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  • Global Biodiversity Framework: A Good Compromise

    Global Biodiversity Framework: A Good Compromise

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    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.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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

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  • Biodiversity Agreement Historic But Difficult to Implement

    Biodiversity Agreement Historic But Difficult to Implement

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    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
    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
    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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  • Gender Target at COP15: Russias Single Word Objection Holds Up Process

    Gender Target at COP15: Russias Single Word Objection Holds Up Process

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    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 if Women's Caucus. Stella Paul/IPS
    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.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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

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  • Historic Biodiversity Agreement Reached At U.N. Conference

    Historic Biodiversity Agreement Reached At U.N. Conference

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    MONTREAL (AP) — Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world.

    The global framework comes a day before the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft earlier in the day that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum.

    The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    “There has never been a conservation goal globally at this scale,“ Brian O’Donnell, the director of the conservation group Campaign for Nature, told reporters. “This puts us within a chance of safeguarding biodiversity from collapse … We’re now within the range that scientists think can make a marked difference in biodiversity.”

    The draft also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework calls for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries — or about double what is currently provided. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.

    Coral on Moore Reef is visible in Gunggandji Sea Country off coast of Queensland in eastern Australia on Nov. 13, 2022.

    AP Photo/Sam McNeil, File

    Some advocates wanted tougher language around subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world. The document only calls for identifying subsidies by 2025 that can be reformed or phased out and working to reduce them by 2030.

    “The new text is a mixed bag,” Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation finance for The Nature Conservancy, said. “It contains some strong signals on finance and biodiversity but it fails to advance beyond the targets of 10 years ago in terms of addressing drivers of biodiversity loss in productive sectors like agriculture, fisheries, and infrastructure and thus still risks being fully transformational.”

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries have mostly agreed that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they have struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    Chair Huang Runqiu, Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, center, opens the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, on Dec. 15, 2022.
    Chair Huang Runqiu, Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, center, opens the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, on Dec. 15, 2022.

    Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “All the elements are in there for a balance of unhappiness which is the secret to achieving agreement in U.N. bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a negotiator from Namibia who is helping coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. “Everyone got a bit of what they wanted, not necessarily everything they wanted. Let’s see if there is there is a spirit of unity.”

    Others praised the fact the document recognizes the rights of Indigenous communities. In past biodiversity documents, indigenous rights were often ignored and they rarely were part of the larger discussions other than a reference to their traditional knowledge. The framework would reaffirm the rights of Indigenous peoples and ensure they have a voice in any decision making.

    “It’s important for the rights of Indigenous peoples to be there, and while it’s not the exact wording of that proposal in the beginning, we feel that it is a good compromise and that it addresses the concerns that we have,” Jennifer Corpuz, a representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity said. “We believe that it’s a good basis for us to be able to implement policy at the national level.”

    But the Wildlife Conservation Society and other environmental groups were concerned that the draft puts off until 2050 a goal of preventing the extinction of species, preserving the integrity of ecosystems and maintaining the genetic diversity within populations. They fear that timeline is not ambitions enough.

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Historic biodiversity agreement reached at U.N. conference to protect nearly a third of the planet by 2030

    Historic biodiversity agreement reached at U.N. conference to protect nearly a third of the planet by 2030

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    Historic biodiversity agreement reached at U.N. conference to protect nearly a third of the planet by 2030

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  • Governments move closer to deal at biodiversity conference

    Governments move closer to deal at biodiversity conference

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    There were signs Sunday that negotiators were closing in on a deal at a U.N. conference that would protect nature and provide financing to set up protected areas and restore degraded ecosystems.

    China, which holds the presidency at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, released a draft deal that calls for protecting 30% of the most important global land and marine areas by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    The draft also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of that, it calls to increase to at least $20 billion annually or by some estimates triple the amount that goes to poor countries by 2025. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.

    The draft now goes to a meeting of all governments this evening and could be adopted soon after.

    “Today the world’s countries rose to the occasion and produced a historic draft that agrees to protect at least 30% of our planet,” Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and Pristine Seas Founder, said in a statement. “This recognizes years of work by negotiators, researchers, conservationists, and Indigenous Peoples. Now we just need to maintain the political will to get this ambition across the finish line without diminishing its scope. World leaders must remain committed to bold action in Montreal.”

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they have struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “All the elements are in there for a balance of unhappiness which is the secret to achieving agreement in U.N. bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a negotiator from Namibia who is helping coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. “Everyone got a bit of what they wanted, not necessarily everything they wanted. Let’s see if there is there is a spirit of unity.”

    Others praised the fact the document recognizes the rights of Indigenous communities.

    “By including strong language safeguarding the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities and recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories, the text provides an opportunity for a new era of partnership, respect and rights-based conservation,” Brian O’Donnell, the director of the Campaign for Nature, said in a statement. “This could be the paradigm shift that scientists and Indigenous leaders have been calling for.”

    But others were concerned that the draft puts off until 2050 a goal of preventing the extinction of species and preserving the integrity of ecosystems.

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • United Nations Biodiversity Talks In Final Days With Many Issues Unresolved

    United Nations Biodiversity Talks In Final Days With Many Issues Unresolved

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    Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts.

    The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up Monday in Montreal and delegates were racing to agree on language in a framework that calls for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030, a goal known as “30 by 30.” Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas globally are protected.

    They also have to settle on amounts of funding that would go to financing projects to create protected areas and restore marine and other ecosystems. Early draft frameworks called for closing a $700 billion gap in financing by 2030. Most of that would come from reforming subsidies in the agriculture, fisheries and energy sectors but there are also calls for tens of billions of dollars in new funding that would flow from rich to poor nations.

    “From the beginning of the negotiations, we’ve been seeing systematically some countries weakening the ambition. The ambition needs to come back,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International said, adding that they needed a “clear conservation target” that “sets the world on a clear trajectory towards delivering a nature positive future.”

    The head table gets set to open the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)

    Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault expressed more optimism. Guilbeault told The Associated Press Saturday morning that he has heard “few people talk about red lines” and that means “people are willing to talk. People are willing to negotiate.”

    “I’ve heard a lot of support for ambition from all corners of the world,” Guilbeault said. “Everyone wants to leave here with an ambitious agreement.”

    Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, told reporters Saturday afternoon that she was encouraged by the progress especially around committing resources but that a deal had not been reached yet.

    “The negotiating teams have more work to do. They have to turn promises made into plans, ambitions and actions,” she said.

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they are struggling to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a video address at the opening of the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
    Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a video address at the opening of the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “You need a robust and ambitious package on finance that matches the ambition of the Global Biodiversity framework,” Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, the head of the Brazilian delegation, told the AP.

    “This will cost a lot of money to implement. The targets are extremely ambitious and cost a lot of money,” he continued. “The developing countries will bear a higher burden in implementing it because most biodiversity resources are to be found in developing countries. They need international support.”

    The donor countries — the European Union and 13 countries — responded Friday with a statement promising to increase biodiversity financing. They noted they doubled biodiversity spending from 2010 to 2015 and committed to several billion dollars more in biodiversity funding since then.

    Zac Goldsmith, the U.K.’s minister for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, acknowledged the focus cannot only be on popular protection measures like the 30 by 30 goal.

    IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR AVAAZ - Actor and activist James Cromwell, third left, called on world leaders to "Stop the Human Asteroid" in the talks at COP15 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. Avaaz activists joined him wearing the faces of leaders who are pushing to remove Indigenous people's language from the text of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. (Graham Hughes/AP Images for Avaaz)
    IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR AVAAZ – Actor and activist James Cromwell, third left, called on world leaders to “Stop the Human Asteroid” in the talks at COP15 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. Avaaz activists joined him wearing the faces of leaders who are pushing to remove Indigenous people’s language from the text of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. (Graham Hughes/AP Images for Avaaz)

    “The 30-by-30 is a headline target, but you can’t deliver 30-by-30 without a whole range of other things being agreed as well,” he said. “We’re not gonna have 30-by-30 without finance. We’re not going to have it unless other countries do as Costa Rica has and break the link between agricultural productivity and land degradation and deforestation. And we’re not gonna be able to do any of these things if we don’t address … subsidies.”

    Even protection targets are still being squabbled over. Many countries believe 30% is an admirable goal but some countries are pushing to water the language down to allow among other things sustainable activities in those areas that conservationists fear could result in destructive logging and mining. Others want language referencing ways to better manage the other 70% of the world that wouldn’t be protected.

    Other disagreements revolve around how best to share the benefits from genetic resources and enshrining the rights of Indigenous groups in any agreement. Some Indigenous groups want direct access to funding and a voice in designating protected areas that impact Indigenous peoples.

    “Any protected areas that affect Indigenous peoples need to have the free prior informed consent of Indigenous peoples, otherwise there will be the same old patters of Indigenous peoples being displaced by protected areas,” Atossa Soltani, the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, an alliance of 30 Indigenous nations in Ecuador and Peru working to working to permanently protect 86 million acres of rainforest, said in an email interview.

    The other challenge is including language — similar to the Paris Agreement on climate change — that creates a stronger system to report and verify the progress countries make. Many point to the failures of the 2010 biodiversity framework, which saw only six of the 20 targets partially met by a 2020 deadline.

    “It’s very important for parties to see what others are doing. It’s important for civil society, people like you to track our progress or sometimes unfortunately lack thereof,” Guilbeault said. “It’s an important tool to help keep our feet to the fire. If it’s effective on climate. We should have it on nature as well.”

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  • Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

    Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

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    Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts.

    The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up Monday in Montreal and delegates were racing to agree on language in a framework that calls for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030, a goal known as “30 by 30.” Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas globally are protected.

    They also have to settle on amounts of funding that would go to financing projects to create protected areas and restore marine and other ecosystems. Early draft frameworks called for closing a $700 billion gap in financing by 2030. Most of that would come from reforming subsidies in the agriculture, fisheries and energy sectors but there are also calls for tens of billions of dollars in new funding that would flow from rich to poor nations.

    “From the beginning of the negotiations, we’ve been seeing systematically some countries weakening the ambition. The ambition needs to come back,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International said, adding that they needed a “clear conservation target” that “sets the world on a clear trajectory towards delivering a nature positive future.”

    Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault expressed more optimism. Guilbeault told The Associated Press Saturday morning that he has heard “few people talk about red lines” and that means “people are willing to talk. People are willing to negotiate.”

    “I’ve heard a lot of support for ambition from all corners of the world,” Guilbeault said. “Everyone wants to leave here with an ambitious agreement.”

    Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, told reporters Saturday afternoon that she was encouraged by the progress especially around committing resources but that a deal had not been reached yet.

    “The negotiating teams have more work to do. They have to turn promises made into plans, ambitions and actions,” she said.

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they are struggling to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “You need a robust and ambitious package on finance that matches the ambition of the Global Biodiversity framework,” Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, the head of the Brazilian delegation, told the AP.

    “This will cost a lot of money to implement. The targets are extremely ambitious and cost a lot of money,” he continued. “The developing countries will bear a higher burden in implementing it because most biodiversity resources are to be found in developing countries. They need international support.”

    The donor countries — the European Union and 13 countries — responded Friday with a statement promising to increase biodiversity financing. They noted they doubled biodiversity spending from 2010 to 2015 and committed to several billion dollars more in biodiversity funding since then.

    Zac Goldsmith, the U.K.’s minister for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, acknowledged the focus cannot only be on popular protection measures like the 30 by 30 goal.

    “The 30-by-30 is a headline target, but you can’t deliver 30-by-30 without a whole range of other things being agreed as well,” he said. “We’re not gonna have 30-by-30 without finance. We’re not going to have it unless other countries do as Costa Rica has and break the link between agricultural productivity and land degradation and deforestation. And we’re not gonna be able to do any of these things if we don’t address … subsidies.”

    Even protection targets are still being squabbled over. Many countries believe 30% is an admirable goal but some countries are pushing to water the language down to allow among other things sustainable activities in those areas that conservationists fear could result in destructive logging and mining. Others want language referencing ways to better manage the other 70% of the world that wouldn’t be protected.

    Other disagreements revolve around how best to share the benefits from genetic resources and enshrining the rights of Indigenous groups in any agreement. Some Indigenous groups want direct access to funding and a voice in designating protected areas that impact Indigenous peoples.

    “Any protected areas that affect Indigenous peoples need to have the free prior informed consent of Indigenous peoples, otherwise there will be the same old patters of Indigenous peoples being displaced by protected areas,” Atossa Soltani, the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, an alliance of 30 Indigenous nations in Ecuador and Peru working to working to permanently protect 86 million acres of rainforest, said in an email interview.

    The other challenge is including language — similar to the Paris Agreement on climate change — that creates a stronger system to report and verify the progress countries make. Many point to the failures of the 2010 biodiversity framework, which saw only six of the 20 targets partially met by a 2020 deadline.

    “It’s very important for parties to see what others are doing. It’s important for civil society, people like you to track our progress or sometimes unfortunately lack thereof,” Guilbeault said. “It’s an important tool to help keep our feet to the fire. If it’s effective on climate. We should have it on nature as well.”

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Digital Treatment of Genetic Resources Shakes Up COP15

    Digital Treatment of Genetic Resources Shakes Up COP15

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    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
    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
    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.

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

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  • COP15: Impact of Mega Infrastructure Projects on Biodiversity Stay Off-Radar

    COP15: Impact of Mega Infrastructure Projects on Biodiversity Stay Off-Radar

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    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.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

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

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  • Africa Fights Back Against Wildlife Poachers, but Drought is Devastating

    Africa Fights Back Against Wildlife Poachers, but Drought is Devastating

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    A dog trained under Africa Wildlife Foundation’s Canines for Conservation programme looks content with its handlers. Sniffer and tracker dogs deployed in six African countries have contributed to the arrests of over 500 suspects in the long-running fight against poachers and traffickers. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks
    • by Guy Dinmore (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    London, Dec 09 (IPS) – Elephant populations are starting to recover in parts of Africa as law enforcement agencies and local communities turn the tide in their long-running battle against wildlife poachers and traffickers.

    But criminal gangs are constantly shifting tactics and exploiting other species, while the greatest threat now is posed by the severe drought devastating swathes of East Africa, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, threatening famine in Somalia, and killing off wildlife and livestock.

    “Poaching of big game is going down in most countries,” says Didi Wamukoya, senior manager of Wildlife Law Enforcement at African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), noting that poaching in Kenya and Tanzania of large iconic species for the international wildlife trade is now very rare. Elephant population numbers in those two countries are now increasing. It is a particularly dramatic turnaround for Tanzania, which lost some 60 percent of its elephants within a decade.

    Elephant population statistics. Credit: AWF
    Elephant population statistics. Credit: AWF

    Wamukoya, who heads AWF’s capacity training of law enforcement agencies to prosecute cases of wildlife trafficking, warns that criminals adapt. While elephants are faring better – also in part because major markets such as China have banned domestic trade in ivory — gangs trafficking to Asia are switching to other species, such as lions for their body parts, pangolins, and abalone.

    Pangolins, which have been identified as a potential source of coronaviruses, are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world.

    Combating cybercrime and enhancing the use of digital evidence in courts have become a key elements of AWF’s work as criminals adapted to Covid-19 lockdowns. “Criminals live in society and are part of us, and they moved online too,” Wamukoya told IPS in an interview, referring to social media platforms like Facebook used to market animals and wildlife products.

    Much illegal wildlife trade – estimated by international agencies to be worth over $20 billion a year globally – has moved online, but the actual poaching and transporting of smuggled animals and products across borders is the target of AWF’s Canines for Conservation Programme, headed by Will Powell in Arusha, Tanzania.

    Powell and his team train sniffer and tracker dogs as well as their handlers selected from ranger forces across Africa, including most recently Ethiopia.

    “We are having to raise standards of our operations with dogs at airports as smugglers try to adapt and hide stuff in coffee, condoms, screened by tinfoil. First, rhino horn and ivory were the main target but now pangolin scales are the biggest thing, so dogs are trained on this,” he tells IPS.

    Trafficking in lion bones and teeth for Asian ‘medicine’ has also gone up as criminals switch from tigers. “We have to be sure dogs are up to date,” he says.

    Powell previously trained dogs to sniff out 32 kinds of explosives in the Balkans and says over 90 percent of dogs can refind a smell after a year without exposure to it. A new smell can be introduced with just hours of training.

    “Ivory is a range of smells from freshly killed to antique pieces. Dogs are amazing at how they figure it out, for example, by not responding to cow horn but picking out tortoises,” he says.

    A sniffer dog trained by AWF works in a Kenya airport. They are trained in wide ranges of smells and can learn to detect a new one within hours as traffickers constantly change their smuggling methods. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks
    A sniffer dog trained by AWF works in a Kenya airport. They are trained in wide ranges of smells and can learn to detect a new one within hours as traffickers constantly change their smuggling methods. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks

    AWF canine teams currently work in Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya,

    Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda. All staff are local nationals. Since 2020 teams operating in Manyara Ranch and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania have made over 100 finds, resulting in multiple arrests.

    No elephants in the Serengeti have been lost to the international wildlife trade since the canine teams have been in place.

    AWF says that dog units across the six countries have uncovered over 440 caches that led to the arrest of over 500 suspects. Finds have included over 4.6 tonnes of ivory, 22kg of rhino horns, over 220 lion claws, 111 hippo teeth. Seven live pangolins were recovered, and over 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales.

    Dogs and their handlers are also impacting corruption among officials and law enforcement agencies.

    “Dogs are an incorruptible tool,” explains Wamukoya. Dealing with corruption is part of training for rangers and handlers. The transparency of their work and with handlers trained to send photos of seizures high up to authorities, corruption is made more difficult.

    “Corruption is not zero but we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

    Tanzania has been known as the world’s elephant killing fields, but a crackdown on poachers and traffickers in recent years has halted a horrendous decline in elephant numbers. On December 2, a Tanzanian high court sentenced to death 11 people for the murder of Wayne Lotter, a well-known South African conservationist who was shot in a taxi in Dar es Salaam in August 2017. The sentences are likely to be commuted to long jail terms.

    Compiling accurate estimates of Africa-wide populations of various species, including big beasts such as elephants, is widely recognised as extremely difficult. So is the gathering of statistics on poaching and seizures of trafficked animals. The 2020 World Wildlife Crime Report by the UNODC attempts to unpick and track the trends since its 2016 edition, noting that lockdown measures taken by governments during the Covid pandemic forced organised criminal groups to “adapt and quickly change their dynamics”, possibly resulting in “illicit markets going even deeper underground, additional risks for corruption and shifts in market and transportation methodologies in the longer term”.

    It estimates some 157,000 elephants were poached between 2010 and 2018, an average of about 17,000 elephants per year. Data suggests a declining trend in poaching since 2011 but rising again slightly in 2017 and 2018. While elephant numbers are growing in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, there is a worrying decline in ‘critically endangered’ forest elephants in Central and West Africa because of loss of habitat and poaching.

    The UNODC said a “trafficking trend of note” was more mixed seizures containing both ivory and pangolin scales together, singling out a container coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo on its way to Vietnam in July 2019, found to hold nearly 12 tonnes of pangolin scales and almost nine tonnes of ivory. The consignment was declared as timber.

    “It is possible that ivory traffickers, facing declining demand, are taking advantage of their established networks to move a commodity for which demand is growing: pangolin scales,” the report said.

    Save the Rhino International, a conservation charity, says poaching numbers have decreased across Africa since the peak of 1,349 in 2015, but still at least one rhino is killed every day. South Africa holds the majority of the world’s rhinos and has been hardest hit by poachers.

    A consignment of illegally trafficked pangolin scales and elephant ivory seized in Kenya. Pangolins are the most trafficked wildlife mammal in the world. Dogs trained by AWF have sniffed out a total of 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales in six countries. Poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya is now rare as the government, local communities, and NGOs step up efforts to stop wildlife trade. Credit AWF
    A consignment of illegally trafficked pangolin scales and elephant ivory seized in Kenya. Pangolins are the most trafficked wildlife mammal in the world. Dogs trained by AWF have sniffed out a total of 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales in six countries. Poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya is now rare as the government, local communities, and NGOs step up efforts to stop wildlife trade. Credit AWF

    These are hard-fought gains against wildlife traffickers that still need to be reinforced through support and training of law enforcement agencies, greater participation of local communities in conserving wild areas and wildlife, and reforms of legal systems.  Support from governments outside Africa, particularly in Asia, is vital to tackle shifting markets and trading routes.

    But now, the most devastating and immediate threat in East Africa is the worst drought in 40 years. Four consecutive seasons of drought over the past two years have taken a dramatic toll on people, livestock, and wildlife.

    In early November, the Kenya Wildlife Service reported the deaths of 205 elephants, over 500 wildebeest, 381 common zebras, 49 endangered Grevy’s zebras, and 12 giraffes within nine months. Rangers are removing tusks from dead elephants to stop poachers taking them.

    “It is a tragedy despite all our efforts,” says Wamukoya. “Wildlife is not dying for poaching but it is drought and affecting the human population. Pastoral cattle communities no longer have pasture or food. Livestock are dying.”

    IFAW, a global non-profit that helps people and animals thrive together, quoted Evan Mkala, program manager for Kenya’s Amboseli region, as saying he has never seen anything so devastating.  “You can smell the rotting carcasses all around the area.” He says poaching is back on the rise as people lacking food security are desperate for money to buy water and hay for their cattle.

    The Horn of Africa is described by the UN World Food Programme as “a region at the intersection of some of the worst impacts of climate change, recurring humanitarian crises and insecurity”.

    It says over 22 million people face a severe hunger crisis in a swathe of territory covering parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, northern Kenya, and South Sudan. Over one million people have been displaced by drought; seven million livestock have died. A poor start to the October-December rains has initiated a fifth consecutive season of drought.

    “This is the worst drought, the driest it’s ever been in 40 years. So, we are entering a whole new phase in climate change,” said Michael Dunford, WFP regional director for East Africa. “Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the worst of this crisis. If you think 2022 is bad, beware of what is coming in 2023. This means that we need to continue to engage. We cannot give up on the needs of the population in the Horn.”

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  • COP15: Super Reefs Offer Hope for Ocean Recovery Ahead of Biodiversity Summit

    COP15: Super Reefs Offer Hope for Ocean Recovery Ahead of Biodiversity Summit

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    • Opinion by Enric Sala (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Dec 09 (IPS) – Delegates from more than 190 countries are donning thick coats and winter boots to attend the long-delayed UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada—the land of caribou, beluga whales and wolverines.

    They are gathering there to iron out the final details of a global deal for nature that seeks to curtail the extinction of one million species and the destruction of the ecosystems they help create.

    I’ll join the delegates next week. As I trudge through the cold to speak with them about the urgent need to protect nature, I’ll be thinking of the distant southern Line Islands, a remote archipelago in the Republic of Kiribati, a nation known for its desperate battle against rising ocean levels.

    Their islands could be among the first to disappear if we don’t phase off greenhouse gas emissions. But what is less known is that the southern Line Islands provide the strongest evidence that nature protection can foster ocean resilience to global warming.

    In 2009, a team of scientists and I first surveyed the marine ecosystems surrounding the uninhabited southern Line Islands. What we saw was like a world from centuries ago. Fish abundance was off the charts; on every dive, we saw abundant large predators, such as sharks—an uncommon sight for even a seasoned diver. Thriving, living corals covered up to 90 percent of the ocean floor.

    We thought the pristine and untouched corals were saved forever in 2015, when the government of Kiribati protected 12 nautical miles around the islands from fishing and other damaging activities in what is now the Southern Line Islands Marine Protected Area.

    But then disaster struck. The same year, warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures killed half of the corals in the Southern Line Islands. The news discouraged many. If the most pristine reefs were to succumb so rapidly, then all hope is lost. Would they be able to recover?

    To answer that question, we returned to the islands five years after the coral died off. I was terrified before the first dive—unsure if we’d see dead or recovering corals. But when I jumped in the water, I could not believe what I saw.

    Amid massive schools of fish, the corals were back to their former richness – they had recovered completely. If we hadn’t known that half of the corals had recently died, I would have thought that nothing had changed since my first visit. They recovered faster than ever witnessed before, with millions of new coral colonies per square mile taking over the space left by dead corals.

    This miracle was only possible because the reefs were fully protected from fishing. As a result, the fish biomass was enormous. Large parrotfish and schools of hundreds of surgeon fishes kept the reef healthy and seaweed-free by grazing and browsing continuously on the dead coral skeletons. Without seaweed smothering the dead corals, new corals could grow and restore the reef.

    Our discovery on this expedition clearly showed that, when granted full protection from fishing and other extractive activities, marine ecosystems can bounce back. Strong protection yields resilience and replenishes our overfished ocean. We have seen this again and again, in Mexico, Colombia and the United States.

    The Biden administration has pledged to protect more of the ocean under its jurisdiction, and even created a new Special Envoy for Biodiversity, currently held by Monica Medina. But there is more that countries around the world can do at a global and national level.

    That is why I am carrying a strong message to Montreal: we must protect at least 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030, and we must hurry. Protecting a third of the planet is critical for biodiversity and all the benefits we obtain from it, such as oxygen, clean air and water, and food.

    But it is also essential for mitigating climate change. Protecting vital areas in the ocean – and the land – will turn the tide against biodiversity loss and buy us time as the world phases out fossil fuels and replaces them with clean energy sources.

    Ocean health hangs in the balance at COP15 in Montreal. But we’re already running out of time, with the summit delayed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now, less than 8% of the ocean is under any kind of protection, and only 3% is highly protected like in the southern Line Islands.

    We have eight years to quadruple all ocean protections ever achieved in human history. Some countries have announced new ocean protections, but we need a global action plan that targets the top priorities for conservation of the ocean—for the sake of biodiversity, food and climate.

    This means that delegates must roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of ironing out a strong global agreement that doesn’t water down protection goals. There is no more time for podium pledges and empty speeches.

    The only acceptable outcome of COP15 is a strong nature agreement including a serious commitment to protect at least 30% of our ocean by 2030.

    Enric Sala is the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and the founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas. You can listen to an extended conversation about the Southern Line Islands expedition with Sala on the latest episode of the Overheard at National Geographic podcast.

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  • COP15: We are Losing Nature Biodiversity at the Fastest Rate in Human History

    COP15: We are Losing Nature Biodiversity at the Fastest Rate in Human History

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    COP15 will focus on protecting nature and halting biodiversity loss around the world. The Government of Canada’s priority is to ensure the COP15 is a success for nature. There is an urgent need for international partners to halt and reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity worldwide. Credit: Government of Canada
    • Opinion by Amy Fraenkel, Marco Lambertini (bonn / gland)
    • Inter Press Service
    • The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international meeting bringing together governments from around the world, will set out new goals and develop an action plan for nature over the next decade. The conference will be held in Montréal, Quebec, the seat of the UN CBD Secretariat, from December 7 – 19, 2022.

    BONN / GLAND, Dec 07 (IPS) – While climate change dominates the environmental headlines, quieter, startling changes are taking place in nature across the planet – whether in forests, oceans, deserts, rural landscapes, cities and other places where nature is found.

    We are losing nature – biodiversity – at the fastest rate in human history. Around a million species of plants and animals are heading towards extinction. As human activities destroy and degrade more natural places, nature is becoming more and more fragmented.

    Nature provides freshwater, supports food systems and underpins major industries such as forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. Yet our efforts to protect our precious biodiversity have been flawed and woefully inadequate.

    Conservation of nature over the past decades has largely involved the creation of numerous dots of protected areas, which have undoubtedly helped to slow the loss of biodiversity.

    But there are also limits to this approach. Many protected areas are not effectively or equitably managed, some types of ecosystems are underrepresented, and – perhaps most importantly – protected areas are carved out like islands in the middle of otherwise modified, industrial, agricultural and urbanized landscapes.

    In many countries, the majority of wild species of animals live outside of protected areas. Just 9% of the world’s migratory bird species are adequately covered by protected areas across all stages of their annual cycle. Nature simply cannot survive let alone thrive in this deeply compromised and compartmentalized way.

    This December, thousands of representatives of government, scientists, and other stakeholders will descend on Montreal, Canada (December 7-19) for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), where they will try to agree on commitments to address this growing crisis.

    By all accounts, the negotiations have yet to live up to what is desperately needed to correct our current path. If we are to successfully address the biodiversity crisis, we must adopt an approach that can meet conservation goals and also provide food, water, security and livelihoods for a global population of 10 billion people by 2050.

    A key to achieving this lies in what is known as ecological connectivity – which simply put, is about ensuring that our landscapes, seascapes, and river basins allow the movement of species and the flow of natural processes.

    Ecological connectivity is essential to ensure the health and productivity of ecosystems, the survival of wild animals and plant species, and genetic diversity.

    It contributes to climate resilience and adaptation, productive lands and effective restoration. And it is indispensable for the thousands of migratory species of wild animals which need to seasonally move from one habitat to another.

    One of the most talked about ideas in the Montreal negotiations that is gaining significant political traction is the so-called “30 by 30” target, which calls for a minimum of thirty percent of the earth’s lands, freshwater and oceans to be protected or conserved in some form by the year 2030.

    But this numerical target will be far from ambitious unless connectivity is placed at the center of its implementation, and the role and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are recognized.

    Currently, connectivity is captured in the draft target in two small words: “well-connected”. These same words were part of previous global biodiversity targets which by all accounts have failed us.

    To succeed, connectivity must be a litmus test for all area-based conservation measures at the national level. The choice of which areas to protect and conserve needs to be guided by whether they contribute to connectivity – along with appropriate environmental and social safeguards.

    Likewise, urban growth, infrastructure development and other human activities must be planned in ways that achieve social and economic needs while preserving connectivity. And governments need to measure and report their progress in implementing this commitment on connectivity.

    There is one other essential element for achieving ecological connectivity: governments need to cooperate across national borders to protect and conserve shared natural areas and species.

    In 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a remarkable resolution urging all member states to increase international cooperation to improve connectivity of transboundary habitats, avoid their fragmentation and protect species that rely on connected ecosystems.

    Yet alarmingly, the draft to be negotiated in Montreal does not, as yet, include any such commitment for governments to work together to implement the transboundary aspects of the framework.

    The good news is we have the knowledge and ability to turn the current trends around, and to achieve a sustainable relationship with nature. There is enormous momentum on achieving connectivity by governments, companies, the financial sector, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities.

    For instance, the government of Canada is launching a CAD $60 million program for ecological corridors, a company in Sabah Borneo is completing a 14 kilometer reforested wildlife corridor within its plantation.

    Local community citizen scientists in Nepal have found that a corridor they restored is now abuzz with wildlife. It is time to work together to connect nature at a scale that will deliver what we all need – a healthy planet.

    Amy Fraenkel is Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS); and Marco Lambertini is Director General, WWF International.

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  • Governments gather in Canada in bid to boost biodiversity

    Governments gather in Canada in bid to boost biodiversity

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    BOSTON — Amid warnings that biodiversity is in freefall, environmental leaders will gather in Montreal to hammer out measures aimed at shoring up the world’s land and marine ecosystems and coming up with tens of billions of dollars to fund these conservation efforts.

    Delegates from about 190 countries will assemble for nearly two weeks, starting Wednesday, at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, to finalize a framework for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    The proposed framework also calls for reducing the rate of invasive species introduction and establishment by 50%, cutting pesticide use in half and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste.

    The goals — more ambitious than earlier ones that have mostly gone unmet — are expected to be at the heart of the meeting debate. But not far behind will be the issue of finance, with developing countries likely to push for significant monetary commitments before signing onto any deal.

    The draft framework calls for raising $200 billion or 1% of the world’s GDP for conservation by 2030. Another $500 billion annually would come from doing away with the politically-sensitive issue of subsidies that make food and fuel cheaper in many places.

    “The world is crying out for change, watching if governments seek to heal our relationship with the nature, with the planet,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, said at a November news conference. “The current state of biodiversity is dire with the loss of biodiversity at unprecedented levels in our history.”

    The United Nations conference comes less than a month after countries gathered to tackle climate change, agreeing for the first time to pay poor countries for the damage being caused by a warming planet.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    “We’re clearly losing biodiversity all around the world. Our ecosystems — that’s our forests, our grasslands, our wetlands, our coral reefs — are all degrading,” said Robert Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports on climate change and biodiversity loss. “We’re losing species; some are going extinct and others where the population numbers have even halved. We’re losing genetic diversity within species. So we’re clearly affecting biodiversity badly.”

    Brian O’Donnell, the director of the conservation group Campaign for Nature, noted how he had lived during a time of “climate stability and natural abundance” but fears that won’t be the same for his daughter and her generation.

    “We have to ask, ‘Will they be able to have well-functioning natural areas to sustain them? Will they benefit from what nature has given us — storm protection, pollination, clean water, food, abundant wildlife? Or will they face the remnants of a once thriving natural system?’” O’Donnell said.

    “Will the burden of climate breakdown and nature degradation be placed on the young people of the planet, the vulnerable, and the poor, those least responsible for creating the crises?” he asked.

    The challenge, though, will be convincing governments that they should do more to preserve and protect biodiversity and to follow through on their commitments. It will be especially challenging to make the case for cash-strapped developing countries who often need to spend money on more pressing concerns.

    “It would be a big deal if a lot of nations commit to 30%,” said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, referring to the draft goal to protect 30% of the planet for conservation. President Joe Biden has already laid out a vision to conserve 30% of U.S. land and waters by 2030, and then-United Kingdom prime minister Boris Johnson pledged to protect 30% of its land by 2030.

    The track record of this convention is not great.

    Governments agreed to a set of targets back in 2010 but only six of the 20 were partially met by a 2020 deadline. Some experts argue delegates should be exploring why the world fell short on so many targets rather than setting even more ambitious ones.

    “You can agree inside your environmental bubble … and that’s probably what happened back in 2010,” U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press. “But we actually need to have agriculture as part of the conversation. We need to have the financing system as part of the conversation.”

    Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy at Wildlife Conservation Society, said part of the problem is that, so far, there hasn’t been “sufficient accountability and monitoring” of the goals.

    “It’s really important to put in place a monitoring framework,” she said. “Countries need to report. There needs to be accountability … and the targets need to be clear enough that governments can monitor and report on them.”

    Among the goals is to close the estimated $700 billion a year gap in what is spent on biodiversity. Part of the problem, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Monica Medina said, is that the world not putting a sufficient price on nature.

    “We’re desperately trying to change people’s mindset about nature, and the fact that the things that we take for granted really aren’t free and we need to start actually accounting for their value and for the loss of their value … when development happens,” said Medina, who is leading the U.S. delegation at the conference.

    The funding hopes hinge heavily on whether countries reform their subsidies for industries that pollute or otherwise damage the natural world. Delegates face stiff opposition from parties, such as the fossil fuel sector, that would lose out if the reforms were enacted. Environmental ministers also have little influence over whether their countries take this risky step — one that’s been known to spark unrest and bring down governments.

    Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports, said reform is needed. “We need to get rid of subsidies. We need to draw down the subsidies on agriculture, fisheries, mining, energy, transportation, and we need to use that money for sustainable activities,” he said. “There’s probably over a trillion dollars a year in what we call direct subsidy, direct subsidies on fossil fuel, on fisheries, agriculture, etc. There’s also about $4 trillion of indirect subsidies.”

    ———

    Associated Press science writer Christina Larson contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey in Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Nevada toad in geothermal power fight gets endangered status

    Nevada toad in geothermal power fight gets endangered status

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    RENO, Nev. — A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a geothermal power project has officially been declared an endangered species, after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily listed it on a rarely used emergency basis last spring.

    “This ruling makes final the listing of the Dixie Valley toad, ” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a formal rule published Friday in the Federal Register.

    The spectacled, quarter-sized amphibian “is currently at risk of extinction throughout its range primarily due to the approval and commencement of geothermal development,” the service said.

    Other threats to the toad include groundwater pumping, agriculture, climate change, disease and predation from bullfrogs.

    The temporary listing in April marked only the second time in 20 years the agency had taken such emergency action.

    Environmentalists who first petitioned for the listing in 2017 filed a lawsuit in January to block construction of the geothermal power plant on the edge of the wetlands where the toad lives about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno — the only place it’s known to exist on earth.

    “We’re pleased that the Biden administration is taking this essential step to prevent the extinction of an irreplaceable piece of Nevada’s special biodiversity,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin regional director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

    The center and a tribe fighting the project say pumping hot water from beneath the earth’s surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the toad’s survival and sacred to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service cited those concerns in the final listing rule.

    “The best available information indicates that a complete reduction in spring flow and significant reduction of water temperature are plausible outcomes of the geothermal project, and these conditions could result in the species no longer persisting,” the agency said.

    “Because the species occurs in only one spring system and has not experienced habitat changes of the magnitude or pace projected, it may have low potential to adapt to a fast-changing environment,” it said. “We find that threatened species status is not appropriate because the threat of extinction is imminent.”

    Officials for the Reno-based developer, Ormat Technology, said the service’s decision was “not unexpected” given the emergency listing in April. In recent months, the company has been working with the agency and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to modify the project to increase mitigation for the toad and reduce any threat to its survival.

    The lawsuit over the original plan to build two power plants capable of producing 60MW of electricity is currently before U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Reno. It’s already has made one trip to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused in August to grant a temporary injunction blocking construction of the power plant the bureau approved in December 2021.

    But just hours after that ruling, Ormat announced it had agreed to temporarily suspend all work on the project until next year. Then in late October, the bureau and Ormat asked the judge to put the case on hold while Ormat submitted a new plan to build just one geothermal plant, at least for now, that would produce only 12MW of power.

    Ormat Vice President Paul Thomsen said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that the company disagrees with the wildlife service’s “characterization of the potential impacts” of its project as a basis for the listing decision. He said it doesn’t change the ongoing coordination and consultation already under way to minimize and mitigate any of those impacts “regardless of its status under the Endangered Species Act.”

    “Following the emergency listing decision, BLM began consultation with the FWS, and Ormat has sought approval of a smaller project authorization that would provide additional assurances that the species will not be jeopardized by geothermal development,” he said.

    “As a zero-emissions, renewable energy facility, the project will further the Biden administration’s clean energy initiatives and support the fight against climate change,” Thomsen said.

    Donnelly agreed renewable energy is “essential to combating the climate emergency.”

    “But it can’t come at the cost of extinction,” he said.

    The last time endangered species protection first was initiated on an emergency basis was in 2011, when the Obama administration took action on the Miami blue butterfly in southern Florida. Before that, an emergency listing was granted for the California tiger salamander under the Bush administration in 2002.

    Other species listed as endangered on an emergency basis over the years include the California bighorn sheep in the Sierra Nevada in 1999, Steller sea lions in 1990, and the Sacramento River winter migration run of chinook salmon and Mojave desert tortoise, both in 1989.

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  • Nevada toad in geothermal power fight gets endangered status

    Nevada toad in geothermal power fight gets endangered status

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    RENO, Nev. — A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a geothermal power project has officially been declared an endangered species, after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily listed it on a rarely used emergency basis last spring.

    “This ruling makes final the listing of the Dixie Valley toad, ” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a formal rule published Friday in the Federal Register.

    The spectacled, quarter-sized amphibian “is currently at risk of extinction throughout its range primarily due to the approval and commencement of geothermal development,” the service said.

    Other threats to the toad include groundwater pumping, agriculture, climate change, disease and predation from bullfrogs.

    The temporary listing in April marked only the second time in 20 years the agency had taken such emergency action.

    Environmentalists who first petitioned for the listing in 2017 filed a lawsuit in January to block construction of the geothermal power plant on the edge of the wetlands where the toad lives about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno — the only place it’s known to exist on earth.

    “We’re pleased that the Biden administration is taking this essential step to prevent the extinction of an irreplaceable piece of Nevada’s special biodiversity,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin regional director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

    The center and a tribe fighting the project say pumping hot water from beneath the earth’s surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the toad’s survival and sacred to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service cited those concerns in the final listing rule.

    “The best available information indicates that a complete reduction in spring flow and significant reduction of water temperature are plausible outcomes of the geothermal project, and these conditions could result in the species no longer persisting,” the agency said.

    “Because the species occurs in only one spring system and has not experienced habitat changes of the magnitude or pace projected, it may have low potential to adapt to a fast-changing environment,” it said. “We find that threatened species status is not appropriate because the threat of extinction is imminent.”

    Officials for the Reno-based developer, Ormat Technology, said the service’s decision was “not unexpected” given the emergency listing in April. In recent months, the company has been working with the agency and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to modify the project to increase mitigation for the toad and reduce any threat to its survival.

    The lawsuit over the original plan to build two power plants capable of producing 60MW of electricity is currently before U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Reno. It’s already has made one trip to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused in August to grant a temporary injunction blocking construction of the power plant the bureau approved in December 2021.

    But just hours after that ruling, Ormat announced it had agreed to temporarily suspend all work on the project until next year. Then in late October, the bureau and Ormat asked the judge to put the case on hold while Ormat submitted a new plan to build just one geothermal plant, at least for now, that would produce only 12MW of power.

    Ormat Vice President Paul Thomsen said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that the company disagrees with the wildlife service’s “characterization of the potential impacts” of its project as a basis for the listing decision. He said it doesn’t change the ongoing coordination and consultation already under way to minimize and mitigate any of those impacts “regardless of its status under the Endangered Species Act.”

    “Following the emergency listing decision, BLM began consultation with the FWS, and Ormat has sought approval of a smaller project authorization that would provide additional assurances that the species will not be jeopardized by geothermal development,” he said.

    “As a zero-emissions, renewable energy facility, the project will further the Biden administration’s clean energy initiatives and support the fight against climate change,” Thomsen said.

    Donnelly agreed renewable energy is “essential to combating the climate emergency.”

    “But it can’t come at the cost of extinction,” he said.

    The last time endangered species protection first was initiated on an emergency basis was in 2011, when the Obama administration took action on the Miami blue butterfly in southern Florida. Before that, an emergency listing was granted for the California tiger salamander under the Bush administration in 2002.

    Other species listed as endangered on an emergency basis over the years include the California bighorn sheep in the Sierra Nevada in 1999, Steller sea lions in 1990, and the Sacramento River winter migration run of chinook salmon and Mojave desert tortoise, both in 1989.

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  • Endangered listing for Nevada toad in geothermal power fight

    Endangered listing for Nevada toad in geothermal power fight

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    RENO, Nev. — A tiny Nevada toad at the center of a legal battle over a geothermal power project has officially been declared an endangered species after U.S. wildlife officials temporarily listed it on a rarely-used emergency basis last spring.

    “This ruling makes final the listing of the Dixie Valley toad,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a formal rule published Friday in the Federal Register.

    The spectacled, quarter-sized amphibian “is currently at risk of extinction throughout its range primarily due to the approval and commencement of geothermal development,” the service said.

    Other threats to the toad include groundwater pumping, agriculture, climate change, disease and predation from bullfrogs.

    The temporary listing in April marked only the second time in 20 years the agency had taken such emergency action.

    Environmentalists who first petitioned for the listing in 2017 filed a lawsuit in January to block construction of the geothermal power plant on the edge of the wetlands where the toad lives about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno — the only place it’s known to exist on earth.

    “We’re pleased that the Biden administration is taking this essential step to prevent the extinction of an irreplaceable piece of Nevada’s special biodiversity,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin regional director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

    The center and a tribe fighting the project say pumping hot water from beneath the earth’s surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the toad’s survival and sacred to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service cited those concerns in the final listing rule.

    “The best available information indicates that a complete reduction in spring flow and significant reduction of water temperature are plausible outcomes of the geothermal project, and these conditions could result in the species no longer persisting,” the agency said.

    “Because the species occurs in only one spring system and has not experienced habitat changes of the magnitude or pace projected, it may have low potential to adapt to a fast-changing environment,” it said. “We find that threatened species status is not appropriate because the threat of extinction is imminent.”

    Officials for the Reno-based developer, Ormat Technology, said the service’s decision was “not unexpected” given the emergency listing in April. In recent months, the company has been been working with the agency and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to modify the project to increase mitigation for the toad and reduce any threat to its survival.

    The lawsuit over the original plan to build two power plants capable of producing 60MW of electricity is currently before U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Reno. It’s already has made one trip to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused in August to grant a temporary injunction blocking construction of the power plant the bureau approved in December 2021.

    But just hours after that ruling, Ormat announced it had agreed to temporarily suspend all work on the project until next year. Then in late October, the bureau and Ormat asked the judge to put the case on hold while Ormat submitted a new plan to build just one geothermal plant, at least for now, that would produce only 12MW of power.

    Ormat Vice President Paul Thomsen said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that the company disagrees with the wildlife service’s “characterization of the potential impacts” of its project as a basis for the listing decision. He said it doesn’t change the ongoing coordination and consultation already under way to minimize and mitigate any of those impacts “regardless of its status under the Endangered Species Act.”

    “Following the emergency listing decision, BLM began consultation with the FWS, and Ormat has sought approval of a smaller project authorization that would provide additional assurances that the species will not be jeopardized by geothermal development,” he said.

    “As a zero-emissions, renewable energy facility, the project will further the Biden administration’s clean energy initiatives and support the fight against climate change,” Thomsen said.

    Donnelly agreed renewable energy is “essential to combating the climate emergency.”

    “But it can’t come at the cost of extinction,” he said.

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  • Utility recommends natural gas plant despite objections

    Utility recommends natural gas plant despite objections

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    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s largest public utility on Friday recommended replacing an aging coal burning power plant with natural gas, ignoring calls for the Tennessee Valley Authority to speed its transition to renewable energy.

    TVA announced the completion of its environmental impact statement for replacing the Cumberland Fossil Plant near Cumberland City, Tennessee. The federally owned utility considered replacing the two coal-fired turbines there with solar panels but instead recommended a combined-cycle natural gas plant.

    Solar and battery storage would be more costly, requiring transmission upgrades that could take a decade to complete, according to a news release from TVA. The decision still needs the approval of TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash, who has previously spoken in favor of natural gas.

    “Our focus is on ensuring that we provide affordable, reliable, resilient, and clean energy for generations to come,” Lyash said in the news release.

    TVA’s plan would idle one unit of the coal plant by the end of 2026 and the second by the end of 2028. The utility says a natural gas plant there could be built and operational by 2026, with construction beginning as early as summer 2023.

    The announcement drew backlash from groups that include the Center for Biological Diversity.

    “TVA’s plan to build a new gas plant and pipeline in the midst of climate catastrophe is reckless,” Gaby Sarri-Tobar, with the group’s energy justice program, said in a statement. “This is a slap in the face to the 10 million customers who rely on TVA and makes a mockery of the Biden administration’s clean energy pledges.”

    President Joe Biden has said he wants a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035. TVA has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035, compared with 2005 levels.

    Scientists, meanwhile, have warned that failing to meet Biden’s 2035 target will only lead to more intense and more frequent extreme weather events, as well as droughts, floods and wildfires. Teams of meteorologists across the world have predicted there is nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit a global warming temperature threshold international agreements are trying to prevent within the next five years.

    The TVA board of directors last year delegated any decision on Cumberland’s replacement to Lyash. He has said TVA will not be able to meet the 100% reduction goal without technological advances in energy storage, carbon capture and small modular nuclear reactors. The utility has its own aspirational goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

    Those opposing the construction of a new gas plant have pointed out it will likely be around for decades, long past the 2035 decarbonization goal. They have also criticized TVA for not considering options that could decrease the demand for new electricity like improved energy efficiency and demand response — which helps customers change their usage patterns to flatten peak demand periods.

    U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has emerged in legislative hearings as a key critic of TVA. He said the utility should not be moving forward on the Cumberland decision while Biden’s nominees for its board await Senate confirmation. Their installation would create a new board majority.

    “The Tennessee Valley Authority is showing yet again that it is willing to lock its customers into expensive and volatile fossil fuel generation, rather than take this opportunity to adopt reliable renewable energy,” Markey said in a statement Friday. “As the largest public power company in the country, the TVA has a responsibility to be a leader, not a laggard, in delivering clean, affordable power to its customers.”

    Meanwhile, a permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is still pending for a 32-mile (51-kilometer) natural gas pipeline branch to link to the proposed new Cumberland plant. Kinder Morgan Inc. said one of its subsidiaries filed the application in July. Pending regulatory approval, construction would begin in August 2024, with an expected September 2025 for the pipeline to be in service, the company said.

    TVA provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of the surrounding states of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

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  • For this Caribbean Island, Ozone Protection is a Year-Round Mission

    For this Caribbean Island, Ozone Protection is a Year-Round Mission

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    Discarded refrigerators. Scientists continue to stress the need for proper disposal of old fridges as some emit ozone-destroying chemicals. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS
    • by Alison Kentish (dominica)
    • Inter Press Service

    DOMINICA, Nov 24 (IPS) – The world celebrates the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer once a year, but for Saint Lucia, the annual month-long observance highlights year-round work on ozone protection.For countries across the globe, September 16th is a day to reflect on progress in protecting the ozone layer. The United Nations designated day for the preservation of the ozone layer is marked by speeches, and educational and social media campaigns.

    For the Caribbean Island of Saint Lucia, one day is not sufficient to highlight the gains made or to celebrate the 1987 signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer, a landmark, universally ratified treaty.

    For that country, Ozone ‘day’ caps a month-long observance, and ozone protection is a year-round effort.

    “The National Ozone Unit was established in 1997 and is responsible for coordinating our activities and programmes to ensure that we meet our targets under the Montreal Protocol,” Sustainable Development and Environment Officer in Saint Lucia’s Department of Sustainable Development Kasha Jn Baptiste told IPS.

    “Our main obligation is reporting on our progress with the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances and coordinating relevant projects. Other duties include education and awareness, technician training, implementation and enforcement of legislation, and coordinating partners to ensure that we meet our obligations under the convention. This is a year-round job.”

    Following summer activities with youth aged 15-18, the Department of Sustainable Development held a month-long observance in September. Events included media appearances and updates on Saint Lucia’s progress toward achieving the model protocol. The Department has held awareness events at all school levels, with more activities scheduled for October.

    It is part of a year-round effort to educate the public and put youth at the center of ozone protection.

    “One of the most important ways to continue to highlight the ozone layer is through increased awareness. We started with ozone day and usually concentrated on education activities around that day, but we realised that we must have activities year-round. We are also encouraging the teaching of ozone issues as part of our science curriculum,” said Jn Baptiste, who is the Focal Point for the Montreal Protocol in Saint Lucia.

    Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Sector

    A major component of maintaining compliance with the Montreal Protocol involves stringent monitoring of the refrigeration and air conditioning sector. This includes refrigerants such as chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, a group of ozone-depleting chemicals that have been banned but remain in older fridge and air condition models.

    In Saint Lucia, the Sustainable Development Department conducts year-round training for technicians.

    “The refrigeration air conditioning sector is where we use the bulk of those products and technicians are the ones servicing these items. We want them to be aware of what is happening, how the sector is transitioning, and what new alternatives are available,” Jn Baptiste told IPS.

    In a 2016 amendment to the Montreal Protocol, nations agreed to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which were being used as substitutes to CFCs. Known as the Kigali Amendment, its signatories agreed that these HFCs represent powerful greenhouses gases (hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon) and contribute to climate change.

    “What is really important now is that countries like Saint Lucia have targets on the Montreal Protocol. We have been saying ‘HFC-free by 2030,’ so in October, Saint Lucia will launch phase two of our HPMP, the HFC Phase Out Management Plan. That will include activities needed to help us achieve that 2030 target. We will expand on what has been done in the past and include activities for training of technicians.”

    Legislative changes

    Officials are currently reviewing the country’s legislation to ensure compliance with Kigali Amendment targets.

    “Our legislation needs to be updated to expand our licensing and quota system to include HFCs so that we can target these gases and control them under the Montreal Protocol,” Jn. Baptiste said.

    “What is interesting is that the HFC phase-down can contribute to prevention of 0.4 degrees of warming by the end of the century. That’s important. 0.4 degrees is small, but we know that the Paris Agreement targets a 1.5 degree. The Kigali Amendment, if countries implement it, will be doing some of the work of the climate agreement. The Montreal Protocol started off with the goal of preserving the ozone layer, but it has evolved to address climate change issues – global warming issues.”

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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

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  • Lawsuit looms over tiny rare fish in drought-stricken West

    Lawsuit looms over tiny rare fish in drought-stricken West

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    RENO, Nev. — Conservationists have notified U.S. wildlife officials that they will sue over delinquent decisions related to protections for two rare fish species that are threatened by groundwater pumping in the drought-stricken West.

    The Center for Biological Diversity sent a formal notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service last week over the Fish Lake Valley tui chub near the California-Nevada line and the least chub in southwest Utah.

    Utah and Nevada are the driest states in the country, and the planned lawsuits are among the many fronts on which conservationists are battling water districts and the users they cater to over plans to siphon water to either maintain or expand consumption.

    The outcome of the court fights will likely have major implications for states’ parched valleys and the people and species that inhabit them.

    The group seeking federal listings under the Endangered Species Act says the high-desert springs where the minnows live are threatened by water allocations for traditional agricultural use as well as urban development plans.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service belatedly concluded in August there was enough evidence the tui chub in Nevada was at risk of extinction — primarily due to over-pumping of water for farms and ranches — to warrant a yearlong review to determine if it should be listed.

    The so-called 90-day finding had been due in June 2021, three months after the center petitioned for the listing. The center also noted in its Nov. 15 letter to the agency that the yearlong review should have been done in March.

    “The Fish Lake Valley tui chub is staring extinction in the face because of the catastrophic overuse of groundwater in its native range,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    Service spokesperson Laury Marshall said in an email Wednesday to The Associated Press that the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. Agency officials referred AP to the August finding that concluded the initial listing petition “presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing the Fish Lake Valley tui chub as an endangered or threatened species may be warranted.”

    The only place in the world that the 5-inch-long, olive-colored tui chub still exists is in a basin in Esmeralda County between Reno and Las Vegas.

    Lake Valley’s groundwater levels have declined as much as 2.5 feet (76 centimeters) per year over the past half-century, causing a cumulative drawdown of more than 75 feet (23 meters) since 1973, the listing petition said.

    Donnelly said active geothermal leases and lithium claims nearby, if developed, also could put the springs at risk.

    In Utah, more than half the remaining wild populations of the least chub are jeopardized by proposed groundwater pumping to support growth in Cedar City, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.

    The group petitioned to list that 2-inch-long, gold-colored minnow in September 2021, citing threats posed by the Pine Valley Water Supply Project. An initial finding and 12-month review for that species also are past due, the group said.

    Once widely distributed in Utah’s Bonneville Basin, the least chub has only seven remaining wild populations and about a dozen refuge populations where it’s been reintroduced.

    “Significant habitat loss and alteration, as well as competition and predation from non-native species, have driven this species close to extinction,” the center wrote.

    Officials from Utah’s Central Iron County Water Conservancy District want to spend roughly $260 million to lay about 70 miles (110 kilometers) of buried pipes to transport water from an aquifer below the Pine Valley, an undeveloped, rural swath north of the district’s population center in Cedar City. They say limits on their local groundwater supply and an influx of new residents require they diversify their water supply to prepare for the future.

    District General Manager Paul Monroe said a review of groundwater assessments found any impacts on the springs would be “less than significant.”

    The project has been opposed for decades by neighboring Beaver County, Native American tribes, some ranchers and Nevada counties worried that siphoning water from Pine Valley will affect nearby aquifers.

    “Endangered Species Act protection would ensure the Pine Valley water grab doesn’t jeopardize the survival of this tiny native Utah fish,” said Krista Kemppinen, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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