Two elephant calves try to find some browse in a dry land without fresh vegetation during a morning walk at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy, Samburu, Kenya. File picture: by Luis Tato / AFP
A ground-breaking historic agreement was reached at the UN 15th Biodiversity Conference of the Parties which took place in Montreal, Canada from December 7-19, bringing together representatives.
The newly minted Kunming-Montreal Agreement saw 196 countries give the nod to having a third of Earth’s wild spaces protected before the end of the decade.
Nations signed the deal which pledges to look after the Earth's ecosystems with at least 30% of our land, coastal areas and oceans coming under some level of binding environmental protection.
The agreement also aims to enforce targets to protect critically important ecosystems such as rainforests and wetlands, and the rights of indigenous peoples.
Over the last few days of negotiations, several nations disagreed on who and how the proposed conservation efforts were going to be funded.
Even after a last-minute objection from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese delegates managed to seal the deal, eventually passing the agreement.
EU commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, said: “Nature is our ship. We must ensure it stays afloat.”
Key focuses of the agreement included maintaining and restoring ecosystems, halting species extinction, cutting global food waste by half, protecting 30% of the world’s lands, seas and coasts and making sure benefits of resources from nature, such as medicines that come from plants are split equally and fairly and that indigenous peoples rights are protected, all before 2030.
The UN Development Programme said the “historic agreement” meant people around the world could hope for real progress to halt biodiversity loss.
Georgina Chandler, senior international policy adviser for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “People and nature should be better off because of the deal. Now that it’s done, governments, companies and communities need to figure out how they’ll help make these commitments a reality.”
However, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned that the agreement’s goal of reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 could be undermined “if weak language in critical areas such as the protection of intact ecosystems and tackling unsustainable production and consumption is not addressed at the national level”.
WWF director-general Marco Lambertini said that “agreeing to a shared global goal that will guide collective and immediate action to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 is an exceptional feat for those that have been negotiating the Global Biodiversity Framework, and a win for people and planet”.
“It sends a clear signal and must be the launch pad for action from governments, businesses and society to transition towards a nature-positive world, in support of climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.
One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations was the finance package to support conservation efforts globally, particularly in developing countries.
“The Kunming-Montreal Agreement adopted today gives nature a fighting chance at recovery in a world currently divided by geopolitics and inequality. WWF is particularly encouraged to see the language on species has improved substantially in the final agreement.
“A commitment to halt the extinction of species by 2030 is the minimum level of ambition required in the face of past failures and an accelerating extinction crisis” said Lin Li, senior director of Global Policy and Advocacy at WWF.
It will now be essential that countries deliver on the Kunming-Montreal Agreement. This includes translating it into ambitious national plans and policies commensurate with the scale of the nature crisis.
Countries must update national biodiversity strategies and action plans to align them with the global goal of reversing biodiversity loss by 2030.
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