmed their support for the 30x30 target which commits countries to a global effort to achieve the protection of at least thirty percent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030 to help curb biodiversity loss and climate change.

His Excellency President of Palau, Surangel S. Whipps Jr, today announced that Palau has joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, an intergovernmental group championing the protection of at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. 

Engineer H. Musa, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Environment and Climate Change from the Federal Republic of Nigeria announced that all 15 members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had agreed to support 30x30 as part of an "ECOWAS Appeal for an Ambitious Global Response to the Biodiversity Crisis''. 

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Canada’s National Observer

October 25, 2022
With COP15 in Montreal rapidly approaching, governments are gearing up to create targets on biodiversity for the next decade. The world has so far failed to meet any UN targets on halting the loss of nature, yet awareness of the challenge is greater than ever. Here we examine why this UN meeting matters and how it could herald meaningful action on nature loss.

Nature is in crisis and for the past three decades, governments have been meeting to ensure the survival of the species and ecosystems that underpin human civilization. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 saw the creation of three conventions: on climate change, desertification and biodiversity. The aim of the convention on biological diversity (CBD) is for countries to conserve the natural world, its sustainable use, and to share the benefits of its genetic resources.

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idw

October 20, 2022
Ahead of the global meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Montréal, Canada, which decides new targets for nature, the first-ever study of its kind outlines an urgent need for larger numbers and better-supported protected area staff to ensure the health of life on Earth. In a new scientific paper published today in the journal “Nature Sustainability”, an international team of scientists – including two members of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin – argue that there are not enough rangers and other staff to manage even the current protected areas around the world.

The authors urge governments, donors, private landowners and NGOs to increase the numbers of rangers and other staff five-fold in order to meet global biodiversity conservation goals that have economic, cultural and ecosystem benefits.

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CNN

October 4, 2022
Australia, which has one of the world’s worst records on extinctions, on Tuesday announced a 10-year plan to prevent any more species from dying out in the country by protecting its most threatened plants and animals.

Launching the plan at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia’s Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek said the Labor government had a “very ambitious target” to conserve more than 30% of Australia’s land mass by 2030.

“We’re talking about an extra 50 million hectares (about 124,000 acres) of landscape that we need to find and to manage in a way that protects the landscape and the species that depend on it,” Plibersek said.

The plan brings Australia into line with more than 100 other countries, including the United States, which have pledged to protect 30% of their land and 30% of their ocean by 2030. The initial coalition of countries announced their commitment ahead of the One Planet summit in 2021.

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The Washington Post

September 29, 2022
As temperatures rise and habitats shrink, hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species around the world are at risk of vanishing.

For the first time, the United States is designating a special diplomat to advocate for global biodiversity amid what policymakers here and overseas increasingly recognize as an extinction crisis.

Monica Medina is taking on a new role as special envoy for biodiversity and water resources, the State Department announced Wednesday. She currently serves as the department’s assistant secretary for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.

The appointment underscores the Biden administration’s desire to protect land and waters not just at home but to also conserve habitats abroad.

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World Economic Forum

September 27, 2022
The race to protect the natural world and its biodiversity reaches a critical milestone this December as countries gather for the United Nations’ COP15 meeting.

The stakes for the summit - in Montreal, Canada - could hardly be higher. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres says: “We are losing our suicidal war against nature”.

COP15 aims to give biodiversity the same levels of international protection as the climate.

The race to protect the natural world and its biodiversity reaches a critical milestone this December as countries gather for the United Nations’ COP15 meeting.

The stakes for the summit - in Montreal, Canada - could hardly be higher. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres says: “We are losing our suicidal war against nature”.

COP15 aims to give biodiversity the same levels of international protection as the climate.

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Reuters

September 21, 2022
World leaders on Tuesday stepped up financial support and conservation commitments to combat the global biodiversity crisis that threatens more than one million plant and animal species with extinction.

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Germany pledged 1.5 billion euros per year in international biodiversity funding — more than doubling its current commitments.

Nations will soon gather in Montreal, Canada, for a critical U.N. biodiversity summit (COP15) to finalise and adopt a framework to protect and conserve nature.

Over half of the world's GDP depends heavily on the natural world, according to a 2020 report by the World Economic Forum.

The December conference "needs to be a turning point for our conservation efforts", said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he announced the new funding. "With this contribution, we want to send a strong signal for an ambitious outcome of the biodiversity COP15."

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Business Green

September 21, 2022
World leaders have stressed the importance of increased funding for conservation efforts, after this week highlighting how the upcoming COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Montreal in December represents an essential opportunity for tackling global biodiversity loss.

Speaking at the Countdown to COP15: Landmark Leaders' Event for a Nature-Positive World event in New York yesterday, a series of world leaders declared the success of COP15 represented a priority for their governments, as they called on countries to work together to secure "an ambitious global biodiversity agreement" in Montreal.

Leaders said an ambitious new global accord was urgently required "in the face of an escalating nature crisis that is threatening health, food security, and livelihoods, while undermining climate action and sustainable development".

Leaders from 93 regions and the European Union reaffirmed their commitment to reverse biodiversity loss and secure a 'nature-positive' world by 2030, throwing their weight behind the global campaign to protect and conserve at least 30 per cent of all land and oceans by 2030.

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Politico — Op Ed

September 21, 2022
Hansjörg Wyss is a Swiss businessman and philanthropist, and the co-owner of Chelsea FC.

Solving the crisis facing nature is daunting. Over the next few months, we will see whether governments are truly up to the task.

I, for one, am optimistic that we will meet the challenge, but leaders must actually commit to accelerating the pace of conservation this year and invest significant and meaningful public resources. Promises alone can’t save nature — it’s time for governments to take action.

Inspired by the wonders of nature — and motivated by the fear of losing the wild places I love — I’ve pledged a significant portion of my fortune to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.

This commitment is a promise to future generations that I’m going to do everything I can to leave them a world that’s as alive and glorious as the one I was born into.

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The Guardian

August 30, 2022
With only a few short months until Cop15 in Montreal, governments are gearing up to create targets on biodiversity for the next decade. The world has so far failed to meet any UN targets on halting the loss of nature, yet awareness of the challenge is greater than ever. Here we examine why this UN meeting matters and how it could herald meaningful action on nature loss.

Nature is in crisis and for the past three decades governments have been meeting to ensure the survival of the species and ecosystems that underpin human civilisation. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 saw the creation of three conventions: on climate change, desertification and biodiversity. The aim of the convention on biological diversity (CBD) is for countries to conserve the natural world, its sustainable use, and to share the benefits of its genetic resources.

Every 10 years, governments agree new targets on protecting biodiversity, which they aim to meet by the end of the decade. The last round of targets was agreed at Cop10 in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010, when governments pledged to halve the loss of natural habitats and expand nature reserves to 17% of the world’s land area by 2020, among other targets.

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The Guardian - Opinion

August 30, 2022
They are known as “the twins”, born in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro but diplomatically separated and left to develop at different speeds. One is the UN’s climate change convention, or UNFCCC, now a fully fledged global agreement with huge annual summits attended by heads of state and rock stars pledging to reduce emissions.

The other, the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), aims to protect the world’s 10 million species of animals and plants, but it meets less often, is modest by comparison, and has yet to make its mark with the public in the same way as climate.

This year, for the first time the “big brother” climate meeting, Cop27, and the “little brother” nature meeting, Cop15, will converge within days of each other before Christmas, albeit 5,600 miles apart, in Egypt and Canada. Both will attract thousands of delegates, lobbyists and non-government groups and there is much optimism that a good result in one will improve the chances of success in the other.

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Eco-Business

August 12, 2022
Biodiversity encompasses the full variety of life – all genes, species and ecosystems – and it is in danger. That means we are too. As this article explains, a major conference in December 2022 could have a big impact on our collective fate by helping to end biodiversity loss and restore nature.

COP15 is shorthand for the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In fact, COP15 includes meetings of parties to three international agreements: the CBD and its two subsidiary protocols, namely the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing.

The CBD was agreed at the Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992. It has three objectives: the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Some 195 countries and the European Union are now parties to the CBD. The United States is the only member state of the United Nations that has not ratified the agreement. The CBD’s Cartagena Protocol has 173 parties and its Nagoya Protocol has 137.

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UNDP

August 4, 2022
Reiyia is among leaders fighting for the rights of Indigenous communities and calling for stronger action, as up to 80 percent of the negotiating text in the 20 action targets of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework draft agreement have remained unresolved, threatening progress at the up-coming COP15 conference. While almost 100 countries support the proposal to protect at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030 under the framework, with the protection of Indigenous rights a critical element of this initiative, countries failed to agree on fundamental issues.

These prominent issues include how much funding would be committed to conserve biodiversity; or what percentage figures the world should strive to protect, conserve and restore to address the extinction crisis. Experts have called for the recognition of the land, territories and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs). Additionally, Indigenous advocates and allies are pushing to secure the free, prior and informed consent of IPLCs in conservation policies as key for the framework to succeed.

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Campaign for Nature

June 30, 2022
At the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference taking place in Lisbon this week, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC) announced that 100 countries have now committed to its core mission to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by the end of the decade, also known as “30x30.” The science-driven, global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 is one of the cornerstones of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework set to be agreed at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) now taking place in Montreal 5 to 17 December 2022. 

Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United States of America, Estonia, Saint Lucia, Bahrain, Montenegro, and Burkina Faso are among the latest countries to sign on to the HAC, an intergovernmental group of over 100 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom as the Ocean co-chair. Together, HAC member countries hold more than 58% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and more than 38% of the world’s terrestrial carbon stocks. HAC member countries hold more than 54% of the biodiversity conservation priorities that exist within marine exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and more than 54% of the seafloor carbon within EEZs.

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The Guardian

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.

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