Reverse Nature’s Decline or There is No Future, UN Says

The United Nations’ biodiversity chief says global talks under way in Montreal are the “last chance” to reverse the destruction of the natural world. “Biodiversity is the foundation of life. Without it, there is no life,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science programme. But she is worried about the amount of work still needed for the 196 countries to reach an agreement. The Global Biodiversity Framework, if agreed, represents fundamental change. It is the nature equivalent of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to limit global temperature rise and arrest the climate crisis.

“The targets in that [Global Biodiversity Framework] are a roadmap to, by 2030, reverse and halt the loss of biodiversity, which has reached rates unprecedented in the history of humankind” Ms Mrema said. The list of 20 targets includes quantifiable aims, such as a call for 30% of the Earth’s land and sea to be conserved through the establishment of protected areas. But it also includes trickier political issues, such as protecting the rights and access of indigenous people to their territories. Indigenous communities are custodians of an estimated 85% of the world’s biodiversity — and where they have rights and access, it is significantly better protected from degradation and damage.