Countries reach sweeping deal to protect nature

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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Nearly 200 nations reached a milestone agreement early Monday morning to protect biodiversity, pledging action on more than 20 targets spanning from land conservation to invasive species to pesticide use in an effort to stem the rapid deterioration of nature world-wide.  The global accord, brokered at the latest United Nations’ biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada, comes at a critical time: A recent U.N. report found that plants, animals, and ecosystems are declining at an “unprecedented” rate due to human activity, and that around 1 million species could go extinct within decades.  The convention’s headline goal — to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and waters by the year 2030 — received the most floor time over the meeting’s two-week run. The target comes from famed biologist E.O. Wilson, who argued that to reverse the extinction crisis, half of the planet must be set aside “for nature.” Some countries, like Colombia and the United States (the only country besides the Vatican that is not an official member of the international Convention on Biological Diversity), had already begun implementing a scaled-down version of the goal, dubbed “30×30,” within their own borders. Now, however, countries have a new global pact, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, for protecting land and sea that some have compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).  “It’s a landmark moment to have nearly every country on earth agree to halt and reverse biodiversity loss,” Craig Hanson, managing director for programs at the World Resources Institute, said in a press statement. “Yet the agreement is only as strong as countries’ political will to implement it, and countries now face the urgent task of turning these commitments into action.” Leading up to the international gathering, Indigenous groups had expressed alarm over 30×30 and its potential to remove land and resources from tribal control in the name of conservation. “The prevailing concept of protected areas is ‘fortress conservation,’ exclusionary spaces based on the view of wilderness without people,” said Jennifer Corpuz, a member of the Kankanaey Igorot people from the Northern Philippines and a lead negotiator for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, a group of activists, scholars, and representatives from Indigenous governments and NGOs that organize around international environmental meetings. Time and again, studies have shown that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of biodiversity, yet they are often hampered by protected area expansion and its attendant evictions and livelihood restrictions.  “We saw the negotiation of a new framework as an opportunity to address those problems,” said Corpuz. The final language of the agreement calls for “systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous [sic] and traditional territories,” and Indigenous rights are also mentioned with strong language at numerous points throughout the pact, according to Corpuz. While Indigenous groups had called for their territories to be recognized as a distinct pathway to protect biodiversity, Corpuz said “we feel that the language is ambiguous enough to accept.”   The biggest sticking point in the biodiversity negotiations, or the Conference of the Parties or COP15, was over who would fund conservation action in the most species-rich parts of the world, mostly in the Global South. Developing nations called for a $100 billion fund from wealthy nations, similar to the fund established through the U.N.’ s convention on climate change for climate mitigation and adaptation. Last week, delegates staged a walkout over the issue. The final agreement requires wealthy countries to provide $30 billion a year to small island nations and developing countries by 2030, although research has shown that closer to $700 billion per year is necessary to reduce species decline. Objections on Monday morning from the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African nations over insufficient funding were overridden when Huang Runqiu, the president of COP15 and China’s minister of ecology and environment, brought down the gavel to end the conference.  In total, the final agreement contains 23 targets, including commitments to halve risks from pesticides and toxic chemical use in agriculture, halve invasive species introduction rates, and reform government subsidies linked to biodiversity destruction.  Language requiring that companies disclose their impacts on the natural world and their financial risks associated with species extinction was watered down in the final version of the text. Developing nations and Indigenous peoples had also asked that when countries extract genetic resources from their biodiversity-rich ecosystems, like rainforests and peatlands, to make drugs and other products, that the origin countries receive an equitable share of the benefits of the research. While a mechanism was not established, language in the final text sets forth a two-year process to create a way to fund the communities and countries from which biodata is taken; Indigenous communities are calling to be the main beneficiaries. Countries now have eight years to meet their new targets, which some observers have criticized for prioritizing economic interests and lacking any enforcement mechanism. As it stands, the 30 percent goal is global, not specific to individual countries, and commitments will be voluntary, similar to the Paris Agreement. At the 2002 biodiversity conference in the Netherlands, parties agreed to reduce the rate of species loss by 2010 and failed. The last major wave of biodiversity goal-setting happened in Aichi, Japan, in 2010, and not a single one of the meeting’s targets was met by the 2020 deadline. Given the track record, it remains to be seen if countries will make good on their ambitious new commitments. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Countries reach sweeping deal to protect nature on Dec 20, 2022.

Now, can they actually implement it?

Nearly 200 nations reached a milestone agreement early Monday morning to protect biodiversity, pledging action on more than 20 targets spanning from land conservation to invasive species to pesticide use in an effort to stem the rapid deterioration of nature world-wide. 

The global accord, brokered at the latest United Nations’ biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada, comes at a critical time: A recent U.N. report found that plants, animals, and ecosystems are declining at an “unprecedented” rate due to human activity, and that around 1 million species could go extinct within decades. 

The convention’s headline goal — to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and waters by the year 2030 — received the most floor time over the meeting’s two-week run. The target comes from famed biologist E.O. Wilson, who argued that to reverse the extinction crisis, half of the planet must be set aside “for nature.” Some countries, like Colombia and the United States (the only country besides the Vatican that is not an official member of the international Convention on Biological Diversity), had already begun implementing a scaled-down version of the goal, dubbed “30×30,” within their own borders. Now, however, countries have a new global pact, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, for protecting land and sea that some have compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). 

“It’s a landmark moment to have nearly every country on earth agree to halt and reverse biodiversity loss,” Craig Hanson, managing director for programs at the World Resources Institute, said in a press statement. “Yet the agreement is only as strong as countries’ political will to implement it, and countries now face the urgent task of turning these commitments into action.”

Leading up to the international gathering, Indigenous groups had expressed alarm over 30×30 and its potential to remove land and resources from tribal control in the name of conservation. “The prevailing concept of protected areas is ‘fortress conservation,’ exclusionary spaces based on the view of wilderness without people,” said Jennifer Corpuz, a member of the Kankanaey Igorot people from the Northern Philippines and a lead negotiator for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, a group of activists, scholars, and representatives from Indigenous governments and NGOs that organize around international environmental meetings. Time and again, studies have shown that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of biodiversity, yet they are often hampered by protected area expansion and its attendant evictions and livelihood restrictions. 

“We saw the negotiation of a new framework as an opportunity to address those problems,” said Corpuz. The final language of the agreement calls for “systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous [sic] and traditional territories, and Indigenous rights are also mentioned with strong language at numerous points throughout the pact, according to Corpuz. While Indigenous groups had called for their territories to be recognized as a distinct pathway to protect biodiversity, Corpuz said “we feel that the language is ambiguous enough to accept.”  

The biggest sticking point in the biodiversity negotiations, or the Conference of the Parties or COP15, was over who would fund conservation action in the most species-rich parts of the world, mostly in the Global South. Developing nations called for a $100 billion fund from wealthy nations, similar to the fund established through the U.N.’ s convention on climate change for climate mitigation and adaptation. Last week, delegates staged a walkout over the issue. The final agreement requires wealthy countries to provide $30 billion a year to small island nations and developing countries by 2030, although research has shown that closer to $700 billion per year is necessary to reduce species decline. Objections on Monday morning from the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African nations over insufficient funding were overridden when Huang Runqiu, the president of COP15 and China’s minister of ecology and environment, brought down the gavel to end the conference. 

In total, the final agreement contains 23 targets, including commitments to halve risks from pesticides and toxic chemical use in agriculture, halve invasive species introduction rates, and reform government subsidies linked to biodiversity destruction. 

Language requiring that companies disclose their impacts on the natural world and their financial risks associated with species extinction was watered down in the final version of the text. Developing nations and Indigenous peoples had also asked that when countries extract genetic resources from their biodiversity-rich ecosystems, like rainforests and peatlands, to make drugs and other products, that the origin countries receive an equitable share of the benefits of the research. While a mechanism was not established, language in the final text sets forth a two-year process to create a way to fund the communities and countries from which biodata is taken; Indigenous communities are calling to be the main beneficiaries.

Countries now have eight years to meet their new targets, which some observers have criticized for prioritizing economic interests and lacking any enforcement mechanism. As it stands, the 30 percent goal is global, not specific to individual countries, and commitments will be voluntary, similar to the Paris Agreement. At the 2002 biodiversity conference in the Netherlands, parties agreed to reduce the rate of species loss by 2010 and failed. The last major wave of biodiversity goal-setting happened in Aichi, Japan, in 2010, and not a single one of the meeting’s targets was met by the 2020 deadline. Given the track record, it remains to be seen if countries will make good on their ambitious new commitments.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Countries reach sweeping deal to protect nature on Dec 20, 2022.

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Ministers ‘ignored’ own adviser over weak targets for restoring English nature

Government accused of hypocrisy for pushing global target but not following Natural England’s advice at homeThe UK government ignored scientific warnings from Natural England that its nature restoration target was inadequate and would not meet its commitments, new documents show, undermining efforts to protect threatened species.In December the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, unveiled targets at the biodiversity Cop15 in Canada to reverse the decline of nature in England. They included plans to improve the quality of marine protected areas, reduce pollution and nitrogen runoff in the river system, and restore more than half a million hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected areas by 2042. Continue reading...

Government accused of hypocrisy for pushing global target but not following Natural England’s advice at homeThe UK government ignored scientific warnings from Natural England that its nature restoration target was inadequate and would not meet its commitments, new documents show, undermining efforts to protect threatened species.In December the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, unveiled targets at the biodiversity Cop15 in Canada to reverse the decline of nature in England. They included plans to improve the quality of marine protected areas, reduce pollution and nitrogen runoff in the river system, and restore more than half a million hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected areas by 2042. Continue reading...

Killing dingoes is the only way to protect livestock, right? Nope

For more than 200 years, European farmers have killed dingoes to protect livestock. But living alongside dingoes benefits nature - and actually helps graziers

Supplied, Author providedSince European colonisation, farmers have often viewed dingoes as the enemy, waging war against them to protect their livestock. Farmers felt they had no option but to eradicate dingoes using traps, shooting, poisoned baits (such as 1080) and building a 5,600km long dingo fence, the world’s longest. Killing dingoes costs millions of dollars each year. But it hasn’t resolved the conflict. In many cases it has made the threat to livestock worse by breaking up dingo families and removing experienced adults which hunt larger, more mobile prey. The alternative? As some farmers are discovering, there are unexpected benefits of learning to coexist with dingoes instead. As Western Australian cattle grazier David Pollock told us: I reckon my dingoes are worth $20,000 each, probably more. So, killing them would be the last thing that I did. Can dingoes really help graziers? Yes. In many cases, they can be allies for graziers by reducing the competition for pasture from wild herbivores such as kangaroos and goats, as well as killing or scaring off foxes and feral cats. As our understanding of the importance of predators has grown, a new approach has taken root: human-wildlife coexistence. Recently recognised by the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity, this field offers a path to stem the global loss of biodiversity by balancing the costs and benefits of living alongside wildlife. Our new research lays out seven pathways to shift from the routine killing of dingoes towards coexistence. What does coexistence look like? One path to coexistence is supporting graziers to adopt effective tools and strategies to reduce the loss of livestock while capitalising on the benefits of large predators. This is known as predator-smart farming Our research on this area has led to a new Australian guide. This approach relies on a variety of effective non-lethal tools and practices to protect livestock three main ways: humans or guardian animals such as dogs and donkeys watch over and defend livestock from dingoes, as well as using fencing to create a physical barrier using knowledge about dingo biology and behaviour to find better deterrents, such as the use of lights, sounds or smells stronger land management and livestock husbandry to increase the productive capacity of pastures and livestock resilience. This approach helps ensure the livelihoods of farmers remain resilient and makes the most of the benefits of dingoes for productive agricultural landscapes and ecosystem health. This artist’s impression of a predator smart farm shows many different deterrent methods. Amelia Baxter As one New South Wales cattle producer found, these approaches work. He told us: Three years ago, we were losing 53% of our calves to dingoes. We started looking into alternatives that were cost and time effective and decided to try guardian donkeys. We purchased two jacks (male donkeys) and now we have 94% calving rate. Donkeys saved our business. Guardian donkeys are effective dingo deterrents. Author provided So what’s stopping us? We now know it’s entirely possible to live and farm alongside dingoes. So why do we still resort to lethal control? Inertia is one barrier to change. The default option is to kill dingoes. Laws, policies and funding by government and industry have institutionalised lethal control. But there are other barriers, such as a lack of funding for different approaches from government and a lack of support from the community and graziers. Despite this resistance the number of graziers adopting predator smart farming is growing. To overcome these barriers, we believe it’s important to undertake research alongside graziers to field-test and demonstrate how these methods actually work, and which combinations work best. Changes like this take time. We also have to build connections and rapport through agricultural networks, as well as tackle the institutional infrastructure built up around dingo control. It’s natural for farmers, graziers and state government representatives to be sceptical of such a big change. But the status quo isn’t working. Living alongside dingoes could help us make some of the fundamental changes needed to stop the loss of biodiversity. To that end, public awareness and talking about this openly can help bring something which has long gone unquestioned into the spotlight. Our research emerged from in-depth interviews with Australian livestock producers, ecologists, conservation and animal welfare groups, industry representatives and policy makers as well as field observations and analysis of Australia’s wild dog action plan. Coexisting with dingoes could be a win-win for livestock farmers. Shutterstock If we do make progress towards coexisting with dingoes, we could embed predator-smart techniques in the way we farm to boost biodiversity, landscape resilience, food security and livelihoods. We would bring back dingoes as apex predators and regulators of healthy ecosystems. Politics would take a step back, in favour of scientific, evidence-based approaches and First Nations input into environmental policies. This is not hypothetical. Graziers and landholders already using predator-smart tools and strategies report many benefits. They include: fewer animals injured or killed by dingoes less time spent stalking and killing dingoes lower total grazing pressure from feral grazers such as goats boosting pasture growth and livestock profitability. Landholders for Dingoes promotes the work of landholders who are coexisting with dingoes. It’s time to modernise Australia’s approach to dingoes. This approach offers a potential win-win for farmers and dingoes, as well as significant gains for nature. But to make this happen, we will have to shift our attitude towards dingoes, gain support from graziers and other stakeholders, and make non-lethal coexistence tools and approaches the new standard practice. Read more: From the dingo to the Tasmanian devil - why we should be rewilding carnivores Louise Boronyak was funded by the University of Technology Sydney under the UTS Research Excellence Scholarship. She is is a research affiliate of the University of Technology Sydney and Humane Society International AustraliaBradley Smith is an unpaid director of the Australian Dingo Foundation, a non-profit environmental charity that advocates for dingo conservation. He also serves as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dingo working group, which is part of their Species Survival Commission (Canids Specialist Group).

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