The Wilderness Society

February 24, 2021
On Jan. 27, President Biden launched an effort to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by the year 2030. It’s a big, bold goal, fitting our uniquely perilous moment. Experts say protecting an interconnected network of lands and waters will give us the best chance at curbing the worst effects of climate change; adapting to the shifts already happening; preserving wild nature amid an ongoing extinction crisis; and ensuring communities have access to clean air, water and outdoor spaces.

Below are some key facts and figures to help us wrap our minds around the challenges ahead—and also the rare opportunities now facing us.

Read More

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. 

Read More

Mongabay

February 23, 2021
[…] A year has gone by since I first reported on an urgent plea from renowned Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre and U.S. conservation biologist Thomas Lovejoy, warning that the Amazon biome was teetering on its tipping point.

“We stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now.” they said. If the Amazon loses just 3% to 8% more of its tree cover, they wrote, it could trigger a rapidly unfolding domino effect turning more than half the towering rainforest into degraded grasslands. “We believe that negative synergies between deforestation, climate change, and widespread use of fire indicate a tipping point for the Amazon system to flip to non-forest ecosystems in eastern, southern and central Amazonia at 20-25% deforestation,” the pair wrote in a letter to Science Advances in 2018.

As a Brazilian journalist, observing the Amazon — one of Earth’s most biodiverse places, and the life source for millions of families in my nation — I’ve been hit close to home as nature’s bounty is exchanged for short-term profits from beef and soy exports.

Read More

The Guardian

February 22, 2021
When it comes to the environment, few countries rival Costa Rica in terms of action and ambition.

The tiny Central American nation is aiming for total decarbonisation by 2050, not just a “net zero” target. It has regrown large areas of tropical rainforest after suffering some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world in the 1970s and 1980s. Costa Ricans play a major role in international environmental politics, most notably Christiana Figueres, who helped to corral world leaders into agreeing the Paris accord.

Now Costa Rica has turned its attention to securing an ambitious international agreement on halting biodiversity loss. In January, more than 50 countries committed to the protection of 30% of the planet’s land and oceans as part of the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, spearheaded by Costa Rica, which is a co-chair alongside France and the UK.

Read More

Center for American Progress

February 22, 2021
John Podesta addresses the fifth session of the U.N. Environment Assembly to address the interconnected planetary threats to our climate, biodiversity, economy, and human security. He discussed the need to act comprehensively, globally, and immediately to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and coastal seas by 2030 and build partnerships with developing countries to increase bilateral assistance, financing, and debt relief, including debt forgiveness.

Read More

Campaign For Nature

February 19, 2021
Today marks the U.S.’s official reinstatement into the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Biden rejoined hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2021. As the U.S rejoins the world in this historic climate accord, the Campaign for Nature has issued the following statement:

Enric Sala, Explorer in Residence, National Geographic and the author of the award winning book The Nature of Nature, Why We Need the Wild. @enric_sala

“Today marks a new beginning for the U.S. It is an opportunity to reset its ambitions and to reestablish its leadership on the global stage in combating climate change. This move, along with the Biden administration’s signal to set the United States on a path to conserve 30% of the U.S – land and at sea – by 2030 (30x30), demonstrates that the country is prepared to lead on the two largest crises facing our planet.”

Read More

Thomson Reuters Foundation - Op-Ed

February 18, 2021
The crisis facing nature has never been more apparent. The costs to mankind of our degradation of the natural world have never been more evident. Fortunately, the beginnings of a meaningful response – in the form of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework – is close at hand. 

But, for that framework to succeed, governments must ensure broad participation in its formal processes. Non-state actors – sub-national governments, business and the financial sector, academia, civil society, youth and indigenous peoples and local communities – have a critical role to play in delivering biodiversity outcomes. 

There is no denying the urgency of the challenge. As the IPBES Global Assessment warned, an estimated one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. WWF’s Living Planet Report found that global wildlife is in freefall. 

Read More

Forest Peoples Programme

February 18, 2021
In their quest to bolster economies battered by the pandemic, governments in Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, and Peru have set aside social and environmental safeguards in favor of destructive development projects that are harming Indigenous communities and the forests they care for, according to a report released today by Forest Peoples Programme.

Open-pit mines, industrial agriculture plantations, infrastructure mega-schemes and hydropower complexes are among the projects fueling a rise in human rights abuses and deforestation in five countries that contain the majority of the world’s tropical forests.

Read More

NewScientist

February 17, 2021
We have repeatedly been pressing the snooze button on the issue, but covid-19 has provided perhaps the final wake-up call. “2021 must be the year to reconcile humanity with nature,” said António Guterres, the UN secretary general, in an address to the One Planet Summit of global leaders in Paris last month. “Until now, we have been destroying our planet. We have been abusing it as if we have a spare one.”

The numbers are stark, whichever ones you choose. More than 70 per cent of ice-free land is now under human control and increasingly degraded. The mass of human-made infrastructure exceeds all biomass. Humans and domesticated animals make up more than 90 per cent of the mammalian mass on the planet. Our actions threaten about a million species – 1 in 8 – with extinction (see “Biodiversity: A status report“).

Read More

The Guardian

February 17, 2021
It was an executive order that made waves in environmental circles: after only a week in office, President Joe Biden pledged to preserve 30% of US lands and waters by 2030.

The so-called 30 by 30 conservation goal has already met with bipartisan support in Congress, and it aligns with science-based global preservation targets to reach an eventual target of 50% by 2050.

So which US areas might be at the top of the list? Environmentalists have a few ideas.

Read More

Euractiv

February 15, 2021
With a UN biodiversity summit approaching in spring, 2021 has been hailed as a super year for biodiversity. As part of its contribution, the European Commission is preparing legislation to introduce legal protection for 30% of land and sea in Europe.

A UN summit in China, scheduled for May this year, will discuss global action on biodiversity, with the European Union promoting the idea of a Paris Agreement for biodiversity.

The summit comes at a critical time for the world’s nature. Globally, scientists have warned that one million out of eight million species are threatened with extinction.

In Europe, the latest State of Nature report, published in October 2020, warned that biodiversity is in critical decline. Produced by the European Environment Agency, the report showed that over 60% of species have a “poor” or “bad” status, with the most endangered being fish and amphibians.

Read More

Earth.Com

February 12, 2021
A new study from Oregon State University has found that while the rate of deforestation is reduced in protected areas, it is still not prevented. Considering that most terrestrial species live in forests, deforestation has major implications for future biodiversity loss.

“Evidence indicates that we’re in the middle of a mass extinction event the likes of which the planet has seen only five times before,” said study leader Christopher Wolf. “Formally protected areas have been proposed as a primary tool for reducing deforestation, and therefore stemming species extinctions and slowing reductions in carbon storage.”

The research is believed to represent the first comprehensive look at how effective protected areas are at limiting forest loss. The investigation was focused on more than 18,000 land parcels spanning two million square miles across 63 countries.

Read More

BusinessGreen

February 11, 2021
Putting off action to protect biodiversity will double the cost and result in the extinction of many more species when compared to acting now to curb global impacts, according to sobering findings published by Vivid Economics and the Natural History Museum this morning. 

The Urgency of Biodiversity Action study - which was submitted as evidence to the landmark Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity - compares the costs and impacts of acting now to prevent the rapid decline of biodiversity loss with a scenario where stronger actions to conserve nature are deferred until 2030.

Read More

Forbes

February 4, 2021
“We are embedded in Nature” and “nature is more than a mere economic good”, writes Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta in the new publication commissioned by the UK Treasury.

“Nature nurtures and nourishes us, so we will think of assets as durable entities that not only have use value, but may also have intrinsic worth.”

Dasgupta’s review presents the first comprehensive economic framework of its kind for biodiversity. And possibly the most prestigious one.

Back in 2019, the UK Government commissioned Dasgupta to lead an independent, global review on the economics of biodiversity. After an interim report in April 2020, the study was officially launched on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Royal Society and attended by the Prince of Wales, UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson and David Attenborough.

Read More

Mongabay

February 3, 2021
As the planet continues its trajectory into what some have dubbed “the sixth mass extinction,” the diversity of life is on Earth is at risk. The Aichi Biodiversity Targets were established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in an effort to protect and conserve the biodiversity that underpins global food security, health and clean water. However, according to an assessment by the United Nations, none of the 2020 Aichi targets were met.

In a recently published paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, a team of international researchers offer suggestions for how the newest version of the Aichi targets, spelled out in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (post-2020 GBF), can be implemented effectively.

The authors blame past failures to reach the targets on an overall lack of investments, resources, knowledge, and accountability toward biodiversity conservation. The national goals adopted in each participating country did not always align with the Aichi targets, they say, and the sum of the national successes was not sufficient to reach the overall global targets.

Read More