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The United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity has just presented the first draft of what will be its roadmap for the next ten years. The goal is as ambitious as it is necessary: to protect about a third of the planet’s total surface, including both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) presented a devastating report on the state of biodiversity worldwide that indicated that there are around one million endangered species in the world, and that the rates extinction rates are accelerating at an unprecedented rate as a result of human activities. Some experts already consider, in fact, that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction.
This enormous loss of biodiversity has serious consequences for ecosystems, but also for human well-being. For example, an article published in the journal Nature in 2010 warned that the disappearance of species increases the appearance and transmission of infectious diseases. The authors mentioned the case of Lyme disease, whose incidence is higher in ecosystems in which biodiversity has been reduced.
The so-called “ preliminary draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework ” just presented by the UN includes twenty action-oriented targets for 2030 aimed at goals such as reducing threats to biodiversity and meeting people’s needs. through sustainable use and benefit sharing.
In addition to protecting at least 30% of the land and sea surface, the document indicates that at least 10% of it should be subject to strict protection . Other goals stated refer to the control of the routes of introduction of invasive alien species, to the reduction of contamination by excess nutrients, biocides and plastic waste, to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change and to the regulation of the collection and species trade.
2020, a critical year for biodiversity conservation
In October 2020, the COP15 of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will take place in Kunming (China) , in which the results of the actions aimed at meeting the objectives for the decade 2010-2020 will be reviewed and decisions will be adopted based on of the recommendations of the draft framework, which will be updated throughout this year in successive meetings of the working group.
“This global agreement will offer an unparalleled opportunity to advance progress in the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity, while strengthening the links between biodiversity, climate change and sustainable development,” indicated a press release published by the agency in December 2019.
In the long term, “the vision of the Framework is that of a world in which we live in harmony with nature where, by 2050, biological diversity is valued, conserved, restored and used in a rational way, maintaining ecosystem services. , sustaining a healthy planet and providing essential benefits for all people ”, indicates the document.
It remains to be seen if, beyond the intentions and the pretty words, the objectives of this document are translated into real events. As with all international agreements, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a tool with a very complex institutional operation. “ There is the fact that in the decision-making processes, the representatives of the States are often people with a political profile with little technical knowledge of the situation of biodiversity and the consequences of not acting, when they are not representatives of the Ministries of foreign affairs, economy or trade of their respective countries ”, reflected Jaume Grau López, biologist and Coordinator of the Nature Conservation Area of Ecologistas en Acción, in an article published in 2013 in the journal Ecología Política. “Likewise, the capacity for influence and negotiation within the CBD is conditioned by the economic and human resources that each country can have for participation in the multiple meetings that take place on the five continents each year.”
Time is short, and civil society awaits concrete results from these large meetings. We will see what happens in the next few years.
