Fast Company

August 8, 2022
Navigating the investment landscape is increasingly complex. Supply chain issues, soaring inflation, rising energy prices, spiraling cost of raw materials—the list goes on.

Increasingly, “alarming” levels of global biodiversity loss—or, in investment-speak, the permanent destruction of natural capital—must also be taken into account. In fact, the situation has reached a crisis point where investors are now recognizing the direct line of risk between their portfolios and the natural resources they depend on.

All is not lost. As investors finally start to quantify the risk of global biodiversity loss in terms of dollars, it could spark the level of change that has been so urgently needed for so long. Indeed, investment is now being billed as a key area of debate at the upcoming UN COP-15 summit on biodiversity.

Alongside the significant economic opportunity there is of course also a climate imperative on financial companies to halt the ecological destruction of the Earth. Thankfully, these companies are starting to take notice and establish roots in the movement to reverse biodiversity loss.

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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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World Economic Forum

July 25, 2022
A recent report from The Environment Agency found a quarter of England’s mammals and almost a fifth of UK plants are threatened with extinction. With only an abysmal 50% of biodiversity remaining, the UK today ranks in the bottom ten of all countries globally. The present situation may look grim, but the future is potentially bleaker if we don’t act fast. The UN predicts the colossal extinction of one million species by 2039 - it’s clear we need to take action now to drive the change in the world, and humanity’s very survival, needs.

The absence of an urgent response from global leaders to the crisis has taken the loss of the world’s biodiversity to a crisis point, as it now poses as great a risk to humanity as global warming. Ongoing deprioritisation over more immediate global problems, such as the cost of living crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has stagnated action and accelerated the loss of biodiversity. The delaying of the world’s foremost biodiversity conference, the COP15 summit, four times is proof of this. But humanity sleepwalking into extinction is a disaster, even if it takes fifteen years, and is worthy of urgent global attention.

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Diálogo China

July 21, 2022
After two years of postponements and a change in format, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 biodiversity talks will now take place in Montreal, Canada, this December. There is still much work to do in the coming months, if countries are to secure a new global agreement on protecting biodiversity in the coming decade.

At the recent UN Ocean Conference, which took place in Lisbon earlier this month, China Dialogue Ocean spoke with Elizabeth Mrema, the CBD’s executive secretary, about progress so far, on why the talks were relocated from China to Canada, and what needs to happen in the run-up to the event.

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Campaign For Nature

July 21, 2022
At the Africa Nature Finance Forum, held yesterday on the sidelines of the inaugural African Protected Areas Congress (APAC) 2022, government leaders and experts from across Africa called for an urgent increase in financing to protect the world’s biodiversity.

“By 2100, we may lose half of our bird and animal species, 20-30% of the productivity of African lakes and significant numbers of our plant species,” said Hon. Lee White, Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Gabon. “In this context, without strong action, we will create instability and security issues all over the African continent. One of the key elements is the mobilization of predictable and sustainable resources. This is why we need to think about innovative and sustainable finance for nature.” 

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IUCN

July 19, 2022
The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) taking place in Kigali this week offers an opportunity for BIODEV2030 stakeholders from six African countries - Benin, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Uganda – to demonstrate their progress in mainstreaming biodiversity in priority business sectors.

BIODEV2030 is working in a total of 16 countries, testing different approaches to mainstream biodiversity and catalyse voluntary commitments in key economic sectors. At a global level, BIODEV2030 is sharing its outcomes and lessons learned to inspire other countries to take similar action in support of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework being negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

In addition to the countries mentioned above, BIODEV2030 is operating in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, and Tunisia, as well as in Fiji, Guyana, and Vietnam.  Such diversity creates a unique opportunity for the countries to learn from each other, based on a shared multi-stakeholder diagnosis and dialogue, which reflects each country’s particular realities.

“Mainstreaming is a subject that is often misunderstood and largely theoretical, which is why a practical, evidence-based approach at the country level is so welcome,” said Sonia Peña Moreno, Director of IUCN’s International Policy Centre.  

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China Dialogue

July 19, 2022
On 21 June, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that the second phase of COP15 – the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity – would be relocated from the southern Chinese city of Kunming to Montreal, Canada, and held 5–17 December.

The news confirmed rumours that had been circulating for some time, and sparked widespread discussion. I have been working closely on COP15 for three years and was not surprised by the change of venue. But it remains disappointing.

Originally scheduled for October 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic saw the meeting initially postponed to May 2021, and then split into two phases. The first, made up of non-negotiation agenda items, was held last October and most international participants attended virtually. The second phase was due to take place in the first half of this year.

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PHYS.ORG

July 18, 2022
Delegates from across Africa launched Monday in Rwanda the first continent-wide gathering about the role of protected areas in ensuring the future of our planet.

The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) is being held just a few months before the COP15 summit in December when global leaders are aiming to adopt a much-delayed pact to shield nature from the damage wrought by human activity.

"Protected areas are critical for the survival of the planet," International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) director general Bruno Oberle said on the opening day of the talks in the capital Kigali.

"And the more we manage them for the benefit of people and nature,the more we will build a future where everyone—human and animal—thrives," he said on Twitter.

Organisers said APAC will aim to shape the role of protected and conserved areas in safeguarding Africa's wildlife, delivering vital ecosystem services, and promoting sustainable development while conserving the continent's cultural heritage and traditions.

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Eco-Business

July 14, 2022
One in five people rely on wild species for income and food, while one in three rely on wood fuel for cooking, according to a major new report. Its authors aim to demonstrate how the use of wild species is far more prevalent than most people realise and that the decline of nature threatens human lives and livelihoods.

The report follows four years of work by 85 experts in the natural and social sciences and holders of indigenous and local knowledge around the world. They were working under the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a  body set up to advise policymakers on biodiversity.

In 2019, IPBES warned that one million species were at risk of extinction. It found that over-exploitation of wild species was the second-largest driver of this trend for species living on land or freshwater, after land degradation and habitat destruction. For marine species, over-exploitation is the biggest driver.

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Reuters

July 13, 2022
You might have thought that when the pandemic brought tourism to a sudden halt, it would have been good for nature. Some areas overrun by tourists fell quiet, and animals roamed more widely, while trampled flora began to recover. But the impact on species and ecosystems wasn’t all positive.

“What we saw very clearly, when tourism had evaporated, was that people really started to wake up to how important the sector was,” suggests Anna Spenceley, an independent researcher and chair of a specialist working group on protected areas for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“Conservationists realised: hang on … communities are no longer getting any benefit from (tourism). And now they're going to start hunting whatever we have tried to protect in our conservation area, because they've got no money coming in,” says Spenceley.

Coming out of the pandemic, conservation groups, governments and some tour operators are trying to promote a more sustainable approach to tourism, reframing relationships with nature to encourage biodiversity rather than degrade it.

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Enviro360

July 9, 2022
Conservation organizations have cautioned that talks on a worldwide pact to safeguard nature this decade run the risk of failing to reach a consensus unless political leaders step up.

The fourth round of talks to establish a global framework to stop the devastation of the earth’s ecosystems came to a close on Sunday in Nairobi, Kenya, with essentially no progress made.

The Campaign for Nature’s director, Brian O’Donnell, told Climate Home News that the situation was “dark.” Instead of uniting on goals, negotiators turned to argue over details. The most significant difficulties have not changed noticeably.

This was the final scheduled conference before negotiators gather at Cop15 in Montreal, Canada, from December 5–17, to finalize the deal that has been dubbed the “Paris Agreement for nature.”

The biodiversity treaty, though, hardly registers on the international agenda four years after the process began as nations struggle with the coronavirus outbreak, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and skyrocketing prices.

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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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Phys.org

June 27, 2022
Delegates from almost 200 nations have made little progress towards hammering out a blueprint for a global pact to protect nature from human activity, after almost a week of difficult talks in Nairobi.

The meetings wrapping up Sunday were aimed at ironing out differences among the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) 196 members, with barely six months before a crucial COP15 summit in December.

The ambitious goal is to draw up a draft text outlining a global framework to "live in harmony with nature" by 2050, with key targets to be met by 2030.

Many hope the landmark deal, when finalised, will be as ambitious in its goals to protect life on Earth as the Paris agreement was for climate change.

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Climate Home News

June 27, 2022
The fourth round of negotiations to agree on an international framework to halt the destruction of the earth’s ecosystems ended in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday, with virtually no progress being made.

“It’s a bleak picture,” Brian O’Donnell director of the Campaign for Nature, told Climate Home News. “Negotiators resorted to technical bickering rather than aligning on ambition. There has been no discernible movement on the most important issues.”

The meeting was the last planned before negotiators meet at Cop15 in Montreal, Canada, from 5-17 December, to finalise the agreement which has been widely billed as the “Paris Agreement for nature”.

But four years since the start of the process, the biodiversity pact barely registers on the international agenda, as governments wrangle with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine and soaring inflation.

Eight conservation groups have urged UN chief António Guterres to convene political leaders to “step in and help get it done” in an open letter. “We must sound the alarm that this process has reached a crisis point,” they wrote.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation News

June 27, 2022
Vital talks aimed at hammering out a new global pact to protect and restore nature did not make sufficient progress last week and are on the brink of failure, environmentalists have warned, urging political leaders to step in to salvage negotiations.

About 195 countries are set to finalise a deal to stem human damage to plants, animals and ecosystems - similar to the Paris climate agreement - at a U.N. summit, known as COP15, now set for December after being switched from China to Montreal.

The talks have been delayed due to logistical difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Negotiators met in Nairobi last week to work on a draft agreement after the first in-person session in two years in Geneva in March fell short.    

Marco Lambertini, director general of green group WWF International, said governments had moved forward on "very few elements of the draft" text during the last six days of talks.

That, he warned, leaves "the chance of securing an ambitious global agreement capable of tackling the world's accelerating nature crisis hanging by a thread". 

"We risk facing a 2030 world with even less biodiversity than we have today, driving entire ecosystems to collapse - that is just unacceptable," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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