Eco-Business

June 8, 2021
From forest fires raging across five continents to glaciers melting faster than ever before, the world looks increasingly apocalyptic. The good news is there is a simple solution, and I witness it daily in my conservation work: invest in indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) living in and around our wild places to conserve 30 per cent of our planet’s land and water by 2030.

Protecting one-third of the Earth is the magic fraction global scientists have identified will avert what looks increasingly like the end of the world. By setting aside the planet’s last wild places for biodiversity, they can sustain the other two-thirds we as a global community require for drinking water, a stable climate, and our agricultural needs.

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BusinessGreen

June 7, 2021
Listed companies in the world's richest economies will soon have to publish comprehensive reports detailing the climate-related risks they are facing, after finance ministers from the G7 group of nations backed plans for mandatory reporting requirements.

In a move that will bolster hopes next week's G7 Summit and this autumn's COP26 Climate Summit could deliver significant progress for international efforts to tackle the climate crisis, Ministers issued a communique this weekend confirming plans to require banks and companies to disclose their exposure to climate-related risks.

Meeting in London ahead of the upcoming G7 Summit in Cornwall, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors finalised a major new agreement to tackle international tax avoidance, which included renewed support for the climate risk reporting guidelines proposed by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) back in 2017.

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Mongabay

June 4, 2021
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Canada’s McGill University, most tropical forested countries looking to benefit from these markets still need to define the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples over carbon in their customary lands and territories.

If these rights are not meaningfully recognized, the researchers argue, the viability of these nature-based solutions will be fundamentally threatened.

RRI has tracked the land rights of Indigenous communities throughout the world for two decades. This latest research is in the context of a global task force established to rapidly expand voluntary carbon markets. Major international corporations like Amazon, Unilever, Salesforce, Airbnb and Nestlé, as part of the LEAF coalition, are pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion using Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.

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Yale 360

June 3, 2021
In 1908 the U.S. government seized some 18,000 acres of land from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to create the National Bison Range in the heart of their reservation in the mountain-ringed Mission Valley of western Montana.

While the goal of protecting the remnants of America’s once-plentiful bison was worthy, for the last century the federal facility has been a symbol to the tribes here of the injustices forced upon them by the government, and they have long fought to get the bison range returned.

Last December their patience paid off: President Donald Trump signed legislation that began the process of returning the range to the Salish and Kootenai.

Now the tribes are managing the range’s bison and are also helping, through co-management, to manage bison that leave Yellowstone National Park to graze on U.S. Forest Service land. Their Native American management approach is steeped in the close, almost familial, relationship with the animal that once provided food, clothes, shelter — virtually everything their people needed.

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E&E News

June 2, 2021
Some proponents of a concerted push to protect large swaths of natural spaces across the country are raising concerns that the Biden administration's new conservation proposal is too timid, failing to lay out a plan to truly preserve vulnerable lands and waters.

As the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Interior Department and other agencies begin figuring out the details of the effort — rolled out earlier this month as the "America the Beautiful" initiative — these environmentalists argue that in trying to build consensus around the idea of ramping up conservation, the administration is essentially trading away scientific integrity.

"It's a very big deal that we have a president that recognizes and is willing to take action to preserve nature and address the catastrophic extinction crisis. I don't want to gloss over that. That is huge," said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Public Lands Program.

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Aljazeera - OpEd

June 2, 2021
Humanity faces a herculean task to reverse climate change and protect the natural world that supports us. We must retool human society to live in harmony with nature – all while leaving space for people in developing nations to prosper and grow.

We want this to happen immediately. But we must be realistic. Even if everyone starts immediately to turn their promises on climate change and nature loss into action – as they should and must – we are looking at decades of work.

To buy time to complete these transformations, particularly the transition to zero-carbon economies, we need fast-acting and simple solutions. Solutions that slow climate change, restore nature and biodiversity, protect us against pandemics, allow us to produce more food, create jobs, reduce inequalities, build peace.

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Landscape News

June 1, 2021
The world must triple its investments in nature-based solutions by 2030 and quadruple them by 2050 in order to meet the climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets of the three Rio Conventions, according to a new UN report.

Total investments of USD 8.1 trillion are necessary by mid-century to protect the landscapes and biodiversity that are essential to human life on Earth. This would involve a gradual increase in funding until an annual rate of USD 536 billion is reached by 2050. 

Currently, only USD 133 billion flows into nature-based solutions each year, which would create a shortfall of USD 4.1 trillion, the report said.

The State of Finance for Nature analysis was produced by UN Environment (UNEP), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative to quantify existing investment in nature-based solutions and to estimate the funding needed to prevent systemic economic risks from the rapid loss of nature. 

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World Economic Forum

May 27, 2021
Unsustainable economic growth has had devastating consequences for ecosystems that are under threat from climate change, species extinction and water insecurity. And now it's time for a rethink of our relationship with nature.

Approximately $133 billion is invested annually in nature-based solutions (Nbs), according to a new report - State of Finance for Nature: Tripling investments in nature-based solutions by 2030 - from the United Nations and World Economic Forum.

Domestic government bodies are responsible for the largest proportion of today’s Nbs – $113 billion – aimed at protecting biodiversity and landscapes, and conducting activities like sustainable forestry. The private sector contributes a further $18 billion to fund sustainable supply chains and environmental offsets.

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Wired

May 25, 2021
The biggest hint nature ever gave humanity was when it sequestered fossil fuels underground, locking their carbon away from the atmosphere. Only rarely, like when a massive volcano fires a layer of coal into the sky, does that carbon escape its confines to dramatically warm the planet.

But such catastrophes hint at a powerful weapon for fighting climate change: Let nature do its carbon-sequestering thing. By restoring forests and wetlands, humanity can bolster the natural processes that trap atmospheric carbon in vegetation. As long as it all doesn’t catch on fire (or a volcano doesn’t blow it up), such “nature-based solutions,” as climate scientists call them, can help slow global warming.

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Mongabay

May 25, 2021
The planet’s wildlife is disappearing at unprecedented rates and ecosystems are deteriorating rapidly, according to a growing number of studies. This is why the world’s largest biodiversity conference, COP15, taking place later this year, could be an important moment for the planet.

But one of the only ways to achieve the world’s biodiversity goals and save nature is to include human rights at the heart of all conservation policies, and recognize the cultural and territorial rights of Indigenous and local peoples, according to a new report.

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) actively conserve at least 22% of the world’s key biodiversity regions, an area approximately the size of Africa, says a report by the international conservation association ICCA Consortium.

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BBC World Service

May 24, 2021
More than two thirds of our planet is covered by the oceans, but there’s still much to be uncovered about the role that these watery worlds play in climate change.

But recent scientific research claims that bottom trawling, a method of fishing that involves dragging heavy nets across the seafloor, emits about the same amount of carbon annually as aviation. Seabed sediments, which act as huge carbon sinks, are churned up, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions. So should trawling – commonplace around the globe because of its effectiveness – be reduced? And has the climate change impact of bottom trawling been exaggerated?

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The Leaflet

May 24, 2021
In October 2021, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will meet in China to adopt a new post-2020 global biodiversity framework to reverse biodiversity loss and its impacts on ecosystems, species and people. The conference is being held during a moment of great urgency: According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we now have less than 10 years to halve our greenhouse gas emissions to stave off catastrophic climate change. At the same time, climate change is exacerbating the accelerating biodiversity crisis. Half of the planet’s species may face extinction by the end of this century.

And tragically, according to a UN report, “the world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade.”

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EcoWatch

May 24, 2021
The natural world is in a state of crisis, and we are to blame. We are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, the biggest loss of species in the history of humankind. So many species are facing total annihilation. Nearly one-third of freshwater species are facing extinction. So are 40 percent of amphibians; 84 percent of large mammals; a third of reef-building corals; and nearly one-third of oak trees. Rhinos and elephants are being gunned down at rates so alarming that they could be completely wiped out from the wild by 2034. There may be fewer than 10 vaquita—a kind of porpoise endemic to Mexico's Gulf of California—due to illegal fishing nets, pesticides and irrigation. There are 130,000 plant species that could become extinct in our lifetimes. All told, about 28 percent of evaluated plant and animal species across the planet are now at risk of becoming extinct.

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Thomson Reuters

May 21, 2021
Seven of the world's most nature-rich national parks, from Angola to Bolivia and Indonesia, are set to receive $1 million annually for the next 15 years to help protect and manage their wildlife and plant species.

These "legacy landscapes" - so-called because of their natural beauty and importance in preserving the planet's fast-shrinking biodiversity - will benefit from a global fund aiming to attract $1 billion from governments and businesses this decade.

So far, Germany has made a contribution of nearly $100 million, with several private foundations pledging another $35 million.

France has also said it will put money next year into the Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF), which plans to expand support to at least 30 protected areas if it reaches its $1 billion target this decade.

But conservation experts say far more finance is needed to reverse a catastrophic decline in biodiversity, with scientists warning in 2019 that about a million animals and plant species are at risk of extinction due to human activities.

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Campaign for Nature

May 22, 2021
On the occasion of World Biodiversity Day, a growing number of elected officials, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and other experts are calling on ASEAN leaders to endorse ambitious proposals to protect biodiversity and advance Indigenous rights through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

After a year-long delay, the official negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity have resumed this month and are scheduled to conclude in Kunming, China this October. As delegates from 196 countries--including all of the ASEAN member states--participate in the negotiations, eyes are on the ASEAN region. As one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, ASEAN member states have a crucial role to play in developing a successful global strategy to safeguard biodiversity. ASEAN is a leader of the Like-Minded Megadiverse  Countries that champion conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity since its inception in 2002 and harbours 70% of global biodiversity.

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