The fight against the serious deterioration of nature requires multiple and ambitious objectives
A team of 60 researchers from 26 countries has evaluated the objectives proposed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
An article published in the journal Science emphasizes which are the fundamental characteristics that the new biodiversity objectives should have in their design and formulation with a more sustainable and fair path for nature and society.
For this, ecosystems, species, genetic diversity, and nature's contributions to people need specific objectives with multiple approaches. Furthermore, these goals must be woven together into a safety net and set with a high level of ambition.
Objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity
These are the conclusions of the international team of 60 researchers from 26 countries led by scientists from the Earth Commission, who evaluated the objectives proposed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to conserve global biodiversity from 2020 to 2030 They wondered what the scientific evidence supports them, how these goals reinforce or undermine each other, and whether one of these facets of nature could serve as a “shortcut” for all the others.
The Spanish institutions Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3), the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), and the University of La Laguna participated in the study.
The result is an unprecedented comprehensive, scientifically based, and independent evaluation. "We hope it will be a useful tool in the CBD negotiations on a new strategy for nature and people," says Professor Sandra Díaz, a researcher at the National Research Council (CONICET), from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, and main author of the article.
A crucial moment
The document comes at a crucial time: unprecedented fires, rainforests converted to monocultures, and overfishing in the oceans add to a shocking and unsustainable loss of diversity that threatens prospects for a better future.
Despite this threat, the targets that countries have been setting until 2020 to halt this decline have largely failed. Policy-makers, scientists, and country negotiators are preparing to agree on the next set of biodiversity targets for the year 2030 at the 15th Convention of the Parties in 2021.
Three critical points
According to the scientists, CBD member nations could consider three critical points when setting and negotiating new biodiversity targets:
1) First, a single objective for nature, based on only one of its facets, for example, focused solely on the extinction of species, or on the extension of ecosystems, similar to the climate objective "below 2 ° C", it would be risky. Although it may be tempting from a communication point of view, the published scientific evidence is against it. With the various facets of nature intertwined, it is much safer to have specific goals for ecosystems, species, genes, and nature's contributions to people. It is the way to ensure that none of them are left behind, as all are necessary to achieve the shared vision adopted by the CBD of "Living in harmony with nature".
2) Second, since the facets of nature are interrelated and affect each other for better or worse, goals must be defined and achieved holistically, not in isolation.
3) Third, only the highest level of ambition to set each goal and implement all goals in an integrated manner will give a realistic chance of "twisting" the curve of deterioration of nature. It will not be enough, for example, to have an ambitious target to reduce species extinctions if the targets for ecosystems and genetic diversity are not also ambitious.
The paper concludes that unless the different facets are viewed together and the ambitions are very high for each, there is very little chance of transitioning to a better and fairer future for all life on Earth.
A list of key points
To help crystallize these overarching recommendations, the authors have developed a checklist of key points, solidly based on published scientific evidence, that negotiators could have on hand during the upcoming negotiations of the final text of the new biodiversity targets.
"Building a safety net ambitious enough for nature and people will be a huge global challenge," Diaz said, "but unless we do it, we will leave huge problems for all future generations."
The authors have explicitly focused on the biological aspects, but emphasize that not considering the social and political dimensions when implementing actions would be a sure recipe for failure.
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