Anthropocene

February 24, 2021
In response to climate-driven declines in global biodiversity, many nations have increased the amount of land and water they designate protected, mostly based on where affected species live. But as the climate warms, species may move out of those designated areas to search out more suitable habitats. And the species-focused designation doesn’t take into account yet-to-be-discovered species. New research suggests when designating protected zones, governments should make decisions based on land qualities instead of current species’ locations.

In a recent article in Global Change Biology, researchers outlined a more strategic way to designate protected areas. Instead of focusing solely on species distributions, the authors recommend prioritizing three area types: climate refuge areas that have been slower to experience the effects of climate change, areas with diverse landscapes that are likely to accommodate a mix of species and areas that increase connectivity between protected zones. 

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Campaign for Nature

January 27, 2021
Today's announcement by President Biden is a win for the people of the United States and the rest of the world, the environment, and the economy. Only by protecting the earth's climate and biodiversity can we truly be on a path to an inclusive and prosperous future for humanity.

 By promising to set the United States on a path to conserve 30% of the U.S by 2030 (30x30) – on land and at sea – President Biden has proposed the most ambitious conservation agenda of any president in American history. Such vision addresses the scale of the challenges facing our climate and the natural world. Only by rapidly accelerating the pace of conservation will we stand a chance to slow the warming of our planet and prevent a climate catastrophe, and to reverse the loss of biodiversity, which many experts have warned is the beginning of a Sixth Mass Extinction and the collapse of humanity’s life support system. 

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EcoWatch

January 25, 2021
In 2010, world leaders agreed to 20 targets to protect Earth's biodiversity over the next decade. By 2020, none of them had been met. Now, the question is whether the world can do any better once new targets are set during the meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Kunming, China later this year.

To help turn the tide, a group of 22 research institutions have come together to develop four steps to protect life on Earth, the Environment Journal reported.

"The upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting, and adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, represent an opportunity to transform humanity's relationship with nature," the researchers wrote in One Earth Friday. "Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, including mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in society."

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Frontiers in Conservation Science

January 13, 2021
We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends. The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

January 11, 2021

A global coalition to protect at least 30% of the planet's land and ocean by 2030 has swelled its ranks to about 50 countries, as governments said at a summit hosted by France Monday that biodiversity loss and climate change should be tackled jointly.

First launched in 2020, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People added more than 20 nations, including Japan, Germany, Kenya, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Ecuador.

Its member countries combined are home to an estimated 30% of animal and plant species on land and a quarter of carbon stores in biomass and soil, the coalition said.

Their boundaries also contain 28% of ocean areas that are most important to preserve global marine biodiversity, and more than a third of carbon stocks in the Earth's seas.

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Le Monde

January 11, 2021
To stimulate a global political momentum so that 2021 is indeed the “super year of biodiversity” that 2020 could not be. This is the ambition of the One Planet Summit organized by France, in a half-virtual, half-face format.

While a new roadmap to protect the living should be adopted at the end of the year in China, at the 15 th Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, thirty decision-makers (German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Chinese First Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen ...) were to set out new commitments, Monday 11 January.

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CBC

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.

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Delfino

January 11, 2021
The Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Asociación Costa Rica por Siempre launched the first Latin American fund aimed at financing sustainability in the long-term conservation of the 30x30 goals.

30x30 goals? It is an initiative led by the governments of Costa Rica and France, and co-led by the United Kingdom on ocean issues, for countries to protect almost a third of their territories before 2030.

The " Forever Blue Fund " will initially be endowed with $ 3.5 million and will be managed by the Costa Rica Forever Association , a non-profit organization with more than ten years of experience in environmental issues.

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ABC News

January 11, 2021
PARIS -- Protecting the world's biodiversity was on the agenda Monday for world leaders at the One Planet Summit, which was being held by videoconference due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The one-day summit will focus on four major topics: protecting terrestrial and marine ecosystems; promoting agroecology, a more sustainable way to grow food; increasing funding to protect biodiversity; and identifying links between deforestation and the health of humans and animals.

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UN Climate Change News

January 11, 2021
In a virtual address today at the ‘One Planet Summit’ for biodiversity hosted by the French government in cooperation with the United Nations and the World Bank, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared 2021 as “the year to reconcile humanity with nature.”

He highlighted both the need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to provide adequate finance to adapt to the impacts of climate change, which include more frequent and more severe incidents of drought, flooding and fires.

While we have been abusing our planet as if we had a spare one, he said, ‘nature is striking back’, with record-high temperatures and collapsing biodiversity. Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, however, provides an opportunity to change course: “With smart policies and the right investments, we can chart a path that brings health to all, revives economies, builds resilience and rescues biodiversity,” he said, citing nature-based solutions such as Africa’s Great Green Wall as being especially promising.

At the One Planet Summit, a new 'High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People' was launched. The 50-State coalition committed to protecting 30% of land and seas worldwide by 2030 and calls on all States to join before the UN Biodiversity Summit COP15. And the Sahel region's Great Green Wall Initiative got a major boost, receiving at least 14 billion US dollars in new funding.

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The Guardian

January 11, 2021
A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife.

The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

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New York Times - OpEd

December 21, 2020
To slow extinctions and climate change, President-elect Joe Biden has embraced a plan to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land and 30 percent of its ocean waters by 2030. It is perhaps the most ambitious commitment to conservation by a U.S. president. How he proceeds will determine whether he unites or further divides Americans in a pivotal decade for the planet.

The plan is known as “30 by 30.” Behind the catchy phrase is a simple, scientifically informed belief that conserving 30 percent of the planet’s land and 30 percent of its water is required to protect roughly 75 percent of Earth’s species and slow climate change by storing carbon in plants and soil. In the words of a former interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, 30 by 30 is “a kind of synthesizing, consolidating, organizing possibility.”

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New Straits Times

November 15, 2020
Actions speak louder than words. Three recent events have left this observer feeling more optimistic about the environment in this country.

Firstly, the 2021 Budget. The finance minister last week listed a number of environment-friendly measures, including RM50 million to remove rubbish and waste from rivers; RM40 million to strengthen enforcement and monitoring; RM10 million for island waste management projects in Johor and Terengganu; RM400 million for the preservation of natural resources (the Tahap initiative); RM20 million to hire 500 former soldiers and police, as well as Orang Asli, to patrol forests; and a promise to build with the private sector an urban transformation centre in Lembah Pantai.

Secondly, Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional assemblymen in the Selangor Legislative Assembly last week stood as one to vote to preserve forest reserves in Selangor, after the speaker called for a voice vote to consider that "any move to degazette forest reserves should only be done in consultation with residents, stakeholders and professionals".

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Campaign for Nature

October 23, 2020
Today, the Environment Council of the  European Union committed to protecting at least one-third of its land and seas  by 2030. The 30% protection target is a central component of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which was formally and finally endorsed today by the European Union’s Environment Council after its May 2020 release by the European Commission. In the strategy, the EU also commits to advocating for the 30% target at the global level.

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The New York Times

October 23, 2020
The European Union’s Environment Council on Friday endorsed the proposal by the president of the European Union to create protected areas for 30 percent of the continent’s land and water by 2030, along with legally binding measures to tighten forest protections.

But Europe’s governing body also was criticized by environmental and climate activists for not curbing agricultural subsidies that drive pollution.

Britain, Canada and the state of California have made similar conservation pledges in recent months. Their promises, mostly without detailed road maps, come in the wake of a major United Nations-backed scientific report that calls for transformative changes in the way humans use the Earth’s land and waters in order to avoid dire consequences, including threats to the global food supply and health.

[…]

The conservation group, Campaign for Nature, approved the move, saying in a statement that “the litmus test will now be the effective implementation of the strategy,” particularly by the member nations of the European Union.

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