Radio Canada International

September 28, 2020
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on the world’s largest countries to commit to protecting 30 per cent of their lands and waters to stop the loss of the planet’s biodiversity.

Trudeau made that call today at a special session of the United Nations via video conference on the sidelines of the virtual General Assembly meeting.

Trudeau was taking part in the Leaders Event for Nature and People that also featured the leaders of Costa Rica and Norway.

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Euronews

September 28, 2020
The UK has pledged to protect 30 per cent of its land by 2030, in a bid to safeguard biodiversity.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is formalising this commitment today as part of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, a global campaign backed by heads of state from around the world. Over 60 world leaders have signed the pledge, committing to fight pollution, eliminate plastic waste from the oceans, and encourage sustainable economic policies.

The UK is one of the first nations to outline its plan for meeting the 30x30 goal launched by the Campaign for Nature earlier this year. The campaign calls for 30 per cent of the planet’s land to be designated as a protected area in order to halt wildlife loss, as well as boost the global economy.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

September 28, 2020
Protecting the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems, and repairing the damage done to them by humans will take about $700 billion a year in extra funding over the next decade, requiring a huge boost in investment by governments and business, officials said on Monday.

The call came as Britain and Canada joined a coalition of countries that have promised to protect 30% of their land and seas by 2030 to stem "catastrophic" biodiversity loss.

The two nations also signed up to a separate pledge, uniting 70 countries and the European Union, to reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030 through a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling pollution and deforestation, and boosting financing to safeguard the planet, among other commitments.

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The Guardian

September 27, 2020
World leaders have pledged to clamp down on pollution, embrace sustainable economic systems and eliminate the dumping of plastic waste in oceans by the middle of the century as part of “meaningful action” to halt the destruction of nature on Earth.

Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson are among 64 leaders from five continents warning that humanity is in a state of planetary emergency due to the climate crisis and the rampant destruction of life-sustaining ecosystems. To restore the balance with nature, governments and the European Union have made a 10-point pledge to counteract the damage to systems that underpin human health and wellbeing.

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Campaign For Nature

September 23, 2020
A complement to the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, the second Local Biodiversity Outlooks assesses the views and contributions of Indigenous and Local Communities (IPLCs) to the conservation of biodiversity, finding their their vital role has been “disregarded,” to date, marking a “missed opportunity” as the world seeks to address the dual challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Project Syndicate

September 22, 2020
A growing body of evidence shows that lands and waters that are owned, managed, and used by indigenous peoples and local communities are much healthier than those that aren’t. Governments and multilateral bodies owe it to everyone to engage them in discussions about protecting biodiversity.

In May 2019, a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services painted a bleak picture of our planet’s health. Around one million animal and plant species – more than ever before in human history – are now threatened with extinction, many within decades. Pollution is proliferating, land degradation is accelerating, and we are nowhere near on track to achieve global goals for protecting biodiversity and achieving sustainability.

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The Guardian

September 18, 2020

Sir David Attenborough’s soothing, matter-of-fact narrations have brought the natural world to our living rooms for nearly seven decades and counting. From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the jungles of central Africa, the 94-year-old broadcaster has dazzled and delighted millions with tales of life on Earth – mostly pristine and untouched, according to the images on our screens. But this autumn Attenborough has returned with a different message: nature is collapsing around us.

“We are facing a crisis. One that has consequences for us all. It threatens our ability to feed ourselves, to control our climate. It even puts us at greater risk of pandemic diseases such as Covid-19,” he warned in Extinction: The Facts on BBC One primetime, receiving five-star reviews.

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Campaign For Nature

September 17, 2020
Today, The Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy and Cornell University released a major new report, “Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap.” This is the most in-depth and comprehensive analysis ever completed about biodiversity financing. Timed in conjunction with the run-up to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the report highlights the total investment needed to fund biodiversity conservation around the world and identifies the actions that must be taken by the public and private sector in order to reach that level of investment.

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Campaign for Nature

September 15, 2020
The Fifth edition of the United Nations Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-5) released today paints a painful picture of the intensifying collapse of the natural world with none of the targets set in Aichi ten years ago fully met. The report makes clear that this unprecedented failure is due to human pressure on our natural world and the lack of political prioritization and funding to protect, preserve and restore biodiversity and the ecosystem services that we rely on to survive. 

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The Guardian

September 9, 2020
Wildlife populations are in freefall around the world, driven by human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture, according to a major new assessment of the abundance of life on Earth.

On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London (ZSL)’s biennial Living Planet Report 2020. Two years ago, the figure stood at 60%.

The research is one of the most comprehensive assessments of global biodiversity available and was complied by 134 experts from around the world. It found that from the rainforests of central America to the Pacific Ocean, nature is being exploited and destroyed by humans on a scale never previously recorded.

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IISD

September 3, 2020
IUCN has launched the first-ever Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions. The Standard guides users through Nature-based Solutions (NbS) applications and sets benchmarks for their progress.

Launched on 23 July 2020, the IUCN Global Standard for NbS consists of eight criteria and associated indicators that address considerations related to biodiversity, economy, and society, as well as resilient project management. IUCN has indicated that a governing body of the Standard will revise the criteria every four years.

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New Straits Times

September 2, 2020
Roads encroach on animal habitats and populations, posing a hazard to wildlife. 

In Malaysia, as elsewhere, the rise in roadkill incidents contributes to biodiversity loss, which is a threat to the wellbeing of humans every bit as dangerous as climate change.

The solution includes safe corridors of transit between habitat areas — passages and bridges — and better driving habits. 

On an exceptionally large scale, we need to ensure the connectivity between national and international protected areas and animal habitats.

A global effort to conserve biodiversity got underway recently. Campaign for Nature (CFN) called on governments worldwide to protect at least 30 per cent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030, deemed by scientists to be the minimum area needed to halt biodiversity loss. 

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Reuters

September 1, 2020
It’s not an overstatement to say that our oceans are in crisis. Warming waters and ocean acidification caused by greenhouse gas emissions; fertiliser run-off creating dead zones where there’s no oxygen for life to survive, and over-fishing are all contributing to the destruction of biodiversity and loss of the ocean’s ability to mitigate climate change by storing carbon.

Research done for the High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy highlights the crucial role played by oceans, which account for 70% of the planet’s surface. It sets out ocean-based climate action that will cumulatively contribute as much as 21% of the emissions reduction needed to put us on a 1.5 degree pathway. These include sustainable seafood production; ocean-based renewable energies; the greening of shipping, and the conservation of mangroves and seagrass that store carbon.

To meet the goals of the Paris climate change agreement, a big proportion of the ocean has to be returned to a natural state, according to the Global Deal for Nature, a paper that sets a science-based target of protecting at least 30% of land and oceans by 2030.

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The Business Times

August 29, 2020
When we hear the names "Rio", "Cartagena", "Nagoya" or "Aichi" we think about cities but not about biodiversity. When we hear the word "coronavirus" all of us have many associations - but few of us would think immediately about biodiversity either. This is a missed opportunity.

Coronavirus will not be a one-off event. The number and diversity of epidemic events has been increasing over the past 30 years and the WHO reckons that over 60 per cent of infectious diseases reported globally have been "zoonotic" in nature, meaning that they were spread from animals to humans - as appears to have been the case with the current coronavirus. Not surprising, powerful global changes, such as growth in connectivity, growth of urbanisation with high-density living, increased deforestation as well as growing displacement of people and climate change, reinforce this development.

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Independent.ie

August 19, 2020
The Earth is running a high fever, not only from the Covid-19 pandemic but from climate change. This summer, Svalbard experienced its highest-ever recorded temperatures, causing the Arctic archipelago's glaciers to shrink away into growing turquoise meltwaters. And night sweats from the heavy monsoons that pummelled the foothills of the Himalayas resulted in floods and the displacement of millions.

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