Global Deal to Protect Nature
Some 18,000 participants representing 193 State Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and their partners attended the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit in Japan this October to agree a global deal to protect biodiversity.
The Nagoya Biodiversity Summit, or 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), marks the 20th anniversary of the CBD and is one of the highlights of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity.
UNESCO is a lead partner in the International Year and organised a number of side events at the Summit, including a parallel youth forum Go4BioDiv with the theme “Our Treasures at Risk – World Heritage Sites in Times of Climate Change.”
At the Summit, governments agreed a new ten-year strategic plan – the “Aichi Target” - to guide international and national efforts on protection of biodiversity, including 20 headline targets to be met by 2020. The plan aims to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, reduce the pressures on biodiversity, safeguard biodiversity at all levels, enhance the benefits provided by biodiversity, and provide for capacity building. Agreed targets include: to increase the extent of land-based protected areas and national parks to 17% (up from 12.5%), to extend marine protected areas to 10% (up from under 1% at present), and to restore at least 15% of degraded areas through conservation and restoration.
The Aichi Target will be the overarching framework on biodiversity not only for the six biodiversity-related conventions*, but for the entire UN system. State Parties agreed to translate this overarching international framework into national biodiversity strategy and action plans within two years.
At Nagoya, State Parties also agreed a resource mobilisation strategy for assisting developing countries to meet the Aichi Target, and a number have pledged financial support including Japan, France and the UK.
On the last day, after intense negotiations, the meeting agreed an important new international protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilisation (known as Access and Benefit-Sharing, ABS). The “Nagoya Protocol on ABS” lays down basic ground rules on how nations cooperate in obtaining genetic material, including from plants, fungi and pathogens, on the basis of prior informed content and mutually agreed terms. It also outlines how the benefits of products, including derivatives – substances and compounds derived from genetic resources - are shared with the developing nations and local people that have conserved that genetic resource. Importantly, the agreed protocol takes into account the role of indigenous knowledge. It is expected to enter into force by 2012.
*Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Convention on Migratory Species, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and World Heritage Convention.
The United Nations has designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) to celebrate the importance of biodiversity and highlight the different threats facing this irreplaceable natural wealth across the globe. The International Year is an opportunity to celebrate progress made so far in protecting biodiversity, but also to recognise that we need to do more to promote creative solutions to reduce threats to biodiversity.
To mark the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity (IYB), the UK National Commission has launched “Biodiversity Is Life”, a biodiversity information pack which includes practical suggestions for how schools can celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity and examples of how UNESCO helps protect biodiversity in the UK, including case studies from UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and natural World Heritage Sites which have distinct biodiversity.
Written: 02/11/2010 , last modified: 04/11/2010
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