Tag: Biodiversity

War, Famine, Disease, Disasters 2022 a Year Staring at Apocalypse — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Farhana Haque Rahman (toronto, canada)
  • Inter Press Service

TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 (IPS) – A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

Farhana Haque RahmanBeyond the stark statistics of millions of people displaced by war and natural disasters, it has been a 12 months that tragically highlighted our global interconnections and how a confluence of events and trends can bring another year of record levels of hunger.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides. According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, osmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction. As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection. International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan. Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term umanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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A Good Compromise — Global Issues

Final plenary session of COP15. Some analysts say the adopted framework is a good compromise. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
  • by Stella Paul (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

Montreal, Dec 20 (IPS) – In a landmark agreement, all parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) adopted the draft Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to protect at least 30% of the world’s lands and water by 2030.

Led by China and facilitated by the CBD, the parties of the convention adopted the draft very late on Sunday night, after 12 days of intense negotiations over 23 targets that, put together, make the framework for biodiversity protection until 2030.

The Old vs. New GBF

When COP15 negotiations began on December 7, the GBF had 22 targets. However, on December 19, the final day of the COP, there were 23 targets in the adopted document. There have not been any new additions, but Target 19 – focused on finance – has been divided into two targets: Target 19 and Target 20. Target 20, therefore, is now Target 21, Target 21 is Target 22, and Target 22 is now Target 23.

The adopted document looks leaner and shorter compared to the version presented before the parties on December 7. However, the new version – presented by China on Saturday and adopted later by all parties – has all the text considered crucial.

For example, on Target 3 – widely considered as the lifeline of the GBF and equivalent to the Climate Change COP’s goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees – the old text was long and somewhat vague, with too many details but no indication of action.

In Target 19.1, focusing on resource mobilization, the draft framework proposed to increase financial resources progressively and annually from all sources by reaching at least $200 billion by 2030.

The adopted framework has a more straightforward but detailed language: “Raise international financial flows from developed to developing countries … to at least US$ 20 billion per year by 2025, and at least US$ 30 billion per year by 2030.”

In Target 22, the draft version read: “Ensure women and girls equitable access and benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as their informed and effective participation at all levels of policy and decision making related to biodiversity.”

The adopted version of this target has a language that is richer and more action-oriented:  “Ensure gender equality in the implementation of the framework through a gender-responsive approach where all women and girls have equal opportunity and capacity to contribute to the three objectives of the Convention, including by recognizing their equal rights and access to land and natural resources and their full, equitable, meaningful and informed participation and leadership at all levels of action, engagement, policy, and decision-making related to biodiversity.”

The Big Decisions

In addition to the GBF, the parties at COP15 have approved a series of related agreements on the framework’s implementation, including planning, monitoring, reporting, and review; resource mobilization; helping nations to build their capacity to meet the obligations; and digital sequence information on genetic resources.

For example, Digital sequence information on genetic resources – a dominant topic at COP15 – has many commercial and non-commercial applications, including pharmaceutical product development, improved crop breeding, taxonomy, and monitoring invasive species.

Francis Ogwal and Basile Van Havre, co-chairs of the Global Biodiversity Framework, at a press meeting after the framework was adopted. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
Francis Ogwal and Basile Van Havre, co-chairs of the Global Biodiversity Framework, at a press meeting after the framework was adopted. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

COP15 delegates agreed to establish a multilateral fund for the equal sharing of benefits between providers and users of DSI within the GBF.

Another big decision was to create a specific fund for biodiversity within the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) – the nodal agency that receives, channelizes and distributes all funds for environmental protection in the world. Reacting to the decision, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, GEF CEO and Chairperson, called GBF a significant breakthrough and supported the creation of the fund.”

“Resource mobilization has been a central theme here in Montreal over the last two weeks, both to reach an ambitious agreement, and to ensure it is implemented. I am therefore honored and extremely pleased that the Conference of the Parties has requested the GEF to establish a Global Biodiversity Fund as soon as possible, to complement existing support and scale up financing to ensure the timely implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework,” Rodriguez said in a press statement.

A Good Compromise

Jennifer Corpuz of Indigenous People’s Forum for Biodiversity (IPFB), an umbrella of over 10 thousand indigenous organizations across the world, had been lobbying intensely to ensure mainstreaming of indigenous peoples’ rights in the GBF, called the adopted document, a “good compromise” and “a good start.”

According to Corpuz, the GBF – now known as “The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” contains strong language on all targets that concern indigenous peoples and local communities. The language is very strong, especially in the areas of spatial planning (Target 1), area-based conservation (Target 3), customary sustainable use (Targets 5 and 9), traditional knowledge (Goal C, Targets 13 and 21), and participation and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to lands, territories, and resources (Target 22).

“The Framework should be celebrated as a historic step towards transforming how we approach biodiversity conservation. The text provides a strong basis for countries to walk hand in hand with Indigenous peoples in addressing the biodiversity crisis and in ensuring that the negative legacy of conservation on Indigenous peoples will be corrected,” Corpuz told IPS.

Basile Van Havre – the co-chair of the framework, appeared to agree with Corpuz. Answering a question on the implications and meaning of various terms such as “equitable governance” in the GBF, Havre told IPS, “it would help local governments to create a mechanism for working together with different sections of the populations, especially the Indigenous peoples.”

On the adoption of a gender target (Target 23) and the adoption of the Gender Action Plan, the CBD Women’s Caucus expressed their gratitude to various parties for their support. A group of women also broke out in a jubilant dance – an expression of their joy and relief after years of persuasion to include Gender as a stand-alone target in the GBF.

The next steps and challenges ahead

According to experts, the success of the GBF will heavily lie on two factors: 1) Adopting and operationalizing GBF indicators relevant to each target and 2) Creating a mechanism quickly for those decisions that involve a multilateral system.

For example, under the new GBF, finances for biodiversity will come from rich and developed nations and private investors. But the pathways and mechanisms for these are yet to be decided, and the sooner these are done, the better it will be for all parties to begin implementing the framework.

A lot will also depend on how quickly the countries can revise their current National Biodiversity Action Plans to make ways for implanting new decisions under the GBF, according to Francis Ogwal, CBD co-chair of the GBF.

Others have also cautioned that if countries are not able to make necessary policy changes, there is a risk that the GBF could fail.

“The agreement represents a major milestone for the conservation of our natural world, and biodiversity has never been so high on the political and business agenda, but it can be undermined by slow implementation and failure to mobilize the promised resources. Governments have chosen the right side of history in Montreal, but history will judge all of us if we don’t deliver on the promise made today,” warned Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.

The agreement also obligates countries to monitor and report on a large set of “headlines” and other indicators related to progress against the GBF’s goals and targets every five years or less. Headline indicators include the percent of land and seas effectively conserved, the number of companies disclosing their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity, and many others.

The CBD will combine national information submitted by late February 2026 and late June 2029 into global trends and progress reports.

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Biodiversity Agreement Historic But Difficult to Implement — Global Issues

Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD
  • by Emilio Godoy (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The menu of agreements

COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.

In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.

This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.

It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.

With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.

The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.

The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.

With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.

“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.

“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.

But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”

Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.

Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”

But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Major challenge

While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.

In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.

In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.

“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”

The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”

Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.

Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.

The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.

Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.

With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.

IPS produced this article with support from Internews‘ Earth Journalism Network.

© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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Tracking the Impact of Science on Biodiversity Conservation — Global Issues

Researcher, Billy Offland (left), filming a documentary on biodiversity in Kashmir. Credit: Billy Offland
  • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
  • Inter Press Service

Bulawayo, Dec 19 (IPS) – Billy Offland (21), a British sustainability student, went on a two-year ‘World Conservation Journey’ to bring attention to the biodiversity crisis as the world seeks a deal to protect nature.

Offland, a BSc Sustainability and Environmental Management student at the University of Leeds, was jolted into taking a solo research trip after reading the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment report highlighting the perilous state of the world’s biodiversity. The IPBES assessment notes that more than one million species of plants and animals face extinction more than ever before in human history.

Getting up and taking action is always a big decision. There’s no easy way of starting your journey into activism or ‘actionism’ – changing a big part of your life for something you believe in.

“It took something as ground-breaking as the IPBES Global Assessment for me – but really, as soon as I read it, I knew I had to do something,” Offland told IPS in an interview from Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, where he is making the first foreign film about the battle for beekeepers to continue producing medicinal honey as the impacts of climate change threaten to wash away their pot of gold.

“The scale of the report is unlike anything else and contains messages which defy time. I always saw it as a culmination of everything I had learnt, discovered, and been told in my previous 22 years, including (completing a) degree in sustainability and environmental management. It laid it all bare.”

Offland said the grim narrative of the IPBES assessment left him questioning why people are unaware of this impending catastrophe and why it was not front-page news.

“In my eyes, the best thing about this report was that it came from the knowledge of hundreds of not just scientists and researchers but included, for the first time ever, the traditional knowledge of communities all around the world,” said Offland, who has now visited 196 countries worldwide. He plans to visit Eritrea as the final country of his sustainability tour.

“The most important thing I’ve learnt is that our global nature system is being destroyed by the actions of the majority of humans, and this has terrible consequences for nature – with it being predicted that a million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades. This will also bring severe negative consequences for the livelihoods and wellbeing of so many people across the globe.”

Offland’s response to the biodiversity crisis, signalled by the IPBES Global Assessment, underscores the power that scientific research has to highlight the nature crisis and to mobilise and motivate real action by individuals and organisations to bring our world back from the brink.

The Global Assessment also found that the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20 percent, mostly since 1900. More than 40 percent of amphibian species, almost 33 percent of reef-forming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened. The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10 percent being threatened.

It gets worse. The assessment further found that at least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century. More than 9 percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more species still threatened.

The work of IPBES has also influenced policy change across the world. Following the discussions and agreement at the BES-Net Anglophone Africa Regional Trialogue, policy, science and practice sector representatives in Nigeria, for example, convened to refine a two-year strategic action plan for pollinator-friendly land degradation neutrality. This was a means to act on the IPBES thematic assessments on pollinators and land restoration.

The authors built on the earlier findings of the IPBES Regional Assessment Report for Africa to show what is changing in biodiversity and ecosystem services on the African continent. They also identified future pathways and options for an African continent where long-term development objectives are recognised as inseparably connected to conserving the region’s rich biocultural heritage.

As another direct impact of IPBES work, taking note of the urgency of the Global Assessment, 30 leading South African businesses teamed up with World Wide Fund South Africa and the Wildlife Trust (EWT) to undertake biodiversity valuation assessments to determine how to cost-effectively mainstream biodiversity into their strategies and practices.

The businesses indicated that given the key findings of the IPBES report, “there was, ‘more than ever’, a need for them to step up their biodiversity game.”

These are just some of many examples of governments, businesses, practitioners and individuals who took biodiversity science to heart and set out to make a difference. To document the impact of its work, IPBES developed its own Impact Tracking Database (TRACK) five years ago. It is a crowd-sourced tool that keeps track of, for example, new or changed laws, regulations, policy commitments, investments, research techniques, and more, that were inspired by the scientific reports published by the platform.

Rob Spaull, Head of Communications at IPBES, explains that IPBES realised it could not comprehensively monitor impacts globally.

“So, we decided to create an indicative list of these impacts whenever we found out about them,” Spaull said. He notes that the TRACK is a fully public database that can be used by anybody who wants to know about what kind of impacts IPBES has had or to submit an example of an IPBES impact themselves.

“The idea behind wanting to make it public and as searchable is that we want to give everybody interested in IPBES a chance to tell stories about the work that we do and the impact that we are having, but we want them to be able to find stories that are as closely related to their own priorities as possible,” Spaull tells IPS.

TRACK to date has almost 500 different specific examples of impact from every region and most countries and every kind of scale, including the private sector.

“TRACK is a really valuable asset that, we think, shows how science can have a very direct impact and that it does not need to be restricted to scientific publications that may end up gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. It can take a little time for science to result in concrete change, but thanks to the TRACK database we can trace the impact over time,” said Spaull.

This in itself is great news for the scientists who volunteer years of their time to work on IPBES assessments, but it can also be used to bring about even more change: Spaull added that member States had told IPBES they had used the examples collected in TRACK when advocating to their ministries and government organisations about the importance of IPBES in highlighting the science behind biodiversity issues worldwide, a strategy that can ultimately bring about even more support for biodiversity science.

TRACK is a fully public database that can be used by anybody who wants to know about what kind of impacts IPBES has had or to submit an example of an IPBES impact themselves. This includes 500 different specific examples of impact from every region and most countries and every kind of scale, including the private sector. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

At the COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said that the destruction of biodiversity and nature has come at a huge price for humanity.

“Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction… with a million species at risk of disappearing forever,” said Guterres, noting that climate action and biodiversity protection were two sides of the same coin.

“It’s time for the world to adopt an ambitious biodiversity framework — a true peace pact with nature — to deliver a green, healthy future for all.”

IPBES science can be found in many places, such as in the draft Global Biodiversity Framework that is being discussed at the COP.

What does Offland make of the current global action to save biodiversity at COP15 in Montreal?

“There’s no doubt for me that we’re making progress,” Offland told IPS, adding, “The worry is that it’s not the transformative change that we need to see. Often the biodiversity crisis is subjugated under the need for climate action, but recent work noticeably by IPBES and the IPCC seeks to reconcile the two.”

Offland has a vision for a summit where biodiversity takes an equal level of priority.

“I would quite like to see an intermediary COP for biodiversity and climate change together, recognising the importance of treating both together and not in silos and, therefore, giving the biodiversity crisis the priority it requires across every country in the world.”

Meanwhile, it is hopeful that biodiversity science will continue to make an impact at different scales, whether it’s on the global scale of a COP or on the individual scale as with Offland himself. Truly transformative change will need to occur at all levels of society.

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Russias Single Word Objection Holds Up Process — Global Issues

Women doing on-the-spot training at COP15. Target 22 is being held up by a single word. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
  • by Stella Paul (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

Montreal, Dec 19 (IPS) – Since the beginning of the high-level segment, tensions have been steadily rising at the 15th meeting of the conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) among all participants, including members of country delegation teams, NGOs, observers, monitors, and media. At the press events held daily at the media center and various other events in the Montreal Convention Center, an outburst of anger and frustration have become a common sight.

In the middle of such high drama, there is one corner at the COP – the Women’s Pavilion in the Palace Quebec room that presents a very different picture: a group of women sitting in a circle on low stools, intently listening to a fellow woman speak about easy and effective ways to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with their community members.

“That is a training in session,” says Mrinalini Rai – the director of Women4Biodiversity – a global coalition of dozens of women-led organizations worldwide working together to get gender equality mainstreamed into the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework.  In March this year, in the 3rd Working Group meeting of the CBD in Geneva, CBD first received a proposal for a stand-alone target on gender to the GBF, which, at that time, had 21 targets. The proposal was officially tabled by Costa Rica and supported by GRULAC – a group with 11 member countries from Latin America and West Africa. These are Guatemala, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, and Tanzania.  Today, barely nine months later, the GBF consists of 22 targets – an inclusion that reflects an extraordinary level of coordination among the women’s coalition and their astonishing level of lobbying with different parties.

Target 22 at COP15: A Quick Look

Target 22 aims to “Ensure women and girls equitable access and benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as their informed and effective participation at all levels of policy and decision-making related to biodiversity.”

On the sidelines of the high-level segment of COP15, Rai spoke to IPS News on the struggle that has gone behind the current status of Target 22, the level of support it has received from the parties, and the area of contention that still remain to be resolved.

“It has been really a long journey that has taken years of advocacy, lobbying, discourses, and consultations around the importance of recognizing rights of all women and girls at the heart of the Convention,” Rai says candidly before adding that the gender target has received overwhelming support of all parties of the biodiversity convention at COP15. “There are 196 parties to this convention apart from the US, which is a non-party, and the Holy See (the Vatican). Right now, nobody has objected to having a target (22),” Rai reveals.

Mrinalini Rai, Coordinator of Women’s Caucus. Stella Paul/IPS

The reason is simple: mainstreaming gender into all the targets and goals of the biodiversity framework seems easier to perceive and understand far more easily than the other cross-cutting themes like finance or human rights. “If you are looking at how gender mainstreams into COP15 targets, for example, Access and Benefit Sharing, traditional knowledge, etc. – you immediately think of knowledge of women and then how do you ensure women have access. There are some very complicated issues in the COP like DSI (Digital Sequencing Information), invasive species, marine, and coastal biodiversity, etc., but whatever spaces you are looking at, gender ties to it,’ Rai says.

Gender-responsive vs. Gender sensitive – the last remaining challenge

Despite its broad support, however, the target doesn’t have a completely clean text yet. Incredibly, a single country – Russia – has raised objections to a single word, putting that within brackets.

According to Rai, on the opening day of COP15, in the working group’s plenary, Russia put a bracket on the ‘responsiveness’ in the text. This means that although the rest of the text is clean, the target 22 is not ready to be adopted yet because of this single bracket. However, the Women’s Caucus – a group of civil society organizations that is the main focal contact for all gender-related issues and has support from the CBD secretariat – is talking to the Russian delegation and pursuing them to either lift their objection or come up with an alternative that will be acceptable to all.

“Russia said that they want to replace “gender-responsive” with the term “gender-sensitive”. Now, for us, the word sensitive doesn’t really mean anything concrete. It is like being aware of something. You have been sensitized about gender, so now you are gender-sensitive or aware of gender. But the term “gender-responsive” demands action; it means there is an action for you to take and to be held accountable,” Rai explains.

Preparing for the Next Steps

While the lobbying continues, several Women’s Caucus members are already thinking ahead of COP15, strategizing for the time when countries will move to the implementation phase of the Gender Action Plan.

“It will be crucial how everything unfolds at the local level. At this point, it feels a little concerning to the national policies of respective countries in designing a compatible program for women-based organizations and women in the community to have access to finance. But as we see practically, it’s very hard for women to have that access because, one, they are not in any structure that could get them financing, and two, women, particularly in the rural areas, can’t even have access to the necessities, let alone access finance for climate or biodiversity. So, it’s important to engage grassroots women and civil society in the planning mechanism so that financing can be down streamed,” says Tsegaye Frezer Yeheyis, who heads Mahibere Hitwot of Social Development – an Ethiopian NGO and member of the Women’s Caucus.

Sharon Ruthia, a lawyer from Kenya who counsels on gender and biodiversity, further adds, “it will be important for the countries to design a mechanism to build the capacity of women – technically and financially,’

And how can gender be mainstreamed into crucial issues like DSI outside the GBF and are also contentious?  Cecilia Githaiga, another lawyer from Women4Biodiversity, shares some insights: “The biggest challenge (for gender mainstreaming is that the discussions on Nagoya Protocol are very fragmented at this moment. It would be good if these discussions were focused, then there would be a single mechanism for reporting, and that would help us women (who are not able to spread all over) still follow up, monitor, and tell when we are making progress and when there is a need for upscaling.’

When the whole chance of the target is hanging by the thread of one word, it’s easy to be frustrated, especially after crossing such a long journey. However, Target 22 advocates are making a brave effort to be positive. “We do have parties who support the word ‘responsiveness,’ so we are hoping that all 195 countries will support it. This hasn’t yet come to the working groups or the contact groups, so we are keeping an eye on that,” Rai concludes in a hopeful voice.

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Digital Treatment of Genetic Resources Shakes Up COP15 — Global Issues

The executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, highlighted on Friday Dec. 16 the results of the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing at an event during COP15 in the Canadian city of Montreal. But the talks have not reached an agreement on the digital sequencing of genetic resources. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
  • by Emilio Godoy (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

MONTREAL, Dec 16 (IPS) – In addition to its nutritional properties, quinoa, an ancestral grain from the Andes, also has cosmetic uses, as stated by the resource use and benefit-sharing permit ABSCH-IRCC-PE-261033-1 awarded in February to a private individual under a 15-month commercial use contract.

The permit, issued by the Peruvian government’s National Institute for Agrarian Innovation, allows the Peruvian beneficiary to use the material in a skin regeneration cream.

But it also sets restrictions on the registration of products obtained from quinoa or the removal of its elements from the Andean nation, to prevent the risk of irregular exploitation without a fair distribution of benefits, in other words, biopiracy.

The licensed material may have a digital representation of its genetic structure which in turn may generate new structures from which formulas or products may emerge. This is called digital sequence information (DSI), in the universe of research or commercial applications within the CBD.

Treatment of DSI forms part of the debates at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 and is due to end on Dec. 19 at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal.

The summit has brought together some 15,000 people representing the 196 States Parties to the CBD, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies.

The focus of the debate is the Post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity, which consists of 22 targets in areas including financing for conservation, guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of business and gender equality.

Like most of the issues, negotiations on DSI and the sharing of resulting benefits, contained in one of the Global Framework’s four objectives and in target 13, are at a deadlock, on everything from definitions to possible sharing mechanisms.

Except for the digital twist, the issue is at the heart of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, part of the CBD, signed in that Japanese city in 2010 and in force since 2014.

The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world’s natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Amber Scholz, a German member of the DSI Scientific Network, a group of 70 experts from 25 countries, said there is an urgent need to close the gap between the existing innovation potential and a fair benefit-sharing system so that digital sequencing benefits everyone.

“It’s been a decade now and things haven’t turned out so well. The promise of a system of innovation, open access and benefit sharing is broken,” Scholz, a researcher at the Department of Microbial Ecology and Diversity in the Leibniz Institute’s DSMZ German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, told IPS.

DSI stems from the revolution in the massive use of technological tools, which has reached biology as well, fundamental in the discovery and manufacture of molecules and drugs such as those used in vaccines against the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10, were missed by the target year, 2020, and will now be renewed and updated by the Global Framework that will emerge from Montreal.

The targets included respect for the traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, their customary use of biological resources, and the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities in the implementation of the CBD.

Lack of clarity in the definition of DSI, challenges in the traceability of the country of origin of the sequence via digital databases, fear of loss of open access to data and different outlooks on benefit-sharing mechanisms are other aspects complicating the debate among government delegates.

Through the Action Agenda: Make a Pledge platform, organizations, companies and individuals have already made 586 voluntary commitments at COP15, whose theme is “Ecological civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”.

Of these, 44 deal with access and benefit sharing, while 294 address conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 185 involve partnerships and alliances, and 155 focus on adaptation to climate change and emission reductions.

Genetic havens

Access to genetic resources for commercial or non-commercial purposes has become an issue of great concern in the countries of the global South, due to the fear of biopiracy, especially with the advent of digital sequencing, given that physical access to genetic materials is not absolutely necessary.

Although the Nagoya Protocol includes access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, digital sequencing mechanisms have generated confusion. In fact, this instrument has created a market in which lax jurisdictions have taken advantage by becoming genetic havens.

Around 2,000 gene banks operate worldwide, attracting some 15 million users. Almost two billion sequences have been registered, according to statistics from GenBank, one of the main databases in the sector and part of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Argentina leads the list of permits for access to genetic resources in Latin America under the Protocol, with a total of 56, two of which are commercial, followed by Peru (54, four commercial) and Panama (39, one commercial). Mexico curbed access to such permits in 2019, following a scandal triggered by the registration of maize in 2016.

There are more than 100 gene banks operating in Mexico, 88 in Peru, 56 in Brazil, 47 in Argentina and 25 in Colombia.

The largest providers of genetic resources leading to publicly available DSI are the United States, China and Japan. Brazil ranks 10th among sources and users of samples, according to a study published in 2021 by Scholz and five other researchers.

The mechanisms for managing genetic information sequences have become a condition for negotiating the new post-2020 Global Framework for biodiversity, which poses a conflict between the most biodiverse countries (generally middle- and low-income) and the nations of the industrialized North.

Brazilian indigenous activist Cristiane Juliao, a leader of the Pankararu people, calls for a fair system of benefit-sharing for access to and use of genetic resources and their digital sequences at COP15, being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and their share

Cristiane Juliao, an indigenous woman of the Pankararu people, who is a member of the Brazilian Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, said the mechanisms adopted must favor the participation of native peoples and guarantee a fair distribution of benefits.

“We don’t look at one small element of a plant. We look at the whole context and the role of that plant. All traditional knowledge is associated with genetic heritage, because we use it in food, medicine or spiritual activities,” she told IPS at COP15.

Therefore, she said, “traceability is important, to know where the knowledge was acquired or accessed.”

In Montreal, Brazilian native organizations are seeking recognition that the digital sequencing contains information that indigenous peoples and local communities protect and that digital information must be subject to benefit-sharing. They are also demanding guarantees of free consultation and the effective participation of indigenous groups in the digital information records.

Thanks to the system based on the country’s Biodiversity Law, in effect since 2016, the Brazilian government has recorded revenues of five million dollars for permits issued.

The Working Group responsible for drafting the new Global Framework put forward a set of options for benefit-sharing measures.

They range from leaving in place the current status quo, to the integration of digital sequence information on genetic resources into national access and benefit-sharing measures, or the creation of a one percent tax on retail sales of genetic resources.

Lagging behind

There is a legal vacuum regarding this issue, because the CBD, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in force since 2004, do not cover all of its aspects.

Scholz suggested the COP reach a decision that demonstrates the political will to establish a fair and equitable system. “The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries,” she said.

For her part, Juliao demanded a more inclusive and fairer system. “There is no clear record of indigenous peoples who have agreed to benefit sharing. It is said that some knowledge comes from native peoples, but there is no mechanism for the sharing of benefits with us.”

IPS produced this article with support from Internews’Earth Journalism Network.

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Unsustainable Infrastructure Threatens Biodiversity — Global Issues

Francis Ogwal (L) of Uganda and Basile van Havre (C) of Canada, co-chairs of the group responsible for drafting the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, explain the status of negotiations at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal on Dec. 14, 2022. Discussions are entering the final stretch to approve the new biodiversity protection targets. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
  • by Emilio Godoy (montreal)
  • Inter Press Service

MONTREAL, Dec 15 (IPS) – Created in 2016, the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve (MCBR) hosts 1900 species of animals and plants and contains half of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the second largest in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

This ecosystem is under pressure from the construction of two of the seven routes of the Maya Train (TM), the Mexican government’s flagship megaproject, whose construction, which began in 2020, alters the environment of the Maya Forest, the largest tropical rainforest in Latin America after the Amazon.

This is recognized in two technical reports obtained in Mexico by IPS through public information requests, which state that, although the project is outside the marine area itself, it is located within its zone of influence.

Regarding the 257-km section 4, a document from October 2021 acknowledges the impact on two high priority hydrological regions.

And with respect to the impact on the 110-km section 5, another document dated from May 2022 states that “there is no previous study or information on the monitoring and sampling sites. The presence and state of the fauna that inhabit the trees are unknown.”

The MCBR administration recognizes impacts on two priority marine regions and on the coastline of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, which is protected by the reserve.

For this reason, the MCBR refused to issue a technical opinion on section 5 due to lack of “sufficient information and elements” and, for T4, issued an opinion that demanded the presentation of additional data and prevention, management, and oversight measures.

Despite the impact that the railroad will have in the region, the government’s National Fund for Tourism Development (Fonatur) did not request reports from at least four other nature reserves.

Fonatur will be in charge of the TM, which will run for some 1,500 kilometers, with 21 stations and 14 stops, through five states in southern and southeastern Mexico.

The case of the railway exemplifies the contradictions between the attempt to protect nature and the development of infrastructure that sabotages that aim, a theme present at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 in the Canadian city of Montreal and is due to end on Dec. 19.

Moreover, the railway’s cost of some 15 billion dollars is classified as forming part of the harmful subsidies to biodiversity, which total 542 billion dollars a year globally. The investment needed for the conservation and sustainable use of nature is estimated at 967 billion dollars a year.

In the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which is due to be adopted at the summit, one of the main 21 measures being negotiated is called in UN jargon 30×30: the protection of 30 percent of the planet’s marine and terrestrial areas through conservation measures by 2030, in an attempt to halt the loss of biodiversity on the planet.

The plan has attracted support from more than 100 countries but has awakened distrust among indigenous peoples, who have suffered from the imposition of natural protected areas without due information and consultation.

The summit, which has brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international organizations and companies, will also discuss the post-2020 global framework, financing for conservation and guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of corporations and gender equality.

The 196 States Parties to the CBD, in force since 1993 and whose slogan at this year’s COP is “Ecological civilization. Building a shared future for all life on earth”, have not yet agreed in Montreal on the percentage of the oceans that should be protected and whether it should include waters under international jurisdiction.

The global framework is to succeed the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10 and due to be met by 2020, which have failed. Target 11 stipulated the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial areas and inland waters and 10 percent of marine and coastal areas.

The Maya Train, the Mexican government’s main megaproject, threatens protected natural areas, such as the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, according to a Google Earth capture. In the COP15 negotiations in Montreal, a central issue is the declaration of more natural protected areas, but one of the threats is infrastructure works. Image: Google Earth

Insufficient rules

Manuel Pulgar Vidal of Peru, WWF global leader of Climate and Energy, who is attending COP15, said the problem lies in the regulation of protected areas.
“Nations such as Colombia, Ecuador and Chile have strengthened the system of natural areas. But in general the systems are weak and need to be reinforced, and money, staff and regulations are needed,” he told IPS.

Mexico has 185 protected areas, covering almost 91 million hectares -19 percent of the national territory-, six of which are marine areas, encompassing 69 million hectares. Despite their importance, the Mexican government dedicated less than one dollar per hectare to their protection in 2022.

In addition, management plans have not been updated to cover works such as the Maya Train.

Colombia, meanwhile, protects 15 percent of its territory in 1,483 protected areas covering 35.5 million hectares, including 12 million hectares in marine areas.

Chile, for its part, has 106 protected areas covering 15 million hectares of land – 20 percent of the total surface area – and 105 million hectares in the sea, in 22 of the conservation areas.

Among the 49 governments that make up the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, aimed at promoting 30×30, are 10 Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

Of the 586 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, held at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, only 93 deal with marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, while 294 address terrestrial ecosystem conservation and restoration; 185 involve alliances and partnerships; and climate change adaptation and emission reductions are the focus of 155.

A group of government delegates discuss the post-2020 global biodiversity framework with new biodiversity protection targets to be approved at COP15, which is being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: IISD

Aleksandar Rankovic of the international NGO Avaaz said the key challenge goes beyond a specific protection figure.

“The hows are not in the debate. It’s up to each country how it will implement it. It’s left to each country to decide what’s appropriate. There is little openness on how to achieve the goals,” the activist from the U.S.-based organization dedicated to citizen activism on issues of global interest, such as biodiversity, told IPS.

Only eight percent of the world’s oceans are protected and only seven percent are protected from fishing activities. Avaaz calls for the care of 50 percent of marine and terrestrial areas, with the direct participation of indigenous peoples.

The protection of marine areas is tied to other international instruments, such as the Global Ocean Treaty, which nations have been negotiating since 2018 within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and which aims to protect 30 percent of these ecosystems by 2030.

Pulgar Vidal, for his part, called for the approval of the 30×30 scheme. “Implementing these initiatives takes time. And you need an international financing mechanism,” he stressed.

In Rankovic’s view, a strong global framework is needed. “The issue is broader, because fisheries are not well regulated. Without this, marine areas will be part of a weak program,” he warned.

COP15 has also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, both components of the CBD and part of its architecture for preserving biodiversity.

IPS produced this article with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

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Impact of Mega Infrastructure Projects on Biodiversity Stay Off-Radar — Global Issues

Activists at COP15 believe that keeping infrastructure off the radar is a problem and have expressed concern about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China which impacts on biodiversity hotspots and Indigenous communities. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
  • by Stella Paul
  • Inter Press Service

Dec 15 (IPS) – As the COP entered its crucial second week, negotiations are intensifying now. A slew of new contact groups – meeting mostly behind closed doors – are discussing the minutest details of the Global Biodiversity Framework and the contentious issues within or around it, such as Digital Sequencing Information, Access, and Benefit Sharing. The core aim of all these groups is to talk and resolve all issues and produce a draft treaty that will be acceptable to all parties.

In this flurry of activities, however, there’s an elephant in the room that no one wants to see: The impact of mega infrastructural projects on biodiversity. Leading the table of these most impacting mega projects is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China – the president of COP15.

BRI: A Mammoth Project Like No Other

China launched BRI in 2013, intending to revive and strengthen its trade links with the rest of the world. Today, it’s a mammoth project involving several regions of Asia, Africa and Europe with plans to construct roads, railways, ports, and, more recently, health, digital, and space projects, building physical and economic links, enhancing trade and interconnectivity.

It is, however, not a single Chinese government initiative but consists of many different projects in multiple countries, financed through multiple avenues, including Chinese and international banks and investment funds.

According to a 2019 paper published by the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the BRI was likely to boost world GDP by $7.1 trillion annually within the next two decades. The Information Office of the Chinese government also reports that BRI has created more than 244,000 jobs for locals abroad.

However, a vast majority of BRI projects require the use of Chinese companies, labour, and raw materials, meaning the GDP gains from BRI will go to the Chinese ‘locals,’ not to the locals of the countries in which China has invested.

An Ambition Vehicle or a Debt Trap

Today, at least sixty-four countries fall within its ambit, and the number is increasing.  The terrestrial route of BRI aims to cut across Central Asia, Russia, India, Pakistan and Europe, and the maritime route runs along the coast of Asia, East Africa, and Europe.

However, many of these small countries saw themselves falling into mounting debts. The first is Sri Lanka which recently plunged into a financial crisis from debts owed to China for highways, ports, airports, and a coal power plant. Sri Lanka owes China lenders over $7.4 billion– 20% of its total foreign debt. Other countries following the footsteps of Sri Lanka are Kyrgyzstan and Montenegro; while Kyrgyzstan owes 40% of its foreign debt, including $1.8 billion to Chinese lenders, the European Union (EU) refused to pay off a $1 billion Chinese loan for the BRI but has offered help on other infrastructure projects.

Impacts on Environment, Gender and Indigenous Peoples

The financial crisis put aside, the implication of the BRI on the region’s biodiversity is huge as it includes many different environmentally important areas such as protected areas, key landscapes, Global 200 Ecoregions (a list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as priorities for conservation), and biodiversity hotspots that cover the distribution range of flagship species.  In fact, the study found that 32% of the total area of all protected areas in countries crossed by BRI corridors were potentially affected by the project. There are also areas that are important for delivering ecosystem services that provide social and economic benefits to people.

According to a geospatial study done by WWF, which examined the environmental impacts of BRI, the initiative will affect 1,700 biodiversity hotspots, threaten 265 species, and potentially introduce hundreds of alien species that threaten these fragile ecosystems.

The BRI corridors also overlap with 1,739 Important Bird Areas or Key Biodiversity Areas and 46 biodiversity hotspots or Global 200 Ecoregions5. This is in addition to the range of 265 IUCN threatened species, including 39 critically endangered species and 81 endangered species – including saiga antelopes, tigers and giant pandas.

According to Allie Constantine, Gender and Indigenous rights Advisor to Global Forest Coalition, there is still no impact assessment on how the BRI affects women, and China has not released data on gender and the BRI. However, given that China has signed and ratified most UN human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 5 being “Gender Equality”), the country is obliged to report on gender impacts of BRI projects it operates.

While China’s 14th Five-Year plan discusses women’s equality and gender rights, there is no indication of how China will implement or enforce this within the BRI.

“However, even without this data, we can still make certain inferences regarding gendered impacts,” says Constantine, who recently conducted a study on the impact of BRI on women and indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia.

The study reveals that BRI’s expansion through important ecological corridors, including Chinese-backed hydropower projects built along the Mekong River that cause changes in river flow, directly puts specific communities and fragile ecosystems at risk. In turn, this impacts fish migrations and creates a further loss of livelihoods for downstream communities in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam that rely on the river for sustenance.

It also says that specific BRI projects often negatively affect indigenous and forest communities. For example, the Indigenous Mah Meri community in Malaysia is frequently harmed by government processes, including the development of BRI ports in Mah Meri territories. Although Malaysia supports the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), it frequently acts against Indigenous land and human rights, Constantine’s study reveals.

Greening or Greenwashing

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been intensifying “Green BRI” efforts, including research on how to make BRI projects more environmentally sound. For example, in 2021, the Chinese ministries of Foreign Commerce and Ecology and Environment released “Green Development Guidelines.” China has also committed to ending coal-fired power plants and investing in renewable energy sources.

Speaking to IPS, Li Shuo, Global Policy Advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, said that within China, there is a growing concern over the country’s investment overseas, especially in high-carbon projects such as coal plants.

“It’s a little hard to say if BRI is a good thing or a bad thing for the local economy or local environment. You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis,“ says Shuo, “But there is a clear recognition that some of the BRI projects are quite problematic from an environmental point of view. I think there is a realization from the Chinese side as well, and that is why a year ago, there was this Chinese commitment to not fund coal-fired power projects. The announcement was made in September 2021 in the UN General Assembly.”

Shuo, however, says that there is still no such recognition or public debate when it comes to biodiversity.

“There is a recognition that China should not invest in high-carbon projects, so there is a slow transition, but on the other hand, where biodiversity is feeding into all these, I think you are in need of more recognition on the Chinese side on the biodiversity implications of the BRI projects. I think climate recognition is slowly getting there but not necessarily on biodiversity. And if you think about it, a lot of the infrastructural projects will have a negative footprint,” Shuo says.

Observers at COP15, however, are saying that with many destructive projects under the BRI, such as large dams built along the Mekong River, which also threaten biodiversity, forests, and forest communities—simply defunding coal and investing in other potentially harmful projects is not the solution.

Exclusion of Infrastructure in GBF

Infrastructure has not been included in the current biodiversity draft framework. On Dec 8, at a side event of the ongoing COP15, Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary, Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), expressed alarm that infrastructure is not addressed in the GBF.

Highlighting that migratory species must be able to reach new habitats, she noted the CMS tackles threats posed to these species by infrastructure. She also called on governments and investors to consider whether there is a real need for new infrastructure developments and to look into alternatives, including “no new infrastructure” options.

Simone Lovera of the Global Forest Coalition has been more vocal in her criticism of BRI, the exclusion of infrastructure in the biodiversity framework and China’s silence on the initiative’s impact on biodiversity. She especially spoke out on how the current financing mechanism – already a contentious issue at COP15 could further fail if mega projects like BRI were continued to be ignored.

“It doesn’t make any sense to just close the financing gap; even US100 billion dollars per year, we have 1.3 trillion US dollars that are going to destructive activities. Sadly, China’s own Belt and Road Initiative is an example of initiatives that are still financing very harmful projects. They are trying to green it up, but they are not doing any gender analysis, and a lot of BRI activities are actually very harmful on the ground. So first and foremost, the thing China should do is look at its own Belt and Road Initiative and make sure that that is aligned. On the one hand, they claim to have ecological civilization at home, but they export the destruction to other countries,” Lovera told IPS News.

Speaking to IPS, Basile Van Havre- Co-chair of the GBF, said negotiators were now “focusing on not adding any new texts to the draft and instead were working to shift as much existing text as possible out of the brackets”. This means if infrastructure has been excluded from the GBF, it is not likely to be included now.

The onus of curbing the harms caused to biodiversity by projects like BRI falls entirely on the countries that own and run them – such as China.

“The European Union just banned commodities that come from deforestation and biodiversity destruction. It’s possible. Let us have an agreement here so they (China) also have a legal alignment. They can say, ‘okay, in line with this multilateral agreement, we will start banning products caused by biodiversity destruction, and I think the EU legislation will show it’s possible. It is a good example, and we very much look at China to do that,” Lovera says.

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Experts Seek Appropriate Circular Solutions to Plastic Pollution — Global Issues

Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. New initiatives were launched at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) to reduce plastic pollution. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown
  • by Aimable Twahirwa (kigali)
  • Inter Press Service

Kigali, Dec 13 (IPS) – Experts agree that African economies need to develop innovative approaches to deal with plastic production, which is set to double in 20 years – adversely impacting rural communities.

They were speaking in Kigali, Rwanda, on the sidelines of the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF).

As a result of current global efforts to spur Africa’s transition to a Circular Economy at the country, regional and continental levels, official estimates show that the transition to a fully circular economy could generate $4.5 trillion in economic benefits globally by 2030.

Government representatives, researchers, civil society activists, and strategic partners launched an initiative, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, on the sidelines of WCEF to end plastic pollution by 2040.

“The issue of plastic pollution has reached crisis levels, and it is time polluters to be held to account,” Zaynab Sadan, the Regional Plastics Policy Coordinator for Africa at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IPS.

According to experts, the key to a circular economy in Africa is to eliminate open dumping and burning of waste on the continent and promote the use of waste as a resource for value and job creation.

The latest estimates by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) show that approximately 7 billion of the 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic produced from 1950-2017 globally has become plastic waste, ending in landfills or dumped.

Environmental experts argue that this pollution has altered habitats and natural processes and reduced ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities, and social well-being, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Experts unanimously agree that plastic consumption and production have reached unsustainable levels over the past 30 years, reaching 460 million tonnes between 2000 to 2019.

The 2022 Global Plastics Outlook report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that much of this growth is mostly driven by massive increases in the production of single-use plastics for packaging and consumer goods, which accounts for half of the plastic waste generation.

To address this growing phenomenon, Sadan insists on the need for African countries to integrate the informal sector into recycling and waste management.

“There is a pressing need to improvement in waste collection services and management at landfills,” the fierce conservation activist told delegates at the launching of the new High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution.

Official projections indicate that by 2060, the use of plastics could almost triple globally, driven by economic and population growth.

It said that plastic leakage to the environment is projected to double to 44 million tonnes (Mt) a year, while the build-up of plastics in aquatic environments will more than triple, where the largest costs are projected for Sub-Saharan Africa, whose GDP would be reduced by 2.8% below the baseline.

Kristin Hughes, the director of the resource circularity pillar and a member of the World Economic Forum’s executive committee, told delegates that if current trends continue, billion metric tons of plastic waste will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050.

“Embedding science and evidence-based approach are key to end plastic pollution in Africa,” Hughes said.

During various sessions on the forum’s sidelines, Rwanda has been hailed as a role model in Africa toward managing waste from banning plastic bags in 2008, has made great steps forward, and has established the e-waste recycling facility in 2018.

Reacting to this achievement, Rwandan Minister of Environment Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya stressed the need for the country to strengthen existing mechanisms to have a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

“Despite these achievements, there are still shortcomings that are exposing the country to severe impacts of improper waste management, including hazardous wastes,” Mujawamariya told delegates.

Terhi Lehtonen, Finnish Vice Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, is convinced that eradicating plastic pollution requires a systemic approach since plastic pollution is not simply a consumer issue.

“The plastic pollution is increasing at an alarming rate African countries need to adopt a holistic control strategy at both production and consumer level,” she told delegates.

The newly-established global mechanism, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, is committed to developing ambitious international and legally binding instruments based on a comprehensive and circular approach that ensures urgent action and effective action interventions along the full lifecycle of plastics.

Erlend Haugen, Norway’s coordinator of the Global Initiative, said the new treaty must establish provisions for plastic waste minimization and environmentally sound collection, sorting, and preparation for reuse and recycling of plastic waste to re-enter recycled plastics into the economy and avoid leakage to the environment.

But activists are convinced that communities also have vital knowledge and experience that can help combat the scourge of plastic pollution.

“Countries should also adopt a gender-sensitive approach to tackle plastic pollution,” said Sadan.

According to her, the youth could also play a very influential role in plastic waste control by raising awareness about its negative impact.

IPS UN Bureau Report


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Putting Nature on a Quantifiable, Ambitious Path to Recovery — Global Issues

A blue sea star (Linckia laevigata) photographed on a largely dead coral reef on the Coral Coast on Fiji’s largest island Viti Levu. IPBES estimates that nearly one-third of reefs are threatened with extinction. Credit: Tom Vierus / Climate Visuals
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

Nairobi, Nov 30 (IPS) – Up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction – many within decades – this includes nearly one-third of reef-forming corals, shark relatives, and marine mammals. Half of agricultural expansion occurs at the expense of forests, and 85% of wetlands that were present at the beginning of the 18th century had been lost by the year 2000, with the loss of wetlands considered to be happening three times faster, in percentage terms, than forest loss.

Dr Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES. Credit: IPBES

Speaking to IPS ahead of UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) about the urgent need to accelerate measures to stop biodiversity loss, Dr Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES, says the loss we hear about is just the tip of the iceberg.

“In 2019, IPBES alerted the world that a million species of plants and animals, out of an estimated total of eight million, now face extinction, many within decades. A third of coral reefs are threatened with extinction. Nature is being deteriorated at a rate and scale that is unprecedented in human history,” she cautions.

She said that the very first reason to conserve and use biodiversity sustainably is because this is the right thing to do from a moral and ethical standpoint, “it should not be to the purview of one species, the human species, to destroy the non-human species on our shared planet. But an important more selfish second reason is that conserving and using biodiversity sustainably are also a matter of ensuring human existence and good quality of life.”

Biodiversity is central to human development, and its conservation is critical to people in every corner of the world. Fifty thousand wild species, according to IPBES, meet the needs of billions of people worldwide, providing food, cosmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine, and inspiration.

One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking, and about 90 percent of the 120 million people working in capture fisheries are supported by small-scale fishing.

This is just part of the material contribution Larigauderie says biodiversity makes to humanity, along with innumerable non-material and regulating contributions such as maintaining the quality of air and soil, the control of emerging diseases and the pollination of crops.

Against this backdrop, Larigauderie says COP 15, which will be held in Montreal, Canada, December 7-19, sets the stage for a new Global Biodiversity Framework, hoped to be a quantifiable and well-resourced plan that is meant to set the path to recovery of all life on Earth and the contributions it provides to people by 2030.

She speaks of the failed Aichi Biodiversity Targets 2011-2020, a strategic plan established to halt the loss of biodiversity and how none of the 20 targets agreed by governments for 2020 were fully achieved at the global level.

“COP15 is an opportunity to raise the bar—a renewal of the momentum of the ambitions for the global community. The most desirable outcome would be an agreement whose targets are supported by sufficient resources and quantified,” she emphasises.

For instance, Aichi target 11 called for the effective protection of 17 percent of land and inland waters and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas; now she says, “the bar is raised significantly in the new draft framework, to 30 percent to be protected by 2030. It is challenging but possible with adequate financial means.”

In addition to the 30%, measures need to be undertaken on the 70% which is not under protection. The text, therefore, includes targets to integrate biodiversity in key economic sectors, such as agriculture, fishing, and economic and financial systems, to decrease their impact on biodiversity.

IPBES research reveals that half of agricultural expansion occurs at the expense of forests. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

“Agriculture represents one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss because it competes for land with nature, and because it pollutes nature. Governments could help farmers to transition to agroecological practices that are more respectful of nature,” she observes.

Science, she adds, can inform transitions to new sustainable pathways for agriculture, fishing, and food systems, among others, to help conserve and sustainably use biodiversity. Larigauderie stresses the great need to transition into these new pathways for the good of nature and people for present and future generations.

She also emphasises the need to support developing countries that are now expected to develop while protecting their biodiversity, unlike their more developed counterparts, who ensured their development by leveraging their natural resources.

Speaking about the just-concluded UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), Larigauderie said it is critical to recognise and act on the interlinkages between climate change and biodiversity loss. Research has established that climate change is a major driver of biodiversity loss.

“It is very important for the climate change community to take biodiversity into account. The topic of biodiversity is still very low on the agenda of climate change discussions. Yet, we know there can never be long-term solutions for climate change without better treatment of nature,” she says.

“Moreover, some measures proposed to mitigate climate change are harmful to biodiversity, exacerbating ongoing biodiversity crisis and ultimately the climate change crisis.”

She says these measures can include growing biofuel crops, also known as energy crops, such as sugarcane and soybeans, on a large scale to avoid using fossil fuels. Initially, such crops were meant to be grown on marginal lands.

But with very few marginal lands left, pieces of natural ecosystems are being converted into farmland, often for short-term profit, which in turn does further harm to biodiversity.

Another example of a strategy to combat climate change at the expense of biodiversity, she says, can be tree planting schemes. Rather than working to reduce emissions, “people contribute money for tree planting schemes to offset their carbon footprint. People plant trees and continue to do business as usual.”

“Tree planting schemes can also cause social problems where indigenous people are displaced or ecological problems where trees are planted without factoring in ecological principles such as planting trees that require a lot of water in dry areas, causing serious water scarcity.”

Instead, it is important to implement solutions that take both crises into account and combat climate change and biodiversity loss together.

As governments from around the world gather at COP 15, it is a vital chance to step up for nature. Doing so will call on the global community to leverage the established post-2020 biodiversity framework. The outcome could well be a framework to transform society’s relationship with biodiversity, heal the planet and ensure a sustainable existence for humankind.

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