In June 1992, during the Rio de Janeiro summit, an extraordinary surge of solidarity between governments presided over the establishment of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). A mighty momentum, giving birth to a singular tool. Since then, this legally binding multilateral treaty has been signed by 192 countries. Its main objectives are “the conservation of the planet’s biological diversity, the sustainable use of biological diversity and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from genetic resources”.
The implementation of the CBD has been long and laborious. The conferences of the parties, the famous COPs, have gradually set up objectives and mechanisms for monitoring commitments. The 2010 conference in Japan was decisive. Twenty targets, known as Aichi targets, have been set to protect biodiversity. The one that has been the most discussed concerns the protection, on a global scale, of 17% of terrestrial and continental areas and 10% of marine and coastal areas by 2020.
This target has not been met, as António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, acknowledges in the most recent Global Biodiversity Outlook report published by the CBD Secretariat: “During the United Nations Decade For Biodiversity 2011-2020, countries have worked to address the many causes of biodiversity loss. However, these efforts have not been sufficient to meet most of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in 2010. Much greater ambition is needed. »
This ambition requires a new global framework for biodiversity, a document that has been in preparation for four years for adoption at COP15. This fairly long text is currently full of words, figures or expressions in square brackets. These “holes in the text” correspond to the last points in negotiation, on which it will be necessary to decide in Montreal before the final adoption. To know the extent of the relative success or failure of the COP, one will have to examine these details in the final text. However, the adoption of this renewed global framework, if it is not stripped of essential elements at the last minute, will constitute real progress.
Overall, the project aims to stabilize biodiversity losses within 10 years and then ensure that biodiversity increases again by allowing ecosystems to regenerate within 30 years. In short, we must turn the tide. Many experts, including those from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), consider this a difficult but tenable gamble.
The flagship measure concerns the protection of part of the land and seas. The new target is for 30% of state-governed lands and seas. From an ecological point of view, this is no doubt very good, but we must not make people believe, as environmentalists tend to do, that it is enough to reach this target to solve the biodiversity crisis. The quality of protected areas is also very important. There must be effective, equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas, and other conservation measures applicable outside these areas.
If these conditions are met, achieving a percentage lower than the target could be sufficient. Perhaps it would be time to accept this idea, which I heard last year in the corridors of the congress of the International Union for the Protection of Nature, but which remains taboo. A little more transparency would not hurt and would reassure the public.
Other crucial measures must also be taken: to allow the conservation of threatened species and the genetic diversity of populations of wild species; halt tropical deforestation; reform an industrial agriculture voracious in pesticides and chemical inputs; restore degraded ecosystems, a measure that would further contribute to climate change mitigation; finally, removing subsidies harmful to biodiversity, such as those granted to commercial fisheries at sea.
All of these targets, and many more, are included in the new global biodiversity framework. This is what makes it an ambitious global project, but also solid and relevant. As for the eventuality that the governments are ready to show the same spirit of solidarity as in 1992 and to commit to a twin agreement to that of the climate adopted in Paris, it is difficult to say. But popular mobilization around the crisis of life has never been so strong, and humanity really needs a breath of hope.