Failure Of Biodiversity Goals

Background of Failure Of Biodiversity Goals

At the 10th COP (Conference of Parties) of the CBD, in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010, the countries have adopted ‘Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020’, which included a set of twenty global actions known as Aichi biodiversity targets.

No single country met all 20 Aichi Targets within its borders, according to the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 report published in 2020.

The WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 finds wildlife populations have declined by an average 69% in the past 50 years.

About the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

Aim: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity.

Components: The 20 targets were further divided into five strategic goals.

Action plan: After parties adopted the Aichi Targets, they were expected to devise their own national biodiversity strategies that would mimic the goals laid out by Aichi. Nearly all parties created these strategies, but most were never fully implemented.

To what Extent were the Aichi Targets met?

• Little progress towards Target 11: Aichi Target 11 included the aim of protecting at least 17% of land and inland waters and 10% of the marine environment.
  • While some progress was made toward that goal, the world ultimately fell short. Today about 15% of the world’s land and 8% of ocean territories are under some form of protection.
• No progress: About 10% of the targets saw no significant progress, the assessment found.
  • At a global level, none of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets were met or achieved.
  • In the end, Aichi was deemed a failure by the United Nations and the CBD secretariat called on parties to come up with another guiding document to direct conservation efforts through 2030 and beyond.

Reasons for the Failure of Aichi Biodiversity Targets

• Lack of metrics: Though Aichi was made of aspirational targets, there was a lack of clearly defined metrics by which to gauge progress which made the Aichi goals tough to implement.
  • One of the reasons the world was able to partially meet the Target 11 was simply that the goal’s success could be measured by numbers.
• Lack of finance: A lack of financing to help developing countries meet the Aichi goals was also an obstacle to their success.
  • The Global Environment Facility, the primary source of financing for international biodiversity protection, has collected around $5 billion from 29 countries for the funding period from 2022 to 2026.  That is hardly enough to make up the $711 billion funding gap per year estimated by a 2019 assessment by several conservation institutes.
  • This has led negotiators to include financing plans within the draft being negotiated at the Montreal talks.

About the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a legally binding treaty to conserve biodiversity has been in force since 1993.
• India enacted Biological Diversity Act in 2002 for giving effect to the provisions of the CBD.
• It has 3 main objectives:
  • The conservation of biological diversity.
  • The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity.
  • The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.
• The CBD Secretariat is based in Montreal, Canada and it operates under the United Nations Environment Programme.
• Important protocols and plans developed by CBD:
  • Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000)
  • Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (2002)
  • Nagoya Protocol genetic resources (2010)
  • Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020
  • post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

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