Thomson Reuters Foundation

June 16, 2021
By now you've probably heard of COP26 - the shorthand name for the next major U.N. climate summit, rescheduled for November in Glasgow after being delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic.

But another big "Convention of the Parties" (COP) is taking place a month earlier - one that is far less talked about but also critically important. That is COP15: the U.N. biodiversity summit planned for China in October.

Efforts to protect the natural world have yet to achieve the same high profile as those to limit climate change, despite advocacy by naturalist David Attenborough and many others.

Losses of crucial ecosystems like rainforests and wetlands, as well as animal species, have accelerated even as governments, businesses, financiers and conservation groups seek effective ways to protect and restore more of the Earth's land and seas.

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Vox

June 11, 2021
In a lush swath of tropical forest on the eastern coast of Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines, you can glimpse the brilliant plumage of the rare rufous-lored kingfisher or — if you’re lucky — hear the shrill cry of the large Philippine eagle, a critically endangered species.

Wildlife is abundant here, but not because the region was left untouched in a protected area, or conserved by an international environmental organization. It’s because the territory known as Pangasananan has been occupied for centuries by the Manobo people, who have long relied on the land to cultivate crops, hunt and fish, and gather herbs. They use a number of techniques to conserve the land, from restricting access to sacred areas to designating wildlife sanctuaries and an offseason for hunting, owing in part to a traditional belief that nature and its resources are guarded by spirits.

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The Manila Times

June 11, 2021
As unprecedented changes and pressing issues continue to impact both nature and the biodiversity of the planet, a growing global effort is under way to protect 30 percent of the Earth's land and oceans - the 30x30 Wyss Campaign for Nature championed by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), an intergovernmental coalition of more than 60 countries around the world co-chaired by Costa Rica, France and the UK. It calls on other nations, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), to commit to this definite target for the benefit of the environment, climate, economy and society.

As of this moment, only Cambodia has committed to this target as the first HAC member from the Asean region. The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei and Singapore should all follow suit and other neighboring Asian members such as Japan, Pakistan and the Maldives. Dr. Tony Laviña, a former environment undersecretary, explains that such hesitation to commit to the 30x30 target is based more on the fear of unknown, of what committing to this target might mean for economies and livelihoods as well as how it will impact specific sectors like logging, mining and palm oil industries.

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Wired

June 10, 2021
Humanity is struggling to contain two compounding crises: skyrocketing global temperatures and plummeting biodiversity. But people tend to tackle each problem on its own, for instance deploying green energies and carbon-eating machines, while roping off ecosystems to preserve them. But in a new report, 50 scientists from around the world argue that treating each crisis in isolation means missing out on two-fer solutions that resolve both. Humanity can't solve one without also solving the other.

The report is the product of a four-day virtual workshop attended by researchers of all stripes, and is a collaboration between the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In light of the Paris Agreement, it’s meant to provide guidance on how campaigns that address biodiversity might also address climate change, and vice versa.

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New York Times

Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming and protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant and animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon.

What to do?

Unless the world stops treating climate change and biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, according to a report issued Thursday by researchers from two leading international scientific panels.

“These two topics are more deeply intertwined than originally thought,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chairman of the scientific steering committee that produced the report. They are also inextricably tied to human well being. But global policies usually target one or the other, leading to unintended consequences.”

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Triple Pundit

June 8, 2021
From fishermen to fish to reefs, the theme of this year’s United Nations World Oceans Day, “Life and Livelihoods,” connects to just about every aspect of ocean health and coastal economies. After all, ocean health affects industries and flood resilience our ability to sequester carbon. But how do we secure ocean health? A global community of scientists agree that the foolproof way to support ecosystems and their services is to conserve them.

Research backs them up. A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature outlines three main benefits to protecting ocean areas: preserving biodiversity, increasing the yield of fisheries and storing marine carbon. Global coordination, as opposed to independent national action, authors say, has the potential to double the effectiveness of conservation efforts. The body of research backing up the economic benefits of marine protected areas (MPAs) is broad. One meta-analysis found a 670 percent increase in the biomass of whole fish assemblages in no-take marine reserves compared to unprotected areas outside their boundaries.

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PR Newswire

June 8, 2021
The Wyss Foundation today announced a commitment of up to $108M to African Parks, a South African based conservation NGO that manages protected areas on behalf of governments across the continent. This transformational commitment is part of Mr. Hansjorg Wyss's visionary Wyss Campaign for Nature, a $1B investment in helping nations, NGO's and indigenous communities conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 and is one of the largest single gifts ever made to the conservation of Protected Areas in Africa.

The Foundation's commitment will be made over an initial five-year period to support up to half of the annual budgets of nine existing parks currently under African Parks' management in Angola, Benin, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe; as well as support the addition of five new parks (which are yet to be identified) and up to two-thirds of their annual budgets. The funding for these new parks will come with a matching requirement with the goal of enticing new and diversified funders to provide needed stability for these landscapes. The grant overall serves a critical need in long-term and sustainable, multi-year financing, providing critical support for a park's operating budget, which can vary between $1.5M to $4M per year.

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Yale 360

June 3, 2021
In 1908 the U.S. government seized some 18,000 acres of land from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to create the National Bison Range in the heart of their reservation in the mountain-ringed Mission Valley of western Montana.

While the goal of protecting the remnants of America’s once-plentiful bison was worthy, for the last century the federal facility has been a symbol to the tribes here of the injustices forced upon them by the government, and they have long fought to get the bison range returned.

Last December their patience paid off: President Donald Trump signed legislation that began the process of returning the range to the Salish and Kootenai.

Now the tribes are managing the range’s bison and are also helping, through co-management, to manage bison that leave Yellowstone National Park to graze on U.S. Forest Service land. Their Native American management approach is steeped in the close, almost familial, relationship with the animal that once provided food, clothes, shelter — virtually everything their people needed.

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E&E News

June 2, 2021
Some proponents of a concerted push to protect large swaths of natural spaces across the country are raising concerns that the Biden administration's new conservation proposal is too timid, failing to lay out a plan to truly preserve vulnerable lands and waters.

As the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Interior Department and other agencies begin figuring out the details of the effort — rolled out earlier this month as the "America the Beautiful" initiative — these environmentalists argue that in trying to build consensus around the idea of ramping up conservation, the administration is essentially trading away scientific integrity.

"It's a very big deal that we have a president that recognizes and is willing to take action to preserve nature and address the catastrophic extinction crisis. I don't want to gloss over that. That is huge," said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Public Lands Program.

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Wired

May 25, 2021
The biggest hint nature ever gave humanity was when it sequestered fossil fuels underground, locking their carbon away from the atmosphere. Only rarely, like when a massive volcano fires a layer of coal into the sky, does that carbon escape its confines to dramatically warm the planet.

But such catastrophes hint at a powerful weapon for fighting climate change: Let nature do its carbon-sequestering thing. By restoring forests and wetlands, humanity can bolster the natural processes that trap atmospheric carbon in vegetation. As long as it all doesn’t catch on fire (or a volcano doesn’t blow it up), such “nature-based solutions,” as climate scientists call them, can help slow global warming.

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Thomson Reuters

May 21, 2021
Seven of the world's most nature-rich national parks, from Angola to Bolivia and Indonesia, are set to receive $1 million annually for the next 15 years to help protect and manage their wildlife and plant species.

These "legacy landscapes" - so-called because of their natural beauty and importance in preserving the planet's fast-shrinking biodiversity - will benefit from a global fund aiming to attract $1 billion from governments and businesses this decade.

So far, Germany has made a contribution of nearly $100 million, with several private foundations pledging another $35 million.

France has also said it will put money next year into the Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF), which plans to expand support to at least 30 protected areas if it reaches its $1 billion target this decade.

But conservation experts say far more finance is needed to reverse a catastrophic decline in biodiversity, with scientists warning in 2019 that about a million animals and plant species are at risk of extinction due to human activities.

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Campaign for Nature

May 22, 2021
On the occasion of World Biodiversity Day, a growing number of elected officials, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and other experts are calling on ASEAN leaders to endorse ambitious proposals to protect biodiversity and advance Indigenous rights through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

After a year-long delay, the official negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity have resumed this month and are scheduled to conclude in Kunming, China this October. As delegates from 196 countries--including all of the ASEAN member states--participate in the negotiations, eyes are on the ASEAN region. As one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, ASEAN member states have a crucial role to play in developing a successful global strategy to safeguard biodiversity. ASEAN is a leader of the Like-Minded Megadiverse  Countries that champion conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity since its inception in 2002 and harbours 70% of global biodiversity.

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The Guardian

May 19, 2021
An area greater than the land mass of Russia has been added to the world’s network of national parks and conservation areas since 2010, amid growing pressure to protect nature.

As of today, about 17% of land and inland water ecosystems and 8% of marine areas are within formal protected areas, with the total coverage increasing by 42% since the beginning of the last decade, according to the Protected Planet report by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

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Campaign For Nature

May 19, 2021
Today, the United Nations and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched a final report card on progress towards Aichi Target 11 – the global 10-year target on protected and conserved areas that expired in 2020. 

The report finds that the size of protected areas has grown significantly, with the 17% target for land-based conservation and the 10% goal for ocean conservation nearly met. This progress demonstrates the ability of protected area targets to help drive action from countries around the world, and the report authors make it clear that more protections are needed moving forward in order to help address the crisis of global biodiversity loss. They note that there are still many areas important for biodiversity and ecosystem services that lack protection, and they highlight that the entire network of protected and conserved areas must be more effectively managed.  

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Nature

May 12, 2021
Projects that manage, protect and restore ecosystems are widely viewed as win–win strategies for addressing two of this century’s biggest global challenges: climate change and biodiversity loss. Yet the potential contribution of such nature-based solutions to mitigating climate change remains controversial.

Decision-makers urgently need to know: what role do nature-based solutions have in the race to net-zero emissions and stop further global temperature increases?

Analyses of nature-based solutions often focus on how much carbon they can remove from the atmosphere. Here, we provide a new perspective by modelling how these solutions will affect global temperatures — a crucial metric as humanity attempts to limit global warming.

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