Thomson Reuters

September 22, 2021
A group of private donors pledged a record $5 billion to help safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at an event during the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

The nine charitable funders, which include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rainforest Trust, launched the decade-long "Protecting Our Planet Challenge" to help finance larger and better-managed natural areas worldwide.

"Halting and reversing biodiversity loss and climate change requires expanded protected and conserved areas, especially in tropical forests," said James Deutsch, CEO of the Rainforest Trust, which contributed $500 million to the pot.

"Developing nations and indigenous peoples need financing to achieve this, which is why we are pledging to more than double our level of funding between now and 2030, and (are) urging other private and public funders to do the same," he added in a statement.

The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge also said on Wednesday that 75 financial institutions - worth a combined 12 trillion euros ($14 trillion) in assets - have committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity through their investments.

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Washington Post

September 22, 2021
The Wyss Foundation and eight other philanthropic organizations pledged Wednesday to give $5 billion by 2030 to protect biodiversity around the planet, the largest-ever private gift for conservation.

Wyss said it would donate $500 million, which comes on top of a $1 billion commitment it made three years ago. Wyss has already invested nearly $676 million of that amount to help local communities, Indigenous peoples and governments safeguard their lands, water and wildlife.

The philanthropic group’s goal is to maintain 30 percent of the planet in its natural state. In May, a United Nations report concluded that a million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, a rate of decline that is unparalleled in human history.

“The actions we take from today through 2030 will determine the fate of our natural world,” Hansjörg Wyss, founder and chairman of the Wyss Foundation, said in a statement. “For our grandchildren and their grandchildren to have the same opportunities we’ve had, for them to inherit a functioning planet, we have to rapidly slow the rate at which our economies are destroying nature.”

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Campaign for Nature

September 22, 2021
Over 20 heads of state, as well as business, philanthropy and Indigenous leaders, made major funding announcements and conservation commitments today at the Transformative Action for Nature and People, a UN General Assembly side event, which aimed to build momentum ahead of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which will begin on October 11, 2021. 

One effort, the global push to protect and conserve at least 30% of the world’s lands, freshwater and oceans by 2030, gained major traction today as leaders of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC) committed to new conservation action and announced that 72 countries now support the global goal. Together, the HAC country members harbor 42% of land biodiversity and 30% of terrestrial carbon stocks, 44% of ocean biodiversity conservation priority areas and 46% of sediment carbon (and 30% of carbon at risk from bottom trawling) in exclusive economic zones. Additionally, between the HAC, the Global Ocean Alliance (a coalition of countries championing the ocean 30by30 target) and other initiatives, over 100 countries now support the ocean “30by30” target.

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New Straits Times

September 21, 2021
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is one of the foremost global organisations advocating the protection of nature.

Governments and civil society organisations convened in 1948 to create the IUCN to protect nature, encourage international cooperation, and provide scientific knowledge and tools to guide conservation.

IUCN played a fundamental role in creating the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971), the World Heritage Convention (1972), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, (1974) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992).

Today, with more than 1,300 members, including states, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and indigenous peoples' organisations, and thousands of supportive experts, IUCN continues to champion nature-based solutions, such as he United Nations' Paris climate change agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

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The New York Times

September 20, 2021
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and one of the world’s richest men, announced plans on Monday for $1 billion in conservation spending in places like the Congo Basin, the Andes and tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean.

The announcement was the latest step in his largest philanthropic effort, the Bezos Earth Fund, to which he pledged $10 billion last year. “By coming together with the right focus and ingenuity, we can have both the benefits of our modern lives and a thriving natural world,” Mr. Bezos said on Monday at an event in New York.

The money will be used “to create, expand, manage and monitor protected and conserved areas,” according to a news release from the fund, which also introduced a website on Monday.

The initiative is intended to support an international push to safeguard at least 30 percent of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030, known as 30x30. The plan, led by Britain, Costa Rica and France, is intended to help tackle a global biodiversity crisis that puts a million species of plants and animals at risk of extinction. While climate change is part of the problem, activities like farming and fishing have been even bigger drivers of biodiversity loss. The 30x30 plan would try to slow that by protecting intact natural areas like old-growth forests and wetlands, which not only nurture biodiversity but also store carbon and filter water.

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Path To Scale

September 16, 2021
Launch Announcement: Today an informal network of donors and financial institutions launched Path to Scale which aims to scale-up funding and other enabling factors to secure the land and resource rights, conservation, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant Peoples to the levels necessary to meet 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets.

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France 24

September 10, 2021
The world's most influential conservation congress passed resolutions Friday calling for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth's surface -- land and sea -- to be designated "protected areas" to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is meeting in Marseille, does not set global policy, but its recommendations have in the past served as the backbone for UN treaties and conventions.

They will help set the agenda for upcoming UN summits on food systems, biodiversity and climate change.

- Saving the Amazon -

An emergency motion calling for four-fifths of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025 -- submitted by COICA, an umbrella group representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations -- passed with overwhelming support.

"Indigenous Peoples have come to defend our home and, in doing so, defend the planet. This motion is a first step," said Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA and a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela.

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Campaign for Nature

September 10, 2021
Members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature meeting in France for the World Conservation Congress approved today a much-anticipated motion to protect at least 30% of land and ocean by 2030, known as 30x30. Motion 101 calls on IUCN members to support:

• recognition of “the evolving science, the majority of which supports protecting, conserving and restoring at least half or more of  the planet is likely necessary to reverse biodiversity loss, address climate change and as a foundation for sustainably managing the whole planet.”

• “at a minimum, a target of effectively and equitably protecting and conserving at least 30% of terrestrial areas and of inland waters … and of coastal and marine areas, respectively, with a focus on sites of particular importance for biodiversity, in well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) by 2030 in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.”

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Mongabay

August 31, 2021
In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030 via protected areas, other effective conservation measures (OECMs), and Indigenous- and community-led conservation. One of the products of that commitment is the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to turn that 30×30 target into a reality.

The Director of Campaign for Nature is Brian O’Donnell, who previously headed the Conservation Lands Foundation and worked as the Public Lands Director of Trout Unlimited. O’Donnell told Mongabay that in the three years since its launch, more than 70 countries have endorsed the “30×30” goal, ranging from G7 nations to Costa Rica. Those endorsements have been supported by the development of sub-initiatives and alliances, including the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and Global Oceans Alliance.

And critically, says O’Donnell, one of the key tenets of the campaign — centering conservation efforts around the rights of Indigenous Peoples — has continued to gain traction and prominence in 30×30 discussions.

“Campaign for Nature seeks to ensure that Indigenous and local community rights are advanced in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, as Indigenous peoples and local communities have demonstrated that they are incredibly effective stewards of biodiversity and success for a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will rely on this,” O’Donnell told Mongabay.

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One Earth - Commentary

July 23, 2021

The territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities contain 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity and intersect about 40% of all terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 global assessment stressed the important role of these communities in biodiversity conservation by noting that 35% of the areas formally protected and 35% of all remaining terrestrial areas with very low human intervention are traditionally owned, managed, used, or occupied by Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples sustain nature because we know we are a part of nature. We realize that trying to bend nature to our will would harm us as well as the animals, plants, and ecosystems we all depend on. Instead, Indigenous peoples have a reciprocal relationship with our territories. We know that if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. And so, we honor our cultural responsibility to be careful stewards. When these relationships are respected and when the rights and responsibilities of Indigenous peoples are recognized and supported, the entire planet will benefit. Our territories span massive, vibrant areas that serve as sanctuaries for humans, animals, and plants; hold massive amounts of carbon; and ensure the health of our water and air. These lands—and the Indigenous relationship to them—have global significance, especially as governments seek ways to achieve increasingly urgent biodiversity and climate goals.

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UNDP

July 15, 2021
It is time for change. Two years ago, the Financial Times launched its ‘New Agenda’ campaign with a five-word front page – ‘Capitalism: time for a reset.’ Last year, UNDP launched its annual Human Development Report “The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene” with the stark conclusion that no country has been able to achieve a high level of human development without first having significantly harmed the environment. And over the past few days, at the 2021 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, nature and climate have been front and centre as states have been discussing “sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic”. Many reports on the decline of nature, such as the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, all point to a single conclusion: it is time for widespread societal change on nature, climate and economy. But what kinds of changes are most needed?

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Campaign For Nature

July 12, 2021
Officials released today “Draft 1” of a global biodiversity framework--known as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)--that includes three elements critical to addressing catastrophic biodiversity loss and the extinction crisis: a target to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030, a target to retain intact natural areas, and a commitment to respect Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ rights over their lands, territories and resources.

Nature is in a state of crisis, which poses a threat as serious as climate change to the future of humanity. Evidence shows that the ongoing and rapid loss of natural areas across the world poses a grave threat to the health and security of all living things.   

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Landscape News

June 24, 2021
Even though Indigenous communities protect some of the most critically important forest ecosystems, conserving a wealth of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage, they remain woefully shortchanged with aid money for climate mitigation, receiving less than 1 percent of such earmarked funding. While development aid for climate mitigation is more than USD 30 billion annually across the globe, support to Indigenous communities for tenure and forest management adds up to an annual USD 270 million, according to a new report put out by Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN).

What’s more, the amount Indigenous communities receive directly is even less, as most of that funding flows through large organizations. Only a little over USD 46 million a year goes to projects that include the name of an Indigenous or local community in the project implementation description. This is an indication, says RFN senior policy advisor Torbjørn Gjefsen, of how few climate mitigation projects are done in direct cooperation with Indigenous peoples.

“It’s an appalling mismatch between the needs, opportunities and resource commitments from donors,” says Alain Frechette, executive director of the Rights and Resources Institute. “Donors and governments need to shift the balance in favor of rights-based actions.”

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Campaign for Nature

June 13, 2021
Today G7 Heads of State announced a joint commitment to a historic “Nature Compact” during their meeting in Cornwall, UK.  The Nature Compact is the most wide-ranging and ambitious set of coordinated actions to address the crisis facing nature ever agreed to by G7 countries. 

 Three of the Campaign for Nature’s key priorities feature prominently in the G7 Nature Compact, including:

• An agreement to support new global targets to protect and conserve at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of global ocean by 2030.  The agreement states that the nations will lead by example by effectively protecting and conserving the same percentage of their national land, inland waters and coastal and marine areas by 2030.   

• A commitment to prioritize the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in co-design, decision-making and implementation of the systems change needed for the Nature Compact’s success.

• A pledge to dramatically increase investment in nature from all sources including the percentage of public climate finance directed towards nature.  

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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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