Targeting Biodiversity Conservation: A Post-2020 World

Guest post by Connor Kendall, recent MEnvSc graduate from the University of Toronto-Scarborough

The world is currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction where global vertebrate populations have declined by 60% over the past 40 years and human pressures are impacting a vast 75% of the Earth’s surface¹. If we continue along the path of business-as-usual, we will have a lot more to be concerned about than just living underwater in the next 30 years. If we lose most of the world’s pollinators, 40% of which are facing extinction¹, you can say goodbye to your avocado toast and pumpkin spice lattes. If bats continue along their current trajectory and become extinct, you can say hello to endless summer nights with countless mosquito bites. This is why we need global action towards conserving, restoring and sustaining biodiversity, which is exactly what the Aichi Biodiversity Targets hoped to accomplish back in 2010.

Source: UNDP (2013). Charting pathways for biodiversity and sustainable development (retrieved from: https://www.slideshare.net/equatorinitiative/charting-pathways-for-biodiversity-and-sustainable-development)

At the 10^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2010, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 was implemented and the 20 internationally agreed upon Aichi Biodiversity Targets were formulated. The goal of this plan was to “take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of biodiversity” by 2020. The years have since gone by and it is now 2020, so what does that mean for the targets and biodiversity conservation? We are still experiencing unprecedented species declines – and despite global commitments towards achieving these targets, as a whole – we fell short and a lot still remains to be done. There is no point dwelling on the past but rather, it is important to learn from our failures and look to the future in order to adapt and create revised targets. We need to refocus our efforts, now more than ever, so that we can transform our relationship with nature and save the things we hold dear (even if that is just avocado toast).

Before we can look to the future, we must first look to the past. Where did we fall short? What can we learn from our failures? Did we miss something? These are the questions that need to be answered if we want to succeed in the future. In writing this blog about the past and future of International Biodiversity Targets, I hope to draw attention to the issue of biodiversity loss and highlight the importance of not only creating these targets but also achieving them, in the years to come.

Where did we go wrong?

It’s been 10 years since the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets were agreed upon and we have fallen short of almost all of them. The targets have been criticized for being too ambiguous leaving room for interpretation, not being quantifiable enough making it difficult to track progress, and not being binding which allowed countries to create individualized targets that don’t meet the global targets. Together, these may be a couple of the reasons why we have failed to meet the majority of the goals globally.

Let’s take a look at Aichi Target 11 which is one of, if not the most, talked about target. Target 11 falls under the Strategic Goal C and states:

 

“By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystems services are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecological representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wide landscapes and seascapes.”

 

As far as the target itself goes, it is one of the most quantifiable and easily tracked targets, providing exact percentages of area that must be conserved. It is specific and uses unambiguous language, providing clear guidance on how to achieve the target. Areas must be ecologically “representative”, “well-connected” and “effectively and equitably managed”. Seems fairly straight-forward, right? Wrong. Because the Aichi Biodiversity Targets are not binding and act more as a guide than a hard-and-fast rule, different government agencies can take these “guidelines” and adjust them into what works for them. For example, in 2015 (five years after the original targets were imposed) Canada came up with their own 2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets, giving them just a couple of years to make any real progress. The issue with these targets is that they removed a lot of the meat from the Aichi Targets, solidifying the dreary fate of biodiversity. For comparisons sake, let’s take a look at Canada’s Target 1, to see just how Aichi Target 11 was altered:

 

“By 2020, at least 17 percent of terrestrial areas and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, are conserved through networks of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures.”

 

What was once 62 words has been condensed down to 32. The main idea of the target and the percentages are still there however, it leaves out the idea of conserving ecologically representative areas that are effectively and equitably managed. By removing these ideas, Canada made a more ambiguous target and set themselves up to achieve the target in all the wrong ways. And Canada is not alone.

The Protected Planet issued a report in 2018 and have since updated it with information from February 2020. According to this report, 15.1% of the global terrestrial area and 7.9% of the global marine area have been conserved. 

Source: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2020). Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), February 2020 version (retrieved from: https://livereport.protectedplanet.net)

Looking at these numbers, it seems like we are heading in the right direction but, when you dive further you notice that is not the whole picture. Remember in the Aichi Target 11 when it specified the areas needed to be “representative”, “well-connected” and “effectively managed”? The Protected Planet Digital Report looked at the percentage of areas that are conserved that meet each of these criteria and this is what it found: 5% of terrestrial areas and 1% of marine areas are effectively managed, 9% of terrestrial areas are ecologically representative, and 7% of terrestrial areas are well-connected.

Source: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2020). Protected Planet: Aichi Target 11 Dashboard (retrieved from: https://www.protectedplanet.net/target-11-dashboard)

Because the countries had the ability to adapt the Aichi Targets to suit their needs, it left too much room for ambiguity and inadequacy, ensuring that by 2020, there was nothing the world could do but fall short. It is important when we look to the future of biodiversity conservation that we consider the mistakes from the last 10 years and learn from them to ensure biodiversity is around for the generations to come.

What does the future look like?

The future remains uncertain but what is certain, is the need to act now. Many believe that new targets must be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based), should integrate scientific research where applicable, and involve progressive steps and actions similar to a roadmap for achieving the targets.

Negotiations have already been underway and governments have given themselves two years to develop a post-2020 framework that is to be presented at the 15^th Conference of the Parties, at the UN Biodiversity Conference in 2020 in Kunming, China. An open-ended intersessional working group, under the leadership of Mr. Francis Ogwal of Uganda and Mr. Basile van Havre of Canada, has already published the Zero Draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework as of January 13th, 2020. The framework hopes to provide both the context and structure required to allow diverse stakeholders to communicate and work together towards the common goals.

The zero draft looks to the next decade and identifies a 2030 Mission:

 

“To take urgent action across society to put biodiversity on a path to recovery for the benefit of planet and people.”

 

The post-2020 framework also proposes 20 new biodiversity conservation targets. What is interesting about the proposed targets is that there are similarities to the original Aichi Targets and it is evident that the working group considered the mistakes that were made and learned from them when drafting the new ones. For example, the second proposed target mirrors Aichi Target 11 and ups it by creating the more ambitious proposed Target 2:

 

“Protect sites of particular importance for biodiversity through protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, by 2030 covering at least [60%] of such sites and at least [30%] of land and sea areas with at least [10%] under strict protection.”

 

The target not only identifies higher percentages of area protected, but also offers up the condition of “strict protection” which was not included in the original Aichi Target 11.

It is also evident in the new proposed targets that the working group listened to the public over the past decade and tried to incorporate issues that people care about like plastic waste in proposed Target 4, climate change mitigation and adaptation in proposed Target 6, and the sustainable use of wild species in proposed Target 7. In order to stand a chance of reaching the goals by 2030, it is clear that the public needs to be engaged with these targets, and what better way to do it than include things that people are already passionate about.

The Zero Draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework is promising and it has huge potential to have a ripple effect in many countries, but there are some things that need to be reviewed and reconsidered before that can happen. Some of the targets remain to be unquantifiable, such as the proposed Targets 16 and 17. At the very least, the working group should consider including some guidelines as to how to achieve and track these targets, to ensure they do not get lost and forgotten alongside some of the “bigger ticket” targets.

Any new framework that is implemented will have its highs and lows, but to ensure the 2030 Mission and Targets are achieved in the best way possible, it is important that the new framework works on strengthening the existing Aichi Targets, progress and initiatives that are underway and learn from them, as well as have stricter guidelines in place to avoid the ambiguity and inadequacy that came about from the Aichi Targets.  

All hope is not lost, but much still remains to be done. Now, more than ever, we need a drastic shift in the way biodiversity is viewed and valued in order to stand a chance of putting an end to the sixth mass extinction and the post-2020 framework is a step in the right direction.

 

1.     WWF (2018). Living Planet Index. Retrieved from: https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2018